Fender benders and awh sh*t moments

Well THAT sucked.  First accident - which is funny since I am the one with 1 whole ticket .. Butch is racking up tickets a.most to the point it's almost not funny - but they are only $20 each time so it could be SO much worse.

BUT who has the first freaking accident?  ME!  How you ask?  Well, I was zipping off the freeway on my way to work, traffic was moving along just fine.  I look over my shoulder to see if the light has changed on the top of the overpass, turn back and YIKES!!  the guy who had been trucking right along had come to a dead stop.  YEP... I slid right into him.  He of course wanted to call the police.  Fine... I learned I don't have a good number for the military police.  I never did get in touch with them, but I did just take my lumps and the police were nice and I had to pay a fine of $35 (these prices are all in Euro, but I don't know how to make this do euro signs...).. and turn it all over to my insurance.  So - what damage was done?

Uh, VERY little, thank you very much.

 Yes, this is during the actual accident time... I'm sitting in my car waiting for the police to show... ugh!!!

 do you see any damage???  Nope, me either... the license plate is slightly bent in the middle on the left side and there is a tiny bit of a scratch on there too but majority of the scratches were there prior to the accident... so it is what it is... sigh.

 top scratches were from me on another incident (we won't talk about it, but the house is fine - damn stucco)... the lower scratches are from this little "run in".

 his car - you can see where the dirt was removed as it pushed the bumper in and there is a tiny crack on the top of the bumper where the finger marks are.  OK, fair enough.  Yeah... I could have done that easily.

 AND I slightly popped it off the clips... so yeah... that was me too, I'm sure!  Whoops.  If it's like when I was hit in the butt and part of my car did this, they simply pop it back on and you're fine.  So maybe this is my Karma for taking the money when the little airman hit me years ago?  Who knows....but fair enough, I did hit him...

So I turned it all over to the insurance and now we see if my rates go up really high.  I hope not... but we'll see.

Mespelbrunn Schloss (Castle)

So - we have this same thing in Boblingen where the frogs will  migrate to the woods during mating season - or are they migrating to the ponds to mate?  Either way they cross roads and it becomes an issue.  Boblingen has come up with a series of "corral" fences that lead the frogs to under road crossing areas to avoid the poor little guys getting mushed on the roads.  This area where the sign was doesn't appear to be super well traveled as it leads only to the castle then beyond the castle it becomes a dirt walkng path, so not seeing who would smush them here - but this was in the circle at the end of the road, so perhaps just a warning of "be careful"... in Boblingen the roads get slick at that time of year... you can figure out why - ewh!!


Some history (the only english part on the whole sign) on the area - the church pictured below is a 19th century addition.  It was closed while we were there, so we didn't get to see into it.

Our first good look at the castle and the backside of the statue... I really should look up who this is.

And finally inside the grounds.

 ooh, look a swan.  We only saw the one... that's got to be a lonely life for that single swan.  Maybe his mate died?  How sad!

 LOOK at that date - 1564... I'm always impressed.  It's weird as all of the stone appears to be sandstone... very weak stone for a castle, don't you think?  I guess it's just on the decorative spots though.

Interesting.....

 This was about a 4' door at the bottom of the tower... tiny door... wish I could open them and look in :)

onder if that round hole is a downspout from inside?  We'll never know.  There is a chapel in there, so thinkng it's not a functional window to the chapel... but where does it go?  

Hum... we'll never know!!

Armory room... there is the chapel in the left corner, then following through to the right are other parts of the house we didn't get to see... we went back outside and went into the door with the 1564 date - it has a spiral staircase inside and we went up to the 2nd floor and went through another arms room that was just short of a museum of all sorts of swords, crossbows and antlers.  Butch was in love with the ancient inlay cross bows.  Boys and their toys, right?

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the old hardware.  How old?  who knows, but old enough to make me want to take pictures of it front and back.  

cool water downspout under the portico

A little closer on that door and its hardware...

And with that we had lunch at the little building on the property - Butch had wild boar wurst with sauerkraut and I had a lemon schnitzel with spaetzle.  Tasty!!

It's not too bad of a drive.  All Autobaun all the way up - it's on the way to Frankfurt - about 2 hours from Ramstein, so on the opposite side of Frankfurt from there... so not worthy of combining a trip to there with this little side jaunt.  BUT the drive was easy and it was a very cute small castle.  Now to research it and see a bit more of the actual history of the place.  Talk about the uninformed, eh?  

https://www.gettingstamped.com/mespelbrunn-castle-germany-water-castle/

Embracing European bedding ideas

 So what exactly does that mean???  That means that two of the last hotels we have stayed at - well the only ones other than  since first moved here - and that one was a Marriott so it catered to American tastes. They all had two separate comforters on the bed with NO top sheet?  What is this?  Am I reliving my youth when a top sheet was something we had never really experienced?  Yep!  And it’s glorious!  It means I need to was the duvet covers more frequently BUT it also means I don’t get a frosty butt when the otheR crawls into bed because no matter the fluffing and straightening I will be happily under my VERY OWN cover!!!   Our mothers were onto something when we were kids. I think I’m going to love this set up but we’ll wait a few months for the vote to come in. I have a lighter blanket than Bitch does too as I’m always kicking mine on/off during the night. He’s always COLD. One more problem solved. Like I said, I have high hopes about this arrangement!!

i haven’t taken the top sheet off just yet. I was staging the bed for your viewing pleasure. I’ll do the true set up before bed... if I get so motivated...I may just fall asleep while reading. 

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.