Tschüß, Oma und Opa!

---

It is entirely possible that we slept a very long time this morning, and didn't have breakfast until after 10:00 AM, and then slowly assembly-lined through showers and teethbreeshing and so forth, and weren't ready to leave the house until after noon. Yes, definitely possible.

Arnold and Doris were to return to Ettlingen on a train leaving just before 4pm, so we all piled onto the bus and headed into Altona to check out more of the street fair. There were many people and lots of things and smells and it was generally street-fair-like. Barbara and Andrea and I went in search of a WC (you know, a necessary); Andrea knew of a free one, except when we got there, they had taken it out, so instead we went and found a pay toilet, which was much less than the one in the train station (30 cents v. 2 euros).

When we three returned, we found the rest of the group at a sundries booth, where Cheryl had purchased for me a coin purse/wallet thingy. It turns out, in Europe, coins are real money (the smallest bill is 5 euros), so you're going to want to carry them around. And, it turns out, a coin purse is a much more convenient way of carrying coins around; I am not fond of having a pound of coins jangling around in my pocket. So, now I have a coin purse. Hurrah!

We wandered around a bit more, and it was getting closer to time for Andrea's parents to catch their train, so we started the search for an Eiscafé. The first place we found was either too busy, or there were no places to sit; I wasn't clear on what the deal was, Ulf just said "Next!" and we moved on. We finally found a place with enough tables and chairs for us to be able to sit in a configuration resembling "together". We all ordered our various concoctions, and chatted, and then noticed that it was taking a long time for them to come, and then we all started watching the clock, because their departure time was rapidly approaching.

Finally, the Eis arrived, and we all got to work, and the conversation died down a little bit. I had something called Eis und heiß Kirsch (or something pretty close to that which I'm not remembering), which had chocolate and vanilla ice cream, Kirschquark (something like cream cheese, sour cream, or yogurt but not exactly any of them), whipped cream, chocolate shavings, and served with a little pitcher of hot cherry compote. Es war lecker! Arnold set the land speed record for consuming ice cream, and then he and Doris had to dash off to the Bahnhof, so we all said goodbye at the ice cream shop. We lingered a bit longer, but finally set off to see more sights.

We struck out in a seemingly random direction; I'm not sure what we were looking for in particular, or if we were even looking for anything, but what I do know is, after a while, we ran into Ulf's Schwester (sister), and we stopped and made introductions where I actually correctly said Ich heiße Greg, a small but important victory over the German language (i.e., right words, basically correct pronunciation, correct order, and no quizzical look of "what the hell did he just say?"). After standing a chatting for a bit, we parted and went on our way again, and as we walked, Ulf told me that both his sister and mother live in Hamburg, which led to questions about this and that, and I learned that Ulf was born in Berlin, but moved to the Schwarzwälder where he grew up and had his schooling, and then he went to University in Köln, and he and Andrea ended up in Hamburg because she wanted to study Bibliothekwißenschaften (library science) and Hamburg was the only place that offered it on a timeline which agreed with their schedule.

At some point, the sky started looking unhappy, and the wind picked up, and the temperature started dropping, and it became clear that some precipitation was in our immediate future, so we headed for the bus stop. Of course, it started to rain, and then it started to pour, and then it rained a bit sideways. We made it to the bus stop without getting too wet, but then, standing at the bus stop we got pretty soaked. It was a warm day, though, so the cooling of the rain was welcome. Finally, our bus showed up and we all crammed on and made our way back to Schenefeld. On the way from the bus to the house, we stopped at the Aldi for some groceries for dinner and for breakfast in the morning. FYI, the Aldi in Schenefeld does not take Visa nor Mastercard.

When we got back to the house, Andrea and Ulf sequestered themselves in the kitchen and prepared a delicious Käsespätzle. I tried a tiny bit of the Goose sauce (pretty much a spicy Sriracha sauce), and it was very tasty, so I added a small but healthy amount to my seconds, and found out that the amount of spiciness goes up exponentially with the volume of the sauce. It had a great flavor, but at the last, I was almost afraid to take a bite.

We had a lot of great conversation (like ya do), and then Ulf brought out a board game: Zug um Zug. You may have heard of it as "Ticket to Ride". We actually have five people playing, and it was a lot of fun, and Joe won (like he does), and Ulf came in a close second, and I'm not talking about the rest of us. By this time, it was very late, and we had a pretty early morning, so Cheryl and I went and started packing stuff up and getting ready for bed, and that was the day.

---

Comments

[J&J]

Meals
Fun to try new things and tease the taste buds!