1982. I graduated Medical school and a short time later got married. In an era when travel was still fairly cheap we hopped on a plane and - with a stop over in Iceland - went to Europe for a while. Was it a full month? Memories grow dim. But we did visit England, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Luxemburg and if I recall correctly at least stepped into Austria for a day.
We got along on a minimal budget and our our respective high school acquired language skills. French for my bride, German for me. The French was minimally helpful. We were mostly in Paris and if you are not entirely fluent they make a slightly sour Gallic face and just switch to English. I had better luck. Germans seemed to appreciate my attempts, and perhaps back then I had more linguistic mojo than I realized. Once in rural Luxembourg I was mistaken for perhaps being Dutch.
The dialect might have been on my side then. The Wolters hail from that part of the world; the western edge of Germany near the border with The Netherlands. But if so, the tide turned when we went further south.
I'd say Germany has a "south" that drawls and creates new phrases to just as great an extent as the US. By the time we were down past Munich I had a hard time understanding anything spoken. Written was still fine, unless there too you ran into very local terms.
One evening we were in Mittenwald. It is a nice little hamlet near Garmish Partenkirchen. You can walk into Austria at one end of the village although back then wandering over borders was not automatic as it is now in Europe. Men in vaguely worrisome military uniforms staffed customs posts.
But it was a delightful stay. We learned a new term "geschenk" meaning gift. Our land lady gave us some small present. Maybe we told her it was our honeymoon. The word for that is by the way "hochzeitreise". A literal translation would be "high times trip".
In any case we went out to dinner there. The restaurant was, as I remember it, in the up stairs of the local brewery. Brauerei Mittenwald brags that it is the highest elevation brewery in Germany. Beer was pretty good too.
The menu was incomprehensible. Local specialties top to bottom. Seeing us struggling a bit a nice elderly couple at the next table struck up a conversation. Sort of. They were talking, I was talking, but was either side understanding? In rather short order big plates appeared. The nice Germans had ordered for us. They were beaming, quite happy with themselves. Expectant smiles and everything. I looked down at my plate and saw a huge pile of roasted mushrooms.
I hate mushrooms.
But I am polite, smiled in return, thanked them and dug in. It was of course the best plate of mushrooms I have ever eaten as it is the only time I've every had more than a few as part of some other entrée.
Part of the problem was the old "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing". German for mushroom is Pilz. In a restaurant associated with a brewery any variation on Pils seems like it should get you a nice tall glass of pilsner beer or as is the case with Bavarian dishes, have beer incorporated into the sauce.
The brewery is still in business and doing well. And there is still a restaurant associated with it but it looks like a much bigger, newer place. It advertises that it has room for bus groups which is never a good sign but to be fair this is a major ski area in the winter.
Ah well, I came away with some memories. And a beer coaster that turned up 40 years later during a bit of Old Person house clean up.
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