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.