Let's fast forward to the next day after the road trip saga and for the same reasons as before, the decision was made that N and I would skip class to go to Allemagne, this time with just E, because C wanted to see other places and they were getting travel fatigue with each other. It was a wise decision all around, quite frankly, and so I met up with J and E to take advantage of the national sales week dubbed "les soldes" at Zara. It ended up being the last time I would get to see J in France as well, because she was leaving for Germany for a week the same day. It's a large enough country, though, that we wouldn't be seeing each other in Germany either. E and I found things, me being the more effective shopper and spending significantly less on the same amount of items. There's a Jewish joke in there somewhere, but we both are, and so it doesn't really work. Somehow upon returning home I managed to meet my host father and N at the same time driving in opposite directions at the entry of the cul-de-sac, which worked out well, because I had yet again forgotten to get the host family any kind of gift (oops) and didn't really want to leave a note.
Note to self: don't attempt to drive through Switzerland on a Friday afternoon when everyone is getting on vacances. It doesn't work.
Our 5 hour drive ended up taking 8 1/2 hours, rendering us tired and willing to laugh at stupid shit almost anything, that is, until we got to Lake Constance and N's GPS system decided that it was going to be absolutely retarded and refuse not to route us to the ferry that takes cars across it, saving a decent chunk of time, but also bottlenecking in high traffic periods (go figure). N is a remarkably laid back guy, laughs at anything, tones down the seriousness of most moments, and always find a bright side to anything, because he doesn't like it when people bitch too much. At the lake, however, after already having sat in traffic for six hours all the way through Switzerland, all bets were off. We weren't sure if he was going to break the GPS or not, but he gave it a punch and seemingly tried, silencing the passengers as he called his father for advice (who was in India!) and proceeded to laugh about doing just that. Much relief on the side of a German road after we all waited a few hours between restroom breaks as first footsteps in Deutschland, an Autobahn experience, and heavily aggressive driving around the lake later and we arrived. To say it wasn't fun would be a terrible lie.
We arrived to this. Justification for our drive? I think so.
So we got there, settled in, changed our clothes, and then all realized that we were absolutely starving. So hungry. We needed some hearty food to nourish our travel-fatigued souls, and N wanted to show us (one of) his hometown, so we headed out, where we discovered that in that particular region of southern Germany, chives grow wild in the forest. It smells amazing. I had such dissonance as we were walking down the path down the hill, smelling the hearty fragrance of what looked like regular grass (which N proceeded to pluck and point out was in fact chives as one would grow in a garden anywhere else), being hungry, but then realizing we still had more to go, to see, and do before eating.
The town itself is nice and very small, but it is (or seems, to one who is otherwise unfamiliar) very typical and German, being very clean and the people friendly, but to the point. This is where Germany and France differ. There is a concept of dolce far niente in Italian, or the sweetness of doing nothing. In French there is joie de vivre or bien-être (joy of living/well being), sure, but I think the real analog would be something like "joie de s'occuper de rien", or "the joy of caring about nothing", reflected in the dirty state of French cities, the illogical lines in which French people walk, and the attitude of Parisians famously stereotyped the world over. I don't know any German, but on the contrary, the town itself was remarkably clean, everything in its proper place, and they seem to take things like service and public well-being a little bit more seriously. I enjoy it, but it's foreign still.
Oh, and there's a market too. Pretzel, anyone?
Our dinner was amazing. The quality of German food was surprising, and the extent to which German baguette is better than French baguette is both ironic and stunning. We had weiner schnitzel, some kind of spätzle, and other food that was all hearty, heavy, and delicious. Finally having good German beer instead of the same pitiful selection of Belgian beers that we were accustomed to in Annecy was not so bad, either. The smallest amount on offer anywhere is 0.5L too, so that was a nice perk. The town is also considerably cheaper than anywhere I've been in France or Switzerland, so the good just kept rolling in. We went out to get more beer afterward and soak in the German atmosphere, having good conversation with good company in new places. It was great, and then our walk up the hill back to N's house was aided in great part by the liter of beer consumed prior. We got back, classed down the great quantities of champagne we drank by doing so in regular glasses, and the night was done.
The next day was the day we were going to take E to Zurich so that he could catch his train, but N wanted to make sure we had time to see the market in full and eat breakfast before heading out, and so we did that. We had a real breakfast, with good coffee, and eggs! Real eggs! The breakfast E and I got was called, suitably, the "American" and included French toast ("lawl") too. It was a much-needed relief from the stale baguette, confiture, and nasty coffee of France. After discovering the town on foot a little bit, finally purchasing my host family a gift (right before leaving! great timing.) of strange German chocolates, it was time to leave the land of many letters German and efficiency. Goodbye, language I don't understand, goodbye magical new land.
Did you really think I was not going to take a photo?
This sums up our sentiments.
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