A Birthday, an Anniversary and a Volksfest!

As everyone probably knows, the month of September is my favorite month! First of all, it has my Birthday! I mean, first of all, it has our wedding anniversary and second of all it has my Birthday!

We spent my big 2-8 in Baumholder and went to one of our favorite restaurants, Stadtkrug. I think I have raved about this place multiple times, with the delicious BBQ ribs and tender-juicy-steak cooked over an open fire right inside the restaurant... Yeah, that place. After we stuffed our faces, we walked across the street to our favorite pub in town, the Celtic Knot. We drank some beer, played some darts and had some laughs. Doing what 28 year olds do these days.

The following week was our third-year anniversary. Three years, man! It feels like longer but at the same time I can't believe how much we have done and grown together in just three years. I have loved every second of it and can't wait for all the years ahead!

For the anniversary we went to Kusel (20 minutes away) and wandered around the castle, Burg Lichtenberg. We ate at the restaurant located in the castle ruins and enjoyed wild boar and toasted our happy 3 years with a glass of beer.

Now, on to the craziness! Everyone has heard of Oktoberfest in Munich, the largest beer festival in the world. Well, Volksfest in Stuttgart is the second largest beer festival in the world! 

It is only two and a half hours away so we woke up early Saturday morning and drove. I booked us a room with AirBnb.com and we stayed 10 minutes outside of Stuttgart in Fellbach with a lady named Ariadne. So far, AirBnb has not let us down! The place was great, the host was friendly, and it was in a great location.

Wasting no time, I changed into my dirndl and Taylor into his lederhosen. We made our way to the train station where we clearly looked lost. The town we live in is so tiny that there are no trains and every place we have traveled to has been close enough where we just drove. After staring at the machine for a good minute a German lady came up to us and asked if we needed help. We told her where we were going, though, with our attire I am sure it was obvious. She took two seconds to hit some options and then out popped our tickets. 

With a quick and easy train ride, we arrived at the festival! It was filled with people of all ages surrounded by rides, carnival games, food and... beer tents. 

 

Each tent is filled with thousands of people. It is absolutely like nothing we have ever seen before. There are live bands performing a variation of German and English songs, people standing up on the benches dancing and clapping, waiters/waitresses carrying 10 liters of beer at one time and everyone is all smiles, always! 

I am not sure how, but we successfully got into four beer tents. A lot of people buy tickets and reserve tables but that isn't necessary to sit at a table. It does make it a bit harder to find a table to sit at but one eventually pops up! 

Ah! For our anniversary present we got a GoPro Hero +. It is incredible. We had so much fun with it on this trip! It was perfect for filming, taking pictures, and since it is so tiny, it was easy to carry around the crowds! We even made a little movie of our Volksfest adventure. 

Enjoy!

Voklfest from jen caldwell on Vimeo.

Strasbourg, France

Two weeks ago, Taylor and I finally left Germany and jumped over the border to France! Strasbourg is about 2 hours south of Baumholder and we heard it was a must-see town in France so we loaded the Subaru and went.

Of course, we took a little detour through Bitche, France. What?! It has lots of history! 

After we checked into our hotel, Comfort Hotel Strasbourg, we walked for about 15 minutes along a river to the main part of town. 

Even though Strasbourg is extremely close to the German border it still very much had a French feel to it. Maybe it was because everyone was speaking french, who knows. We spent the day walking, window shopping, watching street performers, and enjoying the cool weather.

No (European) trip would be complete without a cathedral. This has to rank up there with Cologne's cathedral for best we have seen! We ate lunch in the square while people watching and admiring our view.

When we do our trips we don't usually plan them out too much. We like to know what attractions we shouldn't miss but other than that we mostly just wander and see what trouble we can get into. During my "research" I found a place called The Berthom that a ton of people seemed to enjoy. I ended up forgetting the name of it when we arrived in the town but with all of our wandering we found it! The bar had a ton of beer (mostly Belgian) and a fun atmosphere so we let our feet rest and our appetite do all the work!

The sun started to set but the streets remained busy. There was still a ton going on including a man who played 20 people at once in chess. There were chess boards set out and anybody could sit down and start a game. He made his way around the circle playing each person and took no more than two seconds to decide his move. Now, I know nothing about chess... but this guy was good.

We ended the night by heading back to the bright lit-up cathedral.

ACTUALLY, the night ended with Taylor joining medieval performers, linking arms, and dancing in a circle to drums and singing!