Day in the Life of an Idiot

 
Image: Brat and German potato salad

German-Americans sure know how to party. I say this having grown up in LaCrosse, Wisconsin which hosts a gigantic Oktoberfest every year. Turns out, this is true on a smaller scale, too. 

On Sunday, when the weather was nearly ideal here in St. Paul (72 F / 22C), Shawn and I decided to check out the Deutsch Tage / German Days festival being put on by the Germanic American Institute, a building on Summit Avenue that we drive by nearly every day on the way to Shawn's work at the History Center. 

It was amazing.

Now, keep in mind that I am easily amused, so... if you decide to book ahead for next year, this might not impress you as much as it did Shawn and I. Both of us, at heart, are small town girls. So a big band tent and a bunch of metal folding chairs and tables on a large lawn screams PARTY TIME to the two of us. 


Image: I mean... wild times, am I right?

I was most interested in the food; Shawn was most interested in getting a peek inside the Germanic American Institute's building. We started off with Shawn's goal. After walking around the exterior of the festival--food trucks parked on Summit, a couple of informational/arts booths (ranging from local jewelry artists, German hats, and random things like All Energy Solar,) the beer garden in the back parking lot with more food stalls and a whole lot of German beers on offer, and some German language booths/booksellers--we ventured indoors. They were giving an official tour on Sunday at 1 pm, but the building was open for exploration to the public. It's a nifty old building--



Image: yoinked from the internet, but this is what it looks like on the exterior.

The ground floor had two big halls, one of which they had filled with desserts made by the ladies of the Institute. Since we had not yet had lunch, we didn't stop to sample them. However, Shawn picked up some literature and discovered that they are doing dessert and coffee EVERY SATURDAY for the public. We have this set of errands we religiously do every Saturday (which, for reasons of being silly we always try to make alliterative.) At their basic they are cardboard (a stop at the Waste Management site in order to drop off the larger cardboard that we tend to accumulate that doesn't fit in our bin), coffee (self-evident), and car (a stop at Mr. Car Wash to buff up the Camry.) We are now thinking about how to include dessert. Perhaps we will do the thing where we change all the "c"s to "k's and call it Klatsch, Kardbord, Koffee, and Kar. I dunno, maybe too many "K"s for comfort.... or should I say "komfort."


Image: small sample of the deserts on offer

We then wandered the second floor which housed their library and game room, as well as a few other meeting rooms. The third floor is where they had a model train exhibit set up and a craft/makers' space for kids. I took a video of the model train set-up because, of course, they had it themed as an idyllic German town. I was particularly amused by the tiny cow miniatures. There was also a basement ratskeller (basically a basement tavern). 

It was fun to just wander around and peek in places. Shawn had heard that the building had once been a nunnery? I have not done any research to confirm, but you could see it. There were a lot of small rooms to fit a little community of people. 

Back outside, I finally got my brat.  There were a couple of options for brats. The line by the "brathaus" which was run by the Germanic American Institute themselves had a super long line, so I opted for the food truck, which specialized in Austrian bratwurst (pictured above.) I got the potato salad as well, though I later also stood in line to get a potato pancake (basically latkes?)  I had to stand in the beer/schnapps queue in order to get sodas for Shawn and I and I happened to be directly behind a youngish man who was test tasting the schnapps. At one point his eyes bugged out and I said, "Yeah, that stuff will kill ya." And he turned to me and said, "OMG. YES." 

So, I mean I suspect that a lot of the fun that was had was alcohol fueled (much as it is in LaCrosse.) However, we sat on the grass, ate our food, and watched people who had come dressed up to polka, waltz, and do a fun little conga line.

Several hours well spent, IMHO.

How about you? Do anything fun this weekend?