German Trip - Day 3 (Laura's Birthday!)

We woke up at around 0800, or rather, I woke up at 0800 and made sure Laura did too because I was excited to see her open her presents. After destroying some wrapping paper and generally making a mess we decided we should head to Rick & Anja's for breakfast. They'd invited us over for a birthday breakfast for Laura and it didn't disappoint! Delicious eggs on toast followed by a homemade chocolate cake, including candles and even a little birthday singing. As it was her 30th birthday I decided to sing along too, which I'm sure is the gift she'll appreciate most of all.

Cake, decorations and a present from Rick & Anja. They have been very generous hosts! 

The cake was delicious! 

 After chatting with Rick and Anja (and Rick telling us some more stories) we decided to head into town. We finished up our discussion about justified use of military force and whether Saddam Hussein had WMDs or not, then we nipped off to Rothenburg ob der Tauber for a day out.

I'd booked a table at a restaurant in Rothenburg to celebrate Laura's birthday, but I also thought the town looked great and was worth wandering around. Unfortunately it was a little early for most of the Weihnachten decorations but it still looked lovely at night. We walked around the old wall too which was really nice. The whole ramparts have a roof covering and wooden railing. Not quite hoardings, but similar. It was really nice to see so many 16th century looking buildings, and it's definitely worth visiting the town if you're in the area and have any sort of interest in medieval architecture (especially that of the Holy Roman Empire... or it's fantasy equivalent The Empire from Warhammer).

The tree was installed last week from what I know, but I suspect the lights won't go on until after we've left Germany unfortunately

Bread and Food. We found some lebkuchen there so we were happy

The Altfränkische Weinstube - the restaurant I'd booked for Laura's birthday dinner

"Yeah, it's a tree. What of it?" 

We got to the town in the evening so we didn't get a chance to see the museums unfortunately, but we made that choice intentionally as we didn't want to be burnt out by the time we'd gotten to the restaurant (I'd booked it for 1900).

We did have time to check out the traditional German toyshop/Christmas decoration shop Käthe Wohlfahrt, and got a few nice baubles for our tree this year. 

We also had time to sit in a café and have a cup of tea & some soup. I ordered it all in German but I must have sounded ridiculous because the lady behind the counter replied to me in English. I stuck to my guns and kept speaking in German and the transaction was successfully completed so that's a victory in my books. 

It got to around 1745 and we'd seen as much of the town as we wanted to so we decided to head to the Altfränkische Weinstube earlier and see if we could push our reservation forwards a little. The waitress was fine with that and so we sat down to eat at 1800.

Laura's Glühwein (mulled wine)

Laura had the Nürnberg equivalent of chipolatas with sauerkraut and potatoes, I had baked Camembert with toast, fresh fruit & baked banana covered with honey.

The food was delicious and the service was great. It was also far more reasonably priced than I was expecting. It was cheaper than most regular chain high street restaurants we've been to. 

I was a bit surprised by how desserty my meal was, it didn't say anything about fruit in the menu. It was still tasty though. Laura kindly gave one of her sausages and some of her sauerkraut to me which is a sign of true love (or maybe pity). I also shared some baked banana with her which is the best way to reciprocate I feel. 

When we got back from Rothenburg we stopped by Rick & Anja's for a cup of tea and some more chatting. This time we discussed AIs, what defines sentient thinking and whether British Police are truly prepared for the apocalypse.

Tomorrow we will be having a relatively calm day of painting miniatures and we will probably put to rest some other philosophical questions to pass the time.