We actually got up early today, and so did the rest of the family; the house was a flurry of activity.
We were sent off with hugs, promises of future hosting, and a big bag of breakfast pastries. Finn got us onto the right bus using his entire family's transit passes, then sat and fussed about not getting to the station in time. We raced off and ran for Platform 1 at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof... to find that it hadn't arrived yet.
When it did, we sat down in comfy seats, waved to Finn as he chased the train down the platform, and had just enough time to make another American friend before a Korean family chased us out of their reserved seats. We moved-- and it happened again. I'd lost faith in the reservation system after the Great Amsterdam Train Debacle and these trains hadn't required them, so we ended up camping on the floor again until Leipzig. The rest of the ride was nothing special and we arrived in Nuremberg a little after 4.
Kim was waiting and took us out to her car (first car ride in Europe!), where we miraculously loaded our backpacks into her tiny sedan trunk and drove to another parking lot. And then, sightseeing.
Nuremberg is very brown.
Apart from a few oxidized copper roofs (once brown), every building is some shade of khaki, chocolate, fawn, chestnut, mustard, rust, or just plain brown.
We wandered into an old Gothic church, which was not nearly as old as it looked-- it had been destroyed during the second world war but completely reconstructed from copies and measurements. Lots of northern European-style icons and pained-looking saints in a dark and dusty cathedral.
Then we wandered out into the main square which was completely full of tents and craft shops and the occasional pen of sheep.
It was quite hot out, warmer than any other city we've visited so far. So of course the second sightseeing destination featured a lot of walking uphill, to the old castle complex which I'd never heard of before. It was built on a rock outcropping and the way up is VERY steep. But it does have the best view of Nuremberg.
We came back down, spun the ring at the golden fountain that guarantees you'll come back to Nuremberg, poked around the commercial district for German chocolate, and then got slushes at the American Restaurant That Shall Not Be Named.
Noting the lack of public toilets all over Europe, we ducked into a department store for their bathroom and got our first look at "modern" Bavarian festival wear. Apparently the national costume of dirndls and lederhosen has made a comeback in the last five years (presumably as pride in national heritage is decriminalizing with a new generation). The lederhosen are beautifully embroidered, though they look very warm to wear, and the dirndls are delightfully tawdry and over-color-coordinated. The little aprons are purely decorative, the outfits come in every color and pattern combination imaginable, and the tiny peasant blouses underneath are actually half shirts and cropped above the stomach. You can get nicer ones at specializing stores, Kim told us, but they're quite expensive.
From there, we wandered back to the car, from which commenced an exhilerating introduction to the Autobahn: a half hour of white-knuckled handhold gripping as we rocketed down the freeway, covered by deceivingly nonchalant chatter with our speed demon driver. It was a little fun; it was also mostly alarming. 180 km/h is the fastest I've ever been in a motor vehicle-- how are there no Germans in NASCAR?
We dropped off at Vim's workplace first to meet him, a collections of warehouses and garages that house enormous, movie-villain-esque, tree-moving machines. Humongous scoopers and diggers, big enough to move a redwood. (Their company moves trees.)
He is tall and Dutch and speaks great Englsh (with a fondness for the word "stupid"). After we smiled and shook hands, Kim loaded up again and we arrived at Vim's lovely family house 3 minutes later, and were shown our accommodations.
It's a camper.
The bathroom isn't hooked up but we are free to come in and use theirs, and there's a double bed plus a couch/ lounge area for Aaron.
We were also graciously offered the use of their pool by Wim's mother. Andie and Aaron accepted and swam with Kim, while I just stuck my legs in and took pictures of the chickens running around us.
Later, we went to their little village beer festival, if village is the right name; Kim used another term, because people don't like the teensy-unimportant connotation of "village", even if that's how big it is.
It was a complete kitschy carnival, with rides and food stands and booths, but not swarming in children-- and everyone fully committed to getting drunk. Everything was very authentically Bavarian, with every other person in either lederhosen or dirndls; my doner kebab even had sauerkraut in it. (It's not supposed to-- it's Turkish.)
Kim and Wim dressed up, too. (Wim's participation came after some amount of begging by Kim, though he's too tall to wear the accompanying suspenders and he kept called the matching shoes "stupid"; Kim's dress set was brown and blue and very pretty. She told us that the apron tying is a code: knot it on your left hip if you're single, the right if you're taken, and in the back if you're widowed.
We were given enormous tankards of beer (or Radler, a lemonade shandy) and expected to finish them. The beer tent has live music on a stage at one end, which enthusiastically played German songs, American karaoke numbers, and the sporadic Bavarian drinking song, which everyone else seemed to know by heart.
The front was full of younger youth all standing on their picnic table benches and singing along-- Kim said they were 15-year-olds and had a curfew, so they had to party early.
We ate, walked around, the boys played shooting games, we declined the spinning whirly thing, and then stood around at the bar and had another drink: the "girly" one called a spritz, sparkling wine mixed with bitters. (Tastes more like orange Fanta with vodka in it.)
Drinks downed, we went back to the tent with a few more Kim's friends and were swept up into a precariously-balancing mosh pit that was now standing on the picnic benches. Andie and I knew most of the English pop songs, we smiled and clapped through the rest, and Aaron went to go hang out with some friends Wim introduced him to. We met up later, when everyone else decided to have white wine (Andie and I were trying to turn down things at this point) and discovered that he was quite popular. People had been buying him more drinks for the last hour and he'd been obliviously accepting them and teling stories.
I passed him my water bottle, but I think the damage is done. Tomorrow will be interesting.
When it became clear that we three were exhausted and begging off more drinks because our early train tomorrow, Wim called their designated driver to come take us home.
We showered and fell into bed, but not before I accidentally broke their sink tap. It's the strangest thing I've ever tried to turn on.
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