Sommerkirmes

We have been watching the neighborhood prepare for the sommerkirmes. All thru the village homes are sparkly clean, sidewalks swept, yards mowed and edged, all the flowerbeds bursting with color. Everyone who owns a village flag has displayed it proudly atop a pole in their front yard. This years festival is scheduled to run for three days. Just up the street at the dorfhalle there are carnival rides and of course food and beer !

We heard the band coming towards our house and around the block they went, evidently gearing up for the next go round because about an hour later we heard them again. I grabbed the camera as I hollered at Terry "show me how to take a video"......WHEW just in time! This time as they marched by all the neighbors were lined up in front of their homes, as the entourage marched by...... the villagers fell in behind and the party grew as they marched on. You can see the King and Queen of the Kirmes as well as other dignitaries as they parade past us. I must apologize to my faithful readers for not doing any research on the traditions and history that accompanies this festival, I think the celebration marks the founding of the town, or it could just be yet another reason for the community to have a party!

As I type this blog I can hear music coming from the dorfehall, you just have to love the festive atmosphere on a warm summer evening.....life is so very interesting here.

love and miss you all

Bier Here

Beer is one of the worlds oldest beverages dating back as far as ancient Egypt and by the 7th century Monastaries in Europe began producing and selling beer and as they say........the rest is history.

Beer is an important part of European life, trust me on this.

Over here there are long standing mostly unspoken "rules" to follow. For instance, one must know how to pour, what size glass to use, and how much foam is topped on the beer. You won't see beer served in a pitcher, why? Because then there wouldn't be FOAM............

The Germans treat the beer like the Pacific Northwest treat their coffee, by that I mean if a beer is poured and sits too long............it gets dumped and fresh beer added......mit foam! There is a glass for just about every brand and size of beer and you should use the proper glass for the proper beer........ALSO there is a line located at the top of the glass, beer gets poured to that line and then the rest is foam......once the beer reaches that mark, the bottle is rolled or shaken and then the foam is poured on top to make a "hat". This techniique is a little bit different in the Netherlands.

The Dutchies want their beer served with the foam strait acrooss the top, a knife removes the excesss neat and clean. Probably the most famous of Dutch beers is the Amstel. The Amstel glass has the logo on the front, half of the logo is red the this is the "line" where the beer stops and foam begins.

Belgium beer could be a whole blog all on it's own, in Belgium there are over 600 count em 600 brands of beer. Our friends Kevin and Melissa visited a city called Bruges, here they saw a bar on wheels. You needed four or five guys on both sides of the bar to peddle and keep it moving. Fun or what? I think perhaps Kerry and Rit might want to add this to their list of must see er must drink list for their trip to visit us this October.

Terry and I like just order a "bier" when we visit a new town, that we get to taste the popular beer for that region. At our hotel in Trier we were served an URPILS, the waiter brought us our foaming beer glasses along with a coaster underneath the beer........I was studying the motto of the beer printed on the bottom of the coaster, I asked the bartender, hey what does this say, he replied very slowy U-R-P-I-L-S. I said I can read THAT, I mean this saying on the bottom.....DAS HAT WAS......OH! he said that means "just have one"

love and miss you all