Yesterday (yes, you read that right) was a day for doing some maintenance and meeting even more new people!
As always, we started the day with breakfast on the balcony, which featured some new Swedish style bread, in addition to the plethora of meats, cheeses, jams, and other spreads available. The Swedish bread (whose name I am forgetting at the moment) looked a lot like graham crackers, but it contained some seeds and other yummy things; ‘twas quite yummy! The major plans for the day weren’t until the evening. We were having a garden party to celebrate the numerous recent birthdays, Alicia’s finishing Grundschule, and (as Alina put it) Brandon’s return to Germany! There were a handful of neighbors coming over for dinner, so after breakfast, everyone began on some prep work for the shindig. Peter, Brandon, Alicia, and I tag-teamed doing some maintenance in the garden. The hedges needed trimmed, so Peter took the clippers to them while the rest of us picked up and collected what fell off. We all had to work together to make sure we didn’t get in the way of any cars (or the bus) that came down the road as the outside of the hedges got done. At one point Alicia and I stepped away from hedge duty to collect some berries from the garden as Alina was preparing some food for the party during the day and needed them for a special dessert. Berries collected, I went back to help with yard work, which had moved across the street to the path by the river. Peter was breaking up and collecting random grass patches that had grown in the street so that the path for rain to flow down to the storm drains was clearer. He also mowed some of the grass on the side of the path closer to the river so it wasn’t poking out at people walking by. All in all, everything went pretty quickly over about 2 hours or so. I headed inside while Brandon and Peter took the hedge trimmings up to an area by the rowing club. Alina was nearing the end of her food preparations, but she had collected herbs from the garden to finish making herb butter and tzatziki, so I helped with that. I made the tzatziki mostly on my own (I had to ask for a couple reminders on how much of different things to use), and I helped mix up the herb butter. With those done, prep had finished and now it was time for everyone to clean up and relax. Around 7, guests started arriving. There were six people in attendance (in addition to the Erkes, Brandon, and I) for food and fun: the next door neighbors of Alina and Peter, who are also new parents and brought their very adorable (and little) baby over. Their names were Matthias, Frauke, and Emil (I am genuinely hoping all names are spelled correctly). Also in attendance were some longtime friends of the family: Zirkan, Andrea, and their son, Jack. Peter, of course, was the grill master for the party, so we had loads of perfectly cooked things, in addition to all the wonderful sides and treats made by Alina, including homemade focaccia, a quinoa salad, and a red beet and bean salad. I was so stuffed by the time everything had gotten served that I had almost forgotten to leave room for dessert. However, the good ol’ “dessert stomach” pulled through to enjoy the leftover birthday cake and strawberry-raspberry tiramisu Alina made earlier in the day. There was a lot of good conversation; I did my best to only use German, which went okay lol. By the time everyone headed out and we cleaned up all the dishes, it was near 11pm and I was COOKED. But, I continue to be so grateful for the opportunity to be here and get to know more people and practice and improve my German skills. Today (prepare for potentially two posts) is yet a mystery, but I am sure it will be another fantastic day!
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