Many Louisvillians will notice a red, black and yellow mini-bus rolling around the city this week. The vehicle, decked out with the colors of the German flag, will be in town for the German Bus USA Tour conducted by theGerman embassy in Washington D.C.
The jaunt is already underway and has made stops in Jackson, Mississippi and Memphis.
Claire Macfarlane is a press officer at the embassy and planned the route for the trip. She said the tour was originally supposed to visit places with neighborhoods called "Germantown." But:
“It turns out through research that a lot of those towns don’t have a strong tie to Germany anymore or maybe hardly did in the first place,” Macfarlane said.
So, the tour switched gears to visit smaller places with German-related events, such as Oktoberfests. The event is a light launch of a larger tour that will happen in 2018, and is meant to highight the strengths of the U.S. and Germany’s relationship.
“We have so much trade between our two countries,” Macfarlane said.
The bus will be in Louisville on November 8 and 9. Participants will tour areas connected to the city's German roots as well as talk with Vicky and Bob Ullrich, the authors ofGermans in Louisville: A History.
You can virtually follow along the tour by following #GermanBusUSA as well as listen to the tour’s Spotify playlist of German music.
