it was taking us such little time to get across the countryside we made sure we stuck to the smaller roads. even so, we still made it to our destination by lunch!
but along the way we stumbled on a little town called simonswald. it sat beside a little stream, mountains on either side, snow way up on the peaks, pine forest running down most of the slopes and in the valley between, a town full of giant timber frame houses.
we’ve been noticing lots of flags out, hanging between buildings across the road, and frankly, we love. it’s amazing what a few patches of coloured fabric, dangling from string, can do to the feel of a place.
we’re pretty sure the flaggery is all in honour of the ‘fastnet’ festival. basically, all the villagers in this region come out to celebrate the end of winter by dressing up as witches and clowns and freakingly horrific nightmare beings, and then parading around town, drinking lots of bier and wein and being merry. i believe this (or some of the characters they portray) is to 'scare' away winter. from weaving through towns, it seems that each town has their own fasnet character, distinguished by costume, mask, colours, accessories (such as a bell on stick, a flagon of beir etc etc). they are plastered on the walls through posters, creepy mannequins hanging from windows and some towns have a permanent statue in their main square too.
unfortunately, it’s next week, so we miss it. but we see all the preparations going on, and it is equal parts intriguing and terrifying. some of the clown costumes are seriously scaring me. most likely due to the fact that the towns are all devastatingly quiet, yet there are constant trickles of locals wandering around in costumes fit for characters of where the wild things are. yesterday we saw a witch with her face painted entirely black, black robes, black hat, and a massive red balloon sculpture bobbing on top of said hat ... huh? there is some awesomely freaky shit going on in the south.
(we’ve heard there’s some sort of carnival event in berlin next week, which i’m assuming is related in some way, so we’re planning to get our freak on at that shindig, costumes and all!)
so Freiburg is freaking awesome. We arrived in stellar time and found our hotel 3 hours early. We went in to see if we could dump our car and go walking, and not only got directed to our car spot, but offered a choice of two different rooms. Fuck yeah! I was filling out the registration thingy, and it had a section for me to fill out my ‘wife’s’ details. I made some joke to kent about him being my wife, and the manager said “oh! You are, how do you say, new married?” and we’re all like, “ya!” and she’s all like, “eeeh, honeymoon or whatever?!” and we’re all like “ya ya!” and she’s all like “let me see if I have a bigger room, yes yes, you can have this if you like, it is big and with … how do you say … this room is only room with … bath? You can look if you like, might not be ready yet though, sorry sorry.” So we go to the top floor to this amazing massive room complete with shaggy shagpile carpet and a bathroom the size of our last hotel room. We go “fuck YEAH dunk-a-SHERN!” (oh. my. god. we totally scored. seriously, wall to wall shag carpet, in fact, slightly up the walls too (this shagpile carpet also climbs up the bed), plus a sofa, dining table, a study nook, sunset views. killer.) anyways, we goes off for a walk, finding cute streets, awesome little cafes, and a general vibe of goodness (aaah, what is it about university towns?), and when we eventually arrive back out our room, not only is it clean and lovely (or wundershone), there is a gorgeous little welcome table, complete with champagne, fresh fruit, a fresh flower and berliners (wee jam donuts.) And as I sat back on the couch (because this room has a table and chairs and another desk and chair and a couch) sipping my free champagne while eating donughty goodness, I think “aaah. This is good.”
lots of jumping up and down (again) ensued.
And what, you might ask, are your heros doing with such an indulgent room situation? Yep, we transformed the bathroom into an uber laundry production line. Armed with what we hope is laundry soap, a bath and a portable washing line (thank you thank you mum, you were right!) we have filled our giantess of a bathroom with soggy socks and undies. Aaaah bless.
A night out on the town, where cocktails are the size of my head and cost a third of what they do in melbourne, and a large salad is actually the size of a small wagon. (yep, a long island iced tea, with 6 different types of alcoholic shots – no kidding, it had tequila, vodka, rum, triple sec… and I forget, some other potent spirits – and cost about $8 australian. i’m drinking pints of great german beer for $3.50 a glass.) Perfect location for kent and I to invent a new game, german charades, where I read out a phrase in german, attempt to give clues through my fabulous expressions and kent guesses what it is in English.
My favourite so far was my attempt to convey:
“ich habe verstopfung!!” (I am constipated)
kent’s guess was “I am disappointed?”
Or
“wir haben es sehr eilig” (we’re in a great hurry)
kent: “I have large speed necessity???”
it seems that each time we learn a new German phrase or word, we lose a few English ones. It possibly doesn't help that my phrasebook was written in 1986 and second edition published in 1992. We must sound like total fuckwits most of the time.
Breakfast. Is. Heaven. We walk in, see a buffet of coldcuts, cheese, yoghurt and so on and go “ooooooh-wee!” and then round the corner to see the buffet is twice as long again filled with waffles, berliners, breads, cereals, museli, fruit, juice. “damn!” then a gorgeous frauline appears “Mochten sie ein kaffee, tea, cappuccino …” phwaor! By the time I figure out what to ask for, and return to my table, a little jug of coffee is waiting for me, practically singing “hello lucy! I am here to make your day! Kiss kiss kiss!” About halfway thorough my feast of joy, I go “hey kent, there is a bain marie over there.” Which happens to be filled with bacon and eggs. (ps – the ‘bacon’ is actually cooked proscuitto! i am going to have a heart attack here, surely. especially with the 4 varieties of cheese for breaky, including blue vein!, and several varieties of salami. meat sweats, here i come.)
Kent got the meat sweats this morning. Must have finally hit the limit of how much cholesterol you can ingest in one week. I'm still going strong.
So long as you look past the fact that every hotel breakfast area we have visited in the last few days is filled with pictures and figurines of CLOWNS, everything is quite perfect (even the doughnut stand had weener clowns sitting in it. I had to move one aside with the tongs. shudder.) Prima!!
Deustchland, sehr erfreut!
(Germany, glad to know you!)
weird, the cocktails didn't seem that strong.
Now, all I have to do is work on my rabbit in headlights expression each time a local speaks directly to me. There is only so many times you can respond with “er … das ist gut, ya?”
tomorrow? we'll show you the castles we found. oooh-wee!!
Hey Lucy and Kent, I am totally stalking you. I've never met you and I feel like a freak but I'm loving this blog! happy travels.
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