Kasewurst may be the best thing to ever happen to me.
If you ever get the chance to go to Germany, practice this phrase: Ein kasewurst bitte (eye-n case-uh-vurst bee-teh). Then just repeat it to anybody that looks like they're grilling sausages. Over and over.
My sister just spent a semester studying in Freiburg im Breisgau in the southwest corner of Germany.
I decided I needed to go visit.
Freiburg is a fantastic town, and is heralded as one of the greenest cities in Europe. The public transportation is excellent, there are bikes everywhere you look, and the greenest living community in the world is right across from my sister's flat (it actually produces more energy than it consumes). It is located on the fringe of the Schwarzwald (Black Forest) and provided some excellent opportunities for hiking.
The Munsterplatz in the center of the town has a farmers market six days a week, year round (including several wurst stands), and is actually reasonably priced, unlike t
he one in Boulder. Freiburg is home to several breweries and lots of great beer (duh, it's Germany). The people are incredibly friendly, even if you don't speak German. It really is a fairytale city.
But the best thing about Freiburg is the Christmas Market.
Now, I was a little skeptical when my sister told me that the Christmas Market was beginning on the Monday before Thanksgiving. I had in my head an image of a crazed mall-lik
e scene with people piling up carts full of crap that will probably break and end up in the trash within a couple of fortnights. I wasn't ready for that yet. Not bef
ore I had some mashed potatoes and gravy at least.
But skeptical as I was, I headed out to meet her and her classmates on opening night.
Let me tell you. The Christmas Market is magical. Instead of crazed shoppers, bright lights, and crappy Christmas music I found merry folk mingling about amongst pine covered booths, drinking warm gluhwein and eating wurst.
Ok, I may have gone a bit overboard there with the "merry folk," but it really did feel like it was a scene out of a really corny Christmas movie.
This was a Monday night. There must have been 1,000 people out in the three small plazas and streets that made up the Christmas market. The order of business was not buying everything in sight, but just to be out enjoying a mug of gluhwein (a delicious hot drink that is somewhere between wine, cider, and glug) with some friends.
This is something I wish happened at home. I wish we had more of a desire to simply gather in a public place, just for the sake of being together and taking a breath at the end of the day. A time to be holly, jolly, and maybe even a bit tipsy with friends and neighbors.
Needless to say, I spent a lot of time at the Christmas Market the rest of the week, eating everything in sight (wurst, waffles, latkes, crepes, more wurst, sauerkraut, spatzle, a few more wursts, this really good cake thing with vanilla and cherries on it, flamkuken, and then another wurst), and just enjoying the all around merriment.
More on Germany to come. And on my trip with Katy down to the Swiss Alps. Until then, merry eating.
