Bad Krozingen Mafia
September 4th, 2008The London weather apparently tracked me down and we had a solid 24 hours of rain, which I spent as follows:
- sleeping
- visiting Freiburg’s museum of early- and pre-history in the Colombischlössle
- eating at Lorenz Straußi in Kirchhofen
A Straußi is a kind of restaurant that produces everything it serves itself or sources it from the neighborhood. They get a tax break through not having to purchase the standard restaurant license. The portions were huge, I could only eat half of what I ordered, and since pumpkins are in season there were a lot of pumpkin dishes on the specials board, including a delicious pumpkin soup.
On the way out we saw some little kids who had set up a stand to sell grapes, one kilo for 1.80 euros, but they only had one kilo. I thought it would be a good idea to encourage these miniature entrepreneurs, so I handed over a two-euro coin.
The kids were clearly running a just-in-time operation. As soon as the coin changed hands, four kids took off in different directions, one returning shortly with a new plastic bucket, and two returning with a new bunch of grapes (from where? the neighboring vineyard?). The coin went into their piggy bank, which differs from a cash register in that it’s built not to give anything back until you smash it open. I was shortchanged by an eight-year-old.