Bavaria

We spent the weekend in southern Germany with our friend Clemens. He invited us up to meet his family, see their farm, and visit the famous Christmas markets of Bavaria.

I'm going to post this trip in segments, because things have been really busy lately, and who knows when I'll get a chance to write again. So we'll start with Friday.

Friday, November 30

Friday afternoon, after sneaking out of work early, we took the metro to the Paris East train station and hopped on a shiny new TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse, French for "Train of Great Quickness", or "high-speed train"). In mid- summer, a new rail line opened between Paris and Stuttgart, and after the excitement died down we were able to find some reasonably-priced tickets.

We arrived in Stuttgart around 9:00 and found Clemens waiting on the platform with pretzels. Welcome to Germany!

It was about an hour and a half drive to the tiny village of Equarhofen and Clemens' family's farm. Did I mention that they raise pigs? Not only that, but they raise pigs right in the village, not in the center of a sprawling, isolated field like we expected. After we pulled into the garage, Dave and and I stood on the street front of the house and spun around.

"Where are the pigs?" (we definitely could smell them)

"In this building", Clemens said, pointing to a neat house across the narrow street. "And another one over there, and another over there". The buildings were tidy and traditional German, with white walls and timbers. We couldn't tell the difference between pig buildings and neighbors' houses.

So of course, the next question was "Can we see them?"

"Ohhhh no, not tonight. You have to be suited up first".

Suited up?

And with that exciting teaser we ended our first evening in Germany, following some of Clemens' mom's fantastic Christmas cookies.