pretzels

I like pretzels and I like the people who make pretzels. They are, to say the least, very kind.

You see, travel in Germany was a bit of an adventure for me. After saying goodbye to my Portugese hosts, I headed towards Rothenburg ob der Tauber (R.o.d.T). On the advice of Rick Steeves, travel guru, I made this small medieval town my German destination. Getting there however, was most interesting since I didn't arrive at the train station in Stuttgart in time to get a good ticket to R.o.d.T. So rather than spending the night in Stuttgart, I opted for the "overnight" one, which I later discovered was only an overnight ticket in so much as it dropped you off in some random, small town for a 5 hour lay-over between the hours of 1 am and 6 am. As you would expect at 1 am, the train station was dark and the streets bare. Without a place to stay and quickly eliminating the station as an option, I was looking a bit-out-of-luck.

Thankfully though, there was a nice couple on the train who spoke English and took pity on me and my predicament. Without asking, they very kindly drove me to Random, Small-Town Hotel One (which was full) and then Random, Small-Town Hotel Two where I ended up staying the night on a small, pleather couch, if you can call it that. It was about the size of two chairs smushed together. By the time I got there, fell asleep, and rose to catch my next train, I maybe slumbered for 1.5 hours.

I was therefore a bit on the grumpy side by the time I got to R.o.d.T at 7:45 am and seriously questioning whether or not all the trouble was worth it. The streets were quiet, very pretty, but quiet. After 1 hour of walking around, I would be ready to go. However, upon entering the old part of town, I noticed a few people dressed up in medieval costumes, random camp fires, and tents. Strange. Then the number of people dressed like this grew. Stranger. Then I started asking questions and discovered that the town was holding their "Meister Trunk" festival that day. Apparently, this 250 year old festival celebrates "brave Mayor Nusch, who, with his legendary "Master Draught" saved the town from destruction and the councillors from the death sentence" in 1631. Needless to say, the festival certainly saved my day as it drowned out the bus-loads of tourists that make there way to R.o.d.T each day and brought the town to life. I quickly found myself drinking beer, seeing bratwurst being BBQ'd the ol' fashioned way, eating pretzels, watching theatre, consuming shneeballs, listening to music, and weaving past local artisan creations. My grumpiness and sleepiness were quickly remedied and my trek was thankfully justified.

Speaking of mishaps, I was also in a small car accident in Porto. The story goes like this. A Dutchman, an American, and myself rented a car to tour the Douro valley, the area outside of porto where the grapes for port wine are grown, and taste a(some) regional pastrie(s) at each town (Amarante, Vila Real, Lamego) we stopped in along the way. However, in a small town somewhere along said tour our car clipped the rear-view mirror off of a parked car. Thankfully, we opted for the CDW upon car rental so there was no deductible, which was fortunate since we had already spent a small fortune on pastries and fuel.

Pictures from Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany and Porto, Portugal.