An afternoon in Ahrweiler

To get to Ahrweiler, I ride my bicycle very slowly through the Pedestrian Zone of Neuenahr. I have just cruised by one of those Your Local Police Will Teach You How To Stay Safe booths, when I hear a 'push your bicycle' behind me.  I am used to blank out requests like that and keep cycling.  Then I hear a very loud "HALLO" behind me. I stop, turn around, see a Protector of the Public pointing at me and I answer with an equally loud "HALLO" but refrain from waving at him.  The increasing red shade of his face tells me that this was not the response he was expecting.  Since the end of the pedestrian zone is only about 30 meters away from where I am standing, I grant his repeat request to push my bicycle within the zone.

Then I arrive in Ahrweiler, an old city that is still surrounded by its uninterrupted city wall.  Naturally it is VERY touristy with mostly German and some other tourists revelling in I don't know what.  Granted, the old buildings are very pretty, but this is Germany and you can find that in a lot of places.  Again I am pushing my bike through a pedestrian zone, but this time not because a Protector of the Peace and the Public has told me so, but because I am looking for a place to eat and I don't want to get off the bike every two houses to look at the menus.

I finally settle on an Italian Pizzeria, but not for pizza, but for Squid grilled in its entirety. When I order this, I imagine 3 or 4 small thumb size squid tubes thrown on a BBQ, an easily manageable food quantity.

But then the calamar arrives and it is HUGE !!!

But very tasty.

I soon order another glass of the EXCELLENT Spaetburgunder Rose.  When I mention to the waitress (my age, but skinny with muscles) in reference to the giant squid that it’s no wonder that most men here carry quite a bit of weight above their belts, she says “That’s not our fish. That’s all those beers they drink watching TV in the evening”.  No comment from this wine drinker who knows beer drinkers ;-)

While normally I am adamant to eat every last bit of anything of my plate that had to die to be on my plate, the portion is just too big and a small part of this squid now has died in vain. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

Not my pic

The next morning during breakfast, my seemingly geriatric neighbour at the next table mentions in leaving that he will have a tough day today.  Upon a polite question about the nature of his hardship, I learn that he will today play the double team that they lost against last year and ended up with only the second place in the German Senior's Tennis Championships.  After the 3 Broetchen I had for breakfast I am sure that he, who only had some yogurt, is in a much better position to win a game today than I am!