New Braunfels, Texas-German, poppy seed rolls, and a handbag with a gun compartment

Friday 16.05.2014

We leave the hotel in New Braunfels and drive into town. In front of the tourist office stands a statue of a prince from Solm-something.

New Braunfels is proud of its founding fathers, who were real princes from Germany... The lady at the tourist office is cheerful and nice and tells us that they speak a so-called Texas German here. However, she cannot give us a sample. We are given small headphones since QR codes are attached to several old houses, which can be scanned with an app to watch videos about the history of the houses. Of course, this only works with an internet connection, which we don't have, but we gladly take the small headphones with us. During our conversation, we learn that light beer in the US is by no means low-alcohol, but rather contains fewer carbohydrates! So for years, as a driver, you have been bravely drinking Budweiser light in the evening and apparently end up just as full as the person opposite who happily drank regular Budweiser. Because regular Budweiser contains 4.8% alc while the light version still contains 4.2%.

We drive to the marketplace, which surrounds a small pavilion. The monument for the fallen of World War II with the statue of a soldier throwing a hand grenade, we find it, let's say, irritating.

West San Angelo Street has many old houses, most of which were built and owned by Germans - this is what the signs on the walls of the houses and on various notices and flyers say.

The hardware store Henne has been around for over 100 years and even has a 40-foot deep well in the basement. The sales floor upstairs has just about everything that DIY-ers, hobbyists, and cleaners need.

In the "Friesenhaus" a restaurant run by a woman from Elmshorn, we buy poppy seed rolls with liverwurst! "Spread, they cost $3.99," says the woman behind the counter and sells us some black bread that we gaze at with wide eyes. Unbelievable - what a treasure. We transport these delicacies to the car in a styrofoam box. Don't expose them to the sun!!!

Unbelievable: In a shop dealing with leather clothing and bags, the elderly saleswoman is trying to sell us a handbag that is incredibly convenient for carrying guns. So ladies' chic with deadly content.

When we don't quite respond to the displayed bag, she eagerly starts looking for another model. In Texas, you can carry guns around, but usually they have to be transported "concealed". So as a Texan woman, of course, there is a fashionable style question of how to carry a gun without it showing through the light summer dress or having to wear a gun belt like Festus.

We walk along the Faust Hotel, which was completely rolled on giant tree trunks from the opposite side of the street to its current location in the 1920s. In the oldest bakery in Texas, we find pepper nuts, colorful cookies, bread, and godly coconut mountains (the latter are bought and enjoyed in small portions over the next few days).

At the marketplace, we settle down in rocking chairs in the shade at a coffee shop and decide to drive to the outlet in San Marcos since we still have time. We arrive there around 3:00 PM and somehow always end up wasting time there, so it's 6:00 PM when we leave. The plan to enjoy the precious liverwurst rolls at an incomparably beautiful place fails due to the time and the onset of hunger, so we enjoy them in the hot car in the outlet's parking lot.

Our own polystyrene cooler box on the back seat, which we fill with ice cubes in plastic bags every morning, has kept the rolls cool and they taste heavenly. Ice cubes are available in every hotel and most of them last until the evening, keeping our fruit, tomatoes, and yogurts cold. In the evening, the remaining ice cubes are thrown into the flowerbed at the next hotel and the food supplies are placed in the hotel room's refrigerator until it starts all over again the next morning. I bought the box for less than $3 in some supermarket right at the beginning of the trip.

From San Marcos to Brady, we still need over 3 hours today. The landscape is still hilly at first and often wooded, unless endless fields line the highway. At dusk, we see lots of deer (mule deer and white-tailed deer) by the roadside, and I'm glad that none of them makes a sudden attempt to cross the road. The sun sets dramatically ahead of us on the endless road.

We reach the Holiday Inn Express at 9:00 PM. There is a huge Wal-Mart across the street and we get some cheese, radishes, tomatoes, and fruits.

It's crazy how much volume our luggage has when we take everything out of the car and bring it into the hotel room because it's time to repack again, as the number of bags in the trunk is getting out of hand.

With a can of beer and sitting on the edge of the bed for a late dinner. Then begins the eternal task of cutting off the price tags of the new acquisitions from the outlet. My suitcase is now filled to the max at 23 kilograms, and I still have an easy 8 kilograms in a plastic bag, which is basically my daily luggage when I leave the bag in the car and only take a few things for 3 days. Either I buy a second piece of luggage and check it in (which Lufthansa charges $100 for) or I send some things by mail. But to clarify that, I would need a post office - which, as is often the case, doesn't exist. We don't turn off the light until 2:00 AM.

Daily distance: about 170 miles / 274 km