David Kellam

We arrived in Wertingen yesterday afternoon after a day’s travelling by train and bus. We were greeted at the bustop (Marktplatz) and the lottery process began. Jim and I drew the same numbers once again, and were welcomed into the Mayinger family home. Complete with ferrari! (photos to be provided later). Der Vater, Hans, is a butcher! So appropriate…

We had a quick pasta meal, then went for a spin in Hans’ ferrari (one at a time obviously). As you would all know, I’m not cluey enough to know which model! You shall have to wait for the photos. But it was an older model and red. Very classy

We then went on a short ride (I was on a rickety old bike with a basket on the front and pedal breaks. Oh yeah!) to watch Lisa (their middle daughter) play tennis, before riding back and heading off to rehearsal.

We sang our concert in a very beautiful church. It went down to thunderous applause. I guess that is the desired result, even if the performance was riddled with mistakes!

After the concert, we went to a restaurant with our billets and met their eldest daughter, Julia, who will soon be travelling to New Zealand. I ordered ‘three little pigs’ with potatoes (only to be confused by the various ways in which potatoes could be served!). Naturally, this was accompanied by a Weiߥnbier and much paying out from Francyne and Jim over the fact this was my second dinner for the day. I argued in vain that the first was over 4 hours earlier!

As the evening progressed, our billets continued in the firm belief that I spoke ’sehr gut’ Detusch, despite constant assertions to the contrary and the fact I never spoke so much as a subordinate sentence!
Consequently, most of the evening’s conversation was conducted auf Deutsch. Jim’s continual ‘he speaks German’ was not helping the matter! Still, a source of much amusement.

The evening ended with shooters of a local Bavarian speciality, whose name escapes me. It was apparently obligatory to at least sample this beverage, which they claimed had many ‘medicinal’ qualities - a warning sign for sure! Thankfully, it was nothing like the self-proclaimed rocket fuel billets had previously attempted to feed us in the name of German tradition!

We returned home tired and ready for bed; slept well and arose late. 4 hours after Hans had already left for work! (We rose at 815) He had to take meat supplies to Augsburg. We also missed the daughters as they had already left for school. Nevertheless, we were able to say goodbye at the bus stop as they had permission to leave school and see us off. Any excuse!

We spent the next hour on the bus to Augsburg - the source of much amusement thanks to heavily-accented assertions on the previous tour that we must go to Augsburg. I spent some of the time writing my first German (as an email to Julia) in over 18 months - I bet it was full of mistakes. What a better way to finally convince them Ich kann nicht Deutsch!

We are now aboard the train to G?ngen, whence we travel onwards to Berlin to sing for the 3rd time (for me) in the Epiphanienkirche. Tomorrow: Poland.

Mood: ‘All good’ verging on apprehensive (Poland)
Music: Handel coronation anthem
Billet success rating: Very High
Food: PRETZELS!!!

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 3rd, 2005 at 2:01 am and is filed under Europe 2005. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.