Honeymoon Europe 2018: Fourth Act
The best part of traveling to Germany every year is of course to see my family. And friends. I still have my friends from junior high school and their kids are now my friends as well. My best friends name is Suse; I met her at a event about Bob Dylan's music and lyrics when I was 15 years old. Let's not do the Math right now.
We never lost contact, lived together, vacationed together, she even moved to California with me and stayed for 3 months. We know each other and there is a special bond and trust. She is family. I remember when we were teenagers and she came over the weekend to stay at our house, my mother had a note up on the fridge with all the foods Suse didn’t eat. Or was it with the foods she ate? Because there were not many. We always had so much fun and it was always about the music.
This time I got to take my wife . We had just 2 days in Leipzig and then we were heading for Italy for the rest of our honeymoon. So I really just wanted to meet up with my friends, have some good food and wine and just hang out together. It still is fun every time I take an American to Germany, or Europe; how they complain about the amount of walking we are doing. We don’t even think about it. If its a 20 minute walk; we walk. Even at night. If we have no time, we take public transportation but mostly we walk. But Dalila was a good sport and - I also gave in (to take the bus/cab). As you can imagine I had not much to say when she pointed to her heels.
Another really good friend of mine Manu picked us up from the train station with my nephew Phillip and we got a little break before going out,hanging out at her house with some Prosecco of course. She lives very central to DT Leipzig, one of those 20 minute walks. And even Dalila enjoyed it and I got to show her at least a bit of my hometown. Suse made reservations for us at a Spanish Tapas place with a nice outside patio. The nights in Europe are as warm as the days are and it is much longer light at night. I do miss that in California. We got lucky, a few of my closest friends came out to meet us; some we missed , some moved away.
And yes, there was more food and there was green food, for some reason I enjoyed that more than taking pictures of it.
Another important part of traveling to Europe and Germany is and always will be the food. The bread, the cheese , pastries, the coffee! I found alternatives but seriously , there is no comparison to having a croissant in Europe. The beer. Coffee, no comparison, even Starbucks sucks compared to German coffee ( which is mostly African beans or Latin American beans so the roasting process must be different than in America). I find most coffees in America bitter. But you can have a very strong and bold coffee in Germany and it’s smooth and perfect, no bitterness. And look what else we have , we have Americans for consumption!
The picture showing Dalila, Manu and Kerstin drinking out of little bottles; it's a tradition within our group of friends. They called Feiglinge - a play on words meaning a coward but it is Fig liquor and Figs in German called Feigen , a coward is called a Feigling ....so it's a little Coward , Feigling. Tap the bottle a few times on the counter ,then place the cap on your nose and you grab the bottle with your teeth, pouring the entire content of the bottle into your mouth. It's a sweet liquor so the colder, the better.
After our fun night out we had a great breakfast at Manu’s house and off we were to our last country on our honeymoon and for me the most exciting part: Italy. South Italy. I have always been to the North ; so that was a new adventure for me as well.
Stay tuned;
Peace, love and resistance
Connie
