Travelling in Germany

When in France and Estonia, I had not too much problems with because
a) I know some French and
b) many Estonians speak English

However, being in Oberstdorf, Germany, was like being plonked onto an alien planet! We could sort of guess what some words meant just by reading them, like milch (milk)and eis (ice) but others just didn't make sense. Yet others have a totally different meaning to what I would have guessed, like pepperoni (chilli peppers).

Now, I had thought that German meals were just meat, meat and more meat. However, they did understand what vegetarianism was all about - the word is "vegetarisch". And they do respond correctly when we asked for "kein Fleisch" (no meat).

Of course there is always salad and bread. Many restaurants we went to also had a selection of vegetarian soups. It seems to be the Asparagus season, and the Spargelcremesuppe was good!

Apart from that, we also found out how to order a couple of simple warm dishes. At lunch one day, we had Gemüse mit BratKartoffeln, which is a mix of vegetables, with fried potatoes. Another day, we had some Schnitzel which turned out to be a vegetable patty served with rice. We also tried a cheese pasta, which tasted like very heavy mac-and-cheese.

Overall, though it wasn't a vegetarian's haven, it was not as unfriendly as I had anticipated it to be!