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?