Family, Part II

Sunday Mawnin. Breffast! There was a small child in the room which wailed every 14 minutes, like clockwork. Highly annoying. And apparently, Karin never eats Breakfast. We check outta there, then something glorious happens. Sitting in the car, waiting for mom and Karin to wrap things up and join us, Dad and I notice that, on the car’s LCD display, there’s a button that says NAV. And immediately I start banging my head against the dashboard. WHY?! Why couldn’t we have seen it before?!?! The british lady calmly tells us how to navigate towards the castles, and we all hang on her every word, eyes wide open in delight.

View from the courtyard at Hohenschwangau.

The line to the ticket office was a mile long! AAAaaaaahhh!! Though it goes quickly enough. One of the girls behind us in the snaking part of the line looked exactly like Kelly, one of Karin’s high school buddies. We survived anyways, and climbed the lesser mountain to tour Hohenschwangau. This was the older castle, and unlike Neuschwanstein, its construction was completed, and people actually lived here for a long time. The artwork in this castle depicted legends, some of which were true. (Neuschwanstein’s artwork depicted Wagner’s operas.)

After the tour, we had a couple hours to kill before our tour of the other castle, so we messed around in the souvenir shops, and had lunch/dinner in the biergarten (where we totally creeped on the people at the table next to us who had an ADORABLE baby). For some reason, I was reading my watch wrong, and thought we didn’t have enough time for much, and we split into teams, one to get the food, one to get the beer. Then, when I realized that we actually had an hour-and-a-half, I ran over to tell dad, in the food line with Karin, and he said “Well in that case, I’ll have a beer!” The food was good, and it was fun to further teach my family in the ways of the German “Prost!”

Properly prosting.

Tower of Nürnbergers

Castle. Home. WITH a navigation system. It was so lovely. When we rolled into Nürnberg, there was no extra bed in Mom and Dad’s room like they had requested. Karin can come and sleep on a couch in my apartment! No problem! But more immediately, we were all hungry. Mom had found an interesting biergarten in one of her guide books, so we went there to check it out. When we got there, the place was empty, and there was just one waiter guy, cleaning a table. I walked up and asked if the kitchen was already closed. He said almost, so order quickly! We get the menus, choose, and when he comes back, we tell him, but then he says “We only have this and these. Everything else is impossible.” So we ordered a This for 4 people, and it turned out to be a tree/tower thing of Nürnbergers, which are tiny bratwursts. They were grilled, boiled, smoked, or white, and they were DELICIOUS!!! The tower also had sauerkraut and potato salad and stuff. It was so delicious. So then, after a tutorial to dad to not tip a lot (because they don’t expect it! Plus they get 10% of the bill anyways, whether you tip them anything or not.), I led my fam the circuitous way back to the car, and grew insanely proud of my city. :]

During the week while my family was here, I worked every day, as usual. While I was at work, they were free to roam. For one, they have the means to do so, (a car, and money, the lack of which prevented Erik (and presently, Mel as well) from venturing out on his own when he visited) and there were only so many places we could all go as a group in the evenings. So all I can document here are our escapades in the evenings!

Us, in the Hauptmarkt, with the Frauenkirche
in the background

Monday, I took them to the biergarten in Whörder Wiese. The super cheap, ballpark-esque biergarten. Most biergartens in Germany have menus and waiters, but this one was super low-maintenance buffet-like. I have mentioned it before, since I’d been there twice before: once with Erik, and again when Bridget, Justin, Corey V, and Ben last visited Nürnberg. I once again ordered the “Drei im Weggla,” the three Nürnberger wursts in theeee most deeeelicious roll EVAR!! Dad got the grilled Fleisch, which turned out to be very very good. When Karin tried to order her Radler, the barman seemed tickled. Karin, do you remember what he said? I can’t. :( After feeding, we walked from the park and crossed what seemed like the width of the Altstadt and stormed the castle! The gates were closed! Rats. But the rest was open, so I got to show them the viewpoint, and the imperial gardens! We even found a door in the wall open, so for the first time, I was in the wall around the city! But then a groundskeeper of the castle found us and threw us out into the cold.

Bar Füßer

Tuesday, Dirndl Day!! I find the green plaid one that I loved earlier, and re-compare it to the light blue one I also liked, and get the blue one because its stripes were bigger and less likely to enduce cross-eyed-ness. Mom also helped. Though, unfortunately, they didn’t have the cheap necklaces in blue. :( Once we emerged, victorious, we headed over to dine at Bar Füßer. Good German Fun. :D They brew their bier in-haus. It was alright! Though it tasted a lot like Budweiser. (I think… man I forget if it was this beer or the beer at some other place.) After dinner, I take them to the irish pub where Corey and Ben and I watched the FCN.1 vs. Bayern-München Fußball game. I buy everyone a Fransiskaner Weißbier, and much enjoyment was experienced.

Wednesday, Mom and Dad dropped Karin off at my place, and they go off to have a lovely anniversary dinner at Nassauer Keller (super swanky place with nice music and suits of armour as decoration!), which is in the basement of the only remaining tower of many, which used to house one family each and serve as their line of defense against attackers. Karin and I spend the time watching trashy TV, where we take much pleasure in yelling enthusiastically at the idiotic characters. I also make spaghetti.

Rotbier!

Thursday. Once again, into the Altstadt! This time, we are waylaid by a rogue souvenir shop, where I apparently bought 14 postcards. We dress our wounds, assess damages, pick ourselves up and move on. When we walked places, it usually ended up being Karin and me in the lead. More often than not, Karin or I would glance back only to find that mom was 100 yards behind us, trying to photograph something. It became comical for us, and Karin would shout in mock-fury “she’s fired!!!” For the record, mom was probably fired a total of 300 times over the course of the whole visit. :D We make it up to the Albrecht Dürer Haus. Dürer was a super famous Renaissance painter dude. The tour of the house is run by a woman dressed in period clothing, posing as his wife, and it goes through, telling about the life of the painter, the construction/arrangement of the house, life back then, and the art/trade of painting in the Renaissance era. The only tour on that day was in German, so we got to carry around nifty (read: jenk) little audio guide thingies. Both people attending the entrance were very pleasant and jovial Germans! When they joked around with dad, I was dumbstruck and wanted to shout, “You’re not acting like real Germans!! Snap out of it!!” After our self-driven tour, we stopped in at Hausbrauerei Altstadthof, and I introduced them to the Rotbier (rot=red). And THEN…. SCHÄUFELEWÄRTSCHAFT!!!!! This is the restaurant whose specialty is Schäufele. We gorged ourselves on pig shoulders, and it was delicious! Also mom got a beer thrown at her. By the waitress. On accident. Oops.

Friday, not much was done. A bunch of pictures were taken of Karin and me as we wore our dirndls, followed by a visit to Hummelsteiner Park Biergarten, then all parties went to sleep.