Cannstatter Volksfest

I finally talked Butch into going to the Fair!  Yay!  I wanted to go and see what they had for the "fair" items.  Turns out they are mostly leather goods, hats/gloves, slippers, some household goods.  NOTHING like the goods sections that they have at the Georgia National Fair.  They also don't have animals.  I think I read somewhere that every three years or so they have animals and things like that here.  Interesting.  It's quite large in scope and the MASSIVE things are the beer tents.  What is amazing is that they are NOT permanent buildings.  We saw them being built a few months back when we were taking a train by that area... or driving or something.  I remember looking at this seemingly small area and having these Huge tents being built on site. I think it was about 2 months prior to the actual event?  It's interesting that the are erected and, I assume, torn down when it's all over.  I'll let you know after this year if I take a train or a drive up to that area.

So, without further ado, here is my take on the Volksfest - aka Fair for Stuttgart (Oktoberfest?)

 For a Friday afternoon/evening it was pretty busy.  I had hoped to be here more towards noon, but Butch was golfing in the morning so we didn't get underway until about 3pm

 The quidicential cookie necklaces.. folks wear them, kids eat them.. I can't imagine as they have to be quite old... maybe just days, but they are hanging around for a long time before being purchased and worn - they ARE covered in plastic, so there is no concern about germs, just age and would they be that good???

 Pony ride without the medal "wheel"  I'm sure the ponies are much happier this way and you'll note that NOT all kids have their parents with them as they are doing the walk... you would NEVER see this in the states without a fear of liability and lawsuits.  You'll notice that there is NO gate around the actual horses and the "ring" - nope, wide open to the people walking the midway.  They are very trusting folks here, aren't they? 

 OK, so there was a tiny little fence that I can now see after looking at the pictures after the fact, but note that the two kids in front have NO ONE at their sides and the have reins on the ponies - so the kids are truly in "control" of the horse.  I LOVE THIS... don't get me wrong.  I think the states dumbs kids down too much and doesn't let them experience things..

So, more on the midway.. and the food... the interesting and DIFFERENT foods!!

 Yep, that is FISH, whole fish on a skewer to be served to you for your pleasure.  Now I don't know if they give you the skewer or not, but the fish was very fishy smelling :)

 THIS was udderly entertaining.  I got a kick out of how you would grab this like an udder to spread your condiment onto your braut or whatever you ordered... ha!

 Yep, that is a FULL bar in the middle of the midway - there were a few more, but I think this was the most detailed and full bar service look to it!

 This is one of the four or five beer tents at the fest... this is VERY early in the day... they will have bar maids carrying multiple liters of beer in mugs and half chickens to patrons late into the night... it gets ROWDY as the night goes on... and we didn't get tickets, so I just poked my head in to see it from the inside.  It's like I remember from Munich  - they will cram a TON of people in here.  Song and laughter will abound as the night progresses.  We did NOT participate.  I didn't feel like I missed anything. :)  I did that in my youth.  I'm good to be the old lady wandering the fair to see the sights

 I told Butch as we passed this - THIS was the ONE ride I would do... it was 6 Euro to ride.

 We did stop at the first Beer Garden when we came in and got a Bratwurst for Butch (I had a few bites) and a beer... I have to admit I backed tracked for this skewer!  It was chocolate covered strawberries... OMG it was GREAT!!!  No, it didn't go with the beer... I swigged the rest of the beer down and enjoyed the chocolate on the walk!!  MMMMM

THESE are the temporary tents in place.... check out the DETAILS on them!!

 Back in "village" area with a grandstand surrounded by a lot of cute little huts with food.  What was amazing to me was the QUALITY of the food that they served!!

 yes, that is salmon on that grill!

 Check out the grill behind... it's a hanging round grill - they put EVERYTHING on them!!

 We opted for pork skewers with the mushrooms.  There was a Knödel in there and they were DELICIOUS!  The skewers had just a little kick, but not bad!  We enjoyed a leisurely dinner listening to music and watching people go by.  I'm being encouraged to buy a dirndl for next year... I just see it as cultural appropriation... but, I guess in reality I *am* german to an extent, eh?  Maybe... I would feel awkward in the dress.. but maybe just the top and some jeans?  Yeah, I may be able to feel OK wearing that... maybe...

After dinner we started wandering our way back towards where we started this adventure.

LOVE the translation for SPOOK - SPUK comes out the same pronunciation here, so, yeah, OK.

Dessert was a ... well, I can't find the name of it...the simple term is "chimney cake" they were tasty... but i didn't finish mine as we were headed to the swing... it's now a flat cake in the fridge and I may nuke it a bit later and see if it's just as good after the fact and smooshed!

BACK to walking the midway through a very pretty pink sunset!

I wasn't kidding when I said my ONLY ride that I love to ride at the fair is the swings.  I love them - no matter what.  THIS one was higher than I have ever gone and FASTER too - wow!  The speed was awesome!

 Full moon coming up in the distance - just adding to the fun of the night!

AND then it's our turn!!  I tried to just put my phone away and ENJOY the ride for a lot of it, but it was too tempting to video quite a few times as the view was to die for!

 Do you see what looks to be little blue drones in the screen?  That is a fun little optical illusion that occured from those flashing lights that were on the bottom of the chairs.  Weird... they would reflect with what they really were - a series of LED lights in a circle... so all my pictures make it seem like there is a LOT of drones around the event... nope, no such luck - just weird reflections.

And with that, we made our way to the exit - with two lovely stops at the potty because you know what is my life without issues from the food and the beer?  Even with that little hiccup, SO totally worth it to have eaten everything and had a few small beers :)

We took the train back, only to discover the train we caught was one that would have a bit of a delay in Boblingen - the train we were on was one that was going back to the train barn after getting to Boblingen - that was a new one to us... BUT We lived... just took a small break and enjoyed the lovely evening - it wasn't too cold, so it was nice just sitting for another 15 minutes for our train.  

So, there you have it.. our trip to the fair this weekend.

Friday - last two days in Europe for the kiddo's!

The last day in Germany we chose to slow roll it out of bed and make our way to the Ritter Sports Factory in Waldenbuch Germany - it's just a short 1/2 hour drive from our house.  They have a decent museum and introduction to where they grow their chocolate, where they source all of these ingredients for their chocolate bars and they have a store - where you can buy all of their new flavors as well as "close out" bars as well.  SOOOO tempting.  The girls got some chocolate to take home with them as gifts and we picked up some for samples as well for our house.  I say we, but it was Butch... yeah, we'll blame him.  I did encourage the chocolate with almonds - my personal favorite.

Next up was Motoworld  It's a place to tempt old and new car fanciers alike.  It would have been a better tour of that location BUT they were doing construction and it was LOUD in there!!!  We didn't spend as long as Butch and I had back when we got here, BUT we did notice having been there before that the type and model of cars was different.  There is storage in there that is used by the public.  I assume it's a rental space type of situation.

We then made our way to the Sindelfingen mall for a bit just to kill about an hour... we wandered stores.  Angela found some cute pants to purchase, I got a purse and Elizabeth and Alex simply wandered on their own.  We didn't see them a lot while we were there.

Then for our final meal, we went to Schonbuch Brauhaus.  We encourage everyone to try the Brauhaus special where you get Maltachen, Schnitzel and Spaetzle.  It's a wonderful sample of what the culinary sampling of the region is.  Maltachen is a ravioli of sorts from the region - very tasty!

 We sat next to a nice group of elderly Germans who asked us questions from time to time, but in broken English... they were nice, but the conversation didn't last long.  I'm sure if Butch had been sitting there he would have had a LONG conversation with them... me?  not so much any more

And with that we went home, got settled in for bed and the next morning bright and early it was time to take the girls back to the airport!  It was a whirlwind tour and fun!  I hope they come back for longer next time!

They stopped off in Amsterdam for a couple of hours and actually went out and saw some of the town while there as well. 

Me?  I promptly went home and went back to bed for a few more hours!!  Ha!!

Paris Day 2

We had a 9:30am tour.  This doesn't make for a restful/easy morning.... so we got up and headed to the tour meeting spot.  There wasn't a lot of time to really "wander."  I think that if we were to spend a week here, we could do the whole "wander" thing.. but on two days with tours and things to see?  NOPE!!  So - train for 1/2 hour to get to the tower, walking 15 more minutes to get to the meeting spot.

 Waiting in line for the tour - note that Angela is holding her Grandpa Ashwood's old point and shoot camera - I'm going to be curious to see how those turn out!

Photo's from the 2nd deck!

 They chose this pose... note the clouds and winter dressed people and MY kids not really dressed for weather - silly girls.  They will know next year to have a variety of outerwear to layer and remove as needed.

 And the rain is rolling in!!! Blustery and rain drops are starting!!

 Wind and rain being blow into the lines... there are quite a few not dressed for the weather.  I had little heat leaches coming into my jacket a few times - ha!

Summit - somewhere I didn't make it to back in the 90's when I came with S.  We did the walk up and honestly I don't know that we actually climbed to the 2nd deck or if we just made it to the first.  I DO remember shooting a paper plane off the tower and watching in land in a neighborhood close by.  That was a fun memory to relive... I didn't toss a plane off however... thought about it, but didn't!

 You can actually see one of the many cells dropping rain in the distance in quite a few of these shots!

 Notre Dame is somewhere right over their heads... it was blocked off, you can't access the island and I'm told there is quite a bit of scaffolding around the place... so we opted to NOT go to try and see it... that and not a whole lot of extra time regardless!

 Nice group shot at the Summit.  I honestly don't know that the difference was worth it.  It is quite a ride to the top, but not sure it made that much difference in the view itself.  The only "room" you could see from the "living quarters" that were up there in the past was a dummied up area that probably wasn't a good representation of what was really up there at the time... there WAS a restroom up there.  I did debate peeing at the top of the tower as I was quite proud to have done that in Dubai and the Burj Al Khalifa.  ha!

SO after all the rain and bluster, we get to the bottom and there are BLUE skies!!!  Well, fine!  ha!

We walked to a local cafe to eat some "brunch/lunch"... this time Liz got the onion soup and Angela and I got an omelet.  Butch got a baguette and Alex got a hamburger.  Neither of those seemed quite photo worthy - ha!

One of the other WEIRD things that we noted was the subway had real rubber wheels instead of train wheels on the outer runs.  This is the train that will take us BACK out to the Catacombs for try to get in day two.

While we're standing there in line waiting for the Catacombs I look over and look closer at the roofline of the building on the left...

 Look closer!  There is a free standing ladder... there is a rung ladder on the building.... but that freestanding ladder cracks me up.  I think - this is just conjecture, that that one is for the exhaust/smoke stack to the right...

THIS time we got in!  And boy was it interesting...we got in, climbed down 7 flights of stairs in a tight spiral... down, down, down, down.  I'm starting to think "sh*T, I'll have to climb back OUT of here!!" ... but it's too late now... and I can go slow, right?  I had already had a slight incident where I had to duck across the street for an emergency potty stop earlier before going in, but I had taken an Lomotil to hopefully get me back under "control" after my purge the night prior... and for the most part it did work and kept me in control for the most part - whewh  Good to know that the drugs will help and working on just how much to take to not stop things up too much (I know, I know, quit with the potty talk, but hey, this is my journal of sorts and a glimpse into my world as it is)

 I won't give a blow by blow, you can read the plaques and I apologize as the lighting was "iffy" at best in some spots and my concentration was iffy the whole time - ha!

 We walked and walked and walked... with only seeing the plaques and no bones... and really the thought was there "what if the lights go out..." but in reality there were cell phones on each of us, so we would have found our way out eventually... but it was a hike and a half before actually getting into the catacombs proper.

 kinda creepy... and those floors had me watching my feet a ...lot as we all know my balance and footwork is more than iffy most days.  the day prior in the museum by the end of the day I had to hold the rails for fear of a misstep.  It was no different in here!

 these bottles were mortarted into place... but there was no explanation anywhere around them... weird.

 These ceilings were LOW at times as well - I had to put my hand up more times than not just to assure myself that I wasn't going to knock myself out!

 Note the mold...

 Better representation of how the catacombs are laid out... they are all over!!


And now we are in the proper catacombs that are weirdly entrancing as well as weirdly cool.. not not really creepy at all.

 I'm AMAZED at how tightly packed they have those femurs.  

It was amazing. No better way to describe it.

 Calcium deposit on the edge of this skull....

Oldest one we saw.... how amazing is that timeline?

 The lights down here are letting mosses grow in the depths.... interesting....

 Drama look?  ha!

Water dripping from the ceiling... wondering where this water is coming from?  hum... sewer?  hum.. gag... let's hope it's JUST ground water since we have had a lot of rain lately!

 LOOK there is daylight above... not sure where this manhole goes... but there is light up there!!!

 And with that and climbing some 7 floors we're back in daylight and making our way back to the shopping districts and train station.

The total of our efforts for the day... the day prior was just as intense.  I need a vacation from my vacation - ha!