(Southern Germany)
After visiting Mägdeberg Castle, our hosts were gracious enough to give us a tour through a nearby medieval village. The town of Engen has been there since at least the 11th Century but the town didn’t get officially chartered until the 13th Century. Despite the old age, the buildings are in great condition and it felt like we had traveled back in time (to a reality with cars and no horse buggies).
In the evening, we helped prepare a New Year’s raclette dinner. Raclette is a dish that originated in Switzerland. Each person gets seated in front of a miniature grill. On the lower burner, you can put vegetables such as mushrooms, peppers, potatoes, and onions and melt cheese on top. On the upper burner, you can grill meat. This was Grant’s and my first time eating raclette. I didn’t know what to expect but it was delicious. Raclette cheese is very pungent which is what made the dinner so tasty. An Italian college classmate once told me, “the stinkier the cheese, the better it is”.
There is a German tradition on New Year’s Eve to receive a fortune for the upcoming new year called Bleigießen. Basically, the gist of it is that you put some lead onto a spoon and hold it over a candle flame until it melts. Then you drop the melted lead into a bowl of water. As it flash cools, it forms into a shape. You then identify the shape against a list of shapes that describes various fortunes. Unfortunately, as of this year, Germany has banned the use of lead for this and has required all fortune kits to be replaced with wax instead. Apparently this didn’t work quite so well as the wax just floated and coalesced into odd, nondescript shapes. Here are our fortunes. Grant’s is on the left and mine is on the right. Grant’s fortune looks like a smart car and mine looks like a poodle/griffin chimera. Just for simplicity we’ll just say Grant’s fortune is a car and mine is a dog. Our fortune is as follows: Grant will have “a promising business venture” and I will make new friends this year. Not bad for a faux lead New Year’s fortune!
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