"What are you doing, dump kid?" - A Visit with Lena

I went to visit my be-yooo-ti-ful exchange student, Lena, this past weekend. 

Our conversations are really amusing - she wants to work on her english, and I want to work on my german. I talk to her in German, and she responds in English. It doesn't bother us, conversing in two languages, but I think if anyone were listening to our convos, it'd be highly amusing.

On Friday night, we went to her brother, Simon's Abi-ball. It's kind of like a graduation.

Only a trazillion times better. Instead of watching lame students walk across the stage like robots, each student picks a song and walks across the stage to their choice of music. Such as Kanye. Or a polka.

And these girls dress up like prom queens. LEGIT. Except no one told me to dress up like a prom queen so I came from work dressed like a librarian.

But it was crazy fun. You eat awesome food, get drinks from the bar, dance, and party until ... well, I gave up at midnight, being an old librarian, but apparently the kids kept going until 6am. 

I'm soooooo old. 

Stefan (Lena's brother) and gf, Fabi (Lena's boy toy) and Lena, Simon, and some librarian 

duh'awwwww

Lena's Pops and brosephs

On Saturday we went around the village, visiting Lena's grandma's garden and eating lots and lots of berries.

I, as a general rule, don't like things without high fructose corn syrup, especially fresh things, but these berries were so sweet and delicious.

She sure does love picking berries.

Baden-Wurttemberg 

I tried fresh cabbage this weekend.
I thought I would hate it, but it's delicious.
It's sweet, did you know that??

Going down the only road I've ever kno-own
(like a drifter)

this is what love looks like

Four years ago:

washington D.C.
looking...like a mess.

look at this sweet berry - it's transparent and precious.
of course, lena thinks it looks like a fish egg.

lena's grandmother, picking berries

the fruits of her labor

compost pile

fields in Lena's village

sorry lena
blogger's stupid

Then we visited the flea market.

I love all these antiques. If I were a good hipster artsy blogger, I would buy those cameras and things. 

But I'm too poor to buy decorative things. 

mmmmm colors

mmm prickly

And then we stopped by Neckarfest quickly to eat our hearts out.

Honest to goodness, we ate probably every hour on the hour.

Where they keep kids in balls.

What I'm going to do with my children.
Stick them in a ball and roll them down a hill.

I took this exact same picture years ago.

We went back to the flea market.

Then back to Neckarfest for more food.

"A crap."
"I don't think you're saying that right."
(a crepe)

Then we went to Ludwigsburg to see the musical firework show.

The decorations were lovely and bright.

boooooooooooooom
set to music

What is this nonsense?

Waiting on trains.
Story of my life.

 In Stuttgart, eating WeissWurst. Apparently, it's kind of a big deal here.

"Do you need an English menu?"

I really wish this was right side up.
Legit. Delicious.

 Everything's closed on Sundays, but Stuttgart had a couple of little festivals going on.

First there was the Turkish festival.

Which is actually really cool - German/Turk relations can be somewhat strained, so it's really neat to display the Turkish culture in a positive light.

hey horse.

 Then we accidentally stumbled across this really neat middle century festival.

 Then we went back home to Lena's village for a light supper before I went back "home".

Lena's family recently installed solar panels on their roof.
The panels should pay for themselves within ten years, but they aren't sure if the panels will last that long.

My favorite Austauschmutti (exchange mom =)

A little snack for the road.
Yum.

Tschau,

-bRob

PS HAPPY FOURTH!