Saarburg

Now that I have been in Germany for 20 days, I feel that I can make some assesments about Germans, and German culture, little of it that I know.

First, outiside of a major city, there is nearly nothing open on a Sunday (monday is a crap shoot too). When it is a bigger city, there are restaurants/cafes open, but no bars, and certainly no apotekes, which is like a pharmacy. And of course, the day I usually want to buy something from a pharmacy, it is a Sunday. Also, pharmacies here are not like the ones in the US. They don't sell chips, and wine, and really cheap shoes as well as hair products and Tums and actual medicines. So there you go. I think I could make big money in Germany opening a 24 Rite Aid.

Two, "paprika" is pepper flavored. There are "paprika" flavored chips and stuff, and I kept trying to figure out why the Germans were so obsessed with this one spice. They also don't have weird flavors of Lays here, like in the UK and Greece. They have paprika flavored pringles. So I think that will be my second line of business in Germany.

Third: If Germans are going to do something, no matter in how amateur a fashion, they are going to buy all the f-ing professional equipment they can. This leads to the German hobby of: Nordic Walking. This means, you are over 55, you go "hiking" and you have your two ski poles with you. Well, two high-tech walking sticks. And you will use those two damn sticks no matter how flat the ground is. I also think that German  hiking is pretty tame, also, because everything is labeled. Its not like in the US or other places, where you go "Well I think this trail loops back around..."only to find yourself backtracking at 7 o clock at night. Germans label every single road, track, pig path, etc. There must be a national sale of signs. This tendancy of high professionalism in ameteur sports leads to a big problem with the second largest German hobby: biking. The problem is, in the US, if one wears those bike clothes for "real" cyclists, you  usually are, you know, a real  cyclist. More to the point is, you are on the thinner side, cause you bike so much. In Germany though, the unwritten rule does not exist. Every large, beer-bellied German man who has a bike wears his skin-tight clothes on the bike in every color of the rainbow. This leads to much giggling whilst hiking.

Four: Misc: you can only shoot an animal while sitting down. black beans must be special ordered from the store. eggplant = aubergine. germans love sparkling water. no window screens. dryers are uncommon.

Saarburg

these are walnuts and hazelnuts we foraged

This weekend we came home from the other vineyard we have been working at, in Rech. The Rech vineyard belongs to the friend of Herve. Its a really nice place, and we basically live in a winebar. The problem there though, is that they only serve bread and cold cuts and stuff. Oh, and flammenkuchen. So thats just kinda like pizza. So by the time we got home on Saturday, we all really, really wanted veggies. The only vegetable I has seen was tomato. Maybe there was some leek on one of the flammenkuchen. I had fried eggs on toast for three nights in a row. Don't forget the health layer of butter on that toast, thank you. So for lunch on Saturday back in Oberemmel, we had a vegetable feast.

gondola thing

The next day, Derek (the other WWOOFer here now) and I decided to do the 12 km trek to Saarburg. Saarburg is a big tourist place, but they dont have any metion of it in my lonely planet guide, so it must be not that cool in the big scheme of Germany. They hike was super flat the whole way, and mostly on a bike path, so we got "ding-ding" from a lot of bikes the whole way that thought we were going to somehow veer into the very wide bike path. In Saarburg, we decided that doing the most touristy things would probably be the best. So after wine at one of the cafes, we paid three Euro to go in a gondola thing to the top of the mountain. This was basically a chair lift, which had very impressive views of the grass directly below, and (!) in front of us. And the road below, full of BMW's. At the top, there was a cafe and many, many children. In a touristy mood, we naturally decided to ride on the bobsled ride that was also at the top. So, for only a couple more euro, we were able to see how German children are educated on driving. In Germany, it is only natural that a ride would have real, actual, accurate road signs and a speed limit (you can have fun, but not too much!)

After a hike back down the mountain, and some more wine at a cafe (where we met some floridians, who asked, since I am from LA, if I had a reality show. I said yes), we were thankfully picked up by herve. having not eaten anything for lunch, except for a banana, we were naturally fairly starving and the wine definitly got to us faster than usual (well that's a way to save money!) For dinner we made some gourmet flammenkuchen with green onions, creme, and salmon lox (here it is called lochs). I would have taken photos, but we were too hungry. The beer to the left here is from a local brewery. Its not too strong of flavor but it has grown on me.

Also, since today is "Unification Day" in Germany, it was only natural that we should have a BBQ. We went to one of the vineyards and it was amazingly beautiful, with nice afternoon sunlight. I made a salad for everyone, and our German/Polish neighbour was very suprised by my creation. I told her it was "very california": lettuce, pear, mozza, and hazlenuts with a light vinegar dressing. I don't think anyone at home would have been suprised by it, but I guess in Germany putting fruit in your salad is really crazy (those americans...)