As Kathy implied, I recently wrote up a few hundred word update covering the end of our vacation. Unfortunately our wireless kicked me off about one paragraph in, so I lost a solid hour's writing. My resentment has subsided so I'll try again.
Being married to Little Miss Extrovert (hereafter referred to as LME), we have a little cadre of acquaintances here in Maintal Hochstadt after only two weeks. The first guy we met is the owner of the tiny local brewery, named Ingo. Yes, she is also good at selecting the best people to get to know. LIKE THE GUY WHO MAKES THE TOWN BEER! We toured his brewhaus - about the size of our living room - and had beer with him at 11:00 a.m. that Saturday. Subsequently LME and I have met his wife, daughter, and a few other locals.
People seem nice and one of the guys we met is a retired pilot who owns a house attached to the tower containing the gate to the old part of our town. We're going over to his place on Friday to take a look inside the tower built in 1470. We were clear with him up front that even though the building is made of stone and has stood for 539 years, our boys are destructive and we can't make any guarantees. He's willing to take the chance.
Pretty much everyone we've met has eventually asked, "So how did you end up in Hochstadt?" so it definitely feels off the beaten path. We're enjoying the local beer and last night had some of the regional specialty, 'Handkaese mit Musik". Literally 'hand cheese with music'. The hand cheese is a soft, transluscent stinky cheese. It's served drenched in oil, vinegar, and garlic with finely chopped onions. The 'with music' name is because of the tendency for those toppings to make you toot. Who says the krauts don't have a sense of humor.
The first weekend we also went to the Freiwilliges Feuerwehr Fest or volunteer fire department picnic. For those of you who grew up in a small town like I did, it is exactly like the volunteer fire department picnics back home. Only it's Bitburger on tap rather than Miller light and it's Bratwurst and Spiessbraten rather than burgers and dogs. Also, the band plays mostly really really crappy german music rather than Creedence and Lynrd Skynrd covers. The crowd went ape shit for their rendition of 99 Luftballoons if that tells you anything, but I was pretty pumped to hear a song where I knew the words and could sing along! But the red faced, drunk locals are just like the red faced, drunk locals back home. It almost made me homesick. See ya/auf wiedersehen.
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