One of the coolest things I have ever participated in in the Frankfurt area: the Bergsträßer Weinwanderung on the first of May, a "wine walk" through an area south of Frankfurt (close to Darmstadt). Basically the way it goes is this:
- It's a gray, miserable morning in Frankfurt. You wear jeans and pack a sweatshirt.
- You snag a couple of seats on a train out of the Frankfurt and count yourself lucky that you were standing near the doors when they opened. Seats are a hot commodity on this train. Instead of the resigned grumpiness you usually see on crowded German trains, though, everyone is kind of giddy.
- At each station south of Frankfurt more and more people push onto the train. By the time you hit Darmstadt, they're announcing over the loudspeakers that the train is completely full and people on the platform need to wait for the next one. College-aged boys are climbing through the windows anyway and whooping in self-congratulation.
- Someone starts playing a horn and passing around songbooks. The people in front of you are singing along without much skill but with plenty of delight.
- You get off the train in Bensheim, where it is blue-skied, warm, and beautiful. Yay!
- You meet up with your boyfriend's work buddy and the work buddy's girlfriend, who live in the area and know just how to avoid the train station crowd and get you onto the actual wine walk. Perfect! The path itself is mega crowded, too, but who cares? You quickly acquire a bottle of wine, tiny (0.1 liter) glasses, and little leather glass holders to wear around your neck (so you don't lose your tiny glass, naturally).
- You also acquire a group of your boyfriend's coworker's family/family friends/acquaintances, who proceed to provide you with more wine, snacks, and general entertainment. After the actual hike/wine/snacks, you'll hang out with all of these people on the coworker's parents' deck and everyone (including you!) will join in good-naturedly ribbing your boyfriend for not speaking German yet. Give him another beer! That'll help.
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kelly: this post made my day!! the first time i went to deutschland i stayed with a family in bensheim. the vati worked in darmstadt. the bergstrasse was in their backyard, as was the auerbacher schloss you have pictured in the 4th pic down. i corresponded with this family for 30 years until the vati died a few years ago. i still have a framed print of the schloss in my living room that he sent as a wedding gift. wow.
ReplyDelete(and i am supposed to tell you to include "roosevelt lodge" after general delivery on letters to katherine at yellowstone)
Ann! That's incredible! I knew you had long-standing ties to a German family (I remember you telling me about them at some point), but hadn't realized they were in that area! It's gorgeous down there.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the address info. :)
boyfriend?!?!?!?!?!?!!? details, please!
ReplyDeleteHis name's Stephen! He's an American I found online, haha. (Who goes to Germany and starts dating an American?! Me, I guess . . .) My brother Conor met him recently and described him to our other brother Ryan as: "About my height. Hipster glasses. Prominent nose." Which I found both accurate and hilarious.
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome and hilarious at the same time. Does he wear the hipster pants too? And live in Frankfurt?
ReplyDeleteYes to Frankfurt, no to the hipster pants. In spite of having lived in Portland, OR for a while, he's not actually a hipster. He's more of a big dork than anything. ;)
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