This weekend is Budenfest in Kandern - an annual fundraiser weekend for the German clubs. German schools do not provide extra curriculars such as sports and clubs like in America. Instead the villages offer a phethora of clubs for young and old alike. Membership in a club is close knit and they become your best friends. There are clubs for sports: wrestling, tennis, soccer, ping-pong; music: accordians, choirs; voluntary services like the fire department, and the list just keeps going. A club meets at least once a week to practice or play. Members pay fees but the overall expenses of the clubs might be more than the membership fees cover. So one weekend a year the town square is transformed into a celebration of food and music as each club serves up their specialty item. Budenfest means "festival of booths". It's a great weekend for sampling German delicacies such as wurst and snitzel. Some booths - such as the one for the Witches of Kandern - are avoided by the BFA crowd. Others are our favorites - the accoridan band's coffee and cakes, the wrestlers' zwiebelwie (cream, onion and bacon pizza - it's actually delicious!). Everyone in the club works a shift or two over the weekend to help out. Several BFA dads a 6 hour shift on the dish crew for the youth soccer club.
It all starts about Wednesday when the clubs start building their booths - they are always in the same place every year. If you've been to one budenfest - even if it was 10 years ago - you can go by memory to where your favorites will be. The booths are like a jigsaw puzzle with each board marked so they can be constructed as quickly as possible.
They buidl their "restaurants" in every side alley in the downtown area. Traffic is severely limited during the week of the festival.
They bring in dishwashers, stoves, etc. These are wood ovens for cooking the thin crusted zwiebelwie.
These two pictures are the same booth - the top one is when they were starting to build it and in the bottom one it is filled with people for Sunday lunch.
These two pictures are also of the same spot - in the emptiness of Wednesday and the busyness of Sunday.
I also had another accidental culture moment. The accordian orchestra was playing when I was on my way home from church. So I swung by the dance floor for a video. It is amazing that they rarely play the Oom-Papa music that Americans associate with the accordian and German music. It is more often show tunes and pop music.
The second event for Budenfest weekend is a horse show. The two aren't connected but the town always does Budenfest at the same time as the horse show so there will be more business for the clubs. The town has 2 soccer fields: clay and grass. For the horse show (which is a high level competition on the jumping circuit) the clay field is covered with sand and the jumping course is laid out on it. I put on my cowboy hat and headed down after church to watch for a bit. For 3 Euros I got a weekend ticket that I can use to come and go as I please. I might go down for a bit on Monday when I have a break in my class schedule - just to get out of the building for a bit.
They buidl their "restaurants" in every side alley in the downtown area. Traffic is severely limited during the week of the festival.
They bring in dishwashers, stoves, etc. These are wood ovens for cooking the thin crusted zwiebelwie.
