2011-02 Bad Oeynhausen Germany

After visiting Singen, Ray went to Bad Oeynhausen in north central Germany. Bad Oeynhausen is about 45 minutes from the airport in Hanover and is connected via the autobahn.  Needless to say it was a fast trip as the driver hit at least 115mph during some stretches.

The term Bad means bath or spa in German and Bad Oeynhausen has developed around spa and health activities.  It is home many hospitals, including a world renown heart clinic.

Even though there were no English language TV channels at the hotel, there were still plenty of American TV shows on which had German soundtracks, including Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother, and even older shows such as The Nanny were playing throughout the evening.   One of the most interesting things I ran across was the live Bocce championships on the Eurosport network.  I had never seen bocce on TV before.

I took a walk along the creek and saw an old mill (I think based on the location next to the creek and the 2 large stone wheels laying against the building.  There we also a lot of stone build walls that were about 18 inches wide and up to 3 fee tall.  Most of these were now enclosed in wire to protect them.

Also along the walk I saw a miniature golf course.  It was closed for the winter, but one of the interesting things in the course was a full size plane.  I am pretty sure it did not land there, but it was interesting to see the plane in the middle of the park.

Not too far from the hotel was a park that had a large fenced area that contained a large herd of deer.  There are probably 20 or so deer in the large enclosure and they are maintained by the locals, including a large buck who watched me the entire time I was walking along the edge of the park.  They were originally brought in for an Expo in 2000, but they were not taken out when the expo ended, and the herd has continued to expand

Behind the hotel was another park known as Kurpark, known for its beautiful gardens, large open area, fountain and the home to the G.O.P. theatre, which has ongoing shows and restaurants.  There was also a museum which had some outdoor displays of old outrigger boats.  I was not able to find out anything about the history of the boats or where they were used, but they had a few of them on display

My last night there, I just wanted a quick dinner, so we went to Stahl's Imbiss.  Imbiss is basically a small fast food stand or trailer, which may specialize in items such as bratwurst, schnitzel, spatzle (noodles) and pommes (fries).  The storefront was about 30' wide and the counter was about 4' inside the door from side to side.  There are no chairs and you stand up to eat your meal.  Stahl's only serves bratwurst and fries.  You can have you brat with mustard or ketchup with curry powder.  The fries come with ketchup or mayonnaise.  The brats are cooked on a charcoal grill while you wait.  The food was very good and I really enjoyed the local atmosphere of the place.