Bukowski's in Europe - Part 2

Well, another week has flown by. I am sadly on my way back to Cologne from a weekend in Karlsruhe. I just parted with my family after 9 days of being together, which was pretty sad, knowing that I won’t see them again for three months, or as my mom likes to say, “none of this 3 month stuff, only 74 days!” I had such a great time while they were here though. Last Thursday, I took a train and met up with my family after classes in Heidelberg. We went to dinner in the Old City and called it a night. As a word of advice to people who want to go to Heidelberg, do NOT attempt to drive in the old city. I’m pretty sure my family and I drove our car down streets that were pedestrian zones and it was incredibly difficult to find a good parking spot. The next day, we ventured up to the Heidelberg Castle. This was definitely one of the coolest castles that I have toured so far; the city of Heidelberg has done an amazing job of restoring the castle and the tour that we took was excellent. A few interesting facts about the castle…back in the day, it was extremely unsafe to drink water (they still didn’t know that boiling gets rid of the bacteria and diseases). Instead of water, they drank wine.

This wasn't even the biggest barrel, the other one was at least twice this size!

The wine barrel in the castle held nearly 230,000 liters of wine, the largest wine barrel in the world! Needless to say, they drank A LOT back in the day. One of the rulers of Heidelberg was also a big wine drinker. He weighed 500 pounds, couldn’t walk by himself, and insisted on being carried by his servants down into the city everyday! It took us about ten minutes to drive up to the castle, so you could imagine how long it would take to get to the bottom…while carrying a 500 pound man! We then continued on our journey and stopped in Baden-Baden. Baden-Baden is known for its casino. You can only take tours in the casino until 2:00 pm, then the gambling starts. You pretty much have to be a high roller to even be let into the casino! The city was pretty ritzy and very clean…I would definitely recommend it, but you won’t need more than a couple hours there. Our last stop of the day, and where my family and I stayed over the weekend, was Matthias and Simone Langerdoerfer’s house. I had stayed there before, and quickly found out that these people are extremely hospitable! We went over to Matthias’ parents house for a dinner of pumpkin soup, spaetzle with venison, and chocolate mousse. The Langerdoergers are not very closely related to us. I believe that Matthias’ parents were cousins with my Grandpa Herm. Nevertheless, they are the closest thing that I have to family in Europe so I take advantage of that! There was a huge language barrier because his parents do not speak English and my family and I speak little to no German. We made do with our helpful translators and it turned out to be a great night. The next day we started with a wonderful German brunch. We then hopped in the car and headed to France! We toured another castle (if you haven’t guessed by now, Europe has a lot of them!), which again was really cool. I’m blanking on the name right now, but it was somewhere near the town of Strasbourg, France. We then headed to Strasbourg, France.

Strasbourg is a town that is influenced by both France and Germany. The architecture was absolutely stunning to see houses influenced by both architectural styles of the two countries. We toured the Cathedral, walked in around “La Petite France” or the historic city, did a little souvenir shopping, and took a canal tour. I definitely could have spent at least a full one or two days there! It was one of my favorite cities so far and I would highly recommend it! It is also known for its Christmas markets, so I would love to go back when Clayton and I go backpacking over the Christmas and New Years holidays. Our time was short in Strasbourg because we needed to make it in time for our dinner reservations. The specialty of the restaurant that we ate at was Flammkuchen. It’s a somewhat difficult dish to explain, but it’s a very thin dough crust covered in sour cream, with toppings like onions, cheese, garlic, bacon, and other spices. It is to die for!! The dish is specific to the region that we were in, but I am still going to seek our places that have it in Cologne! It was a great meal to have with a large group of people because we would order one Flammkuchen for the group, cut it into 8 slices, and order another once we were finished! It was so delicious; I will probably attempt to make some when I return to the states, so if anyone is willing to be my guinea pig and try it, let me know J When we arrived back at their house, Matthias showed us the family tree that he has been working on for the past few weeks. We have been able to go pretty far back in our lineage so its been very cool to see where I come from! On Sunday morning, we were able to drive to the town of Beitigheim, where my grandpa was born. Matthias’ parents still live in this town and it was pretty close to where Matthias and Simone live. It was weird to think that if my grandpa hadn’t come to the United States, I probably would have been living in that small town! We saw a few houses where my great-grandfather and some other relatives lived. We then ventured on to our last stop of the day, a horse race track! The afternoon was spent betting on horses and eating delicious German food.

 I, unfortunately, didn’t win pick any winning (or even placing!) horses, but my dad won 17 Euros when one of his horses won! Even with that winning, my family as a whole still came out a loss, but it was such a good time. They brought me to the train station, where we said good bye to the Langerdoerfers, and then to my family. I didn’t cry as much as I did when I left for Europe in August, but it was still pretty tough to hold back the tears. Either way, I know that these last three months (and just for you, mom, 73 days!!) will go by in a flash. It is very weird to think that my time is almost half over here, I can’t even fathom going back to the States yet! Anyways, my friend, Steven, who is currently studying in Italy, is coming to visit me tomorrow for 3 days, and Clayton comes to visit for a week on Friday. They both have fall breaks at their University; Cologne isn’t that nice and they don’t allow us any breaks. On the plus side, I can show them the wonderful city of Cologne! Alright, I’ll wrap it up for now so you don’t fall asleep (if you haven’t already!) with my extremely long tangents. Tschuss!