So today is May 1, Labour Day, and a huge holiday in Germany when all offices, shops etc. will be closed down. As Prof. Wiemann explained it to me the other day, "It's rather like a bandh."
Anyway, time to sit down and write this much-delayed post about the wine festival. First of all, I went to the wine festival without taking my camera. Then I realized that a camera couldn't really capture the mood of the festival. Sure, it was colourful, and there were a lot of picturesque-looking people around, and wine booths everywhere. But there was more to it than that. Still, now that I'm writing the blog, I realize it just wouldn't look complete without pictures. Ah, well.
We went to the wine festival on 29 April, Sunday. My fellow-traveller Musadhique and I met our Polish friend Kasia and her German boyfriend Christian at Potsdam Hauptbahnhof (Potsdam Central Railway Station) around 3.30 in the afternoon and got on a pretty crowded local train to Werder, passing over the Havel river. It was just a journey of about 5 minutes, and then we had a long, long walk ahead of us. I'm sure I wouldn't be able to find the way again! But from the station onwards, there were wine booths and people with bottles in their hands, men with cowboy hats for some reason, women with floral garlands, and children sitting alone by the wayside, strumming their guitars and singing. There was music at every nook and corner, sometimes with DJs and sometimes with bands, sometimes with people dancing in wild abandon, and sometimes with the deafening greetings of the long-parted-now-reunited ringing over the music.
From time to time, we'd see the black-clad men and women of the Polizei striding around purposefully and rather glamorously. Though there seemed to be an all-pervasive feeling of festive cheer and goodwill, there also seemed to be an anxiety that was reflected in the fact that only plastic bottles and glasses were allowed to be used during the festival! Much later in the day, we saw totally sloshed people being taken care of by the police in some kind of makeshift tents. Seeing this, Kasia told me that, in Germany, when people get drunk out of their senses, the police come and take them away and put them to bed in some kind of dorms, for which they have to pay presumably when they're sober! Very sweet of the police!
Anyway, we wandered around Werder till about 8-8.30 in the evening, sipping different kinds of wine. Apparently, we can taste wine for free! We just need to pay if we're buying a bottle! We first tasted strawberry, blueberry and blackberry. Then we bought a bottle of strawberry wine and settled down with it. We were joined by Kasia's friends Magda and Toby who came brandishing a bottle of... was it blackberry wine? Then later we tried Hollunder (elderberry) wine, which wasn't as great as the strawberry wine. Then we went to an amusement park on another side of Werder where we played striking cars and then Christian played a game where he had to shoot at different bottles and he got a free bottle of apple-cherry wine for trying! We rounded it off with another bottle of strawberry wine. By this time, we were all in good spirits, and Kasia and I were proclaiming undying friendship to each other and promising to cry when we parted from each other. (Oh, in between, we also tried bratkartofel, or fried potatoes, which I found extremely greasy and heavy.)
And then it was time for us to come back, and I had a splitting headache all the way back home, and all through the night. Thankfully, by morning, it was all gone. Christian says that the free apple-cherry wine is the culprit. He might be right, why else would it be free?
Well, since I couldn't take any pictures, at least here's a picture of the apple-cherry wine that Christian won. It's still sitting in my room, since no one seems to want to touch it!
Anyway, time to sit down and write this much-delayed post about the wine festival. First of all, I went to the wine festival without taking my camera. Then I realized that a camera couldn't really capture the mood of the festival. Sure, it was colourful, and there were a lot of picturesque-looking people around, and wine booths everywhere. But there was more to it than that. Still, now that I'm writing the blog, I realize it just wouldn't look complete without pictures. Ah, well.
We went to the wine festival on 29 April, Sunday. My fellow-traveller Musadhique and I met our Polish friend Kasia and her German boyfriend Christian at Potsdam Hauptbahnhof (Potsdam Central Railway Station) around 3.30 in the afternoon and got on a pretty crowded local train to Werder, passing over the Havel river. It was just a journey of about 5 minutes, and then we had a long, long walk ahead of us. I'm sure I wouldn't be able to find the way again! But from the station onwards, there were wine booths and people with bottles in their hands, men with cowboy hats for some reason, women with floral garlands, and children sitting alone by the wayside, strumming their guitars and singing. There was music at every nook and corner, sometimes with DJs and sometimes with bands, sometimes with people dancing in wild abandon, and sometimes with the deafening greetings of the long-parted-now-reunited ringing over the music.
From time to time, we'd see the black-clad men and women of the Polizei striding around purposefully and rather glamorously. Though there seemed to be an all-pervasive feeling of festive cheer and goodwill, there also seemed to be an anxiety that was reflected in the fact that only plastic bottles and glasses were allowed to be used during the festival! Much later in the day, we saw totally sloshed people being taken care of by the police in some kind of makeshift tents. Seeing this, Kasia told me that, in Germany, when people get drunk out of their senses, the police come and take them away and put them to bed in some kind of dorms, for which they have to pay presumably when they're sober! Very sweet of the police!
Anyway, we wandered around Werder till about 8-8.30 in the evening, sipping different kinds of wine. Apparently, we can taste wine for free! We just need to pay if we're buying a bottle! We first tasted strawberry, blueberry and blackberry. Then we bought a bottle of strawberry wine and settled down with it. We were joined by Kasia's friends Magda and Toby who came brandishing a bottle of... was it blackberry wine? Then later we tried Hollunder (elderberry) wine, which wasn't as great as the strawberry wine. Then we went to an amusement park on another side of Werder where we played striking cars and then Christian played a game where he had to shoot at different bottles and he got a free bottle of apple-cherry wine for trying! We rounded it off with another bottle of strawberry wine. By this time, we were all in good spirits, and Kasia and I were proclaiming undying friendship to each other and promising to cry when we parted from each other. (Oh, in between, we also tried bratkartofel, or fried potatoes, which I found extremely greasy and heavy.)
And then it was time for us to come back, and I had a splitting headache all the way back home, and all through the night. Thankfully, by morning, it was all gone. Christian says that the free apple-cherry wine is the culprit. He might be right, why else would it be free?
Well, since I couldn't take any pictures, at least here's a picture of the apple-cherry wine that Christian won. It's still sitting in my room, since no one seems to want to touch it!
Ho!
ReplyDeleteyou really filmed the whole celebration and the mood of the people!