October 13 Saarland

Oct. 13

We stared the day by visiting Globus, a large supermarket store, I would compare more to a Walmart, they sold everything.  We specifically visited to see their bucharie, they cut all their own meat and sale it fresh daily.  We were taken to the back were they had about 12 people cutting meat, 8 bulls and 30 hogs per day plus turkey.  Globus is a large chain of stores; each one cuts their own meat.  The display case must have been 150 ft long with every kind of fresh meat you can dream of, and at 10:00 on a Saturday morning it was the busiest place in the store.  When kids visit the store they are allowed to go the the counter and get a free sample of cold sausage, they walk around the store eating it like candy.  I don't particularly like the cold sausage, maybe I am just getting tire of it, but we get samples every time we visit a bucharie, this time the "sample" was nearly a 1/4 lb.  It was an interesting visit not only to see the meat department but also look around the rest of a German store.  A Large Backerie, cheese case, and one of the largest wine and liquor sections I have ever seen.  I did look at the price of milk; it ranged from E .50 to E 1.05 per Liter (I'll have to run the conversions later).  As near as we could tell the meat was about 3X what we would pay in America.

We then traveled to Trier, the oldest city in Germany. The city was first settled in 16 BC by the Romans.  One of the original Roman gates remains to this day, one of just a few in the world.  We had an English tour guide who told of the history of the city and showed us a couple of cathedrals one of which is supposed to house the garment that Christ wore when he stood trial.  They are massive and beautiful, it makes you wonder how they built them with the tools and technology they had at the time.  No nails or mortar, just stone on stone and they have lasted 2000 years.

On our way back we stopped for a short look around Saarburg, and then for a short tour of an old tie stall dairy (30 cows).  The highlight of this dairy was the old distillery, once again free samples for all who were interested.

The Highlight of the day was a dinner and wine tasting at Schloss Thorn, a large wine estate, with Dr. Baron Von Hobe-Gelting.  While I did not taste the wine the conversation and story telling by Dr. Hobe-Gelting was quite enjoyable.  The Vineyard has been in his family for 800 years, it has been rebuilt at least three times due to different wars in the region.  It was evacuated twice during WWII and was used by General Patton's army for some time.  In the 800 year history of the vineyard there has been nearly 400 years of war.  The conversation covered the history of much of Germany and then turned to politics where Dr. Hobe-Gelting voiced his concern with the Green movement and their anti business, anti freedom agenda.  He claims that their world view doesn't have a plan for marketing, they want to legislate things that the market would never allow because they make no sense.  They want to pass laws because it give them power.  When a few people get an idea if they can convince enough people (through their own ignorance) that the idea is right then they gain power over the society.  Example the Nazi movement of the 1930's.  He further talked about the Muslim world and how they have learned that by stifling education they can control a people and the best way to do that is to not allow women to go to school.  When women are educated children become educated and the power of the ruling class is diminished.  He did express hope for the future by talking about former eastern Germany, he told of traveling to east Berlin for business and seeing the armed guards watch the trains so no one could escape on the sides of the train to the west.  The people tolerated the loss of freedom for a while before demanding Freedom and doing what was necessary to gain their freedom (thanks to a little help), he thinks it will just be a matter of time before the people wake up again to understand the freedom they have given away.  Very interesting discussion with a very refined gentleman.



 We finished the day with a stop at Oktoberfest.  Crazy, that is the best way to describe it.  People of all ages drinking beer (lots of it), and dancing, often on the tables.  We got back to the hotel about 12:15.