Back in Germany and Scott Arrives

Aug 7: Today it rained! E read his book and I worked on my drawing.

Aug 8: It rained again!

Aug 9: Guess what???? It rained all day!

Aug 10-11: Can’t remember, but I think it rained again?

Aug 12: Our neighbors, Gerd and Sabine, invited us over for lunch. We hung out for a while then went to Sabine’s to use the computer. Sabine made some plum cake and coffee so we ate and talked for a while.

Aug 13: We went with Sabine in the evening to play beach volleyball in Eisenach. She plays every week (as long as it doesn’t rain) with some associates from Bosh. Eric and I had a great time playing again, even though it was a bit of jungle ball. The court was very nice… located in a park up in the woods just outside of Eisenach. We were very happy that Sabine invited us and gave us a ride!

Aug 14: Scott arrives today, so we are off to Eisenach to meet him at the train station. Everything worked out well, he made it to Eisenach without any issues. We quickly jumped on a train to Wutha and then walked home from there. We stopped at Tegut to pick up some groceries then Scott had the chance to drag his bag the rest of the way through the town past the chickens, cows, goats, rabbits, you name it and someone has it in their yard here. We caught up on all the south bay news, then met up with Sabine later that night for food and beers at the Eisenach Irish Pub, where she holds an English speaking open table once a week. We had a good time there and talked about the differences between our cultures. We met a guy Tobias who spent some time in Detroit and complained about how many questions we are asked in the US when trying to order food…How do you want that cooked?, What do you want to go with that?, What kind of dressing do you want on your salad?...Germany is more on the order of the “I’ll have the #9”…ok good next person…

Aug 15: Took Scott to Eisenach today, we tried to take a tour of the Eisenacher brewery, but after going in through the shipping entrance found out all they had to offer was a smokey office, with a couple of glasses for sale, a bikini calendar and a German speaking German lady that had no idea what the word ‘tour’ meant…well so much for that. We were off to the Wartburg castle. We took a bus up to the castle then walked around and as always beautiful views of the countryside can be seen in every direction. Scott spent 15 minutes trying to take a picture of a green pasture off in the distance. After a few minutes of discussion we agreed with Scott that it was ‘the greenest pasture ever.’ We also stopped for lunch downtown and had one of our local favorites…rolled beef, red cabbage and dumplings…ask Scott it is a lot better than it sounds. We finished the day off with a barbeque with Gerd, we made German vegetable salad and bratwurst! We had a great evening and it was our first opportunity to act as interpreters, it is definitely a good thing this happened now and not when we first got here. The conversation was pretty basic but I think we did a pretty good job.

Aug 16: Sabine Probst invited us over today for making pancakes (more like crepes) and a South American mixed drink along the lines of a mohito…it started by smashing a bunch of limes, after a couple I can’t remember what else went in them. We hung out there for most of the afternoon and enjoyed lots of conversation. We rode our bikes home, made more bratwurst and I finally started packing for our trip to Berlin and Prague at about 10 o’clock. I don’t know how I manage to always screw myself like that.