alles gute, meiner!

Conrad, one of the Quenzel's sons, turned thirty this week, so today is the big party. This is the moment the whole family has been waiting, for, apparently, b/c it's the debut of the renovations they've been doing in the "garden house." I'm realizing now that I've posted like no pictures of their house. Sorry.

Anyway, basically, their house is one of those that line the city walls, with big front doors to garages and bigger gardens. These were originally built for the city-dwelling peasant class, who needed to pull carriages off the streets, house horses, etc. So, we've got an awesome three-tier back yard - the main "Hof," a terrace, and the garden plot that sits right up next to the city wall and what is now the lowest part of the park. The Quenzels have lived here for a couple hundred years, and the house has taken on a couple different financial endeavors. The house in the garden was built during the time that Louisa had a brewery and bar here. When Christoph's grandfather became a doctor they cut out the brewing, but the house is still there, and has mostly been a workshop/storage space since Ruth and Christoph took over. Originally, they thought that when they got old and one of their children moved into the house they would move out to that second house, but it's fairly impractical since the ground floor doesn't have real living space, and they're worried about not being able to use stairs (although I know very few old Germans that can't tackle stairs), and are now planning on living in the first floor that is currently my apartment. So now, the garden house has become a party house. First Conrad's birthday, then Ruth's (next week), and Phillipp and Marion wanted to have their Polterabend (the party the night before their wedding) there, but have now changed their plans.

Well, I never saw the upstairs of the house before they started fixing it up, b/c it required climbing a scary looking ladder at least 15 feet and then doing a pull-up into the window, but it looks awesome now, and since the building was built just before the civil war, I'm thinkin' they had a lot to do. They built a new external staircase and porch on the back side, and it stays sunny up there until about 21:30 at this time of year, even though it's pretty shady in the garden by 20:00. We've been hanging out up there every evening this week, and tonight I think there's supposed to be 40 people or something coming to the party.

Been a while since I posted a recipe. I've basically been eating the same things over and over, or else I've been out of town and therefore not cooking for myself. SO.... The Quenzels asked me to bring a salad, which is not a big deal except that then they started saying how they're going to tell all the guests it's an American delicacy, and I felt pressured to make something quintessential. I thought about making homemade ranch dressing for a regular tossed salad, but I've never even thought about that before and it seemed like a daunting task. Then this salad was born. The Quenzels really like tex-mex, and I started off thinking about a bean salad because of that. The white limas (which, here at least, don't have that sweet taste the green ones do) take away from that a little, but I was trying to add color and size variation, and I think that although not typical tex-mex, I'm pleased with their addition.

Kat's "Ach, LEUTE!" Bean Salad
1 large can sweet corn
1 large can red kidney beans
1 small can jumbo white lima beans
2 small red onions
juice of 1 small lemon
1/2 head iceberg lettuce
cilantro, white pepper, sunflower oil to taste

Rinse beans and corn thoroughly with cold water. Combine beans, corn, onion, lemon juice, and spices beforehand to give the spice a chance to soak into the veggies (yes, I know beans are legumes but w/e). Let stand one hour. Chop lettuce in strips, wash, and add, with oil, just before serving.

I'll add pictures later, but I haven't made this look especially pretty yet, so I'll take pics of the final product. It's not ready yet b/c the party's not for a couple hours.

well crap.

I really did mean to do this more often. But that last post, I have to admit, kind of wore me out. Well, here goes again anyway.

I spent a good deal of time recuperating from the Americans. You know, watching junk tv, knitting, vegging out, the whole deal. And then, suddenly, I realized time was almost up. So I took off. Spring finally came to Germany (in its own little European way), and I was in Berlin when I feel like it finally happened. One of the kids from the youth group here works for a popular German band, Tocotronic, and got me in free to their concert in Potsdam. It was pretty cool, but I'm admittedly not the hugest Tocotronic fan, and so it was also a little awkward. Most of the people there knew all the words, and apparently they're more alternative than I had gathered from their music, b/c although I showed up all cute in my bright yellow dress, everyone else had on black. Exclusively. With the minor exception of the lime green screen print on their just-purchased merch. Nice. Anyway, I was basically there by myself since Katha had to work, but I made friends with a couple guys while I was trying to just find the damn place, and so at least the waiting for the concert wasn't totally lonely (but once the music started, Martin went off to mosh and I stuck to the outsides). I've developed a little bit of claustrophobia, it would seem, and I can't do crowds the way I used to. Maybe it's something about not being certain of how to express panic, but I really need to feel like I always have two ways of walking out of a situation, and that is simply not possible at a concert once people get going.

WARNING: I feel like this post is semi-picture-heavy. But I had a ridiculously hard time deciding which pictures to put up. Please see my flickr page for more.

Anyway, I stayed with Uli (my first-ever host sister from Bavaria) that night, and spent the weekend with her and her roommates. Since I was not really excited about the Berlin I had experienced so far, we decided not to do anything touristy, but rather find something to make me feel like it was a pretty cool place. We ended up in the trendy hipster neighborhood (still can't figure out the name of it?) where everyone was gorgeous and I wanted to buy all the clothes they were selling but couldn't afford the air in those stores. So we ate ice cream and took off, with a quick stop at Sonnenallee, the famous street that ran straight into the Berlin Wall, but weren't sure exactly where the wall was, so didn't exactly get to that point... Oh well. Then we headed back and while Uli baked a cake, I cut Felix's hair with a rusty pair of scissors he found in the back of the kitchen drawer. Brave soul. But he was pleased with the outcome and I'm not too embarrassed to say that I am responsible for it. Saturday night we went to a party that was nothing remarkable.
Sunday I got up and went to the only Quaker Meeting in Germany, which was nice but made me miss my Friends (ha! get it?) in Columbia. Saturday afternoon, we sat up in the park in Uli's neighborhood, Kreuzberg, with a cheesecake, coffee, and no silverware and just... chilled. It was nice. I really liked Uli's roommates, and not just because I miss young people and not living alone. They were genuinely awesome. I was really sad that I had to come back to Eisleben that evening, but it was okay because...

First thing Tuesday I got on a train to Regensburg, and seven hours later I got there, and hung out with my old host parents and Uli's sister, Maria, who I don't think I ever met, honestly, before then. It was nice and Bavarian, but considerably colder than it had been in Berlin which was sad. We went and wandered around downtown Regensburg on Wednesday, and although I confirmed the fact that I do like the city, I don't know if I'd keep it on my top five favorite German cities list anymore. I think I was mostly excited about it that summer I was there because I was seventeen and had never been to Europe and it was big and exciting but not so crowded and touristy as Munich. What I mean is, it's cute, and I could live there probably, but I'd much rather hang out in Erfurt. Then again, maybe I just can't get over how much money they have in Bavaria and Phillipp has been getting to me with his East German propaganda.
[mom and dad, I'm sorry, but I didn't take a single picture of the Schäfers. However, they got these knew "garden gnomes" and I thought you would like them, ma.]

Uh-huh. Well, Thursday I went on a 13 hour train ride to Rome to visit Audra, who lived in Preston with me and is an awesome girl. Her exams started on Monday so it was another laid back weekend, but I did all the main things, some with her - Vatican, Trevi Fountain - and some while she was in class or studying - Coliseum, Palatine Hill, the Parthenon. My general feeling on Rome, however, was indifference. The phrase that kept coming to my mind was "TOO MUCH!" There was so much stuff to see, but Rome is infuriating with its lack of explanations. Even though almost everyone who works anywhere public in Rome speaks English, all the museums were exclusively in Italian, and there are few directional signs for the major events. Don't even get me started on the way everything is built like a maze that has no right or wrong directions, so that you can wander and wander and have no idea where you are until you think "I've been here before," but don't know which way you left so you don't know where to go this time. I liked Palatine Hill, mostly because it was largely an outdoor park and I have gotten to where I really like places where people lay around in the grass, but I apparently missed an archaeological dig site b/c it was Roman and confusing and I didn't know there was a way into that part. But the Coliseum is significantly more impressive from the outside (except, of course, for the idea that people stood there so long ago - but that's true of the whole damn city), the Vatican Museum looked like some grandma had shoved as many of her trinkets into one room as possible, even though they rarely made sense next to each other (and I was so frustrated that we waited 4 hours and paid 8euros for the damn thing with so few actual important pieces of art that were usually hidden behind some other, equally old but significantly less well-known), and the Sistine Chapel was over crowded and smelly and even though they obviously don't use the space for worship anymore - it's an empty room with an undressed altar - they kept trying to make people be quiet. What for? So everyone can hear themselves think, "That's it?" in their own heads instead of letting them say it out loud? Alright Vatican City, you got me on St. Peter's Basillica. I don't think I had my mouth closed the whole half hour we were in there. It's huge and ornate and oh so catholic, which is only a little sad because the Pieta gets lost because of its simplicity (it, too, was smaller than I imagined). But my all-time favorite thing there was what Audra and her friends had decided they weren't going to go see at all - the Mouth of Truth. Old movie fans will definitely know it from the Hepburn film Roman Holiday. It's basically an old stone tablet with a giant face on it, the mouth and eyes of which are holes. Legend has it that anyone who lies with their hand in the mouth will have it bitten off by the stone jaws, but either my skin is green or it's not true. So that was a cool thing to see, a little more off the beaten path, but then the exit takes you through the church, which has the relics of St. Valentine, and it's just a cute, smaller chapel that looks, unfortunately, like all the money got spent on the cathedrals. The frescoes around the tops of the walls were in disrepair, the ceiling was raw and didn't look like it was very well taken care of. But something about it was more real than the rest of the city. Then, of course, they went and proved me wrong by putting a souvenir shop in the damn corner. Whatevs. I had a good time being with Audra, reliving the good ole days of Preston gossip and politics and eating gelato (every day! shh...). But now I miss that place and those people more than ever.

I signed my contract for Border Servant Corps today, though, so hopefully that roommate situation will work out as a good substitute for being on campus. I'm starting to get really excited about being out there - I found a couple forums and such, and have been getting good tips on yarn shops, book stores, and farmer's markets. There's if not two at least one Quaker Meeting, and I simply cannot express my excitement about that, and three Jazzercise centers. I can't stand myself.

Well, I've got less than two weeks here now. The only place I haven't gotten to travel to that I thought would is Prague, but Franzi can't go, and I don't think I want to go alone. People keep telling me to just suck it up and go alone, but I don't want it to be a half-ass experience because I'm by myself. Also, maybe it'll be more incentive to come back if I don't make it there. I'm also quite simply worn out from spending the last two weeks on the road, and there are several parties going on here, so I think I'm just going to hang out in Eisleben until it's time to go home, unless I run to Köthen one more time. Because I thought I would see Franzi again, I didn't really feel like I said goodbye to them, and I didn't even see most of my other friends last time I was there because I decided so last minute and they were all out of town. hmm...

Anyway, I will probably post again early next week since this weekend should be exciting, but if not it'll most likely be when I get home...