Freudenberg - July 13th

Fog

Woke up this morning to fog on the river, which added a ghostly effect to the morning light

Traditional costumes

Today we docked at Freudenberg and for once we did not tour the town. Why not, you may ask? Because we went to Oktoberfest in July held especially for our ship, the Scenic Jewel.
Our guides came dressed in traditional costume, either lederhosen or dirndl. Originally only men wore lederhosen but the rules have been relaxed now and women can also wear lederhosen as you can see to the right.

Oktoberfest

We were taken to a hall decked out in traditional Oktoberfest style and some of our guests wore dirndls and lederhosen as well.
We were served a lovely meal of chicken in mustard sauce, sauerkraut and sausage, as well as traditional German pretzels.

Tapping the keg

There was the traditional tapping of the keg with a large octagonal mallet, much serving of beer in large steins (which we just tasted and I can tell you it tasted like....beer!) We abstained from the beer and had apfel (apple) juice instead.

Us two

There was much entertainment by a traditional German band with piano accordion, guitar and keyboard, led by Michael who tried to teach us how to yodel, and failed dismally. It was quite an entertaining afternoon, with much laughter and hilarity, lubricated no doubt with copious amounts of beer.

Tommy Temerson

Returning to the ship we were entertained by Tommy Temerson, one of only five professional zither players in the world.

Zither

What is a zither, I hear you asking? Well wonder no more! It is a string based instrument, with 42 strings, five on the fret board where the melody is played, and the rest of the strings where the accompaniment is played.

Playing the zither

But get this - he plays the melody with his left hand and right thumb, then simultaneously plays the accompaniment with the index and middle fingers and the bass with his ring and little fingers! It's incredible to watch, his right hand is doing three simultaneous tunes and his left hand looks like Thing from the Addam's Family as it contorts to play the frets, and all the while the thumb plays the melody strings. And can he play! He played Lara's Theme from Dr Zhivago, La Vie en Rose, Eidelweiss from The Sound of Music and finished off with Guten Abend, Gute Nacht by Brahms.

After that it was dinner, then off to bed for an early night as we have a big day tomorrow.