Darmstadt-13 Immenstadt Cow Fest

After this I hereby refuse to eat beef or cow ever again.

Be guilty or else we DIE

I feel kinda sick. Being there actually. I lived on a no-beef diet for essentially a large part of my life. My diet wasn't much of a restriction to me, it was just the increased beef option here that makes my stomach churn. Were you supposed to be eating beef?

According to them, yes. Me? No. There is no way I'm gonna touch beef after that.

So the whole point of the festival was to bring the cows down to the town for the winter. The families who raised the cows would bring their cows down to walk through the town, and they would set up something like a marktplatz to sell their wares.

Towards noon the cows will return to the farms, and this time the cows lead the way back, for being in the town with people is quite stressful for them, and they are quite happy to leave.

After being left with reduced human interaction for most of their lives, suddenly they are forced to go to a town with a lot of people.

Everything is entirely community-run, so there are no corporate sponsors whatsoever. It's a for-the-people, by the people event. Isn't much a tourist dollar here,  we were the only foreign visitors. Everyone was staring at a group of tourists who had wandered rather ambiguously into a little town, south of Germany. It's a quaint and adorable, nothing seems hurried or frantic.

Having grown up in a city for most of my life, i don't mind living in a town where it's less hurried and stressful. Nobody seems in a hurry to leave or go somewhere.

But it provides a reason for the town to get together and meet up, and go to the market to buy groceries.

I swear after this I'm only buying my food from the farmer's market once a week. Big supermarkets can earn from things like mugs, toothbrushes and other personal items, but I'm pretty sure I don't need to buy tomatoes imported from somewhere when I can wait for the farmer's market. It's on twice a week (Yay!)

Giving the purchasing power back to the farmers directly. Middlemen are not welcome here. And I know who I'm buying my fruits and bread from.