The Quest for Birkenstocks

One of the main reasons I go to Germany every couple of years is to restock my supply of Birkenstocks.  I started buying them when I lived there, and I basically can't live without them now.  It just about kills me when a pair runs its course and needs to be thrown away.  I think in my lifetime, I've thrown away only three pairs.  One that never was quite right (the straps were plastic and would cut into my skin after a long day), one pair that I wore gardening one too many times (the brown dirt stains wouldn't come out of the white leather), and the pair that I was wearing when I broke my ankle (they were an unfortunate casualty of broken ankle PTSD because those purple and blue paisleys go down as one of my favorite pairs of all time).  I only threw out the garden ones a couple of days before I left for Germany, because I knew I would be getting a new pair.

The only store where I have ever bought my Birkenstocks is Hoffmann's in Speicher.  (Well okay, there was this really old guy in Trier that had a closet for a shop, but it was a crap shoot every time if I could even find the alley where his shop was located.) For some strange reason, Hoffmann's is the only store in Germany where I can find Papillio, the colorful styles of Birkenstocks.  I don't wear the traditional brown leather Birks, but I like mine festive and fun which is what Papillios are.  It never hurt either that Hoffmann's had the cheapest prices around.

So, I had planned to shop at Hoffmann's on Saturday morning, the only time we had reserved for shopping (and honestly the only time German stores would be open when we were in Germany).  I should have thought long and hard though about my shopping plan when Ethan reminded me earlier in the week that it was Fasching (or Carnival) in Europe.  Germans will use any excuse to party, and Fasching is probably the BIGGEST excuse.  So every small business closes its doors--sometimes for just a day, but more often for the entire week.  Hoffmann's was no exception.  They were closed from Friday before Lent until the following Wednesday.

I seriously wanted to cry.

However, I remembered the beauty of small village living, and I headed directly to Et Laedchen to ask Iris if she knew the owner of Hoffmann's.  Of COURSE she did!  She even tried calling her (and her two sons), but had no success.

I seriously wanted to cry.  Again.

So, we headed into Trier to cross more things off the bucket list, but instead of seeing the sites like we wanted to, we ended up spending four hours walking the streets of Trier, trying to find a store that sold Birkenstocks.

See, Birkenstocks are just about as German as you can get for shoes.  But the problem is, none of the Germans wear them.  In true capitalistic style, they export them to America where they can sell them for three times the price of what they sell for in Germany.  So they are next to impossible to find.

I consoled myself with the fact that I didn't really need another pair since I had at least five pairs sitting in my shoe trunk at home.  But Allison had a different problem.

She had taken orders from her family for the shoes, and come hell or high water, we weren't going to disappoint the Boss family! ;-)

We ended up walking almost five miles that day, looking for Birkenstocks.  It didn't help that I was wearing a new pair of shoes, and one was biting into my heel.

In the end, we found two shoe stores right next to each other.  Allison found most of the shoes she needed (thank goodness), and I found a fun, black patent leather pair.  When I asked the sales woman if they had any Papillios, she told me that Birkenstock had decided to discontinue the line.

WHAT THE *BLEEP*?!?!?!?

I think a small piece of me died that day, knowing that my garden Birks were sitting in a landfill somewhere when they could have had at least a couple more years of gardening use....

And another piece died, knowing that Papillios were sitting in the window of Hoffmann's.  No joke, I thought that night of actually breaking in and entering to get my shoes...and leaving compensation on the counter.

Oh well.  I've lived without The Good Wife, and Trader Joe's specialty chips, and my Kalso Earth fur boots...all discontinued.  I could live without Papillios too, right?

I didn't whine about it, or worry about it.  I learned long ago to just let go of worldly things, because at some point, moth and rust WILL corrupt.  However, John could sense my sad heart, and he took matters into his own hands.

When we headed into Eis Cafe Dolomiti the next day for jumbo spaghetti eis, John asked our "friends" (really just the same people who worked there when we lived there and who remember us) if they knew the owners of Hoffmann's.  Turns out, the Eis Cafe woman was friends of a friend who worked at Hoffmann's....and she told us she would call her and ask her if she would open the shop for us!

I held back even more tears.

We told them that we would be back that night for yet another jumbo spaghetti Eis, and we would find out what the status was.

When we showed up at 8 o'clock that night, she told us that it was all arranged.  We just had to show up the next morning at 10, and someone would be there to help us!

I think someone had bets on how far I could go without spilling a tear.

And the next morning, just three hours before our plane took off, we showed up at the front door, and the most spry, young-looking 75-year-old woman let us in.  And it was like we had known each other forever.  She was a delight.  And man, could she move!  She was in and out of the storage room, bringing us the shoes we needed.  By the end, she was sweating, and I couldn't blame her because I was too.  We had such a short time to shop, so it was a whirlwind of activity.  Once she found out that we could speak Deutsch, she told us how relieved she was to find out that we could speak Deutsch!  She was worried (knowing that we were Americans) that we wouldn't, and she didn't know what she would do.  And I was thankful that all those years ago, I had learned how to say "I am thankful" when praying in German, because I was able to tell her how "dankbar" I was.....and she touched me on the shoulder and told me auf Deutsch not to worry about it.  She was more than happy to be there to help me.

Yep, I held the tears back one more time.

And in the end, I walked out with three pairs of Papillios, Glo walked out with one (which I will probably end up wearing 99.9% of the time), and Allison had her two final pairs.  Certainly it was worth the time for the shop to open up for us!

And both John and I agreed that the little lady deserved a ten Euro tip.  I would have brought her flowers....if any of those stupid stores had been open!