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| typical Meifeld view....cute houses, castle, fields, vineyards, (clouds). |
Not surprised that I’m feeling a low after an incredibly
beautiful weekend in the Meifeld with the 4 essential F’s: friends, family,
food, and farms. Before I go into how
great the weekend was, and display just a smattering of all the pictures I
took, I have to recount the sad news so that I don’t leave you all feeling sad
and depressed after reading this post. I
miss my mom. Well, I miss my dad and
brother, and Winnie, and my house, and my room, and my friends. Since the whole fam was here, I have been on
this rollercoaster pretending to be in school, but really just spending time
with my family. Saying goodbye to mom
was easy the first time, I knew I would see her in a week. Saying goodbye to Stan, then Dad, one at time
was also hard, but somehow knowing I would see mom soon made it easier and
didn’t quite allow me to realize that I wasn’t going to see them for so
long. Saying goodbye to mom again was
really hard. Don’t get me wrong, I am so
so unbelievably content here, but after 3 weeks of family time its hard to let
go. I thought I was invincible and could
live on this adventure trip forever, and really, I still think I can, but its
definitely harder missing the people back home.
Enough of the sob story, now on to my weekend in Germany!! Mom and I met at the Madrid airport, she had
flown in from Sweden the night before and I came from school. Katie picked us up from the airport and we
were already on our way to the Meifeld, a farming region just an hour and a
half outside of Frankfurt by car. We
drove along the Rhine, admiring castles along the way…really, there were too
many to count. I don’t know why the old Germanic tribes needed so many castles,
but they are really quite impressive. I
got to feed little V dinner during the drive, and it was great to have the two
daughters (me and Victoria) in the backseat and the moms (still weird to call
Katie a mom) in the front. We arrived in
Rüber, Jo’s hometown of about 900 people situated in the heart of the
Meifeld. Honestly, I didn’t see more
than 3 people in the whole town all weekend (excluding our party). Rüber was also founded pre year 1000…pretty
darn old!
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| Wilkommen a Rüber! |
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| Feeding little V in the car. Who said baby-food mustaches aren't in? |
We settled into Jo’s family home and were warmly welcomed by
Herr and Frou Scherhag, more commonly known as Heribert and Maria. They live in a house that has been in the
Scherhag family for years; it was inherited by Heribert when he took over the
farm. It is surrounded by fields
boasting lots of different crops, but the most noticeable is the rapeseed,
which dots the landscape with blankets of yellow fields interspersed throughout
the farm land. The house is comfortable
and cozy, or “Gemütlich” in German (one of the few words I learned this
weekend.) The house has been added on
slowly, so there are newer parts, like the living room with the big open window
to the field and the bedrooms upstairs where mom and I slept. It is a solid house, but you can see the seams and changes in the floor and walls where new rooms were added. Seeing all the changes gave the house a cute character. The barn, where the horses and pigs were kept
and all the storage space for the products of the farm are still there. Katie gave us
tour of the kelar (cellar) and the attic, the house was actually really
huge!!!
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The view from my window in Jo's sister's old room
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Heri and Maria are awesome.
Heri is a typical large German farmer…if you can picture it. He is quiet, big, and super friendly! He has retired from farming, but since has
become the deputy mayor of the area, endowing him with a set of keys to pretty
much get into any public space, which came in handy later in the weekend. Maria is so funny! She 1) makes great German food 2) is
completely carefree and chill 3)has a great sense of humor 4) is also a pretty
tall lady. The last day when mom was
saying thank you and went to hug her, she straight up picked mom up off the
ground and swung her in the air a little bit.
I wish I had gotten a picture of that!
We all managed to communicate through mom’s broken (but pretty good)
German and Katie and Jo translating.
We had a yum dinner of vegetable soup and 8 million
different kinds of wurst! Then I slept like a baby, having been deprived of
sleep for the last 3 weeks and also being in a quiet, dark, warm room in a farmhouse made it pretty easy.
In the morning, we were greeted by an awesome spread for
breakfast, a basket of sliced breads and rolls (all grainy and hardy and
YUMMY), different kinds of cheeses, veggies, home-made jams from Heri’s Berg
(the plot that he still has as a hobbie farming area to grow whatever he
wants), honey (the best honey I have ever tasted, white and grainy, and
sweet…), tea, coffee, meats, butter, veggies… This breakfast was not an
exception, as we had the same spread every morning, and everyone morning I went
through the same dilemma of having too many options and combinations to try
that I ended up eating everything in sight.
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| typical morning spread. I wasn't joking...note the bread, jams, honey, cheese, meat, and veggies! Sofie, Victoria's giraffe, was not for eating |
That day, mom, Katie and I went on a hike from Burg Pyrmont,
where Katie and Jo got married, to Burg Eltz, another castle not too far
away. It was a great hike! We chatted the whole way and I learned lots
of interesting things I never knew about Katie, and mom. Unfortunately, those cannot be shared on the
blog and get to stay in my memory. We stopped at Burg Eltz for kaffee und
kuchen. Then Heri picked us
up and we went home.
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| Burg Pyrmont |
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| one of the many confusing trail markers |
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| one of the friends we found along the way |
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| Tractors are a new favorite obsession. But I have yet to ride on one... |
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| Another friend we found along the way |
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| I don't know whats weirder...the beetle or Katie |
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| Map along the Mosel River where we were |
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| We turned the corner and TADA! Burg Eltz |
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| Kaffee und Kuchen, round one |
That night Jo came! We had more yummy food, and accidentally
stayed up late, trying some German beers and cracking walnuts with my
hands.
The next day we did another hike through the old mill area. The weather was a little more finicky and it
ended up raining, but just before we went out in the open field. Then it cleared up perfectly for the rest of
the day!
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| a little chapel along the way, so the farmers could pray for a good harvest |
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| Katie and I, doing the bauer (farmer) thing |
At the end of the hike, we came across all these
old mill houses that are no longer in use but have been renovated into
homes. Each one had a description with
the old owner, dates when it was built and producing grain, and the current
owner.
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| Old Mills |
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| A friend we found along the way of that hike... |
To end our hike, we had kaffee und kuchen, round two.
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| apfel kuchen |
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| Katie + kuchen |
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| hazelnuss |
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| hazelnuss + chocolate + nutella |
Then we hiked through the vineyards to get back to the car, which was awesome, and I can only imagine what it looks like in the growing season when its all green! It was also right next to the train track!
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| Katie and mom excited when the train went by |
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| Jo's friend... |
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| Contraption for the farmers to get up and down the vineyards. Mom driving with Jo as cargo |
To finish off the day, we went and had some wines from the
region, mostly white. It was to
celebrate my 21st birthday.
One of the wines we had was a rosé that tasted like flowers!
The night, Maria served us a hearty German meal. Heri was very happy. We had a roast, the best mashed potatoes I
have ever had, and sauerkraut! It was
soo good. Don’t worry Stan, I made sure
to eat enough for the both of us…so you can pretend you got to eat it too. You would have loved it! I went to bed that night so tired and full, vowing to never
eat again.
I also didn’t mention Victoria enough yet, who is just the
cutest ever!!! I also feel like she and I have bonded these last few times I’ve
seen her, and I can’t wait to babysit and tell her all the stories Katie told
me this last weekend… ;) We did get to spend a lot of time together, even
though Katie left her at home during our hikes so she could hang out with Oma
and Opa.
The next day, Sunday, we all went out to brunch in a
neighboring town, Polch, where Heri is from.
Maria is from a town just on the other side of Rüber. We had brunch in an old farmhouse restaurant
and then saw the house Heri was born in.
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| !!!!!! |
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| The girls! |
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| Gumby baby |
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| There were so many tulips in bloom everywhere! |
We also went to the old synagogue (perks of having the keys since Heri is deputy mayor). It was very cool to see the synagogue, which had been destroyed during kristalnacht, but the fire had been put out by the fireman of the town, and the original ceiling was able to be restored. A very special experience.
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| Synagogue |
Then we made our way to a carnival that was happening in
Polch since it was some catholic festival day.
Katie and I rediscovered our youth and went on the bumper cars and
another ride. We also bought some
carnival snacks; candied almonds and mom got some black licorice gummies. I also got the raspberry German candies that
Omi used to buy us in the German Deli in LA.
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| Bumper cars |
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| Candy stall |
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| I got to driver between the little towns! First time driving in Europe! But dad, these stick shifts are so much easier to drive! |
Couldn’t help but think about Omi and Popi all
weekend! Wish you both could have been there too! It was nice to get back in touch with my German roots, and Omi, I understand why you love German food so much :)
