We arrived in Oberndorf at the tail end of dusk, crossing the border without expecting it like every other border crossing in Schengen Europe. Laufen, Germany and Oberndorf, Austria are like one big town, except they happen to be in two countries.
We met my friend Andreas at his apartment and soon set off for dinner, walking from his place across the bridge to a restaurant in Laufen that served traditional food. It was sturm season, or Sturmzeit. It's a young, super sweet wine only available for a few weeks during the harvest season, popular among Austrians. The food was great but the portions were too much. I wanted to try the different meats so I ordered a three meat platter thinking it'd be more of a sampler. Wrong.
It was fun to catch up and to meet his wife. It had been ten years since we last saw each other when he came to Washington. We had met at Glencree Centre for Reconciliation in Ireland when I was an intern there and he was one of the volunteers in 2000. They were gracious hosts.
I had been planning on making brunch for everyone in the morning and had prepared a spice mixture to cook chicken enchiladas, something that is as common in America as a hamburger. I had run a practice sauce at home before we left, but I used jalapenos instead of the mild chiles I'd bring to Austria. I brought my sauce over in cans and containers to put together at his house. I wanted everything to be perfect. Alas, I am used to making the sauce spicier, and as I was trying not to make it too spicy, I made the sauce too bland. The flavors did not come out. Not to mention his wife is a vegetarian so I made some with spinach, mushrooms, and olives, a combination at which I usually excel. But I think the spinach was still too frozen, and with the blandness of the sauce, it just was not good. I should have thawed the spinach more. All I had wanted to do was bring a bit of my life to Andreas and I did not succeed in doing it well. I also made a potato and zucchini dish I frequently make, but there was no turmeric, an ingredient I now know is essential, so the dish was rather bland. All in all, I was disappointed and don't know if the others were just trying to be polite or if the food was not as bad as I thought. Everyone ate it, anyway.
We were going to a Salzburg professional hockey game later in the day but first Andreas was bringing us to a traditional festival nearby. That turned out to be a pleasant surprise, a local Oktoberfest kind of celebration of autumn at a sawmill in the Austrian countryside. We met some of his family and drank some beers and had so much fun that we purposely missed the first period of the hockey game to stay a little longer. They had booths for products made and grown by locals, a band, a display of old tractors, straw artwork that they later auctioned off, a pumpkin growing contest, and so much food I wish we had skipped brunch altogether. People wore their lederhosen and drank beer and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. I don't think Andreas knows how thrilled we were with this pleasant surprise. The timing was perfect.
A table full of different varieties of apples and pears.
A kind of chesnut, I think
hay bale art
It was nice of these animals to pose for us
Dear squirrel killer, please come to my garden
a little Halloween humor mixed in
games for the children
this was kind of a parish festival - the sawmill is behind the local church
some of the artwork on display
the winner is clear
some of the straw artwork
the name of the festival
The Austria portion of our trip had started off perfectly. Now it was time for hockey!
Salzburg is the best team in the league, and they showed it that game, winning 9-0 and completely dominating. After the game, they took us to a restaurant where I ate schnitzel. It was a great day.
Next up: Salzburg for a private tour with Andreas's dad.
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