Pfingst is the German word for Pentacost, which is not only a Catholic Holy Day of Obligation, but a National Holiday in
Anyways, I’ve been doing my best to wake up earlier. I think I woke up yesterday at ten. Then at breakfast, I learned that the Reinls (my second host family) were going on a hike and I was invited. I was game, for lack of anything else to do. Well, I could have read my Dostoevsky, watched television and been more or so less a bum. But, I figured why not? Being active is good. And it wasn’t to be a hike like Sundays (15 km), and we would have a more specific destination, a Muehle.
I did honestly not figure out what a Muehle was until we got there, even though Frau Brause probably told me. But whatever.
Before Melonie picked me up, I got ready pretty quickly (jeans and tennis shoes and my packed backpack) and then the Brauses and I sat on their patio to wait and talked. Apparently, one of their daughters works with handicapped children and went to school for it. This is good news for me, because I’m writing my final German Major Paper on the Handicapped in
Melonie, my host sister, picked me up at about 12. We then went to her house for about a hour before we actually left on the hike. She actually couldn’t go, because she has a hurt foot from an accident a while ago. But Frau Reinl and Rolf were to go. The Reinl house is, again, one of the coolest German houses I’ve ever seen. There are three floors, and on each floor, is basically an apartment. Bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom. So, yes, when I move there in three weeks or so, I will have an apartment to myself on the top floor.
But their house gets a lot of light, which is nice, and they have two balconies and a nice patio area. Scattered around the house are ceramic figurines Melonie painted, which I found very cool. She said if I wanted, we could go somewhere and paint (yes, please!). They also have a cat, Lissy, which has these enormous green eyes. She’s either too fat for her size, or has a really small head. But she’s sweet. Melonie showed me the entire house (which is near the center of St. Georgan) and then it was time for the hike.
We would actually only be walking there; Melonie would pick us up at the Muehle. I’ll be honest, I did not really like this hike. It was mostly up hill, or should I say, up mountain. It was very steep and pretty hot in the sun. Which, my jeans did not help. And I don’t think I’m used to this thin mountain air yet. Does anyone know if there’s an adaptation time?
Once we finally got to the Muehle, I figured out what it was and why we walked to it. It’s an old flour mill, complete with a waterwheel. Apparently it was totally restored. I did not understand, or remember, what the man said about the mill once we were inside. But it was pretty cool. Everything was still made out of wood, and it still worked. So, when water came tumbling over the wheel, it all started groaning and creaking and moving. It was quite loud, and made the floor vibrate. I believe the flour it was making was a whole grain kind…either way it was pretty gritty. They said I could buy some and mix it with milk for breakfast, but I declined.
Melonie was waiting for us once we got out of the mill. We got in the car and drove to another smaller town down the road that had a bigger Mill. This one was about twice as big, but we didn’t stay very long. The town was having some sort of party, complete with the Oompa band, so there were a lot of people. And there were children swimming bottomless in a kiddie pool. Yes, their parents were right there.
Initially we were going to have Kaffee und Kuchen, but there were too many people there for comfort. But I did get to watch an old women spin on an old spinning wheel before we left. There were also a lot of straw shoes, which are famous and traditional to this area, in her stall. I have a picture somewhere.
On we went back to St. Georgan to eat something at the Café by the Natur Schwimmbad. Or Natural swimming pool as we would call it. Or a lake. It was very pretty, though no one was swimming (it opens this weekend with Polar Bear Plunge like activities). There were a few paddle boats and toy boats out, though. Since this Café had run out of cake (the Reinls were not very happy about this), we all had ice cream instead.
Most of the ice cream here is Italian. So, here I actually eat the strawberry ice cream. We ordered “gemischtes Eis” or mixed ice cream, literally, and ended up with a scoop of Zitrone, Vanilla, and Erdbeeren. Zitrone Eis is like eating a weird sort of lemon drop. Which, I had not really wanted at all, but it proved better than I thought. And I had wanted chocolate (of course) but oh well. The strawberry was the best. After Rolf and Melonie finished their coffees, we went back to the house.
I ended up there for dinner, which was quite good. Rolf grilled some pork, and there were carrot sticks, little salami slices, bread, carrot sticks, and what turned out to be an oddly spiced hashbrown mix. I was thankful to have a cut of meat, finally, even if it was pork. Melonie told me they only eat meat about once a week (oh no), but when its nice, they try to grill. Which, by the way, their “grilling” is using basically a George Foreman. Which, it works, but isn’t quite like the charcoal or gas grills we have. Not that I can really cook on those, but whatever.
Before and after dinner, we just hung out and talked. Melonie asked me some questions about our eating styles at home. Then I couldn’t remember the word for vinegar, when I listed the ingredients for adobo. They took me home about 8 pm. The sun had not yet begun to set. After getting home, I checked my (lack of) emails, wrote some other stuff, looked at the Euro to Dollar ratio and read about a British doctor whose license has been taken away because he conducted an unethical study about autism being linked to vaccines.
By 10 pm, I was showered and in bed. I spent the next hour successfully downloading all my pictures from my camera and organizing 384 of the 450 I had. It did take awhile, because I was learning most of it along the way, but I did it. Then I went to bed.
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