Drinking with Darin! — Stuttgart, Germany
It was a very early morning leaving Paris at 7:00 AM. We were excited to get to Germany and actually did very well switching trains considering these signs were ALL in German now instead of French. We checked into our hotel in Ludwigsburg then traveled by train to Kircheim am Necker, a neighboring town. Before our trip Mary did a lot of research on the Kalb family history. She was able to track down that our ancestors came from this town of Kircheim. She was emailing the geneologist, Mr. Rosenberger, for the church in Kircheim previous to us leaving. We were able to set up these times to meet to view old records and the town. He was very thorough and knowledgable in his explanations of everything in the town. He even showed us the house in which our ancestors lived in! Oddly enough, the people living there now invited us in. We were able to see how small the rooms were and the outside barn where they raised their goats. The current resident picked some tomatoes from her garden for us. We then headed to Mr. Rosenberger's house to view the old records of our ancestors and some pictures. It was very interesting to see. Then it got really interesting... when he showed us his own personal museum of artifacts. It was in his backyard in the barn with several flights of ladders to climb. We were able to see even more of the town after we left his home. He had a key to the church so we were able to go in. This was the same church our ancestors were baptized in! Very cool. Then we caught our train back to Ludwigsburg to meet up with Darin Mills. Darin is Rachele Kalb Mills' brother-in-law. This is when the fun really started! He took us to the Cannstatter Volksfest in Stuttgart, it is like a 'little Oktoberfest.' We had beer by the liters and ate a chicken with our fingers. They also had a huge cow roasting on the pit. People were dancing like crazy on the tables and wearing the traditional lederhosen and dirndl. There were several biergartens and rides all over. Once we had a liter or two of beer, we got up on the tables for dancing. We even convinced Mary! It was so much fun and we met a few Germans (one of which in a blonde wig was very interested in Mary). We taught these lovely German's the O-H-I-O chant as well. We had so much fun drinking, dancing, and laughing all night. Mary and Abbe were fortunate enough to make it to the hotel but apparently Darin slept in the train station. What a night!
