So I caught some sort of bug at Octoberfest or the Volksfest. Apparently, this is pretty common. They claim the beer mugs are not thoroughly washed. I would guess it may also have something to do with the giant crowds of people. Either way, I was sick a couple of days and have been hacking for over a week. So I have not written anything for a couple of weeks.
We did manage a trip to Tübingen for the Enterennen (duck race). 5000 ducks were dumped in the river and we cheered for our entries. We lost. But we met some friends (accidently) and had a nice snack and beer at the local brewery. We also walked around the town a bit and saw the old castle. Apparently, Tübingen is a university town, they first isolated the nucleas of a cell there back in the day.
Another day we spent at Ludwigsburg at the Pumpkin Festival. We happened to also be there when they were weighing in the German giant pumpkin entries, some of the biggest pumpkins I have ever seen.
We did a drive out leaf peeping and checking out a few towns nearby (Herrenberg, Metzingen) and wandered over to Ulm where they have the tallest church spire in the world. Although they started the church in the 1300s, they put the spire on in the 1800s, so it is only 100 years. Ulm is close to Legoland so we did a couple of hours there on trip # 5.
Sunday we went to Speyer. They have another Tecknick Museum there (like Sinsheim). They have a 747 and a Russian Buran space shuttle. This one had more fire engines and trains than Sinsheim. They had the same scary do-it-yourself rides, so we did a few. While in Speyer, we also went to the local aquarium, See Land. Speyer is a neat little town with a nice main street.
So we head home for a couple of weeks tomorrow. Five months has gone by so quickly. Time flies when you are having fun. We are all excited to see friend and family.
However, four of the five last beers I had were terrible. I actually could not finish them. One was at the downtown brewery in Darmstadt (conference). This was actually the worst beer I have ever had. It smelled like the ocean, like the rotting salty smell. I only could take a few sips. The other three were also terrible, I actually threw them out after trying maybe a quarter. Maybe my taster is off because of the cold? However, Darmstadter (at another brewere) was fine...
Nekarmuler- Tübingen brewhaus, very good dunkel and hefe.
Schönbuch Ur-Edel - Awful, DNF.
Schwaben Bräu Volksfest - Awful, DNF.
Alpirsbacher Klosterbräu Spezial - Awful, DNF.
Darmstadter Dunkel - From the brewery near the Hbf, very good. Nothing wrong here.
Darmstadt Ratskeller Hefeweizen - Worst beer ever. Ever. Awful. Skunked, then soaked in dead animals, then skunked again. I love Hefeweizen, but this was plain terrible. Good thing they only sell beer in house so nobody else must suffer this stuff. Awful Awful. DNF.
