As I write this, it’s almost 1:00 PM and I just woke up! I knew at some point I would crash from all the travel, and this was the day. But yesterday was incredibly fun. I got to my friend Matt’s place about lunchtime, and after catching up a little bit, he took me to a great neighborhood restaurant called Gasthaus Baren, where I had a great Hefeweizen and some noodles with cheese and onion. The Google Translate app that does automatic translation of what the camera sees was invaluable. :) Then we went to the local Stuttgart Christmas market, which was OK and I had a glass of hot wine and took home a really nice mug. We swung by the Finnish christmas market as well and watched them roast some salmon over open flames. But little did I know that the fun was just beginning.
After that, we just sort of walked around a bit and I took a nap, and then we headed out on the train to a Christmas Market in Esslingen. When we got up out of the train station, my head was spinning. The christmas market in Stuttgart, while pleasant, was nothing compared to this tour de force. By 3 or 4 hours later, I would have: eaten sausage, gotten 2 more mugs, watched a man shove passion fruits into his mouth and juggle flame, pounded some kind of meatloaf, and drank enough hot wine to float away. I had been told about the christmas markets, but this thing was outstanding. Sort of one part renaissance fair, one part county fair, and one part obsessed neighbor decorating for christmas. Esslingen is very cool and looks exactly like what you’re imagining, with the old German buildings lining tiny streets and large plazas. Apparently it was neutral during the wars so it didn’t get bombed to the ground. Stuttgart, while nice, feels like any modern city but Esslingen does not; it feels like you went back in time into a cartoon.
The way the drinks were is interesting; you pay for the drink and then an extra fee, a deposit, for the mug. Then you can just go home with the mug if you want, or you can bring it back and get your deposit. Or you can just keep drinking out of that mug. Pretty cool.
Then we went out to a bar and had one or two more drinks in a fancy setting in the basement of a building, and we sat and had a political conversation with two German men we sat next to, mostly about the war in Ukraine. They were nice and pleasant but the guy I sat next to had some views on Ukraine which were not surprising but were pretty abhorrent; he said he didn’t support what Russia was doing but was far more concerned about Germans and about energy prices. But I tried to gently persuade him that history would not be kind to anyone who allowed the kind of barbarism that Russia precipitates, and while I don’t know if I persuaded him, at least we had a civilized conversation.
Can’t wait for more, having a great time.
