Salon Des Vins

This past week-end was also the event of the Salon des Vins, or the wine exposition in Strasbourg. Picture this in your mind: You have a convention hall with over 600 booths. Each booth has one winemaker with 5 to 10 varieties of wine. Do the math. That means there are 3000 to 6000 different types of wine. Every region of France is represented. Champagne, Burgundy, Bourdeaux, Rhone, etc.. On top of this, you have distilled liquors such as schnapps, and armagnac, and cognac.

Now, picture this: To enter, you fill out a little slip of paper. No money, just a little slip of paper with your address on it. (This is so they can send you a little slip of paper next year.) For this, they give you a wine glass. (Glass, not plastic) With this wine glass, you can taste any one of the 3000 to 6000 different wines that are represented in the exposition. You just walk up with your glass and say "I'd like to taste your 1996 Monbazillac". And they pour you some. You can talk about the grapes and the sun and the soil and the weather in 1996. If you want to, you can buy. But if you don't want to buy, you just say "merci" and head to the next booth.

Pinch me, I'm dreaming.

Chris and Jill Hagan kindly gave me the all-important little slip of paper that gets you in the door. When I was going in on Sunday evening, they were coming out for the final trip to load up their car. On their faces was the look of rapture.

This is an annual event in Strasbourg. A lot of people evidently come here to stock their wine-cellars for the year. It is not uncommon to see people pushing carts through the convention hall with 10 to 20 cases stacked on them.

Also, a serious wine-lover would come with a strategy. You would go to the official web-site and research your favorite vintners to generate your own personal map. This is so you can maximize your effort and spend time only at those vinters that interest you.

Of course, a non-serious wine drinker would just show up and start sampling. This is a big mistake. Even if you only take a sip from each booth, you would be absolutely hammered before you finished one of the aisles. You'd be falling-down-drunk.

Each booth has a little black bucket in front of it for a reason. This is so you can spit your sample after tasting - rather than swallow it. Picture a convention hall with 20,000 people spitting into buckets. The more polished wine drinkers actually look elegant when they spit. Hard to believe, but true. The less polished folks spit like they are chewing tobacco for the first time.

The picture above is the listing of participating vintners. Just to prove there's no hyperbole here you can judge for yourself. Essentially, you see that to list them all it takes three sheets of plywood filled with really small lettering. And these are only a handful of the "independent" wine producers in France. It boggles the mind to think of how many more there are out there.

The Swartzwald

This past week-end, Theresa took a well-deserved trip to Barcelona with Gabi Vega. Most of the other expats went off to Torino, Italy for the XX Winter Olympics. I stayed home to watch the dog...which is o.k. with me.

On Saturday, I took a drive across the Rhine to do a little exploring in the Black Forest. (also called der Swartzwald or le Forêt Noire...depending on which side of the river you live on.) To call it a forest seems to be a bit of understatement. Yes, there are lots of trees. But the trees are generally at the bottom of, on the side of, or on top of some pretty big hills. It's kind of like Appalachia with better roads and no banjo music.

Quick geography reminder. The Rhine River runs from Switzerland to the North Sea. Over the years the river has cut a broad, flat valley between two mountain ranges - the Vosges mountains on the French side and the Black Forest on the German side. From Strasbourg, I think the Black Forest is actually closer than the Vosges. All you have to do is drive across the river to Offenburg, and then drive a little further and you are there.

The Black Forest, like the Vosges, has a mixture of farms, vineyards, forests, and ski-slopes. As you drive, you may travel almost as far vertically as you do horizontally. The following two photos were taken within about 10 km of each other.

If you look closely at the second picture, with the snow, you can make out what looks like a tower in the center of the photo. This is actually a large windmill that is part of a larger windmill farm. This particular shot was near the ski resort just past Triberg. This area, especially around Freiburg, is the political stronghold of the German Green Party - the ecology folks.

The Black Forest has a fairy tale connection to wood-cutters and wood-carvers. Deservedly so. Every little town seems to have a lumber yard with piles of logs and finished lumber. Firewood is everywhere - stacked in big heaps by the houses and the roadsides. It seems that everyone there burns wood for heat. The air in the villages is strong with wood smoke.

Also, as you enter the Black Forest region you almost immediately notice that the building style changes. The houses are no longer the stone or half-timber structures that you might see in the valley. Instead, the houses look more like chalets from the Swiss Alps. Sloped roofs. Wood siding. And balconies with carved wood balustrades and such.

The earlier wise-crack about the good roads was no lie. These little villages are very accessible, and it seems they must do a cracking pace of tourism. Every town has a parking area for tourist buses. Of course, the main attractions are the famous Black Forest Cuckoo Clocks, carved by hand by elves that live in this romantic little cottage.

Seriously, it was a beautiful day for a drive on Saturday. In the course of four hours I was snowed on, rained on, and sunshined upon. You can drive from Offenburg to Frieburg by the old roads (e.g. off the Autobahn) and pass through some stunning scenery and charming villages.

Most of the villages were decorated with the banners and stuffed witches of Fasent, the German Carnival. In the village of Elzach the children were dressed up in the costumes and wooden witch-masks....playing soccer and hide and seek in the village center. Those who weren't in costume were smearing each other with shaving cream and throwing water balloons and playing other pranks. The parents were hanging out on the sidewalks, drinking beer sold through window of the local Gasthaus. I suppose they were talking about their children and the weather and the kind of stuff parents everywhere talk about. Life is good in any language, on a Saturday when you know that Spring is coming soon.

Everybody Loves a Parade - February Edition

As we mentioned before, Strasbourg seems to get more than its share of protest marches. On February 14 we had another one. Somewhere around 40,000 union workers from across Europe came to demonstrate to get the attention of the European Parliament. Seems the EU was debating a proposed law that would remove restrictions on wages paid to foreign workers. Essentially, this would allow workers from the new EU countries (Eastern Europe) to work in France for a foreign company and receive wages of their home country, not France. Or something like that. The proposed law is called the Bolkenstein ammendment. And none of the Trade Unions in Europe like it at all.

As luck would have it, they paraded in front of our apartment on the way back from Parliament. Theresa stood out there for two hours and got some very good pictures. The Trade Unions were a diverse and very colorful manifestation. And very well-behaved too. No tear gas at all.

Here are some local folks.

And here are some visitors from Ireland.

Did you ever wonder what happened to Poland's Solidarity union??? I'm not real sure where this guy is from. But I like the picture.

Offenburg: Part Quatre - Someday the Lawyers Will Ruin It

The whole concept behind the Narrentreffen is that the witches, fools, and ogres are taking over the town. Anyone standing along the parade route is fair game for either a gift or a little playful abuse.

The gifts are simple enough. For the children, there is candy. The Hexenzunft carry bags of the stuff to give to the little folks along the way. What is really cool is that for the adults, there is wine or schnapps. Some of the marchers carry little kegs and will pour you a glass if you are lucky. We got some white wine. No schnapps though.

The playful abuse is what sets this apart from an American parade. (Well, that and the alcoholic beverages.) The Hexenzunft have a lot of tricks up their sleeves. They carry bags of confetti to throw at you. If you are unlucky enough to have long hair, then they will make sure to rub the confetti into it.

If you are really unlucky, you will get picked up and thrown onto a cart or a gurney and get confetti stuffed into your shirt and pants. This treatment seems to be reserved for girls between the age of 15 and 25.

Heaven forbid you should be wearing a hat. The dude at the top of the page, with the big scissors, was grabbing every hat he saw. The poor man below had his hat taken 5 or 6 times.

Gabi was a favorite target because of her headband. You can see this in the following two pictures.No one seemed to get too worked up about the fun and games. Even the poor man who had his hat stolen over and over seemed to be O.K. with the whole thing. Even the 15 - 25 year old girls who were borderline molested seemed O.K. with it. There is something about surrendering yourself to harassment that is good for the soul.

I have to think that, back in the U.S., the lawyers would kill off such a celebration after one year. Think of the pain and mental suffering is associated with having your hat stolen.

FOOTNOTE: The Fasent celebrations are not just confined to parades or one day. There seem to be dances and balls and wine-gardens all the way up to Fat Tuesday. The German channel on the TV has been running live broadcasts of events from several villages. Today, they broadcast from Messkirch a similar parade to the one we saw in Offenburg. Tonight, as I type, they are broadcasting a Hexenball... which is like the old Ed Sullivan show in beer-barrel nightmare. There are lots of men dressed up as women - singing songs and doing the Macarena. Young girls in cowboy hats doing the can-can to polka music. And stand-up comedy as only the Germans can do it.

We are sheduled to fly back to the U.S. on April 1 - Ash Wednesday. Perhaps if we're lucky we can sneak over the day before for one last peek on the evening of Fasnacht.

Offenburg: Part Trois - The Narrentreffen

The Narrentreffen in Offenburg began at 1:30 pm. There are not really any of the floats for which Mardi Gras is so famous. It is mainly people on foot. Lots of people on foot.

Roughly translated, Narrentreffen means "gathering of fools". The parade was a mix of three basic components. Part 1 being the Hexenzunft, or witches guilds, each dressed up in its own particular costume. Part 2 being the marching bands, or Fanfarenzug. Part 3 is the most important part, the Kindergrupen or childrens groups.

Enough with the boring prose. Here are some pictures.Above, a kindergrupen. The little guy on the right has an 100% natural dead fish on his stick.
Above, a Fanfarenzug dressed in their traditional garb.

And now for some Hexenzunft. Traditionally, each of the witch guilds has a particular style of mask that is carved from wood. Some are ogres, some are fools, etc. These are pretty impressive. I suppose some of them may be papier mâché these days. But most of them seemed to be wood and strapped onto the head with leather bands.

Notice the fool above in the foreground, with the stick in his hand. There is a rubber bladder-like thing tied to it with a string. He goes around thumping people in the crowd with it.

The group above shows what can be done with clothespins.

Next Episode - Crowd Participation.

Offenburg: Part Deux - Fasent

When we ended the last episode, Theresa, Gabi, and I were in Offenburg, Germany. And there were lots of strange looking people running around. That was the beginning of the story of the Germanic Carnival (a.k.a Karneval, Fasnacht, Fasent, or Fasnet).

Bear with me, this is going to be a wandering series of trivia and observations.

France and Germany are not the most church-going countries in the world. But it has really surprised me that most holidays and traditions are deeply-rooted in the old Church Calendar. A good many of what the locals call "bank holidays" are the Holy Days of Obligation. Good Friday, Ascension Thursday, the Assumption, All Saints Day, Christmas, and January 1 are all state holidays in France. The only biggie that didn't become a bank holiday is the Immaculate Conception, on December 8. But in return the French get Pentecost Monday (a.k.a. Whit Monday) and the Friday after Ascension Thursday (which has the historic name "day of reduction of working time").

Alsace and Lorraine score even bigger. They get the day after Christmas and Easter Monday off as well. This is an artifact of history and war. Seems that in the early 1900's, France enacted some laws to formally separate the church and state. As luck would have it, Alsace and Lorraine happened to be part of Germany at the time. When they were returned to France in 1918 they picked up with the laws they had when they left France in 1871...which happened to be the Concordats of Napolean Bonaparte from 1801, which actually formalized a peaceful relation between church and state. This anachronism means that, in addition to the extra holidays, these two regions are also allowed to provide religious instruction in public schools. Also, the French state makes payments to priests, vicars, and rabbis. So I'm told.

Anyway, besides the bank holidays, the church calendar seems to govern other traditions. The Christmas Markets, for example, begin promptly on the first Sunday in Advent. We've already seen the tradition of the Gallette des Rois on January 6. The feast of St. Catherine on November 25 is traditionally observed by all unmarried women of exact age 25, who wear a large, gaudily decorated hat to mark the beginning of spinsterhood. No kidding. There were actually several at work. February 2 is known as Chandeleur, the feast of Candlemas. Today, the tradition remains that you are supposed to make crèpes on February 2. Moreover, if you can flip a crèpe in the pan with one hand while holding a gold coin in the other then you are guaranteed good luck for the year. Honest, we made crèpes on February 2.

Also, some people celebrate their saints day...the day of their patron saint from which they take their name. This leads to the following coincidence. My baby girl, Amanda, was born on April 18. April 18 is the feast of Saint Parfait (a.k.a. Saint Perfect). I always knew she was little Miss Perfect.

So, what has this to do with Carnival? I'd always figured that Carnival was a French thing, as represented by Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I was vaguely aware that Mardi Gras was linked to a larger tradition of Carnival as made famous by the folks in Brazil. But I never would have imagined that Germany was a hot-bed of pre-lenten partying. Turns out, the Carnival traditions have kind of died away in most of France. But they seem to be going strong on the other side of the Rhine.

Another side note: In the French tradition, the Carnival period begins on January 6 - the Epiphany. And the person that finds the prize in the Gallette Des Rois is royalty for the entire carnival period. Again, all things are connected.

Carnival in Germany...or at least in parts...is a big deal. Though not every town has a Karneval, the towns that do get very wrapped up in it. I will speak of Offenburg because that is what I've seen.

Like in New Orleans, there are numerous clubs that actually stage the events. But there is none of the Bachus and Greek God stuff. In Germany, it is hardcore black magic. The clubs are known as Hexenzunft, or witches guilds. The carnival time, or Fasent, is a period where witches and ogres and devils and fools take over the town. Which, of course, is a good excuse for drunken anarchy to reign. The high point and ending is of course Fasnacht, or Fat Night...the night before Ash Wednesday.

In Offenburg and the surrounding areas, the Fasent period officially begins on November 11, at 11 in the morning. That's right... on the eleventh month, eleventh day, eleventh hour. Seems the combination of 11's has some special numerological significance to the whole witchcraft thing that dates way back before 1918. I don't know if the relationship with Armistice Day is a coincidence or something deeper.

Things don't really kick in until early February. This is the start of the public phase. It just so happens that the day we were in Offenburg was the day of the Narrentreffen, or the Fools Parade. Here, it is officially known as the Offenburger Narentag.

The day started with the storming of the city hall, the Rathaus. The picture below shows the Mayor coming out in his best Medieval suit.

The witches erected a gallows in front of the Rathaus and proceeded to hang, tar, and feather some poor bloke. I suppose he was a stand-in for the Mayor. Luckily, they hung him in a canvas bag rather than by a noose around his neck. The storming of the Rathaus began and 11:11 am. (Numerology again.) Below, you have a view of the gallows. The fellow in blue swinging from the gallows is getting tarred and feathered.
Next Episode: The Narrentreffen.

Offenburg

The first weekend of February was a bit of a loss. On Saturday, I had to prepare for an upcoming business trip to Liverpool from Feb 6 - 9, so Theresa went out shopping with Gabi Vega. On Sunday, Feb 5, we were invited over to Bernard and Gabrielle Raulin's for a lunch of Choucroute. Bernard and Gabrielle spent several years in Indianapolis and are as gracious hosts as you will ever find. At some point, I need to dedicate a posting just to their family. I also need to explain choucroute.

So (finally catching up) when this Saturday (yesterday) finally rolled around neither Theresa or I were in the mood for anything requiring effort. The most important thing on our agenda was to buy some beer.

Seriously, when we were at Bernard's house he said that he always goes over into Offenburg, Germany to buy his beer. Better selection and cheaper prices, he claimed. What more could a man ask. So about 9:30 on this Saturday morning, Theresa calls Gabi to get her in on the day. About 11:00 we three pile in the Volkswagen to go to Offenburg.

Offenburg is all of 25 minutes from Strasbourg and about 10 minutes from Lilly's plant in Fegersheim. It sits on the other side of the Rhine just a few kilometers to our south. It is nestled in the foothills of the Swartzwald and considers itself the gateway to the Black Forest.

Sometimes, the unexpected things in life can be the most enjoyable.

We got to Offenburg just at Noon and parked near the Altstadt, or the old part of town. The Saturday morning street markets were just wrapping up. Almost immediately we noticed two things that were slightly odd. The first being that the streets were decorated with these funky garlands made of old scrap cloth. (see below).

The second thing that seemed odd was that there were a lot of people walking around with bells on them. By bells, I mean...like sleigh bells....tied around their ankles and waists and chests and arms. After a while we began to notice people in strange costumes too. Lots of bright colors and feathers.

Then after a while, the people got a little stranger.....as seen below.

Stay tuned....and in the next posting I'll continue with the story of Fasent, and Fasnacht, and the Offenburger Narrentag.

Luzern: Part Trois - The Passport Stamp

On the way back from Luzern, Shirl got a bad, bad craving to acquire a stamp in her passport for Switzerland. She was not to be denied.

First off, understand that Switzerland is one of the few places in Europe where there is not an open border. The Swiss, stubbornly, remain outside the European Union. Consequently, in Switzerland you encounter two rather annoying reminders of what life used to be like prior to 2000. First, you have to change currency. The Swiss Franc, and not the Euro, is the coin of the realm (ergh....Confederation that is.) Second, you have to go through border control before entering the country.

Now, most other countries have torn down their border control stations to let trafic pass more freely. In Strasbourg, the only reminder of passport control is a funny jog in the road as you come back into France across the Bridge of Europe. The Swiss, however, have a full blown border outpost with guards and everything. Their main concern appears to be assuring that all cars have the 50 franc tax stamp that is required for travel on the highway. Since we already had a tax stamp, we only had a brief chat with the guards when we entered the country.

Not 5 minutes after entrance, Shirl realized that she didn't have a Swiss stamp in her passport. From that point on, she was on a mission. All day long she was strategizing for her next moment of opportunity....

Now, ideally we would just get the stamps from the Swiss guards when we stopped at border control on the way home. But there are always problems with the best laid plans. The first problem is that the Swiss really don't care to talk to you when you leave their country. On the way out, you're France's problem.

The second problem is that the French really don't care to talk to you when you enter their country.

So, here we are crossing the Swiss border at 10 o'clock at night. As we're driving past the border we see a place to pull over. Shirl and Theresa dash out and run into the first office building they see and ask for Swiss passport stamps. The guards in there are friendly, but rather annoyed at being interrupted from reading their newspapers. Kindly they explain that they are the French and they don't do passports....the Swiss guys are on the other side of the road. They suggest that the ladies just keep going on into France and have a nice evening.

Not to be denied, Shirl and Theresa pull the equivalent of running across two lanes of interstate traffic to get to the Swiss guardpost.

Picture yourself as a Swiss border guard at 10 pm on a Sunday night. Here you are, standing out in the miserable cold waiting for your shift to end. All of a sudden you see two women come running up the road.

To their credit, the guards did not pull their pistols from their holsters nor point their rifles directly at the ladies. There is a difference between readying your weapon and actually aiming it.

Luckily, it only takes about 3 seconds to realize that Shirl and Theresa are the least threatening creatures on the planet. Shirl explained to the guards that she was collecting passport stamps from every country in Europe and sorely needed one from Switzerland. It's a testament to her charm that she actually got him to feel sympathy for her. So much so that he had one of his colleagues go into the guardpost to find a stamp. They had to dig around a while in the drawers to find one. I get the impression they don't use them very often anymore.

In the end, the ladies returned victorious. The picture below shows them in their moment of triumph.

Luzern: Part Deux

Again, in the spirit of catching up.....here is some added stuff on our trip to Luzern. Make sure you read the main article on Luzern first.

Pictured below are Gabi Vega and Shirl Simpson. Gabi (on the right) is part of the permanent contingent in Strasbourg...which means she will be here until the end of the year. She has, without doubt, the best apartment of any of the expats. It's a testament to her lovable personality that we don't all hate her for that. Shirl, at this time, was on a two week visit from the US to work out organizational structure and security. The red Mountaineer's hat that she is wearing was purchased about 15 minutes before this picture was taken.

This is Theresa on the famous wooden bridge. She is clutching her camera because, at this point, her mission was to take a picture of every single one of the paintings that lined the underside of the bridge.

Following are a couple of shots of the old city walls. There is a ring of hills around the North of the city, and these hills slope down steeply to the lakefront. These walls are built at the very top of those hills. They were obviously built with defense, rather than tourism, in mind. You have to be part goat to climb up to them.

The weird thing is that, once you get up to the top, outside of the walls, you find that the city fathers are grazing cows there. The Swiss and the French seem to have a mystical relationship with cows. I'm still trying to figure it out. When I understand better, I'll try to explain.

Finally, here is another picture of the old bridge tower.

Luzern

Again...catching up. All the stuff that follows is from Sunday, January 29 - two weeks ago.

Sundays are good days for road-trips. You might as well drive because there is nothing else to do in the area. Everything in Alsace and Germany shuts down on Sunday. Well, not everything. Tourist spots (museums, landmarks) tend to remain open. But the grocery stores, department stores, and convenience stores are locked tight. Capitalism takes a day off on Sundays.

So, on this particular Sunday Gabi Vega suggested a trip to Luzern, Switzerland. She, and Shirl Simpson (who was visiting from Indy) and Theresa and I loaded up the VW and headed for the Swiss border. Luzern is about 2.5 hours away from Strasbourg by car. You cross the border near the French town of Mulhouse (home of the auto museum) and enter at the Swiss town of Basel.

Do not expect a posting on the town of Basel. Maybe time will prove me wrong, but there doesn't look to be much there for tourists. The drive through Basel (when you're not underground in tunnels) is strangely like driving through the Whiteland - Gary - South Chicago corridor. A blue-collar town.

Luzern, on the other hand, is everything the board of tourism could ask for. It's situated in a valley between the mountains... at the head of a river that empties a crystal clear lake. (Conveniently enough, named Lake Luzern) The architecture of the town is a mix of old and new. Much of the old city wall remains as a reminder of times medieval. In those times, the wall provided protection to the North while the lake/river provided protection to the South. The city has spilled well past the origninal walls with quaint old buildings from the 1700's and 1800's on both sides of the river. The picture below looks to the West, with the old city to the right of the photo.
The day that we went was a bit misty. You could barely make out the Alps in the distance through the haze. From all accounts, Luzern is a more of an attraction for the summertime. Seems that you can take boat cruises to the foot of the mountains and ride cog railways to the top. In January, though, the boat docks are all shut tight and waiting for the Spring. The mountain railways don't open for another 4 or 5 months. Most of the traffic is not tourists coming to Luzern, but rather seems to be the locals returning from ski week-ends from other Alpine areas.

The picture below looks toward the East, toward Lake Luzern. To the right you can see one of the old bridge towers....used to guard the approaches when this was the city's line of defense. Across the bottom of the picture you can see the wooden bridge that joins the two sides of the river.

The wooden bridge marks the center of Luzern's primo tourist area. One can promenade on one side of the river and then head across the covered bridge to do the same on other side. The trip across the bridge also provides a history lesson, thanks to the paintings decorate the way. Theresa really liked these paintings, a sample of which are shown below.

Besides the wooden bridge, the other monument that is most associated with Luzern is "the lion". This is a memorial carved in the side of a limestone cliff. The cliff would have been outside the old city walls, but today is in the center of the city. The lion is depicted as mortally wounded with a spear through his chest. This is a memorial to Swiss military losses from a time when Swiss neutrality was either not yet in existance, or did not do any good.

That's all there is to say about Luzern for this day. Though I do believe that we will go back to Luzern when the weather is warmer.

Winter

I'm at least three weeks behind on updates, and I blame it all on winter. The weather has been the same here for the past eight weeks....22 degrees in the morning and 34 degrees in the afternoon. The only guesswork is whether it will be sunny, cloudy, or foggy. Can't really say that the weather is bad...but wouldn't call it good either. Below is the typical view out of our living room window.



But, there is a silver lining in every cloud. The days are noticeably longer now. The daylight stays until nearly 6 pm. Seems like in December it started getting dark around 4:30 pm. Spring cometh.

So, with renewed optimism, I will try to catch up on events from the past few weeks. Watch this space.