Our usual nightly ritual
lot of new faces...
Our curry feast
Our curry chef
Our curry translator!
Freiburger wine fest
Graffiti in Waldkirch
"Plague statue" in Waldkirch
Fountain of a jester being pushed in - I think they thought he was a mime.
This gorgeous window was on a house just outside the pedestrian area.
Another view of the pedestrian area with Kastelberg at the top of the hill on the other side of the valley
Cool stork sign
We were convinced this was a castle ruin - turns out just to be a bunch o' rocks.
A sign with a cool Moor
A little carpenter in his little carpenter clothes! Pat would be so cute in this.
the pot store?
Kastelburg ruine
a view down the pedestrian are to Kastelburg
This altar table was studded with ostrich-egg sized gemstones such as amethyst and rosequartz
Check out those socks
Me - at the Butt Store.
We slept late after an exhausting weekend. The weather has turned a little cool and overcast, and breezy. After we were up for a while watching The Office, Jane made us some Müsli with fruit and coffee.
We really had planned to just laze around all day pretty much and then go to the Freiburger Weinfest, but by 1 pm we were shpilkes (Yiddish for "ants in the pants") so we decided to go over to Waldkirch, where last year we climbed the ruin Kastelburg. On the drive over we saw a ruin we decided to pursue. Actually there was one ruin on one side of the highway, one on the other. Eventually we figured out one of them was Kastelburg. We never found the other. (I now think the other one was the rock formation across from Kastelburg that looks so much like a ruin.)
We parked in Waldkirch, which is a rather large village, and walked to the Fußgängerzone (pedestrian area.) It is a wide cobbled boulevard with shops and restaurants on either side. We went in and out of a few stores, including an antique store with some pretty jewelry and a picture made of human hair. Looking up one side of the boulevard, you had a breathtaking view of Kastelburg, which is undergoing some reconstruction. Looking up the other way, we could see what appeared to be another ruin. We stopped into a jewelry store (where a stuffed monkey whistled every time Jane wiggled her butt) and asked about the other ruin. It turned out to be just a pile of rocks, apparently. (I have since done a zoom-in on my pictures. It is indeed a pile of rocks.)
We walked over to a nice looking church and went in - it was an evangelistchurch, and from the outside it looked old, but inside it was quite modern with chairs that Pat would actually like to sit in. I dropped a bookcrossing book there (but not the one called, "Wife for Hire.")
We walked back up the Fußgängerzone where, along the way, we saw signs for "Ruine Schwarzenburg" and decided we would look for it when we left.
We walked up to a big Roman Catholic church and went in. It was the polar opposite of the evangelistic church - incredibly ornate with painted ceilings, faux marble altars, and two gold-colored wrought metal stands, which had large uncut gemstones in them. We sat down and a second later Jane got up and walked away. At that very minute I detected a horrible smell. First I thought Jane had floated an air biscuit, but nothing could smell like that and not leave a mark. As Jane walked up the aisle I even checked the back of her pants for a poop smear! Then I got another whiff. Uh oh. (We have a new gesture for that, by the way.) I looked at my shoes, and one sandal was covered with dog poop. I limped up the aisle trying not to set my heel on the floor. Outside I worked diligently to scrape it off, which didn't go very well. Too bad about those deep grooves in my shoes...
We went back into the church to take some pictures and sit. At 4 pm the dozen or so people stood and began reciting the "Our Father" and other prayers. We stayed around a short time longer and then walked back down the Fußgängerzone and off to one side we spied a courtyard near the Rathaus. There was a fountain depicting a jester being thrown into the water. I took off my sandal and washed it well. In a window of the Rathaus was a huge, spinning model of the Kastelburg as it was originally. We got a movie of it - you can see it at the bottom of this post.
We walked back to the car and followed the signs to the Ruine Schwarzenburg, but it lead us to another pedestrian area and then a dirt path up the mountain. Not wanting to repeat last Schwesterfest´s error of driving on a bike path, we did not pursue the ruin.
So we headed back to Freiburg to the Freiburger Weinfest. We parked near the old cemetery and walked over to the MünsterPlatz. All around the Münst there were tents set up with food and representing different wineries. There was also music, and long tables set up all over where you could sit and drink and eat. You go into one of the tents (or up to one of the kiosks) and choose the wine you want, and you get a nice wine glass etched with "888 Jahre" (888 Years) and "Freiburger Weinfest 2008". You had to pay a "deposit" for it, but you could not return it, you took it with you and continued to drink from it.
We stopped at one tent where there was a good people-watching spot and got a glass white wine for Jane and a red for me. Sat and enjoyed the crowd for a while, especially observing what our neighbors were eating.
From there we moved on to another wine kiosk and got another red and white (Gewürztraminer), and sat outside at a table with others. There was a table of men behind us, sharing a bottle of wine. They were about 20 years older than we are...but very interested in us. One more glass of wine and Jane I could have gotten VERY lucky. Nearby there was a musician playing a synthesizer and singing. Sometimes it was Brazilian music, sometimes it was oompah-loompah.
After a while we walked around to the other side of the Münst. On that side was band with a female singer. Jane correctly defined it as a wedding band. We got movies of the fest from both sides of the Münst. As we made our way along and across some puddles, we got hit on by another old man. It was our night, boy.
We walked down to a curry takeout and chose some Indian food. I had to keep asking the guy to tell me what the food is called in India, not in Germany - that's the only way I knew what it was. We got a chicken korma, a meatball korma (!), a chana masala, another vegetarian stew, a raita, basamati rice and some chutney. We had a nice conversation with a young man (he looked a little old to be a student, but was in full student mode) and then walked back to the car with our booty.
Came back to Jane's crib, set the table up for our Indian buffet and watched the scene from True Lies that has Netta (from Frankie and Johnny) in it, and then the Office and one episode of Dame Edna.
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