So. At some point, about two weeks ago, I lost my mind. I had this brilliant idea to host a thanksgiving dinner. I mentioned it first to Jack, and we thought it would be fun, maybe a small group, he'd cook the turkey, I could do the sides. We thought we'd invite Nathan and Kelly and I would invite a few of my other friends around here. Well--what started as a group of about 6 blossomed into a group of about 14. AND WE PULLED IT OFF!!!
I have no clue how we did it. But I can say that I have now officially cooked my first real thanksgiving dinner.
Jack had both thursday and friday off this week, so he came down wednesday night. Thursday evening, we celebrated thanksgiving together by going grocery shopping for saturday, and then eating pizza at the main trainstation. woohoo. Then Friday morning, we woke up early and trekked out to Ikea, where I purchased a futon--so now, my guests will have a comfy place to crash, and I will have a sofa in the meantime. It should be nice--but I have yet to put it all together, because I don't have a hammer, and I need to hammer little plastic pegs into it to hold it all together. However, the matress for it is nice, and honestly, I could have probably just gotten the mattress, but having a couch will eventually be nice.
Anyhow, Jack is a wonderful, wonderful friend for not only suffering through going to ikea with me (it's an overwhelming place) but also for helping me carry all of the stuff i bought, and attempting to put the futon together...we didn't get too far, but we tried. Note to self: find a hammer! (or a rock...)
Jack is also a wonderful, wonderful friend for cooking the turkey! We roasted a whole 4 kilo turkey! He'd never done it before, and watching him clean it out was hilarious...he said as he was doing it "Now I think I want to be a vegetarian..." Haha. However, for his first stab at turkey cooking, he seemed to do a fairly nice job--the bird looked beautiful, and it was fully cooked, and according to everyone else it was moist and tasty. He didn't do any fancy seasoning though--he just slathered it with butter. But everyone who ate meat seemed to like it.
In addition to Jack's turkey, I made a ton of mashed potatoes, roasted carrots (I also have to give Kudos to Nathan for peeling tons of potatoes and carrots...), green beans with toasted almonds, peas with butter sauce, a mixed greens salad, a huge pan of apple crisp, and, my pride and joy, HOMEMADE STUFFING FROM SCRATCH!!! And it came out well!! I had no clue what I was doing, but I found a recipie online and modified it to be vegetarian, and it came out fantastic! Everyone loved it!! Bret, an American from Atlanta, even said "This is FANTASTIC!!! And i'm from the SOUTH!" He couldn't believe somethign vegetarian could taste so good. So I was quite proud of that. In addition, Vivian, who is from Boston, brought homemade cran-raspberry sauce, Yani, from australia, brought Anzac biscuits, and Bret and Jared brought a whole case of beer. It was a wonderful, wonderful feast, and I think everyone had a great time. The guests were: Jack, Vivian, Bret, and myself from the U.S.A, Yani from Australia, Alisha from Canada, Jared from the U.K., Nathan from Northern Ireland, Mathias, Roy, Annette, and Florian from Germany. Sadly, Zouhair from Morrocco and Kelly from the U.S.A were unable to make it.
Anyhow, after such a wonderful but exhausting evening, everyone went home except for Nathan and Jack, who left Sunday morning. Sunday I was absolutely exhausted and mostly rested, after taking the boys to the trainstation. Today I had an exam in one of my classes, and also the Christmas Market in Potsdam opened! I went, and it was really cool! I am excited to be able to go to this all the time for the next month--it's really fun and cheerful--better than I expected. Plus, there are so many varieties of gluehwein and lebkuchen to try!
In two weeks I am going to Heidelberg with Jack--according to Jack, they have an AMAZING Christmas Market, I can't wait!
Monday, November 27, 2006
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Berlin, Berlin
My internal clock is weeping right now.
Yesterday was lovely. Absolutely lovely. I walked through Park Sanssouci to downtown Potsdam, taking pictures and enjoying the beautiful, sunny, warm fall day. At Luisenplatz, they were setting up the Weihnachtsmarkt--the christmas market--and I'm kind of excited about that. I've never been in Germany for Christmastime before, but I've heard all the hype. I know they go all out. I've already been given a chocolate-filled advents calendar. The supermarkets have been stocked with stollen and gingerbreads and marzipans and baking goods and you name it for weeks. And Jack's been telling me how a real German Weinachtsmarkt might be his favorite thing ever. Seriously, seeing this normally stone serious "tough guy" frat boy go giddy over a christmas market is really getting me excited too. I called him Saturday afternoon to let him know they were setting things up, and he literally squealed with excitement. I nearly dropped the phone.
Anyhow, after my nice walk, I was preparing for a nice quiet evening staying in with my laptop in front of me, ready to have espn.com open, and hitting refresh every 30 seconds in an effort to "watch" the U of M OSU game. Sounds like a fun night, no? Instead I got a call from Jared (Not my ex, rather a British bloke that I have a few classes with here) and he asked if I wanted to come to Berlin with him and a few of his buddies, bar hopping. I said yes, on the grounds that we visited every sports bar with satallite tv, in hopes that some kind bartender would put the game on.
So, yeah, I met up with Jared and his british friends David, James, and Michael, and we hit the town. We were unsuccessful at convincing anyone to put the game on--oh, but we DID get to watch Handball, Boxing, and freakin PING PONG coverage. Also, a bartender at one of the bars treated me for all of my drinks--I tried to pay and he responded with "Schon gut!"--this became the joke of the night for the guys...they all wanted to know where their free drinks were. It was actually a really fun night, despite missing the whole game (dissapointing results, but I hear it was awesome). There was one point, when we stopped at one of Jared's friend's apartments, where we were all sitting around and the door bell rang. The guy who lived there, Christian, got up and buzzed the person in, leaving the apartment door open so that whoever it was could just come in. We're all just sitting around then for a few minutes, when suddenly this dog wanders into the room. It looks around at everyone for a few minutes, then wanders back out of the apartment. Michael then says "Wait, did that dog just ring the doorbell?" He must have had the wrong address. Because according to Jared, no one living there owns a dog, for sure. It was hilarious...just because of Michael's reaction to it. He was convinced that the dog rang the bell. And Christian never offered any other explanation, and no one else showed up. So...who knows?
I also introduced the Brit boys to Falafel last night. They made fun of falafel all night--they were talking about Doener Kebab's, and I said I didn't eat doener, but did eat falafel. They didn't know what falafel was, and when I told them "chickpeas with garlic" they all looked disgusted. So at the end of the evening, when we realized we were stranded in berlin for at least an hour (more on that to come) we went to a kebab place and I ordered a falafel. They all tried it and agreed, it truely is a delicious thing. duh.
Anyhow, so here comes the fun part of the story...
I've realized that, at night, you can go into Berlin easily, but you can never get back out. There is always something in your way. It's either night construction on the train tracks, a bus/tram/u-bahn that you just missed that only comes once every hour ( or even better, you just waited for an hour for the tram to the u-bahn, only to realize that the tram get's you to the u-bahn station 1 minute after the u-bahn train left...and the next one is in, you guessed it, an hour), or a Regional Bahn verspaetung (regional train delay)...whatever you can think of that makes public transportation a nightmare--it's going to happen to you while you are trying to get out of Berlin at night. So yes, as with every other time I've tried to get home from Berlin at night, it took about 3 hours...when during the day it would have taken 30 minutes, tops. This of course means that, after walking the 1.5 km from the Park Sanssouci trainstation back to my apartment, I finally crawled into bed at 6:30 am. UGH!!!
I need to make friends in Berlin, so that I can crash at their floors instead of trying to get back to Potsdam after nights out.
So yeah...falling asleep as the sun was getting ready to come up caused me to sleep until about 3pm...which means I was only awake for an hour before it started to get dark, because, yes, it starts getting dark here at 4pm now...which is driving me crazy. I miss sunny afternoons!!!
Anyhow, I have a lot to do and a lot to look forward to this week. I am planning several "thanksgiving" themed lessons, as well as one "Anti-Love song" lesson and one "Feminism vs. Quiverful/Neo-Cons" lesson (those two being for my 13th classes, who are doing a section right now on relationships, gender roles, etc.) . In addition to lesson plans, I also have to prepare for this weekend, since I am hosting a thanksgiving feast for my friends here. Jack, Nathan, Mathias, Yani, Nicky, Alisha, Vivian, Jared, and Bret (not been mentioned in here yet, but he's an American guy in one of my classes, nice guy) are all invited. I'm preparing green beans, roasted carrots, mashed potatoes, stuffing, salad, some sort of fruit sauce, pumpkin soup, and a pie! (apple or pumpkin, depending on whether or not i can find pumpkin pie filling). Jack is making a turkey breast. It should be a good time...and a very multi-culti thanksgiving too--american, canadian, australian, german, british, northern irish...
Anyhow, Jack is planning on coming down Wednesday to help me prepare, and also to help me pick out some sort of couch/futon/guest bedding at ikea. Should be fun times. I'm sure I will have plenty of stories to share about all of this.
Now I need to try to sleep--hopefully my schedule won't be too thrown off. I need to get up early tomorrow to go get a flu shot, and make my mother proud.
Yesterday was lovely. Absolutely lovely. I walked through Park Sanssouci to downtown Potsdam, taking pictures and enjoying the beautiful, sunny, warm fall day. At Luisenplatz, they were setting up the Weihnachtsmarkt--the christmas market--and I'm kind of excited about that. I've never been in Germany for Christmastime before, but I've heard all the hype. I know they go all out. I've already been given a chocolate-filled advents calendar. The supermarkets have been stocked with stollen and gingerbreads and marzipans and baking goods and you name it for weeks. And Jack's been telling me how a real German Weinachtsmarkt might be his favorite thing ever. Seriously, seeing this normally stone serious "tough guy" frat boy go giddy over a christmas market is really getting me excited too. I called him Saturday afternoon to let him know they were setting things up, and he literally squealed with excitement. I nearly dropped the phone.
Anyhow, after my nice walk, I was preparing for a nice quiet evening staying in with my laptop in front of me, ready to have espn.com open, and hitting refresh every 30 seconds in an effort to "watch" the U of M OSU game. Sounds like a fun night, no? Instead I got a call from Jared (Not my ex, rather a British bloke that I have a few classes with here) and he asked if I wanted to come to Berlin with him and a few of his buddies, bar hopping. I said yes, on the grounds that we visited every sports bar with satallite tv, in hopes that some kind bartender would put the game on.
So, yeah, I met up with Jared and his british friends David, James, and Michael, and we hit the town. We were unsuccessful at convincing anyone to put the game on--oh, but we DID get to watch Handball, Boxing, and freakin PING PONG coverage. Also, a bartender at one of the bars treated me for all of my drinks--I tried to pay and he responded with "Schon gut!"--this became the joke of the night for the guys...they all wanted to know where their free drinks were. It was actually a really fun night, despite missing the whole game (dissapointing results, but I hear it was awesome). There was one point, when we stopped at one of Jared's friend's apartments, where we were all sitting around and the door bell rang. The guy who lived there, Christian, got up and buzzed the person in, leaving the apartment door open so that whoever it was could just come in. We're all just sitting around then for a few minutes, when suddenly this dog wanders into the room. It looks around at everyone for a few minutes, then wanders back out of the apartment. Michael then says "Wait, did that dog just ring the doorbell?" He must have had the wrong address. Because according to Jared, no one living there owns a dog, for sure. It was hilarious...just because of Michael's reaction to it. He was convinced that the dog rang the bell. And Christian never offered any other explanation, and no one else showed up. So...who knows?
I also introduced the Brit boys to Falafel last night. They made fun of falafel all night--they were talking about Doener Kebab's, and I said I didn't eat doener, but did eat falafel. They didn't know what falafel was, and when I told them "chickpeas with garlic" they all looked disgusted. So at the end of the evening, when we realized we were stranded in berlin for at least an hour (more on that to come) we went to a kebab place and I ordered a falafel. They all tried it and agreed, it truely is a delicious thing. duh.
Anyhow, so here comes the fun part of the story...
I've realized that, at night, you can go into Berlin easily, but you can never get back out. There is always something in your way. It's either night construction on the train tracks, a bus/tram/u-bahn that you just missed that only comes once every hour ( or even better, you just waited for an hour for the tram to the u-bahn, only to realize that the tram get's you to the u-bahn station 1 minute after the u-bahn train left...and the next one is in, you guessed it, an hour), or a Regional Bahn verspaetung (regional train delay)...whatever you can think of that makes public transportation a nightmare--it's going to happen to you while you are trying to get out of Berlin at night. So yes, as with every other time I've tried to get home from Berlin at night, it took about 3 hours...when during the day it would have taken 30 minutes, tops. This of course means that, after walking the 1.5 km from the Park Sanssouci trainstation back to my apartment, I finally crawled into bed at 6:30 am. UGH!!!
I need to make friends in Berlin, so that I can crash at their floors instead of trying to get back to Potsdam after nights out.
So yeah...falling asleep as the sun was getting ready to come up caused me to sleep until about 3pm...which means I was only awake for an hour before it started to get dark, because, yes, it starts getting dark here at 4pm now...which is driving me crazy. I miss sunny afternoons!!!
Anyhow, I have a lot to do and a lot to look forward to this week. I am planning several "thanksgiving" themed lessons, as well as one "Anti-Love song" lesson and one "Feminism vs. Quiverful/Neo-Cons" lesson (those two being for my 13th classes, who are doing a section right now on relationships, gender roles, etc.) . In addition to lesson plans, I also have to prepare for this weekend, since I am hosting a thanksgiving feast for my friends here. Jack, Nathan, Mathias, Yani, Nicky, Alisha, Vivian, Jared, and Bret (not been mentioned in here yet, but he's an American guy in one of my classes, nice guy) are all invited. I'm preparing green beans, roasted carrots, mashed potatoes, stuffing, salad, some sort of fruit sauce, pumpkin soup, and a pie! (apple or pumpkin, depending on whether or not i can find pumpkin pie filling). Jack is making a turkey breast. It should be a good time...and a very multi-culti thanksgiving too--american, canadian, australian, german, british, northern irish...
Anyhow, Jack is planning on coming down Wednesday to help me prepare, and also to help me pick out some sort of couch/futon/guest bedding at ikea. Should be fun times. I'm sure I will have plenty of stories to share about all of this.
Now I need to try to sleep--hopefully my schedule won't be too thrown off. I need to get up early tomorrow to go get a flu shot, and make my mother proud.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
this hearts on fire
It is nearing 2am, and I know my body is tired, but I feel to restless to sleep. So...I am writing instead. Why not be productive?
First, a bit of catch-up.
Last weekend, I flew from Berlin to Stuttgart, because it was the same price to fly as to take the train...but flying got me there in 1 hour as opposed to 6.
I met up with Anna at the Hauptbahnhof in Stuttgart, where we caught a train to Fornsbach. In Fornsbach, Eva picked us up and drove us home to Frickenhofen--we could have caught an earlier train to Fornsbach, but Eva had been grocery shopping. While waiting for the second train, we contemplated having lunch, but realized that if Eva was grocery shopping, that meant a huge lunch was in the works. Eva is the Meisterin of Hospitality. Everything is home cooked...if she doesn't cook it or bake it herself, then she bought it from the neighbor down the street who baked or cooked it. Every meal includes at least 3 courses-the soup, the salad, the main dish. Meals are always accompanied by wine and are then followed by coffee. If you are not an experienced wine drinker (say, like me) and therefore don't have the neccessary aquired taste for dry wines, no worries! Eva will go down to the wine cellar and find a dusty bottle of lambrusco, sweet and sparkly, that she will uncork and insist you finish by the weekends end on your own, before you can protest.
Your bed will be made, there will be extra blankets, and on the night table there will be a vase with the last rose from the garden. Eva will apologize that it is already a bit frostbitten--but it is the last one she has. Next to the flower will be a bottle of Stilles Wasser, because she knows you don't particularly care for mineral water. Also, she forgot! In the car there is a litre of Cola Light, because you like that, right? Or was it your parents...
Oh, also, help yourself to the fresh grapes, clementines, pears, cheeses, breads, yogurts...if you are hungry between meals.
Seriously. Eva will spoil you rotten. She went overboard with the cooking and the wonderfulness and the amazingness, since both Anna and Pia were home for the whole weekend, and I was there too, and she really made me feel like an honorary daughter. I feel like family when I am with the Diass's. It's a wonderful, wonderful feeling.
Friday night, after eating more in just one meal than I am accustomed to eating in an entire day, I was pretty tired. The feeling was mutual for Anna and Pia, and we all went to bed early. The next morning we slept in and made our own breakfast...with the ingredients left behind by Eva. This meant fresh bread, both brown and sweet, 5 varieties of cheese, both soft and hard, coffee, tea, nutella, homemade plum jam, soft boiled eggs, and fresh fruit of every variety, and muesli with your choice of FRESH milk, or yogurt. Mmmmm...
After breakfast, we headed to Schwaebisch Hall, picking up Tina (Anna's best friend, and an all around awesome person, also home just for the weekend from the Uni at Nuremburg) en route. In Hall we did a bit of shopping/window shopping, and had coffee at a cute little cafe. Here is the amazing thing about going out with Anna and Tina--even though I rarely see them, whenever I am with them just hanging out, it's like putting on a favorite broken in hat. It fits perfectly. We can talk about anything and it never gets awkward or dull. It's just fun and comfy. It really is amazing that I had the luck to get to know such wonderful people, and that the connection has stayed strong.
After Hall, we went home for yet another amazing meal, then that evening we went back out to a few bars.
Sunday we woke up early and went as a family (Eva, Gerd, Anna, Pia, Me, and Ebi, Pia's boyfriend) to Stuttgart, and visited the Diamler Museum. I took plenty of pictures for my dad, which I will eventually post. We also ate dinner and visited a bar started by some of Anna's friends. Then, it was time to catch my flight home.
Here is a list of the food Eva prepared while I was there. It's amazing. The woman shows her love with food.
Friday Lunch:
Homemade broccoli cream soup.
Feldsalat salad, with fresh mushrooms and homemade vinegarette
Austrian-Style Crepes (Eva is Austrian, FYI): Thin pancakes filled with a quark-rum raisin-cinnamon-lemon-sugary sweet delicious filling, with a quark/butter/sugar glaze on top, set into a pan and baked till nice and brown on top, kinda enchillada style. Amazing.
To drink? Sekt (Sparkling wine, we'd probably incorrectly say Champagne in the states), of course! It was a celebration! Zum Wohl!
Friday Dinner:
A "casual" dinner, of sandwiches. For these sandwiches there was a cheese plate with 6 different varieties of cheese, fresh bread (2 brown varieties, 1 white variety) butter, quark, a salad, cucumber, tomatoes, fancy fresh pickles and olives from the market, hard-boiled eggs, and for those who ate meat, 4 varieties of sausage, including a wild boar sausage. Of course, there was also fresh fruit and wine to drink.
Saturday breakfast was explained already, and lunch was out on the town.
Dinner:
Eva's famous pfannkuchen nudelsuppe. The left over crepes were cut into strips then put into a vegetarian broth, garnished with fresh chives and nutmeg. It's my favorite soup that she makes. It's really delicious.
Mixed salad (mixed greens, mushrooms) and a cucumber salad-both with homemade dressing
Garlic Green Beans
Mixed vegetable sautee with rice (for me, and everyone)
Turkey in a golden curry creme base (for Eva, Pia, and Anna)
Beef Cutlet with Curry sauce (for Gerd, because he doesn't like turkey)
Wine all around, banana splits for dessert!
Seriously, I have to make note of these sorts of things just because it amazes me. She knows we (Pia, Anna, myself) don't eat that well on our own--often times just pasta or eggs made hastily because we are busy and tired. The things she finds the time to make are amazing--this was all done between her working both at the office (Gerd and Eva run a painting/renovation business) and at the Culture program (She is one of the organizers of all cultural/art events in the region, writes for the program's magazine, etc.)
How does she do it?
So yeah, basically I love my host family and had a great time seeing them. They sent me home with a bag of birthday gifts (which I had to promise to not open before my birthday) and fresh fruit (clementines and bananas).
Monday and tuesday were both a blur, then wednesday was my birthday, and a very pleasant one too. I was suprised by the teachers at my school-I recieved flowers, a bottle of Sekt, a book (Nirgendwo in Afrika) and an advents calendar, and many, many well wishes. It was a great suprise. I was also sung to by students, and 3 of my abitur students baked me a cake! Holy cow!
After school, I got another suprise when Nikki, Yani, Vivian and Alicia came over with a homemade flourless chocolate torte that Vivian made--it was sooo good. Nikki and Yani are australian, Vivian is from Boston, and Alicia is from Canada. They hung out for awhile and we had a great time--it was really nice of them to come over, and the torte was absolutely delicious!
I also recieved many cards from home, phone calls from friends in germany, and skypes from my parents--Dad sang to me, mom and I talked for nearly a half hour, I think. It was, all in all, a great birthday.
Oh, and the bag of gifts that I obediently waited to open? 3 chocolate bars, the novel Der Vorleser by Schlink, and a bottle of the most amazing smelling lotion from Weleda (not cheap stuff, let me tell you!)
I was spoiled rotten, to say the least.
Anyhow, the next evening, Nathan (who I went to oktoberfest with, Northern Irish kid, teaching assistant near Brandenburg, only 30 minutes away or so) came to visit and we had a good time friday--he is teaching in a very small village, and so while he was in the big city of potsdam, he wanted to do a lot of shopping. He loves h&m more than I do! He also wanted to go grocery shopping because, as he put it, the grocery store in his village has chicken--but only on wednesdays. I took him to Kaufland and he went nuts.
He left friday evening at about 6, then at about 8 Jack showed up--he promised to visit, since I visited him for his birthday. Friday night we laid low, then Saturday we woke up early to go to Berlin. We went out to lunch in a nice place on Haeckescher Markt (he treated as my birthday present), then walked around showing each other our favorite parts of the city (we'd both been to Berlin on numerous occaisions over the years) I showed him the Haeckescher Hoefe, he took me to see the astronomical clock on Alexander Platz. At 5:30 we went to Potsdamer Platz to the Sony Center, to see Borat in the original version (i'd seen it on Tuesday dubbed in to german--it wasn't bad, but the english version was sooo much better...some of the jokes just didn't translate right). It's a pretty funny movie, I've got to admit. As in pretty really freakin funny. After the movie we poked around the mini weihnachts markt on the Platz (so early!) and then went to a bar on Oranienburger Strasse, where you can get lambic for really cheap. They only have bottled beer there, but they offer like, 100 different varieties, and it's all really affordable. After the bar, I showed Jack the Tacheles (so awesome...art commune/squat) and then we went home.
Today we just bummed around till he had to catch his train back to stralsund.
It was an awesome weekend. Now I am freaking out about grad school apps and whatnot. It will get done, hopefully I will get lucky and be accepted someplace. I just hope my professors back in albion email me back soon.
that's all. I just wrote a whole lot. I guess that means i should update more often, huh?
First, a bit of catch-up.
Last weekend, I flew from Berlin to Stuttgart, because it was the same price to fly as to take the train...but flying got me there in 1 hour as opposed to 6.
I met up with Anna at the Hauptbahnhof in Stuttgart, where we caught a train to Fornsbach. In Fornsbach, Eva picked us up and drove us home to Frickenhofen--we could have caught an earlier train to Fornsbach, but Eva had been grocery shopping. While waiting for the second train, we contemplated having lunch, but realized that if Eva was grocery shopping, that meant a huge lunch was in the works. Eva is the Meisterin of Hospitality. Everything is home cooked...if she doesn't cook it or bake it herself, then she bought it from the neighbor down the street who baked or cooked it. Every meal includes at least 3 courses-the soup, the salad, the main dish. Meals are always accompanied by wine and are then followed by coffee. If you are not an experienced wine drinker (say, like me) and therefore don't have the neccessary aquired taste for dry wines, no worries! Eva will go down to the wine cellar and find a dusty bottle of lambrusco, sweet and sparkly, that she will uncork and insist you finish by the weekends end on your own, before you can protest.
Your bed will be made, there will be extra blankets, and on the night table there will be a vase with the last rose from the garden. Eva will apologize that it is already a bit frostbitten--but it is the last one she has. Next to the flower will be a bottle of Stilles Wasser, because she knows you don't particularly care for mineral water. Also, she forgot! In the car there is a litre of Cola Light, because you like that, right? Or was it your parents...
Oh, also, help yourself to the fresh grapes, clementines, pears, cheeses, breads, yogurts...if you are hungry between meals.
Seriously. Eva will spoil you rotten. She went overboard with the cooking and the wonderfulness and the amazingness, since both Anna and Pia were home for the whole weekend, and I was there too, and she really made me feel like an honorary daughter. I feel like family when I am with the Diass's. It's a wonderful, wonderful feeling.
Friday night, after eating more in just one meal than I am accustomed to eating in an entire day, I was pretty tired. The feeling was mutual for Anna and Pia, and we all went to bed early. The next morning we slept in and made our own breakfast...with the ingredients left behind by Eva. This meant fresh bread, both brown and sweet, 5 varieties of cheese, both soft and hard, coffee, tea, nutella, homemade plum jam, soft boiled eggs, and fresh fruit of every variety, and muesli with your choice of FRESH milk, or yogurt. Mmmmm...
After breakfast, we headed to Schwaebisch Hall, picking up Tina (Anna's best friend, and an all around awesome person, also home just for the weekend from the Uni at Nuremburg) en route. In Hall we did a bit of shopping/window shopping, and had coffee at a cute little cafe. Here is the amazing thing about going out with Anna and Tina--even though I rarely see them, whenever I am with them just hanging out, it's like putting on a favorite broken in hat. It fits perfectly. We can talk about anything and it never gets awkward or dull. It's just fun and comfy. It really is amazing that I had the luck to get to know such wonderful people, and that the connection has stayed strong.
After Hall, we went home for yet another amazing meal, then that evening we went back out to a few bars.
Sunday we woke up early and went as a family (Eva, Gerd, Anna, Pia, Me, and Ebi, Pia's boyfriend) to Stuttgart, and visited the Diamler Museum. I took plenty of pictures for my dad, which I will eventually post. We also ate dinner and visited a bar started by some of Anna's friends. Then, it was time to catch my flight home.
Here is a list of the food Eva prepared while I was there. It's amazing. The woman shows her love with food.
Friday Lunch:
Homemade broccoli cream soup.
Feldsalat salad, with fresh mushrooms and homemade vinegarette
Austrian-Style Crepes (Eva is Austrian, FYI): Thin pancakes filled with a quark-rum raisin-cinnamon-lemon-sugary sweet delicious filling, with a quark/butter/sugar glaze on top, set into a pan and baked till nice and brown on top, kinda enchillada style. Amazing.
To drink? Sekt (Sparkling wine, we'd probably incorrectly say Champagne in the states), of course! It was a celebration! Zum Wohl!
Friday Dinner:
A "casual" dinner, of sandwiches. For these sandwiches there was a cheese plate with 6 different varieties of cheese, fresh bread (2 brown varieties, 1 white variety) butter, quark, a salad, cucumber, tomatoes, fancy fresh pickles and olives from the market, hard-boiled eggs, and for those who ate meat, 4 varieties of sausage, including a wild boar sausage. Of course, there was also fresh fruit and wine to drink.
Saturday breakfast was explained already, and lunch was out on the town.
Dinner:
Eva's famous pfannkuchen nudelsuppe. The left over crepes were cut into strips then put into a vegetarian broth, garnished with fresh chives and nutmeg. It's my favorite soup that she makes. It's really delicious.
Mixed salad (mixed greens, mushrooms) and a cucumber salad-both with homemade dressing
Garlic Green Beans
Mixed vegetable sautee with rice (for me, and everyone)
Turkey in a golden curry creme base (for Eva, Pia, and Anna)
Beef Cutlet with Curry sauce (for Gerd, because he doesn't like turkey)
Wine all around, banana splits for dessert!
Seriously, I have to make note of these sorts of things just because it amazes me. She knows we (Pia, Anna, myself) don't eat that well on our own--often times just pasta or eggs made hastily because we are busy and tired. The things she finds the time to make are amazing--this was all done between her working both at the office (Gerd and Eva run a painting/renovation business) and at the Culture program (She is one of the organizers of all cultural/art events in the region, writes for the program's magazine, etc.)
How does she do it?
So yeah, basically I love my host family and had a great time seeing them. They sent me home with a bag of birthday gifts (which I had to promise to not open before my birthday) and fresh fruit (clementines and bananas).
Monday and tuesday were both a blur, then wednesday was my birthday, and a very pleasant one too. I was suprised by the teachers at my school-I recieved flowers, a bottle of Sekt, a book (Nirgendwo in Afrika) and an advents calendar, and many, many well wishes. It was a great suprise. I was also sung to by students, and 3 of my abitur students baked me a cake! Holy cow!
After school, I got another suprise when Nikki, Yani, Vivian and Alicia came over with a homemade flourless chocolate torte that Vivian made--it was sooo good. Nikki and Yani are australian, Vivian is from Boston, and Alicia is from Canada. They hung out for awhile and we had a great time--it was really nice of them to come over, and the torte was absolutely delicious!
I also recieved many cards from home, phone calls from friends in germany, and skypes from my parents--Dad sang to me, mom and I talked for nearly a half hour, I think. It was, all in all, a great birthday.
Oh, and the bag of gifts that I obediently waited to open? 3 chocolate bars, the novel Der Vorleser by Schlink, and a bottle of the most amazing smelling lotion from Weleda (not cheap stuff, let me tell you!)
I was spoiled rotten, to say the least.
Anyhow, the next evening, Nathan (who I went to oktoberfest with, Northern Irish kid, teaching assistant near Brandenburg, only 30 minutes away or so) came to visit and we had a good time friday--he is teaching in a very small village, and so while he was in the big city of potsdam, he wanted to do a lot of shopping. He loves h&m more than I do! He also wanted to go grocery shopping because, as he put it, the grocery store in his village has chicken--but only on wednesdays. I took him to Kaufland and he went nuts.
He left friday evening at about 6, then at about 8 Jack showed up--he promised to visit, since I visited him for his birthday. Friday night we laid low, then Saturday we woke up early to go to Berlin. We went out to lunch in a nice place on Haeckescher Markt (he treated as my birthday present), then walked around showing each other our favorite parts of the city (we'd both been to Berlin on numerous occaisions over the years) I showed him the Haeckescher Hoefe, he took me to see the astronomical clock on Alexander Platz. At 5:30 we went to Potsdamer Platz to the Sony Center, to see Borat in the original version (i'd seen it on Tuesday dubbed in to german--it wasn't bad, but the english version was sooo much better...some of the jokes just didn't translate right). It's a pretty funny movie, I've got to admit. As in pretty really freakin funny. After the movie we poked around the mini weihnachts markt on the Platz (so early!) and then went to a bar on Oranienburger Strasse, where you can get lambic for really cheap. They only have bottled beer there, but they offer like, 100 different varieties, and it's all really affordable. After the bar, I showed Jack the Tacheles (so awesome...art commune/squat) and then we went home.
Today we just bummed around till he had to catch his train back to stralsund.
It was an awesome weekend. Now I am freaking out about grad school apps and whatnot. It will get done, hopefully I will get lucky and be accepted someplace. I just hope my professors back in albion email me back soon.
that's all. I just wrote a whole lot. I guess that means i should update more often, huh?
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