Faux pas at the Bäckerei

We're back in Germany. The first important thing we did after disembarking yesterday was to visit a bakery in the Munich airport.

Here is photo from another bakery, in Steinebach. I had to take the photo there instead of at the airport, because we had committed a faux pas at MUC.

See that plastic tray on top of the display case, with the advertisement in it? It probably has a special German name--maybe even a word that is also used for something completely unrelated. For now, we'll simply call it a Kassierersmünzenaufnahmeplastikschale (cashier's coin-receiving plastic tray), which sounds like a perfectly legitimate German word.

At the airport, while Stefan was picking up the rental car, Elias and I trotted off to buy two Butterbrezen and one Frischkäsebreze mit Schnittlauch. The grand total was €5.20. At first I was worried that I didn't have enough money and would have to run back to Stefan to get some more, but after I counted the coins out on top of the display case (woe! instead of on the Kassierersmünzenaufnahmeplastikschale), I breathed a sigh of relief: we had exactly the right amount.

The cashier attempted to remove the coins. She was clearly not practiced in the gauche art of display-case coin removal, presumably having experienced only the refined art of Kassierersmünzenaufnahmeplastikschalemünzeentfernung (cashier's coin-receiving plastic tray coin removal), and the consequences were embarrassingly unsanitary. Half of the coins fell, plop, right into the puff-pastries behind the counter, and the cashier glared angrily at the dumb Americans as we made our hasty retreat.

On the bright side, I finally understand why Kassierersmünzenaufnahmeplastikschalen were invented, and I will be careful to use them for monetary transactions from here on out.

Update: Stefan said, "try googling Wechselgeldschale." Turns out that's the German word for Kassierersmünzenaufnahmeplastikschale.

A developing relationship

On Monday, while Elias was off with a friend visiting the highest waterfall in all of Germany (die Todtnauer Wasserfaelle), Stefan and I caught a local train to Gundelfingen, then hiked toward Heuweiler, up to the Zaehringer Burg ruins, and back down into Herdern. En route we ran into none other than Frau L., proprietor of the corner bakery. I hadn't seen her since I almost burst into tears in her store in December--and there she was, picking blackberries in a sunny field next to the trail and enjoying the beautiful day. She handed us some berries and told us enthusiastically about a spot where "you can collect whole pails full!"

Today I stopped by the bakery to pick up some bread for dinner, and Frau L. recognized me from our hiking encounter. Suddenly we were on more than baker-eater terms, and the questions flowed: "how far did you hike, where did you go, how long did it take?" My answers were rewarded with more questions: "where do you live, how long are you here, did you make many acquaintances here in Freiburg?" And then, The Biggie: "oh yes, that's a nice hike indeed, Frau...Frau--Wie heissen Sie?" (How do formal-you call yourself?).

This is a big deal: you're an accepted member of the community when Frau L. begins to address you by your family name.

Sehr lecker

We have friends visiting from the U.S.: Michelle and her daughter Zoe. We picked them up at the Hauptbahnhof this afternoon, brought them back to our apartment, and immediately took them to the Lienhart bakery on the corner.

"We have guests from the U.S.," I told the proprietor, "and we are here for their first Cultural Experience. What do you have today?"

"Oh, of course!," she replied. There followed a loving description of all of today's best and freshest cakes and cookies, including the "Badisch Christmas specialty, Linzer Torte."

"Linzer Torte is Badisch?" I said, attempting to sound like an inquisitive foreigner who didn't have a blog entry riding on the answer. "Please tell me about this. I thought Linzer Torte came from Austria--from Linz."

The proprietor's hackles were a wee bit raised. "No, Linzer Torte is a particularly Badisch specialty," she said. Then she paused and conceded, "yes, it is possible that the Ur-recipe came from the city called Linz, in Austria, but for at least 150 years, bakers in Baden have been making the real Linzer Torte."

After we chose five different pieces of cake, she added a gift to our order: a small spiced chocolate covered Gugelhupf cake, also a regional seasonal specialty, sehr lecker.

Lecker, by the way, is one of my favorite German words. It means "yummy," which is probably a good enough reason to like it, but what I most enjoy is the inflection people use when saying the word in advertisements on radio or TV. The accent goes on the first syllable, which is quickly and deftly flicked off the tongue in order to move on to the leisurely, drawn out, unstressed second syllable: 'LECK-aaaaaahr. The English equivalent would be something like pronouncing "yummy" as 'YM-eeeee." Of course, people who aren't advertising anything on the air usually simply say 'leck-er, but it isn't anywhere near as entertaining.

Get me to the church on time

Elias and I have decided to learn circus tricks while we're in Freiburg, so this morning in the back yard he practiced with his new Diabolo--a sort of free wheeling, off-string yo-yo--and I took baby steps toward juggling Koosh balls.

After our workout, we made a quick trip to the corner bakery to buy rolls and Bretzen for lunch. As usual, the shopkeepers found an excuse to toss an extra roll into the bag--this time because one of the ones they were selling us was "too small" (i.e. exactly the same size as the others). They do this every time and have naturally earned our total devotion.

After lunch, we hopped in the car, and I drove through Freiburg for the first time without Stefan by my side offering constant coaching. The rule that still perplexes me is rechts vor links ("right before left"). Rechts vor links means that when you arrive at an unmarked intersection at the same time as another driver, the driver to the right has right-of-way. The presence of various signs overrides rechts vor links: a modest yellow diamond (you don't have to yield--you're on the main street), a thick black upward arrow with a horizontal line through it (likewise), or a yield or stop sign (you have to yield). But the vast majority of intersections here are unmarked, and it doesn't matter if the street you're driving down is three times as wide as the alleyway T-intersecting with it: if the alley is on your right, the car emerging from it has right of way.

In theory, Rechts vor links means that everyone habitually slows down at intersections, making cities safer for drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians alike. But my observations of other drivers suggest that once you get used to driving, you get used to braking suddenly and weaving out of the way if necessary, so you don't really have to follow that 30 km/hr speed limit, and traffic can always move at a good clip.

But hey, who am I to complain? Americans die from pretty much everything, including automobile accidents, at faster per capita rates than Germans. Today I considered myself lucky to have messed up rechts vor links just once (I think), and thankfully as the rechts-driver rather than the links. There I was, waiting patiently to turn left out of what I was sure was a parking lot egress, when a driver and a bicyclist coming from the left stopped in the middle of the main road. When I finally realized I must be on an actual road and was supposed to make a left turn in front of on-coming traffic, I held my breath and drove boldly forth. On the way home, I irritated the drivers behind me by slowing down every time I approached a road to my right.

If you've read thus far, you're probably wondering why I was putting lives at risk driving in the first place. Elias and I were heading to St. Petrus Canisius catholic church in Freiburg-Landwasser, where, thanks to one of Professor D.'s students, I have permission to practice on the 33-register, 2-manual + pedals, 1993 Rieger organ twice a week. Once school starts, I'll need to find either another organ or after-school care for Elias, but for now, I'm delighted to have access to an instrument again.

Kandel und Konzert

Although every other store in all of Germany is closed on Sundays (including Ikea and the Home Depot equivalent), the locally-owned bakery on the corner is open, and we're trying to endear ourselves to the shopkeeper. Yesterday we bought three day-old pieces of Zwetchgenschnitte: sugared sliced plums baked on a yeast dough, a tart summer treat that we're learning no longer to call by the fun Bavarian name Zwetschgendatschi. So as not to appear cheap, we also bought a piece of Sachertorte. Oh, and a snazzy banana, sliced lengthwise and layered over vanilla cream and sponge cake and encased in chocolate. The Zwetschgenschnitte were so good that after lunch, Elias and Stefan ran across the street to buy the last three pieces before the bakery closed. The shopkeeper was sufficiently impressed by their enthusiasm that she tossed in two croissants and a raisin bun for Elias, gratis.

This reminds me to mention that people in Baden like to give children food. You can't buy cheese from the supermarket without the deli person offering your child a Wurstl; when you politely decline, explaining your child is a vegetarian, she gives him a quarter-pound hunk of Emmenthaler instead. At the Farmers' Market, mothers routinely ask if their "little angels" (who have surreptitiously been snapping the tips off all the fresh carrots) can taste the plums; who can deny a child such a simple thing?

Fortified by Zwetschgenschnitte, in the afternoon we hiked most of the way up the Kandel, one of the mountains near Freiburg. Most of the hike up was on steep gravel roads that took us through grazing land, meadows, and the occasional wooded grove. We headed down before reaching the top in order to make it in time to an organ concert at the nearby Kloster St. Peter. The Kloster dates to the 11th century; the ornate Baroque church that stands there now was built in the 1720s. The concert featured Ludo Geloen of Belgium playing Buxtehude, Bach, La Fosse, van den Gheyn, Mendelssohn, Mascagni, Borowski, and an improvised encore. No fuzzy acoustic here: the organ (a 1967 tracker by Klais) was light, clear, and thoroughly charming.