Sleepy Tuesday, 1 June 2010

I was awakened by Frau Brause knocking on my door and calling my name. She said, “I think you’ve overslept.”
To which I replied, “I think so, too.” It was seven ten, forty minutes late.
But I somehow got ready and ate breakfast. It was one of those no makeup and no contacts day. And I wore my pumas to work. And almost forgot my purse on the way out the door. But Frau Brause did not have to drive me to Villingen, even though she offered. I would have felt really bad.
On Tuesdays, a woman named Frau Ritter (Mrs. Knight) works at the desk opposite me. Every other day she works at a different museum. But she’s very nice and gave me a mini Merci chocolate. Between her and the secretary, Frau Haas, I was kept entertained between reading Wikipedia articles. Frau Haas likes to talk a lot, which is nice. I learned that you can talk about almost anything in Germany, not like in the States where certain topics you just avoid (like gay marriage and religion). It wasn’t so cold on Tuesday, but we turned on the heat in my room anyway. It was very pleasant.
I also ran into Matthias, who was limping around on crutches. He told me when I asked that he’d hurt it playing handball. And that he might not come into work on Wednesday.
During my lunch break, I took my sandwich and nectarine out to the garden behind the museum. I hadn’t known about them till Monday, and the day was nice enough I went. I took some pictures, too, before my camera died. But they’re quite nice, and I also got a closer look at the painting of Romaeus on the tower. From there I walked around the block and decided to go into Mueller because I had the time.
Muellers kind of like a Target, except with three floors. Very cool. But I discovered that in Germany one can buy all the kinds of fun, patterned tights that are not to be found in the States. This made me excited and sad. Excited, because I finally found ones I like, but sad because, I feel like I should buy clothes here and they’re super expensive. I will most certainly be thinking about buying a pair for a long time before I do. And yes, I’m sure I can’t find these in the States, because I’ve spent hours looking on line, where you can find everything.
After work (the afternoon was spent reading Wikipedia) I decided to look in H&M because I had an hour to burn. It’s so not fair. The H&M’s (which is originally a European brand) at home usually kind of suck, or things don’t fit me. But here, their clothes are awesome. And a little expensive. But why are there so many clothes here that look awesome? Anyways, I did find a dress on sale. I did go ahead and try it on, though there were so many (old) people at the dressing rooms that I thought I was going to miss my train. I didn’t have the time to buy it, and I figured I’d sleep on it.
Frau Reinl never called my family, and when I got home, another grandson was there. He’s the younger brother of Jan, is fourteen and was researching the Wembly Stadium for an English presentation. And his name is Silas. I think I read for a bit, and then looked over his writing to correct any mistakes. There were just a few. Frau Brause called the Reinls and asked Melanie if they had any plans, which they didn’t so we figured out dinner. We went to Mira’s, which I thought was a friend’s house until we got there.
Silas came with us and I discovered Mira’s was a restaurant. Its actually a Yugoslavian restaurant, which was cool because I discovered they had cevapcici, which is a type of sausage. The other specialty is Flammkuchen, which is a kind of flat bread. My first exposure to the cevapcici was in Vienna, Gavin and I would buy them frozen and he’d make them—yummy. However, these were extraordinarily bland and I didn’t really like them. The french-fries were amazing, though. Super crispy, but there were too many.
It probably wasn’t good manners, but I ended up building a tower out of my leftover French-fries. It was pretty tall and then Silas and I took pictures with our phones. Then we make a card tower out of the coasters. Frau Brause told Silas to go ask for more from the owner, which then we built a large card house out of them. And then Frau Brause put one coaster half off the table, used the back of her hand to flick it up and then caught it. We all tried, working our way up to 3 coasters a time. Remind me to show you when I get home. From there, we moved onto building a tower out of an empty water bottle (glass), a candle and a placard. It was all quite fun, but not really appropriate for a restaurant. Even if the only other patrons were a bunch of old men who were drinking.
One thing I’ve noticed about Germans in restaurants, is that they are usually in no rush to leave. Once we’re done eating, we’ll sit there for another forty-five minutes. Which can be nice, but I noticed this because once I was done eating, this time, I was in a bit of a rush to leave and go home. But we stayed for a while longer. It’s kind of nice, not to have that rush. Usually at home, once we’re done eating, we might stay for another ten minutes, but then we just leave.
At home I got on the computer. I needed to convert the US cooking measurements to metric. The Brauses are very curious about corn bread. So, I found a recipe and translated it. She even found some corn flour. It’s going to be interesting because the flour is really fine, not quite like our cornmeal, but it shouldn’t taste too bad. They also have polenta, but those are really big grains. I don’t think it would turn out too well.
I’ve been trying to get ready for bed starting at ten o’clock, so I’m sleeping by eleven thirty, so my evenings end rather early. But I did remember to set my alarm clock.