Zwetschgenfest! (And other fun things!)

Our town became blue this month!

Bühl has a huge festival every September called the Zwetschgenfest or Zwetschgen Festival. What's a Zwetschgen? It's a plum. Or rather a type of plum. (Bühlers don't like you calling their Zwetschgen plums.) These plums...I mean Zwetschgen...were a major industry for Bühl for centuries.



We visited the festival on September 7th where there were tons of carnival rides, food tents, the 2007 Zwetschgen Queen, and, of course, a lot of Zwetschgen.



The following week we were invited to pick Zwetschgen with some friends. We plucked ripe plums then make a tart with them. We were a fun group of Americans, Germans, Czechs, and Norwegians. It was a lot of fun!



Our neighbors also showed us where there were some Zwetschgen in our little village that we could pick. I don't think I've hardly eaten two plums in my entire life, but this past month has been filled with them!

Karl's company had another Stammtisch for their foreign employees on September 20th. We visited a local farm where, among other things, they harvested Zwetschgen! We also saw them make huge vats of sauerkraut, visited their pigs and cattle, and walked through their beautiful fields of corn, beehives, and fruit trees. We ended the walk in their little store where we ate a yummy dinner of cheeses and cold meats.



Nearby Baden-Baden had their own festival, too. On September 8th we visited their Medieval Festival. It had nothing to do with plums or Zwetschgen, but it was still fun.



All of our photos can be seen here.