Woke up to a cold & clear morning - fall has definitely arrived here in Germany. Today I climbed the stairs of the Town Hall Tower (had to squeeze my way through some of the smaller passages) and enjoyed a spectacular view of the town and surrounding countryside. I then visited St. Jacob's Church, which contains a 500-year-old wooden altarpiece carved by some guy named Riemenschneider, who's known as the "Michelangelo" of German woodcarvers.
Admiring all that wood made me hungry, so I decided to hang out in the castle gardens for awhile and be the "Michelangelo" of German bratwurst-eaters. The view of the valley below the castle was stunning - all of the leaves changing color. After lunch it was time to visit the Medieval Crime and Punishment Museum, which turned out to be fairly boring (they wouldn't even let me get in the Iron Maiden!). They did, however, have an impressive display of shame masks and witch catchers (picture a butterfly net and then replace the net with a spiked collar).
That evening I was feeling more social and made some new friends at the zimmer frei - Jacob, Claudia, & Jennifer from Indiana. We decided to go grab dinner together (I had roast wild boar mit spatzle) and then find a pub. We went to a bar called "Hell", which was really old (we stopped outside this place the night before on the tour) - the foundation was actually built in the year 970. We descended some stairs to the lowest dungeon-like room and swapped travel stories over several pints of the local hefeweisen. Supposedly this bar is the only place that's open late in Rothenburg. So if you can't sleep at night, the running joke here is that you have two choices: Walk the wall or go to Hell.
Afterwards, we went back and hung out in the courtyard of our B&B playing Euker. Now Euker is a card game that for some reason everyone in Indiana loves to play. You can immediately tell if somebody is from Indiana because they will undoubtedly be carrying a Euker deck in their pocket (as required by Indiana state law). People from Indiana can play this game for hours on end without getting bored. Don't bother suggesting another card game - they'll only give you a strange look like you've been picking your nose in a fancy restaurant.
I hadn't been around anybody from Indiana in a few years (and therfore hadn't played Euker in that long), however, so I had fun. In fact, I soon forgot how to play the game because Jacob passed around a little gift he had picked up in Amsterdam the previous week (hint: you need a lighter to make it work). At some point I was hit in the shoulder by a falling object. It was about the size of a golfball and was covered in spikes. My Indiana friends informed me that it was a buckeye, and I should keep the two halves of the big seed inside for luck, which I did.
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