31st December and 1st January - Tuebingen
Trip Start
Dec 26, 2008
1
6
28
Trip End
Jan 26, 2009
Tuebingen,
Germany
Thursday, January 1, 2009
We spent the afternoon eating a late lunch of "Strammer Max" (Leberkaese, a sort of German meatloaf, with fried egg on top), then internetting/blogging (Darren) and cooking that quintessential Australian meal, Thai curry (Penny), in preparation for a New Year's Eve party at friends of the Gesslers. This afternoon, the weather did something that vaguely looked like snowing from inside, but it was actually something like very small hail. Uli went out and made us a "snowball" anyway.
We then packed up all our food, fireworks and other stuff and took off through the icy sludge to Tuebingen to Rose and Uli's friends' (Klaus and Bärbel) house. We then unpacked all the gear and sat around enjoying drinks, particularly Darren who was treated to some Black Forest beer.
Soon all the food was reheated and we sat down to a cross-cultural feast of Thai Red Curry, Swabian Maultaschen and potato salad and Ethiopian pancake things with veges, lentils and lamb. A sumptuous feast indeed. Mulu (sp?) and his wife, whose name we unfortunately didn't quite catch, are Ethiopian friends of R, U, K and B who have been living in Germany for 15 years. Mulu showed us how to use the huge pancakes, which are covered in little holes like a sponge, to pick up the food with our fingers. it was delicious. Darren drank more beer, Penny some German riesling, and everyone some Black Forest schnapps.
After dinner we were treated to Ethiopian coffee served the traditional way by Mulu's wife. First she roasted the coffee beans, then cooled and ground them and finally boiled them in a stone jug. It was served in small traditional cups and tasted wonderful, not particularly strong but with no bitter after-taste. We also enjoyed brownies and American cheese cake that Rose had made.
Soon we were down to the business end of the evening and the kids (and Darren) swirled about excitedly as the fireworks were brought out. Everyone put their outdoor gear back on a and assembled on the front lawn in the freezing cold. The rest of the town was also busy and a building crescendo of fireworks was being launched all about us.
Darren was given the honour of launching the first wave of our fireworks which all rushed skyward and exploded most satisfactorily. The kids then all launched the rest as midnight came and went as well as many other crackers, squibs and cherry-bombs on the road and footpath. We toasted each other and the New Year and sipped our champagne in a haze of firework exhaust. German kids and youths in various stages of drunkenness slid by on the streets, which seemed to be turning to ice.
We trooped back into the warmth of the indoors for a few more drinks and eventually decided to check on the condition of the roads. Unfortunately it had rained and then the rain had frozen on the bitumen making the roads as slick as an ice-rink. A car tracked slowly down the road half on the footpath and half on the road and slid into a parking space. It would be impossible to drive and we also found out that all buses were cancelled, so we went back inside and hoped he roads would be salted while we waited.
At about 2.30am we were both dead on our feet so Bärbel made us a bed upstairs in the attic and we fell asleep like ice bound refugees.
In the morning we congregrated gradually in the kitchen for a late breakfast then went out for a walk, first to Klaus' garden plot, which he told us he had been cultivating for a year or so. It had been very neglected and he has done a lot of work clearing what had become a jungle and trying to revitalise some very old fruit trees. Bärbel keeps bees on the property and we learnt that the honey we had had on our breakfast in the morning had been paid for with 28 bee stings. After dutifully inspecting the plot we walked further up the hill to the Studentdorf Waldhäuser-Ost, where Penny, Rose and Uli had all lived as students in the distant past. It was now 1.30 in the afternoon and we realised that the next bus we could catch to the train station, as not all of us could fit in the car to go home, wasn't until 2.20. Darren and Penny decided to head into town on foot and fit in a bit more sightseeing before the 2.48 train back to Pfäffingen. We went into the Stiftskirche and walked along the river a bit, which was very nice. As on any German public holiday, the town was full of other people out for a walk. After catching the train back to Pfäffingen and walking to Poltringen, we felt we had shaken off the New Year's Day cobwebs. We did some laundry and watched a few episodes of Lockie Leonard with the Gesslers before dinner of soup with Spätzle and potatoes. After dinner we chatted with Rose and Uli and watched a DVD of Lorenz's school play before falling gratefully into bed.
