Sankt Ingert (a.k.a. St. Ingbert) is a small town. I'm fond of these small European villages. Cobbled stones lining the road on pedestrian only market districts. Cafes, bakeries, restaurants, boutiques and shops, all cute and quaint. Adding to this quaintness the village was setting up it's
Nikolausmarkt, the holiday market for Christmas.
In Germany, Father Christmas visits on December 6th in addition to Christmas Eve. The tradition is you put a boot out on the 5th for presents. The eve of St. Nikolaus holiday. So all the villages I visited were having their own
Nikolausmarkt this week with stalls of hot mulled cider, outdoor
bier gartens, gifts, crepe stands, sausages of all sorts and music. The center of the
marktplatz had a tall tree decorated and fairy lights were strung from end to end of the walkway. This all put me in a very festive mood. So I shopped. I picked up a few items for gifts. Found my yarn, a decadently rich and soft orange to match the decadently soft and orange sweater I bought for myself.
The area of Germany that we're in, Saarland, is on the boarder with France, in western Germany. And over the past 200 years, this parcel of land has changed hands between the two countries five times. This has influenced the language, culture and food of the region. I adored the crepe stands. Even a simple crepe
mitte zucker und zimt was spot hitting after a sausage sandwich for lunch.
There is a local phrase, "
Haubdsack' gudd gess! Geschafft han mir dann schnell!" It is roughly translated to, "Eat well and the burden of day-to-day life is easier to bear." Mark and I always talk about how food is one of our greatest simple pleasures. It is something we do three times a day and we try to make those meals as interesting or enjoyable as possible. We look forward to eating well every day. This local phrase has struck a chord with our own philosophy of food and eating.
One of the biggest influences to the region being language, I encountered many French speakers. I passed myself off as a French speaker. Rather than being the American who isn't fluent in any other language spouting, "
Spreken zie english?" at every turn, I brushed off my French skills and got along just fine. Although most other countries we've visited everyone we encountered spoke English and seemed to want to practice their English speaking skills with us. It wasn't the case here. Once you visit a large enough country, there are more native language speakers with a stronger cultural identity. A critical mass of speakers of one language (i.e. we'll find this in Germany, Spain and France) with fewer people willing or able to speak English.