My Trip to the German Village of Columbus, Ohio!
The Book Loft
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| The Book Loft from across the street. |
On Saturday my friend
Jessica and I decided to do something crazy and spontaneous. We decided to leave
early Sunday morning and drive 325 miles to Columbus, Ohio to the Book Loft.
The Book Loft is one of the largest independent bookstores in the US. It has 32
rooms of books. I have wanted to go there since I saw a photo of it on tumblr a
few years ago, I wanted to go so bad that I added it to my so called bucket
list (which I actually call my “list of things to do before the next great
adventure”).
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| A section of the garden. |
After looking at
pictures, lusting after the store for years it was amazing to finally stand in
front of the archway with the giant Book Loft banner with “Wilkommen” written
above it and most of all the sign that promises 32 rooms of books that awaited
us inside the block long building. The arch lead to a long garden path that has
table of books and a ton of windows with beautiful book displays. We went through
the garden and up the stairs to a porch with more books. Right beside the door
there is a pile of baskets to carry potential purchases. The first room of the
Loft is very small and crowded because that’s also where the cash register is.
I have decided that the combination of banners, displays, baskets, and making
the first room as uncomfortable as possible was an ingenious ploy to get people
to immediately go deeper into the labyrinth of books.
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| One of the long hallways of books. |
We worked our way
through 2 floors and 4 wings of books. Jessica was almost eaten in the first
few rooms of cookbooks. I loved the rooms with the classic books and the
fantasy room. There’s a loft whose stairs are lined with literary shirts and
tote bags. There were a ton of bookmarks on spindles, hanging on walls, on the
end of book cases, everywhere. They had a whole room
of travel books, a small hallway devoted just to Great Britain. The only small
complaint I have of the Book Loft is that, while this is a room devoted to
every subject imaginable, there is no room for just sitting and taking in the
atmosphere. No place out of the way for browsers to go through their extremely
heavy basket of potential purchases to sit down and decide if they really want
to spend hundreds of dollars. And one’s bill could very easily rack up into the
hundreds because the Book Loft’s idea of “bargain” books is 5% off, with an
added 10% if a coupon is used. To solve this problem Jess and I took a couple
stools and dragged them into room #17, the sports room, because at the time
there was no one there. The small aisles created an almost claustrophobic
atmosphere that could really fuel creative ideas if there was a place to sit
and reflect.
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| Me outside of the Loft. The garden looks beautiful all lit up at night! |
The Book Loft has huge
rooms, small rooms, even closets that were converted into amazing almost secret
cubbies and every single one of those 32 rooms were packed with books. Thank
goodness upon entering we were also given a map, which meant we were only sort
of lost a couple times. We spent 4 hours there, but I could have spent longer.
We went through the lower east wing rather fast because we were hungry, kind of
tired, and it was getting late. It was dark when we left and the Book Loft was
even stunningly beautiful at night due to the lights on the trees of the garden
and on the archway. The Book Loft was basically my own version of Heaven.
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| My purchases. I bought books that I cannot find at home! |
Schmidt’s Sausage Haus
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| The outside of the Sausage Haus. |
After the Book Loft I
wasn’t sure that our spontaneous adventure could get any better but then
Jessica and I went to Schmidt’s Sausage Haus, an amazing restaurant that served
only German food. Jessica who had been to this German Village before knew that
the best way to end our amazing day would be dinner and a huge cream puff the
size of our head. It had a fun, carefree atmosphere. The waitresses and waiters
wore “traditional” German outfits. The food was amazing; I had the Hoffbräu Schnitzel
as well as a giant chocolate cream puff that took days to eat. Just reading the
menu was an experience. I had no idea there were so many different kinds of
sausages! I would definitely recommend going to Columbus and spending times at
both of these amazing places!
Check back Friday to read about our pit stop on the way home from Columbus!
~Laura!
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