May 5, 2023 3 min read Germany 2023

Day 35: Festival Season

Recovered

I spent the morning taking various calls from home. Finally on the mend from my cold, I opted to take my time and not rush out the door to be in the office first thing. I had a solid breakfast, cleaned up around the apartment, and went to the office for lunch and afternoon meetings.

Trapped

Following a very productive lunch meeting over Döner (a popular option in the company cafeterias), I followed up with a quick ice-cream before my next meeting after jumping to the main campus. Today’s weather was beautiful, but it was much hotter than expected. I needed to cool down as I walked from one building to another.

The lunch rush was over, and the cafeteria staff were cleaning up for the day. After I badged into a cafeteria, I quickly grabbed a cone with 2 scoops of cherry ice-cream (my new favorite flavor). When you enter or leave the cafeteria, you have to badge in and out. Weirdly, I was able to badge in, but today, I couldn’t badge out. I tried multiple doors, and none of them worked. I was effectively trapped in the cafeteria.

Someone nearby came up to me and explained that the doors were often temperamental. I had to wait at least 10 minutes to try my badge again, until my first attempts to leave were cleared. Sitting in an empty cafeteria, I browsed through my emails on my phone in one hand with my ice-cream in the other. The cone didn’t survive past 5 minutes. I love ice-cream.

Trying my badge 15 minutes later (extra 5 minutes to be safe), I was finally able to head off to my next set of meetings. That was a fun interrupt to my day 🙂.

Frühlingsfest

Finishing off my meetings and making my way back home, it was time to head off to Frühlingsfest! Frühlingsfest is effectively a festival between April and May to celebrate the coming summer months. It’s effectively the spring/early summer version of Oktoberfest in the fall. In Stuttgart, both festivals are celebrated at the same fair ground in Canstatt. Technically speaking, in Stuttgart, Oktoberfest is known as Wasen (the “W” is pronounced like a “V” for English speakers).

Having attended both the Stuttgart Wasen and the Munich Oktoberfest last October on my previous business trip, I was excited to attend Frühlingsfest this year. I even brought my traditional Lederhosen (a very generous birthday gift by friends) to fully take part in the festivities.

There’s no special description of Frühlingsfest other than beer, great company, live music, food, dancing, and more beer. After all, the origins of Wasen date back to the annual harvest festival, and what better way to enjoy the harvest than with the “fruits” of your labor.

By the time I got home, it was pretty late, so finishing this post was a struggle. I had to complete it in the morning when I had more energy after a few hours of sleep. If you ever get the chance, like almost everything else I’ve experienced so far on this trip, check out Frühlingsfest!