Stammtisch in Oberkirch

Every quarter LuK organizes an activity for the families of their employees who are from other countries and working here temporaraly...like us. I think of these activities as LuK's way of saying, "See! You LIKE living in another culture and learning another languague and being far away from your family!" These activities are called a Stammtisch and Karl and I had our first Stammtisch last month on December 1st.



LuK took us all in a bus down to Oberkirch and up to the Schauenburg ruins. A tour guid met us dressed in medieval costume and took us into the ruins to tell us all about the history of the castle. It was all in German and we understood only half of it...but it was interesting. There had been four families living in Schauenburg, each lived in one of its four towers. The castle was never destoryed from without by an attack. It was destroyed from within, by family bickering. Eventually the four families all left Schauenburg for different areas in Europe. One family stayed in Oberkirch and built a palace in the town.





After our history lesson, everyone got a torch...and I don't mean the British word for a flashlight, I mean a fire-burning torch! It was cool! We walked down the hillside through a vineyard by torchlight until we got back down to Oberkirch and stopped at the palace grounds for warm drinks. We were then led across the street into the restaruant called the Silberner Stern (the Silver Star...click on Silberner Stern at the bottom of this link to see images of the resaurant). It was in this restaurant that the great 17th century German poet, Johann Jacob von Grimmelshausen, would write. The restaurant still had a 17th century feel to it...it was beautiful and the dinner they served was wonderful!





The whole evening was so lovely that we most definitaly could agree that we love living in another culture and learning another languague...just not being so far away from our family! We wish you could have all been there!