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.
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| Stefan (Lena's brother) and gf, Fabi (Lena's boy toy) and Lena, Simon, and some librarian |
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| duh'awwwww |
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| 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.
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| She sure does love picking berries. |
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| Baden-Wurttemberg |
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I tried fresh cabbage this weekend.
I thought I would hate it, but it's delicious.
It's sweet, did you know that?? |
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Going down the only road I've ever kno-own
(like a drifter) |
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this is what love looks like
Four years ago:
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washington D.C.
looking...like a mess. |
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look at this sweet berry - it's transparent and precious.
of course, lena thinks it looks like a fish egg. |
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| lena's grandmother, picking berries |
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| the fruits of her labor |
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| compost pile |
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| fields in Lena's village |
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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.
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| mmmmm colors |
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| 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.
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| Where they keep kids in balls. |
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What I'm going to do with my children.
Stick them in a ball and roll them down a hill. |
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| I took this exact same picture years ago. |
We went back to the flea market.
Then back to Neckarfest for more food.
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"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.
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boooooooooooooom
set to music |
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| What is this nonsense? |
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Waiting on trains.
Story of my life. |
In Stuttgart, eating WeissWurst. Apparently, it's kind of a big deal here.
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| "Do you need an English menu?" |
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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.
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| 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".
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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. |
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| My favorite Austauschmutti (exchange mom =) |
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A little snack for the road.
Yum.
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Tschau,
-bRob
PS HAPPY FOURTH!
