SUMMARY We find out over breakfast what it means to be a “vegan/Ayurvedic property”. The only thing I like about it is the coffee! Off to Schwerin where we’ll spend two nights. Our restaurant karma is not good at the moment and we strike out three times before ending up at a sushi restaurant! The good news is we covered pretty much all of the town’s extensive pedestrian-only area. We do a little shopping, hoping to find cheap but dressy clothes for the cruise home - no luck. We do get lucky at our hotel with a great location and huge, top-floor suite with private terrace. In dire need of clean clothes we hike to a laundromat (therein lies a tale which Scott will probably share) and do a load. Our restaurant karma returns at dinner time and we get an outside table at a very good Italian restaurant. - Karen
DETAIL Alarm wakes us from a sound sleep at 7:15. We’re none the worse for wear despite our rather odd dinner last night. Yesterday’s rain has turned into today’s sunshine. The bright light and clean air makes all the green grass and trees pop. The walk to breakfast is fairly long and the looping paths take us even further than would have been needed, but all this seems in keeping with the yoga, saunas and special diet of the place.
The dining pavilion is big, open and airy. It has extremely tall ceilings and lots of exposed wood. This building, and really the whole property, suggest that this place is made for corporate retreats. “Let’s get everybody together and do some team building exercises!”
At the entrance there’s a short write up about the diet here. One key is that we start our day with a tall glass of very warm water. That, and a fork, spoon (no knife) and a paper napkin are the only things on our neutral colored woven placemat. Karen asks about coffee. “Sure, there’s a machine right over there” the waiter says, gesturing with an open palm and a sweep of his arm. Was that practiced? We are the only ones in the big room, sitting and drinking our warm water. In the background you can’t miss the calming sitar music. We expect Julia Roberts or Richard Gere to walk in smiling at any moment.
Karen comes back with coffee and soon our, er, the waiter is bringing Karen her breakfast. He sets it down and explains the six item before her. Mine arrives soon after. It all looks very healthy and very vegan. We don’t gather that this is ’today’s breakfast menu’, but rather this is ‘the breakfast’ every day. We dig in, mindfully. It’s good (I think). There is no salt, pepper, or tabasco on the table, it is what it is. I ask Karen how it is and get a look. I continue trying the various dishes and combinations. I extract a whole clove from my mouth, three in total by the end of the meal.
I finish my breakfast. Karen stopped eating a while ago. All of my dishes are empty and Karen’s are all still fairly full. We both have our smart phones with us. I’m busily taking notes for the blog and Karen’s pulling up the description of this place from hotels.com, where we booked our reservation. She confirms that there wasn’t any mention of vegan or Ayurvedic meals. Grrr. We think of the lyrics to “Hotel California” and wonder if we’ll ever be able to leave.
On the walk back to our room we notice so many roses in front of the dining pavilion. They obviously like what they are being fed. There are trees, all around, and they’re absolutely laden with ripe fruit - apples, pears, and plums.
We pack ourselves and the car and we’re on our way. Next stop: Schwerin. It looks like a very cool city and, unlike last night, we’re staying in town, where all the action is. We’re staying two nights so hope to get laundry done and catch some Olympic coverage from Paris.
In Schwerin we’re too early for our room, so we plan to first have lunch. We find a great sounding place, park the car, walk there and… it’s closed. Closed on Saturdays? that’s crazy. Oh, well. We walk to our second choice and they say they’re all booked up. At the third place, an Italian/pizza place, they’re happy to have us sit, but we have to know the kitchen is really backed up. It’ll be at least 30 minutes until our food might be ready. Nah.
The next place — a buffet style cafeteria — doesn’t look very good, and we’d have to say “We’d like some of that XXX over there” and we have no idea what most of these things are called. OK, try number (what are we up to?) five… a Sushi/Asian food restaurant. Karen asks the young waitress (maybe she’s Japanese?) in German, if we can have lunch. The waitress replies (in German) they don’t have lunch, but we can order a la carte. Lost in translation, but we’re hungry. We sit down and have a good lunch: Miso soup, sweet potato fries, and sushi.
After lunch we do some clothes shopping (for some nicer clothes for the cruise home). Karen checks out H&M first. Nothing good. Then to the mall, to the T.J. Maxx store. But here it’s T.K. Maxx. The logo looks identical, but the initials are different. Was the T. J. Maxx name already taken in Germany? Does T. J. mean something dirty in German? Again, alas, we don’t find anything.
We check in to our hotel and the receptionist/owner asks if we have a car? Yes, but it’s parked in public parking. “Oh, you should parked here!” Too late, too bad, so sad. Breakfast? 24€ each? Nah. Laundry facilities on premise? Yes but it’s too late in the day. We can’t do your laundry. Tomorrow? Sunday? Good God, no! No one works on Sundays. Are there any laundromats/self-serve laundries in town? No! How about…? No!
We take ourselves and our luggage up to the third floor by elevator. What a nice room! We find out later they upgraded us, for some reason. The living room is 400 square feet and there are three other rooms! We can endure this for two nights! Karen does a bunch of Googling and finds that what we call a Laundromat the Germans call a Waschsalon, and she found one about a fifteen minute walk away. We gather our dirty clothes, Euro coins and small bills and head over.
The laundromat is about is nice as any in the states, which is to say its borderline at best. They have different size washing machines and many driers. There are two dozen or more machines in all. Each machine has a number and there’s a single big control panel for everything. Not wanting to be a chauvinist I pitch in to help, loading the laundry in the machine and dumping the powdered soap on top. I press the button for Machine 31 and put in the euros. Karen selects the temperature and presses the start button and the machine starts to tumble, yay!
Within about a minute it becomes clear I put our clothes into a dryer. We scramble to get the clothes, covered in dry powdered laundry soap, out and into a basket. We have to move it to an actual washing machine. The drier has a metric shit ton of laundry soap in it, too, so we use our currency to scoop out as much as we can. So much for guys being able to do laundry. Between the wash and dry I get a beer next door (two euros) in part to have a beer and in part to have more change for the machines. In the end everything gets washed and dried (mostly), and we pack up and head for our hotel.
Laundry put away, and me recovering from the trauma of the whole experience, we head out to find somewhere for dinner. We’re a bit fragile after our lunch experience. We do quickly find a good looking Italian place. It’s fairly busy but has a nice menu and an open table for two outside. We treat ourselves to cocktails and then wine. The food is excellent and we have a wonderful conversation with the Albanian woman who (along with her husband) own and run the place. She is very positive and a delight to talk to.
Back at our room we watch some Olympics, and the sunset from our back patio overlooking the city. It’s a great city and room and we’re excited to be here another day and night.
Photos
The next morning it isn't raining! Yay. So green.
The dining pavilion really looks like this is designed to accommodate corporate retreats.
Our breakfast. We were told what each of these things is, but didn't note it down. I know the right-most bowl is oatmeal.
Scott, for one, thinks it's tasty and eats it all (minus three whole cloves)
The roses, and everything else on the compound, are all really happy and healthy.
Shopping for cheap, nice, dressy clothes at T. J. Maxx, er T. K. Maxx. (Why the different name here, Fritz??)
Our living room for the next two night. Lots of room.
Our bedroom.
A cute little house just down from our hotel. Everybody takes a picture of this place. Sad about the jerk graffiti people.
Second course. Seems like we were in the mood for pasta. And a limoncello spritz, and a compari soda, a glass of pink wine, and a glass of Italian primitivo.
Digesting on our roof-top patio overlooking Schwerin.
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