We had a nontraditional Thanksgiving... I spent
my Thanksgiving in two countries, traveled on the busiest travel day of the year
without having to worry about traffic, ate schnitzel instead of stuffed turkey
and tiramisu instead of pie. I flew from England to Germany to be with Dave on
Thanksgiving (he's been doing some work in Germany). I considered cooking a traditional
meal to bring along in my suitcase, but with only a microwave to work with once
in Germany we decided against this option. Besides, getting past customs with a
bird is a little risky (although some airlines allow you to travel with up to 5 live birds in the main cabin- yes, I looked it up) . We missed our family terribly, friends dearly, and football very much (well, some of us missed that last one more than others). Nonetheless,
there was one tradition we could keep alive no matter how far from home; stuffing our gullets with
food. We took the advice of tripadvisor.com and hit up a restaurant ranked #1 in
all of Stuttgart, the Busnauer Hof im
Wildpfaldstuble. Here we are at our Thanksgiving table. Dave's enjoying his beer and I'm... enjoying Dave.
We had originally planned a trip to Prague for the weekend after Thanksgiving. We were hoping to meet up with some friends near the border of the Czech Republic and tour the city together. As it turned out, our friends couldn't come and Dave was on call that weekend, making the 12 hour round-trip drive much less appealing. Late on Thanksgiving night we decided to put off our Prague trip and stay local. Instead we visited a picturesque monastery, our first Christmas market of the season, and the Wilhelma Zoo. The town name, Maulbronn, means "mule fountain" and it is said to be founded by German monks who followed a mule to the area in search of clean water. Below is the Maulbronn coat of arms.
The monastery in Maulbronn, Maulbronn Abbey is the town's claim to fame. Founded in 1147, it is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. These are some pictures from Maulbronn Monastery.
There were two facts from our audio-guided tour of the Monastery that we found memorable. One is that maultaschen, or Swabian ravioli, was invented in an attempt to hide meat that monks were eating during lent. The other fun fact was the way that Elfinger wine, a local vineyard, got its name. In the center of the Monk's Refectory inside the monastery, there is a column where a barrel of wine would be fastened and left to drip slowly down the column. The monks were then allowed to taste the wine by dipping their fingers into the trickling wine and licking a drop off each one.
Legend has it that one monk enjoyed the wine so much that he wished aloud "if only I had eleven fingers", that way he could have another drop. And that's how Elfinger or "eleventh finger" got it's name. Dave and I thought that this story was hysterical and found many excuses for repeating the quote "if only I had eleven fingers" (in a creepy voice, of course) throughout the weekend. On Saturday, we spent the entire day enjoying the Christmas market in Heidelburg. The best thing (in my opinion) about the market was that there wasn't a krampus in sight (if you don't know what I'm talking about see Merry Krampus from Munich).
I had some delicious pumpkin soup, my second in 24 hours (we also had some in Maulbronn). Dave had some "Opa" Glühwein, mulled wine with added rum. Check out the effects...
We stayed until dark when the lights of Christmas became truly enchanting...
Lastly, here are some pictures from the Wilhelma Zoo...
We both got to see our favorite animals! Can you guess which is whose favorite? They had some pretty cute animals... including two baby gorillas!
That's all for now, thanks for checking in!
We wish you all a Wonderful Thanksgiving :)