Even better than the real thing

You all may or may not know this, but Stuttgart has an Oktoberfest of its own. It's called the Canstatter Volksfest, and takes place at roughly the same time as Oktoberfest. Even though it's not quite as grandiose in size, it's still the second biggest beer festival in Germany, and many Germans prefer it to the "real" Oktoberfest. Probably because there are fewer tourists...

We were fortunate enough this year to attend both festivals: Oktoberfest (see below) and the Volksfest. I still think Oktoberfest is awesome for a number of reasons, but in some ways I liked the Volksfest better. For one, I didn't feel like a tourist because it was local, and second, I liked the band a lot better. They played a nice mix of traditional German festival songs and cover songs that any sorority girl would love, like "I Will Survive". The other difference was that we had a big group of people that we crammed into our one reserved table. The more the merrier is right. :)

Actually, Melissa and Vicky were also able to experience both festivals, having taken a trip to Italy after the Oktoberfest trip and stopping into Stuttgart for one night before heading home. What better way to spend your last night in Europe than at a German beer fest?

Me, Melissa, and Andy "Prosting"

Melissa, me, and our friend Rebecca
(stole this pic and the one below from Rebecca's
husbands webpage...nice pictures, Victor!)

Our friends Mike and Kathleen.
Note Mike's Lederhosen...totally upstaged us! :)

Certainly there are some things that Volksfest doesn't have, like not as many rides and not as friendly waiters (ours was a real jerk...oh well). It also doesn't have nearly the selection of beer tents. Stuttgart has 3 large tents and 6 smaller tents, while Oktoberfest has 14 large tents and 19 smaller tents. Plus some would also argue that Bavarian beer tastes better than Schwabisch beer (and I'd be inclined to agree), but I don't know how much it really matters. Most people don't come to savor the beer....they just come to drink it. :)

Oktoberfest Sneak Preview

You may or may not know this, but Germany has more than just Oktoberfest in its repertoire of beer festivals. For example, here in Stuttgart there's a pretty big festival each spring in Bad Canstatt, called Fruelingsfest or Canstatter Wasen. Most people here described it to us as a mini-Oktoberfest, and if that's the truth, then I really can't wait for the real deal. It was crazy fun. Or as the Germans say, "Es war der hammer!". :)

Basically the festival is set up like a regular carnival or state fair: carnival rides, roller coasters, food stands, people challenging you to play their game and win giant stuffed animals, etc, but with the added bonus of "tents". In the tents is where potent beer is served in giant liter glasses, where a live band plays music, and where hundreds of happy patrons stand on their bench seats and sing & dance & drink all night. It was actually a little exhausting to sing and dance and drink the whole night, but hey, I guess someone's gotta do it!

The carnival part of the festival

Txema showing off his liter of beer (ein Mass)

Me taking my first swig
(note my rotated hand---it's too heavy to lift the normal way!)

Early in the night, as people started to stand on their benches for the songs

Later in the night, when everyone was standing on the benches!

Svea and Melanie singing along to our beloved "Cowboy" song
(mentioned before in this post)

Marcel, Achim, and Daniel raising their glasses for a "Prost"

Clowns and Candy = Rosenmontag

Our gang as we headed to the parade
(L to R): Melanie, Claudia, Petra, Me, Constantine, Achim

The Rosenmontag parade was awesome! Every single spectator was in costume, as well as every person involved in the parade. In addition to smiling at the funny floats and dancing along with the marching bands, we spent most of the parade yelling out "Karamelle!!" at the top of our lungs to entice the paraders to throw candy and flowers our way. It worked, too, because we ended up with Halloween-worthy quantities by the end!

What really surprised me about Rosenmontag was how family-friendly the whole thing was. In spite of the craziness and the drunken masses, it still felt orderly, in that only-the-Germans-could-do-it way. We saw lots of kids lined up along the parade route, gleefully catching candy as it was tossed their way.

After four hours of parade watching, singing, and shouting, we grabbed a quick bite to eat at a tiny fast food Chinese joint. With our bellies happily full of fried Chinese goodness, we started to head towards the Hauptbahnhof to catch our train home. Boy did we get lucky on that one. We totally underestimated the amount of time it would take to get back due to the crowds. We ended up making it there with 2 minutes to spare....and that was only because the train was 5 minutes late! Good to know for next time, I guess. :)

Anyway, the whole experience was fantastically fun, and definitely makes me want to go to Karnival again next year. Although our pics are online here, I've posted some highlight pics from Rosenmontag below.

One of the adorable kids at the parade

Pirate ship float

Fun lion/dragon thingyAnother cool floatClown marching band
Birkenstock gummies that Andy caught - only in Germany! :)

Parade candy - most with special Karnival wrappers

Wow. A soft waffle...that's a new one.

Komplete Kraziness

Oh my gosh, I am in love with Köln!

We had such a great time in Köln for Karnival last weekend. That town is super fun. Everyone was friendly and happy, and there were so many fun things to do. It's a bit hard to condense all of the craziness into one post, but I'll try to give a good recap...albeit a long one!

We left Stuttgart for Köln on Friday with Shravanthi, Marjetka, and Marjetka's friend, Maya, who had driven up to Stuttgart from Slovenia the day before. We hopped on the Autobahn, and arrived in Köln 4 hours later. After checking in at the Fremdenzimmer Helga (great place to stay, by the way), we headed downtown for dinner. Since *everyone* wears costumes during Karnival, we decided to wear part of our full costume downtown...basically wigs and hats. This was a good idea, because if we hadn't we definitely would've stuck out as misfits!
As you can see, we had a bit of a theme to our costumes. Shravanthi, Marjetka, and I were "leopard girls", and Andy was our official "manager". This came in handy to have a manager when we were out dancing because he could scare off any weirdos that approached us.

Anyway, wandering the streets downtown, we came across a nice brewery, called Sünner im Walfisch, and stopped in for dinner and Kölsch. Kölsch is the official beer of Köln. It's served in small, 0,2 liter glasses, is easy to drink, and is very tasty. The Sünner brewery serves it in giant cylinders with a personal tap, like so:
At the brewery, it was so cool because it was obvious that Karnival is really all ages. The table next to us was a table of retirees, who had been there drinking Kölsch together all afternoon; they went through two 5 liter "columns" of beer while we were there. I feel like you would never see that in the US. They were so fun - singing along to songs and chatting it up. Loved it. After dinner we spent the rest of the night hopping from bar to bar and shaking our groove things on the dance floor. Super fun. On the way home, our train ride was full of tipsy, costumed people, who were happily leading the train in song. Although there were many impressive costumes, I think Broccoli Man was our favorite:
The next morning, we headed downtown, sans costumes, for some shopping (Köln is one of the fashion centers in Deutschland). Once again, it was clear that one should never leave home without a costume during Karnival. That day there was a huge party in the Neumarkt Platz, with tons of families and groups of friends all in costume. Check out this panorama to see the size of the thing!We stayed and sang a few songs at the party, and got a bit of a Karnival history run-down (auf Deutsch) from a friendly dad next to us. From there we walked to the Dom: the huge, beautiful, famous Gothic cathedral of Köln. All I can say about that is "Wow." That cathedral is too amazing to describe in words. It is so tall you can barely focus your eyes on the tips of the spires.

Standing in front of the Dom in Köln

That night we went out in "full" costume. Dressed all crazy from head-to-toe. We saw lots of funny people in costume, and of course took many pics (included in our Costume Hall of Fame, below). We danced, sang songs, people-watched, and listened to a marching band playing in the street. Another great night.

The red pouches around our necks are specially
designed to hold glasses of Kölsch. Cooooool.

The next day, Shravanthi, Marjetka, and Maya left to return to Stuttgart, and Andy and I stayed to await the arrival of Rosenmontag (Rose Monday), supposedly the biggest day of Karnival. In fact, so big, thatI think I'll have to put it in a separate post! Until that second post, feel free to browse our catalog of pics from the weekend here.

"Karnival Costume Hall of Fame"

What's with the Pom-Pom hats?

Fun Fact : The Bollenhut, traditional in the Black Forest,
can weigh up to 2 kg (4.4 lbs)!

A couple of weekends ago we took a trip to the Black Forest with our neighbors, Beth and Sean, and their son, Tad. We drove for about 1.5 hours to a town called Triburg, south of Stuttgart. The town is famous for its waterfall and handmade cuckoo clocks. Beth and Sean wanted to go both to show us the town and to buy one of the beautiful cuckoo clocks as a gift to themselves for their 15th wedding anniversary.

Although we had originally planned to hike the waterfall *before* looking at cuckoo clocks, Tad insisted that the cuckoo clocks were much too important to delay. So, we went The House of 1000 Clocks right away. :) And man, they're not kidding about the 1000 clocks -- there were a lot!

Inside the cuckoo clock store

Although it was a tough decision, Beth and Sean successfully picked out the perfect clock. When the hour strikes, the cuckoo bird cuckoos, after which the clock plays Edelweiss while pairs of dancers rotate and twirl, a water wheel spins, and Bavarian men tap their beer glasses on the table in rhythm. Cooooool.

Beth and Sean's Clock

Tad doing his impression of a Hummel figurine
while modeling a grey cap from the store's gift shop

After the cuckoo clock selection was complete, we headed for the waterfall. Since there was some ice and snow on the trails, we were only allowed to hike up to the base. It was still really pretty though. Maybe in the spring we can go back and hike all the way to the top. We also drove over to a bell tower we saw in the distance and hiked up to it. That was nice because there were some pretty views of the town below.

At the base of the waterfall in Triburg

Bell Tower

View of the town below

Finally, after our busy day we headed to a local restaurant for their famous Black Forest cake...yum. The decor was that of a hunting lodge with stuffed deer, ferrets, you name it adorning the walls. By far the funniest decoration was the group of stuffed squirrels playing poker. Those crazy Germans.

The Headlights Rock!

Back in Champaign-Urbana we were introduced to a band called The Headlights. Andy heard about them originally because the lead singer, Erin, is the daughter of a man he worked with, and they had just had one of their songs featured on Grey's Anatomy ("Everybody Needs a Fence to Lean on", Episode 18).

Since The Headlights are on a European tour right now, we gathered up a posse and went to see them in Remseck am Neckar, a subburb of Stuttgart, last Friday night. We got there early and spent some time talking with Erin before the show started and met the other band members, Brent and Tristen. They played at this place called Haus der Jugend, which is a community center of some kind. Although the venue was tiny - literally the size of a living room - it was packed with 40 people by the time the show started. It was a really fun show. Hopefully their European tour will be a big success and they'll headline in Stuttgart again soon. :)

If you'd like to hear some of their songs (including the one from Grey's Anatomy) click here. You're totally gonna want their CD now...

Who doesn't love Sunday brunch?

A couple of weekends ago, we were invited, along with some other friends, over to Petra's apartment for a Sunday brunch. Petra had told us not to worry about bringing anything, that it would mostly be cold things, like fruit, cheese, and bread, and that she would have no trouble putting it together on her own. So, we were expecting something simple.

Well, here's what we saw when we arrived...

...Amazing, huh? I mean, her presentation was just so gorgeous. I totally felt inspired to do more with my presentation the next time we host something. Petra made for us: fruit salad, fresh squeezed orange juice, scrambled eggs, sweet potato and ginger soup, chilled roasted duck slices, beef and ham rolls with seasoned cream cheese, tomato and mozarella skewers, and additionally served us all sorts of fresh breads, cheeses, and meats. Plus, for dessert she made us red wine cake (her specialty) and tiramisu--by far the best we've ever tasted! I managed to convince her to share the recipe, so if you want it just send me an e-mail. :)

Fun with Gingerbread

This week, I decided to have some girl friends over for some creative fun: gingerbread house making. We each picked our own template for our house, then bought LOTS of candy to share for the decorating process. Five hours and two kilograms of powdered sugar icing later, we had finished our works of art. The whole process was so fun, I felt like a kid again. Pics of our houses are shown below. For pics of the whole she-bang, click here.

Katie's Wintery Snow Chalet



































Petra's Whimsical Fairy Tale Cottage































Shravanthi's Stained Glass Palace



































My Cozy Gingerbread Home


































Christmas tree and fireplace inside. :)