Bad Krozingen and ...

Good Friday, nothing open; Saturday it’s a madhouse in the grocers because Sunday and Monday nothing will be open again until Tuesday. People have family over, cook a good meal and celebrate Easter the way they do Christmas. Carts and carts of goodies went out the door of our local mart today. The cashiers were flying goods through the checkouts. Have I mentioned before that in Europe all the cashiers sit. Makes perfect sense to me, must be hard to stand all day, in fact I know it is, especially in one place. Sitting allows them to slide the product across the scanner easily and it’s faster.  Lineups were probably ten people deep when we went through but it didn’t take long. No impatient people either, sort of the look “well I know it was foolish to come now, but …” It won’t make sense to shop early on Tuesday either, best to give them time to re-stock.

Hope everyone had a great Easter! Ours was quiet and we didn’t even cook, lazy us. Weather was great Thursday but the entire weekend was either windy or rainy or both, Tuesday dawned nice again. Felt sorry for the kids Easter egg hunts, yes, they do that here too, and people attending services. Oh well it’s typical spring.

So we went to a restaurant, (hah, not uncommon for us) the waiter was a newbie I think, being very careful with his trays of drinks.  I ordered a half portion of flammkuchen. It is sort of like a very thin crust pizza, good, but again, too much. So finished about half and asked in German to take away. The server answered in German which I didn’t get and ordered me a complete new one. Did wonder what took so long to wrap it up. I got a bit upset and said no and left. Then I felt bad! Really bad! This restaurant hires many college going kids to serve and I could just envision that this 4.90 euro would come out of his pocket, so it just didn’t feel right at all. We’d just gone down the street so I went back and paid for what is hopefully his dinner tonight. He said in perfect English “I’m so sorry” so probably with my German being terrible and his at the level of being able to serve but not understanding too much different, we didn’t have a hope of truly communicating in German. So came home with no dinner, there is much in the larder so that’s okay. Now, at least, we can go back to the restaurant without any guilt on my part and I didn’t totally ruin his day, or mine!  

While travelling or living in a country where the native language is not English, we need to learn enough to communicate in that language. Bruce and I call it “restaurant lingo”. Although today Bruce was looking for pickling spice, didn’t know the name so went to the pickle aisle and gleened it off a bottle to ask a clerk. It’s sometimes amazing how inventive we can be to find out the right word(s) to use! I know, if I had a smart phone instead of a “dumb” one I could use a translator app off the web. After today’s incident maybe I should get into this century and get one.

We took the regional train to Bad Krozingen, only 15 minutes south of Freiburg. It’s a small spa town and we have been there before but the last time it was raining, this day was sunny.  We had a great walk around the town and lunch. 

They observe the close up shop for German "siesta" around 13:30 so we window shopped. In this area of Germany the shops close to allow the workers to have their main meal - lunch. The large stores do not close, the smaller "mom and pop" stores do.

Yes, it is a pottery shop

Yes, it is a hat shop

No, not a joker shop but a painting on the door going to the toilets, well done in my opinion.

I liked his smile and eyes, maybe her's?

Wooden cat sculptures in a store window, I was tempted! Good timing, the store was closed.

Wow - sunset view from the flat.

There is a big garden show happening at the Mundenhof today so we're going. Last year we took advantage of the bus they put on route, skipped the show and saw the zoo located there. This time we're going to the show because Bruce wants to get a lemon tree with a branch or two of grafted orange. Yah, right, you're not in Sevilla anymore hon! But here's hoping... will let you know.

Cheers, Bx2 & Lexi Cat