The village of Obersteinweiler (pronounced O-bah-shtine-viler) in southern Germany is getting ready for it's annual village festival. Every year the highlights are when the village youth undergo an initiation ceremony for adulthood, according to village tradition, where they have to chug a liter of ice cold beer (called a Maß (ß=sz oder ss)). The ceremony is called Eichung (pronounced "eye-shoong") which means "test" or "swearing in". On the last day, the youths put up a bouquet (sort of like a maypole but not as big).

The festival goes for four days and goes from Friday to Monday. Eichung is Mondays. Bouquet is Sundays and on Monday there is the so called Fruehschoppen which is breakfast, usually white sausage with pretzels or bratwurst and to drink another beer.

Village youth group: New members are usually 16 to 18 upon initiation while members usually leave in their late 20s. They meet every Friday to drink (alcohol consumption is legal in Germany age 16 and up for beer and wine and age 18 for hard alcoholic beverages) and hang out. In the two months before the festival they prepare the bouquet, which is pretty much a small tree with tons of colored paper strips tied to the branches.

Obersteinweiler: A village with a population of nearly 1500. It is situated in a rural area in southern Germany. The village has some timber-framed houses, three restaurants, four bars, a post office, a grocery store (includes liquor sales), a small school and a train station. There are enough minors from the village and neighboring villages that they can go to school in Obersteinweiler. The school is K-13th grade (11th through 13th is higher secondary education while school is only obligatory until a GED is achieved, 9th grade for standard GED and 10th grade for an actual diploma).

The restaurants are a regional food restaurant (restaurant name "Elwedritsch", an Italian food restaurant (named "Da Giulia") and a bistro that serves doner kebab and bratwurst (named "Obersteiner Imbiss"). The bars are named "Saschas", "Hannenfass", "Feuerbude" and "Drunkcore". "Drunkcore" is a bar/music club crossover that plays metal, metalcore, hardrock and punk.

Train connections: The local train station has three platforms. One for freight traffic and two for trains travelling in opposite directions. In one direction, the final station after 60 kilometers is a town with a population of 3000, in the other direction you get to a city of 110,000 after 30 kilometers.

Reference pictures:




Other side of village


Inside village



Character sheet:

Name (please take German names, also acceptable are Lothringian, Alsatian or Luxembourgish names like Juncker, Mueller or Weisser)
Age: (at least 16, you can be much older too)
Gender
Appearance
Clothing style (do not write Lederhosen! Only Bavarians wear them and only at Oktoberfest. No German wears Lederhosen as casual wear.)
Occupation (if student, write student)
Likes
Dislikes
Personality
Background