You Know You’ve Been in Germany Too Long When…
On Saturday, we were great big crazy tourists. We decided that before we left Germany, we needed to have an outrageously German cuckoo clock. With this wild hair up our butts, we went off to the Black Forest on a bit of a quest.
Don’t worry, it was educational. The kids learned the mechanics of how bellows make the bird cuckoo.
Our quest was torn between Jägermeister traditional like this one with the deer head, Black Forest dancers, and dead pheasant and rabbit…
…and a completely outrageous one like this that not only had the guys drinking beer at the table (a must for TS&WGH), band on the balcony, faithful mountain dog looking on, log water-trough, etc., but also the long suffering Frau who shakes her head in frustration twice an hour. Maybe something along the lines of this time waster I made to torture my husband.
I was side-tracked by a collection of reproduction clocks which actually bordered on charming:
Ultimately, TS&WGH brought me back in focus by reminding me that we would never have a house in which a cuckoo clock would actually be part of the intentional decor. No quaint cottage or lodge house or library for smoking cigars and drinking brandy.
OK then, let’s look at the beer drinkers again!
We considered this one for a looooong time. The guys hoist their beers, children dance on the balcony, AND the Bierfraulein brings out another round! To top it off, the other side of the house has a May Pole and an outhouse. In the end though, it was just too Bavarian. Of our nearly 12 years in Germany, only 3 were in Bavaria, so we needed something more generic.
How we walked away without buying this Fliegenpilz and gnome clock is a mystery. Just not “cuckoo-clock-y” enough I guess. Oh, and the gnomes don’t have any beer.
I DO know why we didn’t get this one:
Ultimately, we bought the house that we’ve seen in most every scenic valley south of Frankfurt we’ve driven through. That the guys are on a teeter-totter cracked me up. It took a while before we noticed that they had sticks stacked with pretzels in their other hands too! No Bierfraulein, but we switched out the Black Forest couples on the balcony for dancing kids, and replaced the brassy pine cone weights with more rustic wooden ones. It’s not as outrageous as the first one, but there’s no doubt we’ve been to Germany now!
And you’ve got to check out what we did on the way home!
March 2nd, 2008 at 10:34 pm
[...] Oh, and we did buy a clock. We went to the ubiquitous House of a Thousand Clocks (which didn’t have 1000 clocks at that one location). Kristin has blogged that — I’ll spare you the repeat. I will share with you two pictures — one of the cuckoo clock that came in a close second place, and then the required parents / kids photo in front of the car. For the clock pictured below, at the top of the hour, the beer wench brings out fresh beer to the two guys at the table who are hoisting their beers / slamming them on the table. Nice. Classy. It would have been better only if she were topless, I should think. [...]
March 2nd, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Those are some great looking clocks. My grandparents have one in their house that must have belonged to my great-grandmother’s family. Every time that I would visit them when I was a little kid, my grandpa would wind the clock at night before going to bed.
March 2nd, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Oh, Kristin, I love your adventures! Quite an education in cuckoo clocks—great photos! One of the things I’ve noticed about your photos of Germany is that although festivals and theme parks (and cuckoo clocks) abound, they have a certain substance. The people seem to care about detail and at least make a stab at some authenticity—it’s not just surface flash.
March 3rd, 2008 at 7:18 am
Those clocks border on the hysterically funny and outrageousness. The one you bought is quite charming.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:29 am
omg! *gg*
a kuckucksuhr!
i might not have lived here long enough, as i don’t have one… but HOW could you leave the fliegenpilz-one behind?!? (the one with the wife beating her hubby makes me laugh – though i don’t think matthias would allow me to buy something like that…
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:48 am
If you still haven’t seen enough Kuckucksuhren, you can go to Wiesbaden to check out the world’s biggest cuckoo clock just off Wilhelmstrasse.
On a different note: my husband plans on taking us to the same rodelbahn this summer, seeing as he now lives in the Black Forrest for work, coming home on the weekends.
But: when will you be leaving? Will I still get my postcard workshop?
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:43 pm
it is so funny for me to see how a foreigner sees germany. Even if I don´t have that sort of decoration belive it must be very difficult to find the rigt one.
For all lovers of that clock: you find them easyly on german ebay
Greetings from karlsruhe, Sonja
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:33 pm
The rodelbahn looked like so much fun and I loved listening to Katja’s commentary about how fast they were going. Cuckoo clocks sure have changed from the ones I used to see in my relatives homes! What a fun weekend! Take care.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Yeh – been here tooo long.
But, you remember the joke – you come to Germany and go home with a baby, a cuckoo clock or a divorce.
The clock is by far the cheapest and easiest to live with. When it starts driving you nuts, just don’t wind it.
We got one our first tour. No clue where it has gone, but it is not missed.
March 4th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
those are some fun clocks! we didn’t do a tour, just a visit and came away with a very simple little coo coo.. it’s still is very happy on the wall here and the girls love trying to catch sight of the birdie…
March 4th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Wonder if my nephew and family will come home with a clock? So, when are you guys moving and where?? Are you actually going to get a posting in the US? If so I would love to know how. Kyle and Melissa chose to stay in Landstuhl for another tour and, of course, now Kyle is being sent to Iraq. It was risk Iraq or go back to Minot…..sheese, what a choice.
Hugs,
teri
March 4th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Some of those clocks are just wonderfully kitschy (sp? UGH — I have mentioned I can’t spell right?). I would have had a hard time resisting the gnomes :0) I’m also seriously jealous of the rides on the sled thingy. Wooo Hooo!
March 7th, 2008 at 4:50 am
I have my Titisee cuckoo packed in a box *sigh*. Just doesn’t go with my leather and western decor here in the desert, lol. I have a chimney sweep that peeks out of the chimney.
Glad you’re playing tourist, the day WILL come when you’ll be off for another region.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
[...] So, the kids and I went back to the Black Forest / Schwarzwald on Saturday. Our new cuckoo clock had a defect, so we exchanged it. [...]