Neustadt (an der Weinstraße)

Saturday I took the train to Neustadt (an der Weinstraße) to meet Katie and Carmen, two girls I went to St. Olaf with. We are all living pretty near to one another, and we all got to Neustadt under two hours by train. It was a gorgeous day and, in case you didn't pick up on the full name of the town, they are in full harvest celebration. There was a big Fest on the town square and you could get Wurst, Bier, crepe, but above all...wine!


We walked around and enjoyed the sunshine before going into the wine exhibition. Neustadt has a really cute Innenstadt with some well-preserved old houses and narrow streets.















Then we went into this wine event...where they had 1500 wines you could try. We paid 15 Euro entrance fee and then could try all the wines we wanted (or could handle). Obviously we were speaking English, catching up on everything that has happened in the last few months...so we had lots of people asking us where we come from. California? No....Minnesota, have you heard of it? :) They seemed to have the impression we came to Germany just for their wine even and they were pretty excited. We got interviewed and we'll probably be famous in Neustadt. The wines were from all over, a lot of regional wines but also from the US.

Then, at the end--here's the best part--they told us we could take whatever wine we wanted home. Since all the bottles had been opened they all have to be drunk in the next few days. So we filled our bags with as much as we could carry. Which was a lot. I mean still is a lot...sitting on my counter.

Above: Me and Carmen with the loot.
Above: Me and Katie sampling some Riesling?
Above: Oh, Oles!