Tonight is the last night we will spend at our soon to be former house in Unterjettingen.  Tomorrow, the packers will come and we’ll spend a night at the Hotel Adler in Nagold.  Tuesday, we’ll load up our stuff and be on our way to Wiesbaden.  It will be my last day in the house.  Our new house has no carpets (hallelujah) and is a bit larger than the house we’re leaving.  I love not having carpeting to worry about, but I do worry about the beautiful new floors that are in our new home.  We decided to visit the Turkish rug guys at Panzer and load up on some floor coverings.

Now… this was not my first time buying carpets at Panzer.  A couple of years ago, we bought a couple of rugs for our living room.  I have to admit, they kind of look like hell now, mainly because they’re stationed right by the doors to the outside.  I don’t expect the new rugs we bought today will hold up much better.  They are better, and more expensive, than the shitty rug sets often sold in the PX, and I like the way they look more than the German rugs I’ve seen.  For many reasons, IKEA really doesn’t do it for me.

But before we bought rugs, we went into AAFES to buy new toothbrushes and some face cream. We ran into Bill’s soon to be former boss and Bill chatted with him.  Then we happened to check out behind a guy who had a rather complicated order that took some time to process, so I took the opportunity to crack inappropriate jokes.  Bill later told me the guy is a high ranker on post.  I wasn’t surprised.  He definitely had the air of a general.

Then I was waiting for Bill to use the men’s room.  While I was waiting, a vendor offered me free chocolate.  I thought about taking it, but a pre-teenaged girl swooped in front of me and grabbed it before I could act.  I kind of laughed about it, and the vendor said he had more chocolate, but I plan to be pounding beer throughout the rest of the moving process… except when we’re driving to Wiesbaden.  I have to be totally sober for that.

Anyway, after we bought our AAFES stuff, we went to see the Turkish rug guys, who were only too happy to help us.  I walked out of there with three large rugs, a runner, and a smaller rug for my office.  They threw in the hall runner for free.  Nice of them, and I’m sure we’ll use it.  I’m also sure I’ll be visiting the rug guys in Wiesbaden, if they have them there.  I’m not sure why they wouldn’t, since I’ve seen those guys at every European base I’ve been to… perhaps with the exception of Lajes Field in the Azores.

After we dropped 1200 euros on rugs, we decided to have lunch.  I think Bill was originally planning to visit Patch to return some electronic Swiffer products we bought without realizing they won’t work without massive transformers.  But after our large purchase, I think Bill was ready for a drink.  We decided to try the Brauhaus in Böblingen, but as usual on a Sunday afternoon, it was packed.  So we moved on to the Flugfeld, where I knew there were a couple of restaurants besides Check Inn Foodport we hadn’t tried.

Actually, that complex has at least three restaurants.  There’s Check Inn Food Port, which is very nice for a dinner date.  Tower 66 Steakhouse is open for lunch until 3:00pm on Sundays, then takes a pause until 5:30pm.  And then there’s Wichtel Hausbrauerei.  I noticed Wichtel got some pretty mediocre reviews on Google, but they didn’t have a pause.  Sold!

We walked around the restaurant’s generous terrace, which still had some tables out, though they weren’t set up for outdoor dining.  To enter the restaurant, you must walk into the Motor World building.  Then you go in and find a seat.  Unlike at the Schoenbuch Brauhaus, there were plenty of spots open at Wichtel Hausbrauerei.  We chose one near the taps.  I needed a slight boost to get up on the tall seat.  I actually like high chairs because I’m short, but I’m also getting old, which makes getting up and down on them harder than it used to be.

The outdoor area.  You have to walk around this to get inside the restaurant.

Welcome!  I really should have stopped to look at the specials for today.

An adorable young man stopped to ask for our drink orders.  Seriously, he was super cute.  I bet his mom is proud of him.  Not only was he good looking, he was also very charming and congenial.

I asked for a weizen and he rattled something off in German, which took me by surprise.  Actually, I know he was asking me which size I wanted.  At Wichtal, you can get a beer in three sizes– .33 liter, .5 liter, or a liter Krug.  Bill started answering in German, but then the guy switched to perfect English and offered me a menu in my native tongue.  I actually do pretty well reading German menus.  It’s just speaking German that kills me.  I can only sing in German.

Bill decides on lunch.  The choices are somewhat limited if you don’t want pizza.

So Wichtel has what appears to be a hybrid of regular pizza and Flammkuechen.  I asked the waiter what it was like and he said it was like both pizza and Flammkuechen.  He said the rest of it was “marketing”.  Our winsome waiter was not only friendly and adorable, he also had a sense of humor.  What a cutie pie!  Too bad I’m happily married, fat, and old enough to be his mother.  I noticed his name was Valentin.  He’s aptly named.  Hubba hubba!

I ascertained that the “pizza” would be too big for me to eat by myself and I am not trying to bring home more food as we’re trying to clear out of here.  I ended up ordering what was described as “roast beef”.  I had a choice of spaetzle, potato salad, or fries as a side.  I decided to be extra healthy and went for fries.  Bill ordered a schnitzel.

If I had paid more attention, I could have ordered today’s special, which was half a duck.  I believe they had another type of braten on special today.  Besides pizza, schnitzel, and “roast beef”, they also had salads, sausages, and other drunk food.  They also had a kids’ menu.

I liked their coasters.  They reminded me of myself.  Bill said they reminded him of Starbucks.

Someone was doing shots of some sort… You can see the barkeep pouring them.

So this was my lunch.  It turned out the “roast beef” was actually a strip steak.  Bill reminded me that sometimes what we think of roast beef is not really roast beef to Germans.  It’s steak.  This was German beef, which was okay.  It was smothered in a brown gravy and dried onions.  Not the way I usually eat steak, but it wasn’t bad.  I’m probably done eating for the day.

Bill’s Schnitzel was your standard Schnitzel.  It came in two pieces with a side of potato salad and gravy.  While I don’t know that we necessarily really wanted to eat German food today, it wasn’t a bad thing that we did.

 

Prices at Wichtel are very reasonable.  It’s a very family and kid friendly place.  And although Google reviewers gave it mediocre reviews, we thought the service was quite good.  I was smitten with Valentin.  I wonder if he’d be my Valentine…  LOL… I’m kidding.  I only have eyes for my Bill.  Anyway, our tab came to 41 euros, which gave Bill significantly fewer heart palpitations than our purchase of five rugs did.  But I figure I could spend that much on one really nice rug from the Middle East.  And as long as I have dogs, I won’t be doing that.

So ends today’s review… perhaps the last one I write of a restaurant in this area for the time being.  Or maybe we’ll go somewhere in Nagold tomorrow night, our last down here on the edge of the Black Forest.  I’m seriously going to miss it…  Especially the views from our house.  But as the Brady Bunch sing, when it’s time to change, it’s time to change.

One more picture for the road.  My view is about to change substantially.