Club Wed, Round One

I've got a few minutes to kill right now before the groom's family arrives for the evening dinner. We've been waiting awhile... the groom's brother somehow stepped out for a few minutes to buy a Coke, and never returned. I think the local police just located him, 3 hours after his disappearance, so looks like it'll be another smorgasbord of breads, meats, cheeses and wines/beers pretty soon here. The Germans usually have light breakfasts and dinners consisting of the aforementioned foods, and really live it up for their lunches.

We had our big lunch today in the tiny town of Landstuhl following the the couple's official civil wedding today in Kaiserslautern (German Fun Fact: Germany requires couples to get married in the town hall, or Rathaus, to make it officially legal. Couples can then have separate ceremonies in churches or wherever they wish. Legal weddings at the Rathaus are rather boring... the couple just sits at a desk while an appointed official rambles something in German. If I didn't know better, I'd think the couple was trying to buy a car. For civil ceremonies, couples can dress in whatever attire they want. Shane looked like a game show host. Andrea looked like Betty Page. Not the typical wedding attire you'd expect).

Landstuhl used to be a thriving town about 10 to 15 years ago...it made most of Europe's shoes and also manufactured medical equipment. But all those jobs have now be outsourced to China sweat shops, forcing all the shops to close. Now Landstuhl is best known for its U.S. military hospital, which receives all the wounded soldiers from our current war with Iraq. Fortunately for us, Landstuhl still had a nice restaurant in operation called the Schloss Restaurant. I sat down to a nice lunch consisting of bread, salad, perch covered in white wine sauce, noodles, asparagus, and white wine. (Violet, however, was not so lucky...they forgot her order, and had to wait an extra 30 minutes to get her meal. I felt sorry and pawned some of my food off on her. Germans aren't known to be the best when it comes to serving food. I blame it on their lack of accepting tips from customers.)

After having our lunch and checking out the poor excuse for a castle for which Schloss Restaurant was named, we headed back to Shane and Andrea's apartment. Violet and I decided we better give the couple some time to chill by themselves, so we took off in the rain and wandered around the forests of Kaiserslautern, looking at the changing colors of the leaves. The weather seems bitter cold to me here in Germany. But then again, after spending all summer in 100+ degree Phoenix, AZ, 90 degrees now seems like a chilly day to me. I am such a thin-skinned wuss now.

Tomorrow we're taking off to Paris for two days of roaming around the city. I'm looking forward to it, because I'll get to play tour guide for Violet and finally retake all the shots of me in front of Paris monuments (the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc d'Triumph) that my friend Eric lost last summer when his camera was stolen. Using Photoshop would probably have been cheaper for me to recapture those shots. But hey, you can never get enough of Paris. Better bone up on my French tomorrow and pray that my bladder holds out due to the lack of public toilets to use.