Warnnemunde, Germany – where it’s all about the strawberries! Everywhere you look there are fresh strawberries, strawberry wine and shopping bags in the shapes of strawberries. Good thing that I love strawberries :) Unfortunately, it was my IPM day (in port manning as described in a previous post or two) but I negotiated with Jess where I could go ashore until noon before she was able to go. Steve, Bobby, Chris and I went out walking with, as usual, no intention or idea. Once we met on the gangway, we ended up in your standard souvenir shop right outside of the port. They actually had quite a few neat nautical themed items as well as the strawberry trinkets piled high upon the shelves. Well, we ended up on the backside of the store where they had several fun photo opportunities and being the ridiculously crazy entertainment department that we are, we took every single opportunity…multiple times!
We continued on our journey to nowhere, walking underneath the train tracks and through the train station. The first place on the right coming out of the train station is a bar inside a train car! According to Bobby who had been there before, this is apparently THE place for crew. Located next to it were several small little “shops” set up kind of like a farmers market – the first shop was a “Wurst” station and the second was a fresh fruit stand. Immediately, the fruit caught my eyes with mounds of fresh cherries, golden delicious apples, strawberries (of course) and grapes. Steve and I walked over to see how much they were because the cherries looked irresistible to me! The gentleman working there showed us the different between to two different cherries (one was bigger and the other smaller) and then allowed us to taste them. WOW! They were perfectly ripe and sweet which sold both Steve and I on a half a kilo each of cherries. Behind all the fruit I saw trays of what looked like yogurt covered fruit and asked him what they were. He said that they weren’t yogurt but WHITE CHOCOLATE covered blackberries, blueberries, cranberries and strawberries and handed me one of each and they were incredible. Next cruise I will definitely go pick some of those up! We walked a bit further to the bridge and looked down the beautiful river that went through the center of town. It is beautiful – both sides of the waterway are coated with boats that have been converted into casual cafes and restaurants.
Since I only had a short amount of time before I had to be back on board for a meeting, Bobby suggested we backtrack and get something to eat at the “wurst” station (no clue as to what it’s really called) and then get a beer at the train bar and enjoy the afternoon out. Sounded like a plan to me, so Bobby and Steve ordered a curry wurst and Chris and I ordered a Bratwurst. I found it really interesting that the woman took the curry wursts and put them through an automatic slicer before placing them into a cardboard container and covering them in curry powder and ketchup. She handed over the chopped up dogs as well as a bun to the guys. BUT, when she handed us our brats, she put a (I believe) foot long brat into a 6 inch bun and handed that over to us.
Of course, you all know me and we took a few pictures of our dogs while Bobby went to get beers for everyone (except me). For the boys, he ordered Krambacher and myself (because I don’t like beer) a “Kiss” strawberry cider (which was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G). Out of the different dogs we tried, the curry wurst was out of this world. The perfect balance of wurst, curry powder and ketchup.
After enjoying a delicious lunch, I headed back to the ship for the meeting, went to the gym and had to work again. I did the two activities I had scheduled and then headed up to the Lido deck for the Biergarten Party. I was impressed, to say the least. The ship had purchased every kind of German food imaginable from pretzels (with butter in the center of the dough), bratwurst, sausages, mashed potatoes, roasted pig and lots of sauerkraut!!!! That doesn’t even include the vast array of desserts like this sugary doughnut-like things with jam inside and many many different pastries. It was my heaven! (Well, anything with delicious food is – if you haven’t figured that out already!)
My favorite part of the entire Biergarten that they set up was the décor- especially the beer mugs that they filled with yellow jell-o and whipped cream to make them look like beers. They were fantastic! It was a carb heaven, but I think the guests really enjoyed it, especially when we had the German Oompa (sp ?) Band come and play for three hours.
After we all ate, I headed back to my cabin to get changed and go ashore again with Jo, the new lifestylist. My goal was to find some free internet and someone had told me that the Train Bar had it. I guess I would have to go and get another “Kiss” of strawberry cider. Jo and I ordered our drinks just as we figured out that the wi-fi was non-existent there. But, the weather was crisp and cool so we enjoyed our evening of relaxation and fresh air. Once we finished our drinks, we decided we would walk around for a few minutes and see if there was wi-fi anywhere else. We bumped into Bobby and Chris who had spent the day shopping in a town a few train station stops down the way. They were actually headed back to the train bar, so we followed them back and ended up meeting up with tons of other crew and had a blast. When I walked to the counter to order my cider, I saw this large bowl of strawberries soaking in a red juice so I asked what it was. The Bartender explained to me that they were strawberries that had been fermenting in this liqueur and they would mix it with beer and it was called “Erdbeerbowle.” For a few seconds, I debated ordering it because of my dislike for beer. In the end, I went ahead and got it. The bartender actually scooped the liqueur with TONS of strawberries into a glass until it was half way full and then topped it off with Krambacher beer. Surprisingly, it was a party in my mouth! The sweetness of the strawberries and liqueur with the bitterness of the beer turned out to be a perfect combination. Two erdbeerbowles later, I was ready to get back to the ship!
It was only about a 5 minute walk back to the ship, but I decided to stop by the same shop next to the pier and pick up a bottle of strawberry wine for myself along with a picture frame that I had seen earlier. I checked out and began walking the last 2 minutes to the ship. While walking, I looked at the bag and noticed that underneath the name of the store, “Karls”, was the most incredible number –1921. The year that Grandma Ruscup, the most incredible woman, was born.
High: Spending time with friends, great workout, fresh air.
Low: Really missing Ben – for those of you that don’t know, we broke up about two weeks ago and I’m having a really hard time with it.
:: Please forgive any typos – I never proofread these things::
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