Staying with friends is great, until it isn't

My friend Sue and I were visiting my college roommate in Germany and we were having a lovely time, but after a week of her over-protective mothering we needed to breathe.

We came up with an excuse about visiting a relative and we bolted for the car. Our rental car was a VW Jetta in dragon green and it flew like a dragon carrying us to freedom. We felt like school children playing hooky, all the possibilities spread out before us. We wound through the black forest, windows down, radio up, and laughing, a lot!

Our second night I decided we should stay by a lake, the black forest reminded me of the White Mountains in New Hampshire, all I needed to complete the picture was a lake. We looked at a map and sure enough Lake Schluchsee was not too far away. The woman at the tourist center informed us there were two hotel options on the lake, one had a very nice playground, and the other was off the beaten path and used to be a hunting castle. We didn’t even need to discuss it; she had us at off the beaten path.

We pulled in to the setting sun beautifully reflected on the still surface of the lake. It was the off season so there was plenty of room at the hotel. I struggled to check us in with my broken German but it turned out the front desk clerk was a lovely Brit who showed us a couple options and ended up giving us a suite that took up the whole top floor.

We’d done enough driving for the day so we decided to have dinner at the hotel. The dinner was fabulous; we drank wine, laughed, and ate until we were the last ones in the restaurant. The chef came out to check if we needed anything else because he was closing the kitchen. Lo and behold the British desk clerk was also the chef. We said we were fine and invited him to share the last of our wine. He politely declined. Ten minutes later he came out and said, I declined your offer to drink white wine with you, but would you consider drinking red wine with me? Sue and I didn’t miss a beat and said yes. Turns out he was one of the three owners of the hotel, because it was slow most of the staff were gone for the season.

We learned a very important lesson that evening, while drinking wine with the man who has the keys to the wine cellar may seem like a good idea at the time, the next morning you are really re-thinking that decision! I can highly recommend Seehotel Hubertus, it’s a charming place, but if you go, don’t go looking for the lovely British owner, he’s now living in Chicago, married to my friend Sue.