Baumblütenfest, or Treeblossomfest for you non-Germans, is a festival that takes place around this time every year in the picturesque town of Werder in Brandenburg. I decided to rope my Aussie friend Sheila into accompanying me.
Me: Hey, do you fancy going to this?
Sheila: Is it a flower festival?
Me: Yeah.
Sheila: Ummm…
Now, I know what you’re thinking – trees, flowers, picturesque little villages – it doesn’t exactly sound like your kind of thing, Linda… Silly me. I forgot to mention that it’s also famous for fruit wine.
Sheila: Sold.
As with most things in Berlin, the day got off to an entertaining start with Sheila (aka “The Half-Naked Aussie”) locking herself out of her apartment in her underwear. However, after (probably) scaring the little old lady downstairs half to death, she managed to get a spare set of keys, get dressed and we were off. We boarded the RE1 at Ostbahnhof and double-checked to make sure we hadn’t accidentally got into a first-class carriage; I vowed to take German regional trains more often. The feeling of scuzziness that comes from drinking beer on a train quickly wore off when all the horny, scantily-clad teenagers and already drunken revellers started boarding at subsequent stations. It was 1pm.
By the time we got off the train 45 minutes later, our lovely carriage resembled a rugby scrum, but, being the tough women we are, we battled our way through and picked up our first glasses of wine – for €1.20. I went for a rhubarb number; Sheila made the unfortunate choice of going for a currant wine. Five minutes later, the drunkest man in the world bumped into her and the violently red liquid went flying. Amazingly, not a drop of it got on her white t-shirt but she quickly realised her mistake. I, on the other hand, was wearing black from head to toe. Call me sensible – or well-practised at these affairs.
As the festival takes over the entire town (for almost two weeks), we had been forewarned to make our way to the top of the hill and then walk stumble crawl roll back down again. It turned out to be excellent advice. We did just that, stocking up on more wine for the uphill struggle. Everywhere, merry Germans were imbibing copious amounts of wine, chowing down on sausage, and bursting into spontaneous song and dance. It made for highly entertaining viewing.
After a while, however, we stumbled across what was pretty much “The Secret Garden” – except with more Germans. We got some more wine, Sheila inhaled a sausage, and we grabbed a bench to admire how the other half live.
We somehow managed to bump into a group of friends after I spied Nigel coming back from a not-very-secret piss behind the toilets – Brits and their non-sitzpinkelling ways, eh? We all sat down at a large table in the garden and welcomed whoever else happened to come along. This included a German woman who talked about “sex wine” for around an hour non-stop. (I never did find it.)
The evening wore on, the rain started, and everyone at the Fest got progressively messier. A German even managed to get me up to dance which is something that rarely, if ever, happens. By the end of the night, Nigel was asleep on the table while gently puking up the fruity contents of his delicate English tummy; Fritz was also asleep but less vomitously so. He would get his comeuppance later though.
In a bid to get back to Ostkreuz, he somehow disappeared at Warschauer Straße, which is one stop before it. There seems to have been some time lost at this point, but he eventually got on a train to travel the final stop. Unfortunately, he fell asleep and woke up in Spandau, nineteen stations in the wrong direction. After a couple of phone calls, we managed to talk him onto another train going in the right direction. He fell asleep again and woke up in Kaulsdorf, six stations past where he needed to be. If only he’d been awake, he would have seen more of Berlin in one night than most people see in their entire lives. Oh well, there’s always next year…
For more information on Werder and Baumblütenfest, click here. (You’ll be glad you did.)
Yep! I certaintly want to do this. Is this like the sunflower festival where you’re bombarded and attacked by plantlife LOL! Seriously though, isn’t Germany amazing more so when there’s rhubarb wine to be had? And as for drunken revellers at 1p.m. Tcha! In Cologne for Kaaaaaarnival, they got down and dirty in the train at 7a.m. And this was the parents and respectable people. Cringe!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ha, I’m sure there probably were people who started at 7am! The guy who bumped into Sheila looked like he’d been on it for a while 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
OMG so many lovely photos of nature! I love nature, I love fruit wine, I love beer, I feel like if I came to Berlin, I’d just walk around different parks all day long drinking beer. That’s it. That would be enough. PS – I am thinking of coming to Germany in late June…
LikeLiked by 2 people
That would be awesome! And parks and beer is a much easier itinerary to plan than the Riga one I put together 🙂
LikeLike
Yes, but I live for Art Nouveau and black currant balsams, so you did right by me 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
And we did have those great burgers 🙂
LikeLike
I’m curious about how sex wine works and just how many German men have had incidents with sex wine bottles.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Probably more than Sitzpinkel 😉 Yesterday was all about the Wildpinkelling – I even saw a guy (very drunk) pee into a bottle on the train… Sigh.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bottlepinkeling 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bottleflooranddoorpinkelling – his aim wasn’t so good… 😉
LikeLiked by 2 people
gee, the best thing about all this bottlefloordoorpinkeling is that it did not turn into bottlefloordoorandtheguynexttomepinkeling 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Personpinkelling 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
A few points:
1) Mermans may be my new favorite word.
2) Red wine and a white shirt at a festival? Rookie mistake.
3) This sounds like a damn good time! Prost!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Prost! It was fantastic 🙂 I’m definitely going back there next year! I think it’s pretty much festival, festival, festival from now until October in Berlin 🙂
LikeLike
I loved the pic of the jugs of wine! Perfect….here you can go to what I call the “wine gas station.” – – – I have pictures of my father in law pumping liters of wine from what seriously looks like a gas station! Anyway…sounds like you had quite an adventure! have a good weekend!
LikeLiked by 1 person
A wine gas station sounds like it might just be my favourite place on earth 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Forgive me for hijacking your blog, but what colour is German crime scene/police tape?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m starting to think that this is festival is a thinly veiled excuse to drink wine. Nary a tree blossom did I see. 😉
Poor Fritz. He seemed woefully unprepared on all counts.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ha ha, he was, poor guy! At least he has good friends to lend him money in the meantime 🙂 And it wasn’t even that thinly veiled 😉
LikeLike
oh how nice ! now we have a nice little product placement going on here…. hmm… you should totally do advertizing on your blog. next time you should visit a sex shop festival and collaborate with a condom company on advertizing their product… okay Im totally tripping but that woudl be fun haha))
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ll contact Dildo King forthwith 🙂 Fabulous idea!!
LikeLike
Those goblets of wine look HUGE. They remind me of frozen margaritas–or goldfish bowls. But bless their hearts, the Germans appear to use actual fruit in the fruit wine (rather than colored powder). I suspect this goes back to some Medieval custom. But exactly what is “sex wine”?
LikeLiked by 1 person
God knows – she seemed like she’d had a few too many by the time we were talking to her! And they were huge – I could easily fit my head inside one – might go back this weekend and try 😉
LikeLike
I think you need a crown of flowers. Actually, the whole thing sounds like a pagan celebration. I wonder if there’s a Maypole (evil grin).
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thankfully there wasn’t! I had enough of pagan festivals and crowns of flowers in LV – I’ll give that a big ol’ miss 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, what a fun day! You had me at wine, but the rest of the experience sounds equally fabulous.
Well, maybe Fritz’ experience wasn’t so fabulous, but it made for a good story.
And, I never wear white, anticipated red currant wine or not. It ain’t a good look on this beginning-to-sag oldish lady. 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ha, I’m sure you look fabulous! 🙂 Yeah, poor travelling Fritz. He lost his wallet (or someone took it out of his pocket) as well. The story has already become the stuff of (funny) legends 😉
LikeLike
Sex wine and sausage, what a great combo 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
Why do you think I moved here 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have made a note of your tip re suitable clothing for wine festivals. 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Excellent – you can join me next time 🙂
LikeLike
I’d better start building up my wine-drinking muscles! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, you don’t want to ‘do a Nigel’ 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Goodness, the wine was only 6-7% alcohol and yet people were getting passing-out drunk on it? That’s a lot of wine imbibing, although I can imagine the puking might have just been from too much fruit 😉 Maybe they should have eaten more sausages 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
We were drinking it by the bottle towards the end – saved time going to the bar 🙂 It could have been a sugar overdose I guess!
LikeLiked by 1 person
A bottle each? Oh, those days are long past me 😦
LikeLiked by 1 person
You never know – come to Berlin; I’ll get you back in shape in no time 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Or more out of shape than I already am … lol 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s also a possibility 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
God, I miss sausage.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Don’t tell me, tell your hubby 😉
LikeLike
Yikes fruit wine sounds dangerous.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ha, yeah, it’s only 6 or 7% but it doesn’t really taste like booze so you can drink a lot of it! We were getting it by the bottle in the end to save time – that was when Nigel and Fritz left us 😉
LikeLike
Treeblossomfest, even…
…so, where is this shocking post I was psyching myself up for???
LikeLiked by 1 person
Didn’t you see the damn FLOWERS!
LikeLike
*clicks zoom+ 4 times* OK, I see them! *faints*.
LikeLike
God, you’re so hard to please! Saufrau 😉
LikeLike
Du Irre!
LikeLike
Whatever ‘meh’ is in German 😉
LikeLike
OMG you are totally right! Oh, that German…great now I’m all nostalgic for German sausage…. 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
I might pop out and get some… yeah, it’s that easy 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Only for you, love. Only for you 😛
LikeLiked by 1 person
No, anyone can do it – they’re around €2 and… oh wait, I see what you mean 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sex wine? Umm, what? The fruity stuff sounds good though.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, first I thought she was saying ‘six wines’ but she made sure she clarified – we still couldn’t really understand what she was talking about though, and there were Germans at the table! The fruit wine was amazing – I had rhubarb, peach, apple, raspberry, something else, something else… 😉
LikeLike
Oh, my lord, lady, you do amuse me! Is Sheila really Sheila, or is she A Sheila from Oz?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ha, she’s not really Sheila – I protect the identities of everyone involved in these escapades 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aha!! You’re not only funny but wise. Those law suits really suck, I hear. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
And probably even more so in Germany 😉 I’ll probably get sued for including a photo of some random person some day!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think of you every time I rinse a glass jar and put it into the recycling bin …
LikeLiked by 1 person
I never even knew people did that in real life before I moved here 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
HAHAHA my first thought was “Linda? Flower show????” Fruit wine is SO dangerous because it’s SO delicious and can get you SO drunk 🙂 I love it – right up my alley! Also, I will never, ever be Sheila, where I wear a white shirt and don’t get it dirty. Kudos to her, she’s mastered one of the mysteries of the universe.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ha, maybe it’s because she doesn’t even have H & H to get their stain removal products out when she gets home 😉 It was such a fun day (and night) out – you would have loved it! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Germany has all these wonderful things – beer, fruit wine, sex wine….and your very own, built-in laundry service! I should move there!
LikeLiked by 1 person
You forgot the sausage and the cake 😉 Oh, and the German men!
LikeLiked by 1 person