Category: Journal

I went to the hotel’s restaurant tonight.  I said “yes” to something the waitress asked and she asked me if I wanted an English menu, at first I declined and got the German menu.  I knew what I wanted anyway.  I ordered Bamberger Teller (Bamberger’s Plate – sort of a sampler of local fare) and a Fässla lagerbier (a youngster brewery, having been around since only about 1649 – Schlenkerla, on the other hand, has been around since at least 1405 – practically “industrial”).   The plate came with four meats on top of some sauerkraut and a bowl of pan fries.  I decided to ask for the menu back and the English one besides so I could work out what was what and maybe learn the German for some of these.  The meats were: Schweinelendchen (pork tenderloin), Stadtwurst (which the menu translated “Town Sausage” and looked and tasted somewhat but not entirely like a Kielbasa sold in stores back home), rostbratwürstchen (which someone apparently translated online because they got “little rust grilled sausage” – it’s a grilled bratwurst – or more literally “a small grilled grilling sausage” – as bratwurst means simply a sausage made for grilling or frying), and a piece of Rauchfleisch (they translated this bacon, it is literally “smoked meat” but it was in fact bacon though a bit thicker than we normally have it cut – it was nearly 3/8 of an inch thick!).  I had to stop myself from laughing though when I read the translation of sauerkraut – they called it “sour crout” (later looking this up on line I found they aren’t the only ones), I told the waitress “‘sour crout’ isn’t a word” and she was surprised but not particularly concerned as it turned out she was Ukrainian (I noticed her accent sounded not quite German and I wondered if she might be Russian – in fact Russian is her first language so my accent radar is dead on!).  The potatoes were called bratkartoffeln (simply “fried potatoes”).

Today was chilly but bright.  It’s -3°C now but was probably up between 5 and 10 earlier today.  I signed for the house and got the keys, I don’t really move in though until Thursday.

I have had questions about the weather.  Today is one of the coldest days since I arrived.  There was one day last week when it snowed fairly heavy for awhile but it all went away.  A few flakes now and then.  Most days it has been sunny and rather mild for the time of year.  Before I got here it was much colder I understand; but I also understand this is one of the coldest years in recent memory for this area.  I have added the local weather to the sidebar on the right and I am integrating weather into my posts.  But I am not sure whether it will change after the fact or remain fixed.  In case it changes, today’s weather is 0°C overcast with a slight breeze.

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(Sorry, I had to disable the weather plug-in as it was causing an error in the display of my blog.  I’ll try to mention the weather when I post – 2009.2.3)

Yesterday one of the ladies at the Hotel, Nina, went with me to look at a car.  I had no idea how to get there and the man did not speak English.  It was very gracious of the hotel to offer her help.  They have been very helpful and have offered to call about cars and apartments for me.  Anyway, we rode bicycles, which is scary enough by myself but following a German it can be terrifying.  Bicycles are “legal traffic” that is to say they are treated just like cars as far as the right of way goes, and they take this very seriously, seeing a bicycle in the left turn lane at a major intersection is not uncommon; and for the rider to be an elderly person or child is not surprising.  Pedestrians don’t have the right of way, except in marked crosswalks and when there are crossing lights.  On the way back Nina and I rode through the pedestrian zone in town and then I saw her jump off her bike.  She said that she usually would ride right through but she saw the Polizei (it’s a pedestrian zone vehicles, you aren’t allowed to ride a bicycle).  She saw a group of five teenagers crossing the street and she said that if the Polizei saw them he could give them each a ticket for 60 or 70 € for crossing illegally.  That’s about $80-90 right now but only because the dollar is up lately, would have been well over a hundred not long ago.

I had noticed that when I got to an intersection and there were no cars coming but the light was red, people generally stayed put.

Last night I went out to a small village to look at an old BMW 318i that a sergeant in my office had out there at a friend’s house.  It was not in good shape but quite cheap.  We had to jump it as it had been sitting since November and it was getting late.  After a while we went inside and when we got inside they said “It’s 10:00, you’re welcome to shut off the cars and come in, otherwise you can stay outside and deal with the Polizei yourselves”.  They said that after 10 is quiet time and the polizei will come if you make a lot of noise.  They said the same thing is true in the afternoon from 1 to 3 so children can take their naps!

It’s also illegal to leave your car running for very long (I think 4 minutes) while you’re not in it and I’ve heard that it’s illegal to leave a dog unattended for more than five hours.

Tonight I went out for some food and it’s Sontag so many places are closed already.  I decided to go with the old standby, Schlenkerla – I’ve been there five nights out of ten spent in Deutschland as of tonight.  The area on the left for the locals was open again, the walls had  been repainted I was told, and all the antlers had been replaced.  I like Schlenkerla because 1) it’s open late on Sontag und 2) ist nur ein bier so I don’t have to a) try to choose od b) try to figure out what the barmaid is saying  (yes they have a bock and a weissen but those are special orders and they end up opening a bottle and pouring it out for you – put that up against a real wooden keg with a brass tap and there’s nothing to choose and they know it).  “Ein bier bitte” takes care of everything at Schlenkerla and that’s the way it should be.  I had some bratwurst mit sauerkraut.

I was sitting for a few minutes when a couple came in and spoke to me, they wanted a seat I knew but I had no idea how to respond to them without acting like I didn’t know how to speak at all.  I finally brought myself to say “Ich verstehen nur ein bisschen Deutsch”, I got half way through the sentence and the woman completed it for me.  She must not have spoken any English though because she said “OK” and sat down and never spoke another word directly to me.  The man didn’t catch this as he was hanging up the coats.  Another man came in and sat down across from me and spoke to me.  Having practiced once, I was much quicker and the woman interjected as well, I thought I recognized this man and it turned out I was right, I had seen him last Sontag and he knew I was American.  A few minutes later the first man tried to ask me a question, so this was three in a row.  Anyway, it turned out the man from last weekend spoke English reasonably, so he and I talked quite a bit.  The couple were interested in visiting Thüringen and he was discussing this with them which he kept explaining to me. They have a different kind of Bratwurst in Thüringen among other things (there is also a cave system there where the V1 and V2 (that’s “Fau 1” and “Fau 2”) rockets were built during the “Second War”).

After a while a man came in wearing knickers and such, and I wonder if maybe he was a Jäger, I forgot to notice whether he wore a green pointed hat.  Then a few minutes later a younger man came in dressed in a mostly black costume including a tall hat and carrying a bundle over his shoulder, which I later noticed had a not at all modern hammer in it, and he had a staff in his hand.  He pounded the staff on the floor and yelled out and nobody looked at him and then he made some announcement.  I thought maybe he was crazy since everyone ignored him but then he started walking around and everyone gave him money.

The man across from me said that the man in the costume was studying a trade, in this case woodworking and after he has the basics down he must go on a journey outside of his home area.  He said this is a tradition that is only practiced in a few ancient crafts such as woodworking and baking.  The craftsman must leave his home and go on a journey and not enter within a certain distance of his home for several years.  This does several things, most importantly it prevents too many craftsman in one area competing and it ensures that craftsman learn new ideas from other areas.  These tradesmen who are journeying are called Geselle.  He said the Zeitung (newspaper – most likely “Fränkischer Tag” – i.e. the Franconian Daily) said a baker from the north of Germany is currently visiting Bamberg and he is learning the breads of Bamberg which are much different from the breads in the north.  When he has learned enough he will be allowed to stop journeying and return to his home to take over his father’s bakery as the new “meister”.  So it is with the woodworker, he will have to find work in Bamberg and it is traditional to give him some money to support him, just 0,50 € is plenty.  So, I gave the Gezelle “fünfzig Cent”.

(Everyone is “the man” or “the woman” because almost nobody introduces themselves, so unless I ask someone’s name, I have no idea what it is).

I went to a brew house (Brauerei Greifenklau i.e. “Griffon Claw Brewery”, founded in 1719) last night and talked to some guys at my table who spoke some English.  In conversation I asked them how to address the barmaid.  This approximate conversation followed (P&M = Peter & Manuel, D=Doug):

D: How do I address the barmaid?

P&M: Frau

D: What if she is a young woman?

P&M: Then mädchen

D (considering that mädchen is a girl, usually a little girl):  No, I mean one who is, say, 18 or 19

P&M:  Frau

D:  I thought Frau was for an older woman,  isn’t there another word for a young woman?

P&M: No, there is nothing in between, either a mädchen or a Frau.

D (cutting to the chase):  Well what is a Fräulein?

P&M:  Ha ha! we don’t use that word, that meant an unmarried woman, a virgin, long ago, but it hasn’t been used in a very long time.

D (astonished):  Really?  Not at all?

P&M:  Oh, you can say it to a nun.

D:  A young nun?

P&M:  Nooo, it doesn’t matter, any age, she can be 87, still she is Fräulein.

In a second bar we went to together (A tapas bar – Spanish style there are many of these around), I asked the barmaid, who spoke English quite well:

“No, that word hasn’t been used since before “the Second War” except maybe by Americans and people who are trying be funny” (I bet this means to make fun of Americans).

She went on to say that it was somewhat insulting because it means “little woman” (as in womanette, not small size).  She said she didn’t think it had been used since “the First War” and that people thought it was used in the 40s only because Americans used the word so much then.

Yesterday I went out for coffee in the late afternoon.  The coffee shop was easy to find, this is a European city after all.  The coffee menu took some work.  Coffee was listed in three sizes pott, tasse, and another size I don’t recall.  The waitress spoke some English and said that these were small, medium, and large, and that the pott was the medium (they were not listed in order it turned out).   The pott cost 2,60 € (I’ve found that the “€” actually goes at the end).  I looked to see if they had an Americano (which for anyone who is not familiar is a sort of watered down espresso – still decently strong – like the espresso made in a stovetop espresso pot rather than an espresso maker), but they did not; I wasn’t looking forward to a plain black coffee but I didn’t really want any of the specialty types listed (the Germans generally seem to write their coffee names in Italian too).  It turned out that what I got was more like what I wanted than I expected.  It was basically not too strong espresso (sort of like an Americano but with the crema) in a cup the size that you’d get with a set of dishes (“pott” is translated “pot” in the books but apparently means a large by German standards cup), a tasse must be the size of a small tea cup.  I don’t think I’ll be buying a lot of it though because that was nearly $4.00 for a cup of coffee and it’s exactly the same price as a 1/2 liter of beer at Schenkerla.

After this I went back to my room and a short while later met up with CPT Hanna (the first American I’d seen to speak to since Friday) who showed me around the area and showed me where a couple of other breweries are located.  I then went to Schlenkerla to get some brats, I really wish I’d gotten a shoulder or at least a ham hock.  The brats were not enough.  I noticed some people looking my way, it may just be self-consciousness but I thnk they were looking at the way I was eating, that I was switching my knife and fork back and forth and they were holding their knives in their right hands and their forks in their left hands.

Not much was open yesterday.  I must have misunderstood.  It may be that museums and the like are open but not businesses (I saw several brochures in the hotel lobby that seemed to indicate things were open on Sunday, but they were all museums and historic buildings and the like).  Bierhause appear to open earlier, around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, but close earlier too.  I walked by one that I think was opening around 2 and it was 1:50, I was going to go back but I needed a nap (jet lag and late nights drinking combined with not much water).  I slept later than planned and when I headed back out most things were closed – actually some places appeared to be open but there were no customers.  I kept walking in to what would turn out to be Mexican restaurants and the like which weren’t at all what I was looking for.  There are Tappas clubs/bars/whatever around which are a Spanish thing and should be open quite late but I was looking for German beer.  Finally, I ended up back at Schlenkerla, they were packing up all the antlers on the wall, no idea why, maybe they need dusting or something.  I thought they might be closed but “ein bier” got me glass.  Then to my dismay the keg ran dry, but the barkeep asked me if I wanted another beer (apparently), I nodded and he went and drew some off a new keg somehow (he went in the back and brought back a full glass).  There was a different waitress tonight but the same barkeep.  Schenkerla opens at 0900 and serves a local specialty called weißwurst (with beer of course) for breakfast.  But most taverns seem to open in the mid-afternoon.

I continue to stay up far too late and then get up barely in time to eat breakfast.  I’m forcing myself not to go to sleep today so that hopefully, I can get to sleep around 2100 or so.  I have PT in the morning.  Today I finally spoke with some Americans.  I called SGT Claspell and CPT Hanna to try to coordinate tomorrow morning.  Until I get a cellphone keeping in touch with others here is going to be difficult – if they call my hotel they will likely have to ask at the front desk – which may not work well – and I can’t yet tell if there is any way for them to leave a message, let alone for me to check messages.  It took me 20 minutes today to learn how to make a call from the hotel phone because I couldn’t read the instructions on how to dial out.  Before I started trying, I searched on line for the various words on the phone so I could avoid the three that are: “Help!”, “Fire!”, and “Doctor!”  None of which were obvious.

I tried to ask the hostess at breakfast for an iron and how to turn my clothes in for laundry (there is a bag in the room which I have filled up but nobody takes it).  She said they don’t have irons but she’d ask her boss (at least I think this is what she said) and she didn’t know anything about the laundry, she said nobody had ever asked her that before.

The past two nights I had carefully watched the other patrons to see if they tipped.  It did not appear that they did.  I know that in Korea is was insulting to the waitresses to be tipped, so I thought maybe they don’t tip in Germany either and I didn’t tip.  Then I watched the first couple last night pay, the barmaid told them what they owed and the man handed her some money and said a number.  I asked him if it was important to tip and he amazingly understood me and said it was usually good to tip.  I asked him how and how much.  The answer to how much: 5-10% unless you only drank beer in which case only € 0,50 – 1,00 – they use commas instead of periods as decimal points (which is quite shocking the first time you get money from a Geldautomat, the comma registers the whole number in thousands in the American brain, or at least in this American brain.).  The answer to how is interesting: The waitress says you owe €7, you hand her a €10 note and say “8 Euro”, she gives you back €2, danke.  They said you can leave it on the table, but that’s not the usual way.  I double tipped when I got ready to leave so at least I’m now square with the barmaid at Schlenkerla, which I expect to visit regularly.

Interestingly, the second couple last night, the ones from Nurenburg, were the first to ask me my name.  They didn’t offer theirs back, so I asked, they were Wolfgang and Castine.  I thought this was particularly intersting because I’ve only known, or even heard of, one other person with the name Castine.

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.

So, now that I’m sobered up and rested, I can explain more about Schlenferla.

But first, I needed Euros, I asked the hostess at the hotel but “ATM” doesn’t mean anything here.  I said “money machine” but this only got a response about “eine bank” I pulled out my credit card and gestured putting it in a machine.  She said something I didn’t quite understand and circled some places on my map.  It turns out that you have to go to a “Geldautomat” to get Euros.  I found one and got € 100, it was much more convenient that in America.  The machine delivered my money in 5, 10, 20, and 50 Euro notes.

I found Schlenferla and I went in and it was a most amazing place, sort of like I imagine a colonial tavern, but several stories tall with huge beams on the ceilings.  Only the first floor appeared to be for eating and drinking.  The main room was no bigger than the kitchen and dining room combined at my house in Cornish and it was filled with old wooden tables, like picnic tables without the benches, surround with chairs.  The bar itself was a tiny area, only big enough for the barkeep to stand and draw glasses of beer and hand them to the barmaid. They washed the glasses by simply dunking them in a bucket of water that may have had a little soap in it and sloshing them up and down and then putting them upside down over a sprayer that rinsed the inside of the glass.

I looked around wondering where to sit as most of the seats were already taken.  The bartender suggested a seat but a person next to it said they were holding it for someone who was coming later.  Then he asked some other people if I could sit with them and they said sure.  Most of the discussion was not in English, what was was very broken.  Everyone assumed I was German or at least spoke it, and everyone was very surprised to find that it was my first day in Germany, not the least because this is more of a local secret than tourist spot – though I have since found that it has a small entry on the English Wikipedia.

I ordered Rauchbier and it was not at all like greasy bacon, or if it was I want that bacon! It was more like a very heavily smoked ham, minus the salt, substitute beer for the meat.  I have heard that you either love or hate rauchbier, actually, I’ve seen this, as I’ll describe below.  I like ham, especially heavily smoked ham, and I love beer, so this was no disappointment.  The group to my left pointed to a sign on the wall and mentioned that the place serves another specialty beer, a winter beer called Urbock, which is much stronger than Rauchbier, I tried one.  It was very good but very powerful, strongly flavored but not smokey, or at least no where near as much, it was hard to tell after the Rauchbier.  Urbock is apparently a kind of doppelbock, which is a bavarian bock of very high alcohol content, 9 or 10%.  Both beers were lagers and I wasn’t paying close attention but I think both were drawn from casks, both had a substantial and very frothy head on them, the Rauchbier more so, and were served quite cool, but maybe not so cold as an American pilsner.

After a while I tried to order libercasse (sp?) (liver cheese – a kind of sausage made from pork liver), but the barmaid said that was a bavarian food and this happened to be a Frankish establishment (she said this all in German and one of the people at the table attempted to translate, this is what I managed to glean.   She went to get a menu, but I stopped her and asked “Bratwurst?” which got a cheerful “of course” sort of response.  She came back later with a plate of three very long thin sausages, somewhat longer and thinner than the average hotdog, on a bed of sauerkraut, the kraut was much sweeter and darker than any I’ve ever had before and the brats were fantastic.  I went on to have quite a few more Rauchbiere (the “e” ending is the plural form) and to talk with many patrons as they left and others replaced them.  I moved tables once mine was empty, as it was reserved for 1900 and it was after 1800 so I expected no one to join me there.

Before this though, a group of three men sat down at the end of the table and talked to me.  They said the beer was aweful and I found that they were from out of town and had come to try it.  Apparently one had tried it before and knew it was aweful but told his friends they had to try it since they were in Bamberg.  I noticed two of them speaking to each other in broken English and I asked them why.  It turns out one of them was French.  They were businessmen here “trying to convince people who don’t need it to buy our product at an exhorbitant price” or something like that, they said.  They sell steel tubes used for bearings.  We talked about the economy.  They said the car industry uses their pipes, but they aren’t buying any right now. I asked them about whether they thought the economy was America’s fault.  They said no, that British and French and German banks did dumb things too, but they admitted that they cannot understand the U.S. real estate market nor do they understand buying things on credit.  They said they think Americans are always hopeful and believe tomorrow will be better, whereas Europeans are always depressed so they would never buy anything on credit because they believe that tomorrow will be worse and they won’t be able to pay the debt.  I thought that was a very interesting way to analyze the situation – we’re not irresponsible, we’re just overly optimistic!

At the next table, a couple who had reserved a place and were eating what I suspect was Wiener Schnitzel. I tried to say something to them which they didn’t understand, the man asked if I said “Prost?” and then with a gesture that suggested “whether you did or not I’m sure that’s one thing we can agree on” picked up his glass and said “Prost!”

Between the English of some of the other patrons, a tiny bit of German (I manage to ask “Wo ist die Toilette?” and to say “Danke” a lot – I also found I could generally tell what she was saying when she told me what I owed, though if not I just picked a 20 Euro note and got a lot of change), and the universal language of holding up an empty beer glass and nodding to the barmaid.  I was a bit surprised to get my change all in coins as I didn’t realize that they have coins for at least 2 Euro (around $3 I think right now), and they may have larger ones.

I do need to learn how to ask if a seat is taken though.

Oh, BTW, in the post below the ß = “ss” and the ¨ over a vowel equals a following “e” that is no longer written except occasionally on the computer if it doesn’t have the necessary characters.

Time for something to eat:  beer is food.