Yesterday, I saw a man carrying a lap dog in Karstadt. Today a large dog came into the hotel dining room. It lay by the table that its master was drinking tea at and kept looking at the table and thumping its tail. Every so often the master would softly say “nein” a couple times and the dog would stop. While drinking my coffee, I saw a dog on a leash being walked by a woman, so far the only dog I’ve seen with a woman and the only one on a leash. Besides the dogs, another thing I was told would be different, mostly strollers and carriages are pushed about town by men, sometimes accompanied by other men. I haven’t seen anyone “wearing” babies yet, but then I really haven’t seen that many children except in the department stores and very few babies at all. I wonder where they hide them (of course, it very well could be that people with babies just stay home – I could understand that).
Last night I went to Klosterbräu, there was a notice on the door, but I couldn’t read it. Inside was a sort of entry hall with many doors, each had writing on it, but I couldn’t read any of them. I tried one door and there was a large open sort of indoor courtyard with chairs and benches but no people. I tried another door, it was locked. Another door was unmarked and smaller, I think it was an employee door, but I’m not sure. Finally, I tried one and it opened into a restaurant. I sat at a table with a young couple but this was a bad idea. They were on a date or something. They spoke in low voices even though they knew I couldn’t understand a word they were saying and they didn’t say anything to me except when I asked them if they spoke English and what the coaster said on it. As they were trying explain it, the waitress brought over a brochure in English. The place is the oldest brewery in Bamberg, but it is somewhat touristy (you can buy the glasses which are imprinted with the name of the tavern and there are different glasses for each beer it seems) and kind of pricey as restaurant’s go. On reading the brochure, I realized that this was more of a restaurant section and that one of the other rooms was more of a pub, but I coudln’t figure out which one. I tried a Schwarz-bock and a Weissen. I had what I thought was going to be brats made from wild pig but what turned out to be more like wild pig steaks I guess, tasted more like roast beef.
I decided to meet some people I needed to go back to Schlenkerla (which I misspelled Schlenferla below I think, they print it with a old script in which the “k” looks like a modern typeset “f”). I sat with a man I had met the night before and a couple that were talking with him, it seems to be impossible (and quite irrelevant) to know whether the couple and the man were there together, or even knew each other before last night. I learned that there is another section of the tavern that is bigger and is more touristy, I had walked into the part that was more or less for Bambergers just by accident. The man told me that in days of old, the rich people sat in the other area and the poor people sat where we were sitting. The other area is apparently fancier and does not have long benches. So here at least I picked the right door! Eventually the man left, then the couple, I went to the restroom and came back to find another younger (closer to my age) couple sitting there. They spoke English quite well and we talked for a long time. They were visiting from Nurenburg and they had been to America once. They gave me a list of “must see” places, including a 12km beer hike where you stop at many different breweries along the way. They also told me that the place opens at 0900 and serves a breakfast of weisswurst (essentially white bratwurst if I understood the explanation) and of course beer. Serving beer so early has it’s drawbacks though, the place actually ran out of beer while we were there to the astonishment of most of the patrons. There being no more beer, the bar maid put on her coat and everyone got up and left. So, now I can say that I not only close out Schlenkerla, I helped drink it dry!
Today I plan to walk about town and just see what’s there, things apparently are closed on Mondays not Sundays here, so everything should be open. I’m quite sure that bierhäuser are open everyday. I also plan to cue up Rosetta Stone, the Army has purchased online access to all of their languages for soldiers to use.