Welcome to my German home. Hauptsach gudd gess.

Hallo meine Lieben,

I guess that most of you know that I am a German who lives in the United States. So today I want to show you where I come from, the place I was born and grew up in. 

Around 82 Million people live in Germany, A little more than a million of these people live in Saarland which is one of the 16 German federal states. You can see in the map that Saarland is a very small state. Actually it is the smallest state in Germany besides the city states Hamburg, Bremen and Berlin. The capital of Saarland is Saarbrücken, the city I studied and worked in. Saarland is located near the borders of France and Luxemburg and I was able to drive over there in less than 15 minutes. Pretty cool. For example gas is much much cheaper in Luxemburg (gas is very expensive in Germany) so I always drove over there to get gas and coffee.

Between 1947 and 1956 the Saarland was a French-occupied territorty. In 1956 the inhabitants were offered independence but instead voted to become a part of Western Germany. Since 1971, Saarland has been a member of SaarLorLux, a euroregion created from Saarland, Lorraine, Luxembourg, Rhineland Palatinate and Wallonia.

Enough history lessons. I'll show you some pictures.

That's Germany. As you can see Saarland is also very close to Belgium and the Netherlands. It is really cool because you are able to drive to all kinds of great places. I love that about Germany. You drive a couple of hours and you are in a different country. 

The town I grew up in is very small. Only 700 people live there. We had a supermarket when I was a kid but now there  is only a bakery and a hair salon. So you need a car. There are buses that drive to bigger towns but not that many (but at least there are some buses, America). My school was 15 minutes away so I had to take the bus every morning at 7:10 am.  My town is very picturesque, there are lots of trees and cows and horses. It is always quiet, there are not many cars...it's like paradise. :)

That's the Saar. The state is named after the river. It rises in the Vosges mountains on the border of Alsace and Lorraine in France and flows northwards into the Moselle near Trier. Trier is a city located in Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate), the German state I was born in. By the way: is the oldest city in Germany, founded in or before 16 BC. 

A view over Saarburg, the town I was born in. Also a very small town, only 6700 people live there. As you can see, everything in Germany is a little smaller than in America. Berlin is the biggest city in Germany. 3.5 Million people live there. I guess that's not much for American standards. 

David took this picture because he thought it's funny that beer glasses are much bigger than glasses with coca cola in it. We Germans love our beer, it's a fact.

This is me with a cute dog. I am a huge animal lover and this picture was taken at the annual party of an animal rescue. The dog stood there like that for an hour and I immediately fell in love with him.

That's the famous "Saarschleife" (bend in the Saar). You can find it on every postcard in Saarland. Lots of tourists come to see it. Although there is not much else to see but I guess it is worth a picture. You can't really see it in the picture but there is a castle on the other side of the river. The castle "Montclair". 

This castle was build in 1439. There was a castle before that one which was build in 1180. You can still go and visit the castle. There are several sagas about the castle Montclair, one of them says that a knight jumped with his horse from a big rock into the Saar. You can still see the imprint of the horseshoe in the rock. A ghost also lives in Montclair.

That's me and David at the Saar. The place we stand is a hang-gliding ramp. It looks pretty dangerous to me. You can sit there and see people jump, it's pretty interesting.

Me and David at the Saarschleife. We had to take some touristy pictures. It was his first time in Europe. :) There are not many famous spots in Saarland but this is a must-see. 

I make a sad face because the black cat in background ignored me. 

The famous waterfall in Saarburg. I know, not very impressing. You can't really compare it to the Niagara Falls but it is in downtown Saarburg and you can sit next to the waterfall and eat ice-cream.

David sitting on a rock looking over the Saar. I am sure you are sick of seeing so many pictures of a stupid river but it's an important part of Saarland. You see that river everywhere. 

David at my favorite Pizzeria in Saarland. You get the best Pizza there and they are so big that they don't fit on normal plates. They have to use huge silver plates for them. But I guess you know huge plates when you are American. So I can't really impress you with that picture.  It's huge for German standards though. 

People from Saarland love to eat. David ate "Grumperküchelscha" here. At least that's how you call it in our dialect. In German you say "Reibekuchen". They are made of potatoes and you eat them with apple sauce. 
"Hauptsach gudd gess" is a famous saying from Saarland. It basically means that we are fine as long as we have some good food.
Another thing people from Saarland love is "Schwenken". In America you would call it Barbecue and everywhere else in Germany you say "Grillen" but we Saarländer use a "Schwenker" to grill our food. You can see it on the picture below.

(I put vegetables and tofu sausages on my Schwenker, no meat! :))

I hope you enjoyed my little journey. There are many great places in Germany but I admit that Saarland is not the most exciting one. :) But at least we have lots of nature and nice and friendly people. The dialect might be hard to understand though.

Have a great Saturday!