At Home in Bavaria

“Where are we meeting them?”

“At the train station.  I asked if there would be a better place to meet but he said they would meet us here at 4:56pm.”

“Do you know what they look like?”

“I’ve seen a couple of pictures but I’m not too sure.”

“Do I call him Markus or Webi?”

“Webi.  He signs his e-mail ‘Webi’ so it would be kind of like calling Fedje ‘Brian.’”

“Is that them?” As Katie notions towards the couple waving at us from the top of the stairs with a “there you are” grin.

“I think so.”

We met Webi and Kathrin exactly as scheduled, at 4:56pm at the train station in Ingolstad.

The story of how we know Marcus Weber, AKA Webi (pronounced Vee-bee), isn’t that absurd, but it is fairly unique.  Webi is the ex-boyfriend of the foreign exchange student, Kirsten, which my parents hosted my freshman year in college.  A couple of years later my parents and younger sister made a trip to Germany to visit Kirsten’s family and while there they met Webi.  My mom says that they liked him so much that they adopted him; to this day she still sends him Christmas letters and random post cards.

Katie and I never really made any plans for what we wanted to do while we were in Germany.  Through previous e-mails Webi volunteered to take us to a couple of places and he also talked about meeting up with Maria, Kirsten’s mother, on one of the days.  Other than that we were wide open to whatever Bavaria had to offer.

We dropped our bags off at Webi and Kathrin’s house in Frauenberghausen and, after a brief discussion about what we would like to eat, made our way to Riedenburg for our first authentic Bavarian dinner.  We parked on the outskirts of the small town and wandered into the main square where there were a dozen or so tables set up from a handful of restaurants to choose from.  There was an open table at one of the restaurants Webi and Kathrin frequent so we sat there.  We were assured that the portions weren’t unreasonably large and were encouraged to each order something so that we could sample multiple dishes.  After thinking about it for a bit we obliged, ordering ourselves a beer and a plate each.  We should have known better.  The serving sizes were huge!  I won’t complain too much though; it was delicious.  Afterwards we attempted to pick up the bill, after all we were staying in their house and being chauffeured around for free, but we were thwarted at every attempt by our hosts.  We graciously accepted the dinner but told them we would pick up the next dinner bill.

Following dinner we took a stroll around town.  There was a paved bike path that encircled a small stream-fed lake.  On one side there was a small multi-tiered waterfall feeding it and on the other it flowed into a canal.  Further upstream it passed through a park where people were enjoying a small wading area.  Even with the heat, nobody did anything more than walk in it as the water was extremely cold.  We stopped by an ice-cream shop where Kathrin used to work for some desert before finishing up our walk at the little park.

The next morning Katie, Webi, and I met up with Maria for a traditional Bavarian breakfast at her home in Kelheim.  There were pretzels, marmalades, sliced meats and cheeses, fruits, and sausages.  For something that “isn’t much really,” it was a breakfast fit for a king.  We were told that the weißwurst, or white sausage, was truly Bavarian were shown the proper way to eat it.  Neither Katie nor I are sure of what it’s made but it was delicious.  We both had two.

Breakfast turned into lunch and then Webi had to leave us for the afternoon.  Maria, Katie, and I jumped onto a passenger ferry for a ride up the Danube to Weltenburg Abbey, the oldest Kloster Brauhaus in the world.  They didn’t quite invent beer, but they’ve been making it since around 1050 AD.  The sun was hot and the sky was clear and revealing what Maria referred to as a Bavarian blue sky.  We enjoyed a bit of ice-cream in the shade before heading back down the Danube.  There was a small exchange of words when it came to who was going to pay for it however and it went something like this:  “Maria, we can pay for it.”  “Yes, I know you can, but you won’t.”

When we got back to Kelheim, Maria gave Webi a call to discuss where we would meet.  It was decided that we’d meet up with him and Kathrin at a local brauhaus inside the walls of old Kelheim so we made our way there.  Another beer house you might ask?   Yes, we’re in Bavaria.  Here we managed to at least pay for Maria’s dinner but not without a fight.  On our drive back we stopped to enjoy the sights surrounding Befreiungshalle, or Liberty Hall, perched high on the cliffs above the Danube.  Before heading to bed we sampled more of Webi’s Bavarian beer and even some schnapps.  This schnapps, mind you, is not of the same caliber as the bottles you pass around at deer camp.  This stuff was smooth.

The next day Webi dropped us off in the town of Regensburg before heading off to work.  Webi was kind enough to print us off an English guide, complete with a map, of the town so we would have some semblance as to what we were looking at.  It turned out to be another wonderful day of wandering and looking.  I think the most excitement we encountered was ordering lunch.  Neither of us had any idea what anything was so I just smiled and pointed to a reasonably priced item not knowing what would appear.  It turns out I ordered a wurstsalat, or a cold sausage salad – they didn’t go light on the sausage either.  It was excellent and we later learned it was very Bavarian.  That evening we met up with Maria again at Gasthof Ritterschänke, a restaurant that overlooks the Altmühl valley, for dinner, and an excellent desert.  We attempted to pay for dinner but again we were met with resistance so we yielded to Bavarian hospitality.

That evening we thought it would be fun to drop in on a local town party, or fest, in Hexenagger at the local fire station.  As it turns out most small towns have these fests during the summer as a get-together for locals.  There was food, pretzels, kuchen, and of course beer.  Kathrin, having grown up in the area and currently working in Hexenagger, introduced us to some of her family and friends that we happened to see, or pretty much everyone we saw as it is a small town.  Everyone was super friendly and even if they didn’t speak much (or any) English we still managed to somehow hold conversations.  Sometime into the evening the weather decided to turn and rain but never fear, they were prepared and everyone was ushered inside the fire hall where picnic tables were waiting.  We didn’t stay much longer though and, luckily for us, neither did the rain.

For our last day in Germany Webi took the day off of work to show us around.  Our first stop was our first German castle.  It resides high on the cliffs of the Altmühl valley with a gorgeous view of the small towns and canal below.  We then made our way back into the town of Kelheim where we visited the local cathedral.  From there we ventured to Römerkastell Abusina, a park that contains the remnants of an ancient Roman town.  This was the northernmost Roman stronghold in all of Bavaria.  We left there and drove amongst the hop fields to the town of Abensberg and had a small lunch, consisting of pretzels and beer (I had a Dunkle Weisse) , under the Kuchlbauer Tower.  We finally managed to buy Webi something only because he left his wallet in the car.  Now this Kuchlbauer Tower is something unlike anything I’ve seen before.  If there was a place where Dr. Seuss lived, this would be it.  After we finished eating we just wandered around in the town.  We passed by an old mill and through a small park just outside of the old town walls.  It was a nice lazy afternoon.  On our way back Webi dropped us off at a park that had guided cave tours while he ran a couple of errands to get ready for the evening.  The cave was pretty interesting, although the tour was in German, and it provided a nice break from the heat.

The evening was to consist of grilling some steak and sausages with Katie, myself, Maria, Kathrin, and Webi with the possibility of some of Kathrin’s family making an appearance.  What it morphed into we now dub Frauenberghausen-fest.  Maria showed up with a couple bottles of wine.  She and Kathrin exchanged what I could only infer as the: “You shouldn’t have brought anything.”  “Oh come now, this is the least I could do.”  “Thank you but didn’t need to.”  It’s really kind of funny how much one can understand without understanding a single word.  For dinner we had pork steaks, sausages, salads, and (of course) beer.  As the evening progressed more people started showing up.  The neighbor from across the street spoke quite good English and was a heck of a story-teller.  The immediate neighbor was Kathrin’s brother.  Kathrin’s mother, sister and husband, and a couple more that I can’t remember showed up as well.  I was told that it often turns into something like this if anyone starts the grill; once somebody catches a smell of the BBQ, they’re onto it like a “hund,” or dog.  That was one of the German words I learned while there, they seemed impressed.  Or maybe I’d like to think so.  There were also some games of “what can we get them to say in German” and “what do you say for this.”  I think I managed to say, quite accurately I might add, something like “shut the f*** up” because when I said it they all laughed.  After the second or third time I said it Maria leaned over and said, “that’s not very nice.”  One of the reoccurring jokes was that we arrived to Frauenberghausen direct from Paris.  That could only mean Frauenberghausen is the next best thing in all of Europe.  Everyone was laughing and good times were had by everyone well into the night.

Our final morning was now upon us so we begrudgingly packed up our gear to say our goodbyes.  We were dropped off at the train station in Ingolstad and our train departed at exactly 11:01am.  Something happened in the 3 days, 18 hours, and 55 minutes we were in Bavaria.  Many of the idiosyncrasies we experienced there are the same ones we’ve grown up with and are, in a way, part of us.  There was something about the way people spoke, even though we couldn’t understand them, the ways in which they interacted with each other, and how they warmly invited you into their homes without having met you before.  We knew that feeling.  This feeling was of home.  Having experienced it half a world away in a land in which we had never stepped foot in, we now understood, just a little better, the German heritage in which we grew up and still, to this day, call home.

Thank you again Webi, Kathrin, and Maria (and to all the residents of Frauenberghausen) for allowing us into your homes and giving us an experience that only a family can.

(Click the collage for all the photos)