Saturday in Wiesbaden

Pete gets to write on Saturdays....This was actually my first walk into town on Mary's walking route. Found this old relic pillar that looks like Roman architecture. It was a chilly morning but you can't believe how many people are out and about with baby strollers and yes, fur coats. Mary was in her familiar walking attire, I stopped short of wearing sweats and went with german-appropriate jeans.

We took a turn towards the marktplatz where the saturday farmer's market was going on. Everything you needed was there...cheese, meat, flowers, sauerkraut! We saw some awesome olive mixes at one stand. We bought a mix of feta and olive and then Mary somehow found a fresh flower stand and... you know the result. This being my first time walking into the city on a Saturday, I was amazed at how busy the town was. There doesn't appear to be an economy problem here - and everyone likes to get outside. There was even an organized protest in the town square... something about stopping persecution of Egyptian Christians. Now there's a protest I never saw in South Dakota.

I was amazed at how many people were out walking and doing the same thing we were doing...wandering around, stopping for coffee, buying stuff in their local marktplatz, and walking with kids in strollers, buggies, you name it. Kids go outside with mom and dad even if the temp is below freezing. The best part for me was stumbling on this imbiss (brat stand) and having currywurst - a grilled brat cut in bite size chunks in ketchup and curry sauce (I found out 'brot' means bread, and 'wurst' is sausage, who knew?) Anyway, it was awesome on a cold day. As we tried to make our way out of the marktplatz, we passed a dept store named Peek & Cloppenburg. It was packed so we had to go in. Before I knew it, I was stripping off my MN hockey sweatshirt and down vest and trying on a suit over my long underwear. Our sales clerk barely spoke english, mostly nodded in appreciation of the perfect fit. For some reason, I tried on 2 suits and bought both of them. I think we hit Wiesbaden's version of crazy days. So, we were told to pay on the main floor and she would send the suits down to the cashier. This seemed odd but we queued up at the only 3 cash registers available and miraculously saw my suits slide down a circuitous hangar contraption to meet me at the cashier. These Rube Goldberg devices are all over germany.

We just tried the feta/olives with some sesame seed bread with Konig Pilsener. Great local bier. Mary napped. All is well.

For dinner, we decided to try our local Ratskeller - real german food in a tavern below street level, with Andech's bavarian benedictine monastery bier from the 1400s. I had the Spezial Hell bier. More like heaven bier. We sat next to a table of 12 you might see in greenwich village... 40-50 somethings, men with ponytails, the women had berets and scarves...would have loved to understand what they were talking about. Of course I ordered schnitzel which is basically a hunk of pork with a mustard/pretzel topping and Mary had creamed mushroom w bread dumplings. (Not for you, Gail) The place was loud, homey and looked like the place for neighbors to get together. We can't wait to bring our friends here. Tschuss!!