My Trip to Germany

It was a particularly nice hotel, as you can see from these shots of the inside:

I started out with a nap from approximately 11am to 1pm German time. I then got up and began to explore Moritzburg, the village where I was left. Yes, I was all alone in a completely different country. Most of the other people would not arrive until tomorrow. The first picture that I snapped was of this plaque on a building.

Ilona, had said something about it. I pretended to understand, but really I didn't. So I must research this to see what the significance of it is. The only thing that I recognize is "wirtschaft", which is German for economics. What seems to be the main attraction in this historic town is this castle:

I went inside, although I didn't spend much time there. Since I didn't know the significance of it, the inside didn't really capture my interest. However, here are a few photos:

It really was a beautiful day. Following is a picture of the water outside of the castle:

It is a quaint village. It even had horse rides, which reminds me of Sugarcreek and the surrounding area:

The city does look very European though. You can see here that it's complete with cobblestones and everything:

I was becoming quite hungry by now, so I sought a restaurant with a bar. This is what I found:

I sat down at the bar and was greeted in German. I can handle the greeting, but when she began to ask for my order I was a bit lost. She realized that I spoke English and luckily she could speak the language too, so I was relieved. I asked about the special which was written on the board, and she explained that it was "nachspeise", which is dessert. I asked what was a typical meal and she suggested fish. I thought that sounded good. I was also relieved that I could order a beer, and the didn't ask me what kind. They just provided a light beer that was really good in taste.

German beer is awfully foamy though. While I was drinking I noticed through the small opening into the kitchen that the cook was pulling out a whole fish. I thought they just cleaned them right before cooking, but then my meal came and it was the whole fish including the eyeballs. Check it out:

It was very good though. Once I started to eat it, I was like why not? We eat chicken off of the bone. A fish is not much different. You just want to be careful not to eat the little stringy things that come off of the spine. All along I was talking to the waittress, or "kellner". She was teaching me the German words for everything, and I was teaching her English. When a waittress delivers a plate in German it is customary to say "Guten Appetite", which is just good appetite. She wondered how that is said in English, so I told her that it's "good appetite", but that it isn't common to use that phrase when delivering a meal in the USA. When I was finished with my main meal I wanted to get the dessert, which was on special. She explained all of the wording to me:

Thanks for all the guesses! "Orangenparfait" is the main dish. It is a frozen dish somewhat like ice cream with an orange flavor. "Mit" means with and so "Pommeranzenlibor" was the topping. The last part of the word (i.e. libor) means that it is alcoholic. So it was an orange flavored ice cream like desert topped with liquor. It was really pretty good. Check out the photo:

After my meal I was exhausted from the trip and decided to head back to bed. It was around 3pm German time. When I awoke at 7:30 I thought I had slept all night. So, I went out to get breakfast. This time I visited another restaurant close by:

I really couldn't make out anything on the menu, so I asked the bartender what was "typisch". She made a suggestion that I didn't understand, but I agreed. I was surprised when it came to see that it wasn't normal breakfast food, which turned out to be one of the tips making me realize that I had not slept all night. It really was still evening. I walked around town a bit more and saw some different places. Here is a car dealership:

There are a lot of small ice cream shops around cities in Germany. Here's a sign:

A church:

The sign outside the church:

Well, that's the end of my stay in Moritzburg. That evening another girl arrived and stayed at the same motel. Then in the morning a different German lady picked us up and took us to the airport where we met Marina, one of our teachers, and all of the other students. We were then off to the city, as you'll see in the next posting.

# posted by marionyoder @ 11:32 PM