Rachel's in Germany!: Ahhhh...another lovely weekend in Holstein!

Back from Indra's house, and it was another very lazy and pleasant weekend in the country!

First of all, a few stats from the weekend:

Glasses of fresh cow milk drunk by me: several!!!
Scoops of ice cream eaten by me: approximately 10
Scoops of ice cream eaten by Roland: I lost count
Number of strawberries eaten by me: no idea, but I'm sure it was over 60
Chocolate bars eaten by Marni: approximately 2
Number of apricots the five of us finished off: at least 15
Number of cherries we finished off: a kilogram's worth

(For the record, I also rode a bike and went swimming for the first time since I got to Germany, which is exactly four months.)

Anyway, this was our weekend:

We left for the train station at Altona (on the west side of Hamburg) around noon on Friday. From Altona we took the Hamburg zone train to Elmshorn. Indra's dad Roland was really nice and picked us up from there so we didn't have to pay for a regional train the rest of the way.

When we got to the house, it was very mellow. Indra's brother Aljoscha wasn't around because he is on a trip to Bulgaria, and of course Frank and Luna weren't there this time. We said hi to Gaby (Indra's mom), and Marni and I put our bags in the upstairs loft. It felt like coming home to see our cozy couch bed again!

It was only around 2 pm, so Indra and her parents asked if we wanted to go back to the beach at St-Peter Ording, where we went the last time we were there. Of course we had no objection to that, so we all piled in the car and drove there to spend the rest of the afternoon.

The weather was cloudy this time, but not very cold, and there was no wind and very few people so the beach was unusually quiet. Roland took a short dip in the water (there were no waves this time either, due to lack of wind) and Marni and Indra and I walked along the shore and stuck our feet in. I had worn my skinny jeans and they wouldn't roll up very far, and at first I tried to keep them dry, but then Indra was walking through the shallow water to the sandbar that the low tide had made and I gave up on having dry cuffs. (My legs were slightly cold the rest of the time, but I didn't really care.) I collected a bunch of shells (which I just now realized I forgot to bring back to Hamburg with me . . . oops!). We also sat on the fuzzy picnic blanket and watched the seagulls. Some of them look almost identical to California seagulls, but there was also a different kind called a "laughing" seagull which has a dark brown head and a white spot around the eye. They're funny because they look like they're wearing a hood, and they make a sort of high-pitched noise that does sound a bit like laughter.

After that we walked back to the car and drove to the town. The first thing we did was go to get ice cream, because Roland always gets lots of ice cream whenever their family goes on an outing. Indra said that if there are multiple ice cream places, he will go to all of them and sample a few scoops from each. (But in case any of you were wondering, he is definitely NOT fat, because he usually eats very healthy.) We went to a gelato place (most of the ice cream places in Germany are gelato) and got a pre-dinner ice cream. I had stracciatella (which is like chocolate-flake-chip) and walnuß (walnut). Gaby had an eggnog flavor!

Then we walked to the boardwalk-pier to look for a food place. It was very much like an Atlantic-coast pier, with lots of places selling fish-based dishes and a wooden boardwalk that ran over the sand dunes and grassy marshes towards the ocean. There was also a tent where they were setting up for a live band to play later. Indra saw someone she knew from Hamburg! He was on the stage setting up the sound equipment. We didn't eat on the pier because the place we checked out was sort of crowded--instead we walked back to the place that had the fischbrötchen where we ate last time we were there. They had a sit-down area under a canopy and we had our dinner there. Roland and Gaby ordered antipasto plates with a few different things, Indra and I had bruschetta (I ordered it on Indra's recommendation), and Marni had fischsuppe (fish soup, which had not only fish but also squid in it). After dinner we walked back to the gelato place for a second round of ice cream. This time I had "after eight" (which is like mint chocolate chip) and nutella (yummy--it had a thin layer of nutella on top!). On the way back to the car we walked on a path through a wooded area, and we saw a giant anthill made out of pine needles. The ants were about the size of California red ants and they were crawling on every square inch of the hill! It was really cool!

We got back to the house sometime around 8. While Indra took a bath, Gaby and Marni and I talked in the kitchen and proceeded to eat our way through some cashews, quite a few cherries, and literally dozens of strawberries. By the time Marni had finished her bath and I went to take my turn, I don't know how many strawberries I had, but if it's possible to eat yourself sick on strawberries or give yourself a rash from strawberries, I think I would have ended up doing one or the other if I had eaten many more. They were just so good it was almost impossible to stop! (And the night before I had already eaten probably two dozen of them, because Indra bought two boxes of them on sale at Aldi and they were so good we couldn't stop then either.)

After I finished my shower it was late, but Indra and Marni had been saying we should watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (the first movie), so we watched it. I actually never had seen or read Harry Potter, because I was sort of young when the books and earlier movies came out and by the time I was old enough to handle them I would have been way too behind on the bandwagon, and I never really wanted to read or watch them anyway. So this was actually my first time seeing it. I have to say, I enjoyed it, simply because I like movies that star good child actors and are about kids. And because it was only the first one, the story was overall fairly lighthearted. I don't think I would like the later movies so much, though. But I did like this one pretty well. We went to bed around 1:30 because the movie ended so late, and I slept in till after 9 that morning.

Our Saturday started with a nice big breakfast: croissants, brown grain bread, cherry tomatoes, cheese, a variety of spreads including butter, jam, quark (similar to plain yogurt), bell-pepper cream cheese, and nutella, plus coffee, orange juice, and FRESH COW'S MILK!!! I was so excited to finally try it! It had about the same density as the store-bought whole milk, but it had a sweeter and creamier taste. Really, really delicious! (For the record, Gaby and Roland don't eat breakfasts like this every day. But Indra told me that her mom really likes breakfast, so whenever company comes she uses it as an excuse to make a nice, fancy spread. I'm a breakfast lover myself . . . maybe I should adopt this method in the future . . . )

It was more like a brunch because it was 10:30 am by the time we finished. At 11 we went out to the front of the house to watch the fire brigade march by. It was the 130th anniversary of Hanerau-Hademarschen's fire brigade! So they were having a big celebration. People had put out a bunch of decorations in their front yards: Schleswig-Holstein flags, wooden cutout firemen, even straw dummies dressed up like firemen! The next-door neighbors lit their portable barbecue to make smoke and rigged their hose up to the stand-up wooden fireman on their driveway, so it would look like he was fighting a fire. When the fire brigade came by, they were marching in formation in their uniforms, and their band was at the front playing a marching tune. Even the junior firefighter squad was in the procession! It was a neat thing to see, even though it only took a couple of minutes for the procession to pass by. Indra said they would have a big event at the firehouse later, with games for the kids and of course food and drinks.

We hung out at the house while Roland and Gaby went to the store. When they came back, we got in the car to go spend the afternoon in Friedrichstadt. It is north of Hanerau-Hademarschen and is known as "little Amsterdam" because it has Dutch-style buildings and tiny canals. Indra had told me about it before and said it was a nice place to visit. On the way we listened to Nightwish, the Finnish band that Indra and Marni had introduced me to a while ago. Indra's family has favorite CDs just like our family has, and all weekend while we were driving we listened to a bunch of them.

In Friedrichstadt we browsed through some really neat and cute little shops and art galleries. There was a super nice antique shop with tons of beautiful china and dishware, linens, dolls, furniture, and old household items like clocks and appliances, and a gallery with all kinds of colorful, funky, and cute glass sculptures and lamps that either looked like animals or were formed into crazy abstract shapes (it reminded me a little of Dale Chihuly's glasswork), and a chocolate and tea shop, and funny little tourist shops, and lots of clothing boutiques. We also got--guess what--ice cream. There was only one ice cream place, so Roland went back there twice. I had zitrone (lemon) and himbeer (raspberry).

After ice cream and shopping, we rented an electric boat and drove around all the canals. The town reminded me more of Haarlem or Lübeck because it is smaller than Amsterdam, but it's actually even smaller than either of those. In an hour we drove through every canal there was. The canals are really tiny also, just wide enough for two boats to pass. (For those of you who know Long Beach, they're generally even narrower than the canals in Naples Island.) Roland elected me the captain, which actually turned out to be not a very exciting job because it's rather boring to have to steer a boat with maximum speed of 2 miles per hour, especially on water that's pretty much as flat as glass. So I ended up steering standing up most of the time, which was a lot more fun. I was able to touch the underside of the bridges when we went through them.

We also went into two of the churches (both of which were small, not big like the ones in Lübeck or Haarlem), and Indra and I sang in both of them. Indra always likes to sing when she goes into a church if she can. She knows lots of religious classical pieces, so she will usually sing a couple of those. The first church we went into had really nice acoustics. Her voice sounded extremely pretty inside it. We also sang our "Evening Rise" duet because it is the one duet we have practiced together and can execute well. (That's the one I posted on here back in March . . . I haven't finished learning the Bach church piece she gave me, so we weren't able to do that one.) Roland, Gaby, and Marni were saying that she and I should try to make a few recordings because our voices blend well.

It was around 6 when we got back home from Friedrichstadt. Marni wanted to borrow Indra's bike and go for a ride because we had had a pretty lazy day overall, and Roland and I decided to go too. Indra stayed to help Gaby with dinner because she was tired from our late movie-watching party the night before. I rode Gaby's bike, which was a hybrid. It was the first time I had gotten on a bike since I got to Germany (there is a public bike-rental program in Hamburg called Stadtrad, but I just never wanted to bother with paying for it). And I didn't have a helmet. So I have to say, I was rather nervous about the whole thing. Praise the Lord, I made it back in one piece, though my legs definitely felt it near the end! Marni, who has been taking full advantage of the Stadtrad bikes in Hamburg, was happy as a clam and zooming on ahead the whole ride. She absolutely loved it! Roland took us all the way to the Nord-Ostsee-Kanal (or Kiel Canal), which is a big channel about 5 kilometers from Hanerau-Hademarschen. It connects the North Sea and Baltic Sea and is actually the most heavily traveled shipping canal in the world, even more than the Panama Canal! We had to drive the bridge over it to get to and from St-Peter Ording and Friedrichstadt. It was a very scenic ride, but I don't think I enjoyed the scenery quite as much as Marni did because I had to spend a lot of time concentrating on shifting gears or maneuvering over uneven terrain through grass and weeds. There were also a zillion big brown slugs on every single road and pathway, and we had to be watching the ground at all times to minimize running over them. The slugs in Germany are MUCH bigger than the California ones--some are a couple of inches long and as big around as a small carrot. There were also some snails, which are light yellow with white dots and generally about as big as the slugs. And there were also clouds of flies that sometimes would end up in my face. In SoCal you have to watch out for car traffic; in Holstein you have to watch out for bug traffic!

When we finally got back it was after 8. Indra and Gaby had laid out quite a spread: boiled potatoes, freshly cut and fried pommes (aka french fries), dandelion salad with raisins and seeds, Caprese salad (tomato and mozzarella in olive oil and vinegar), and more strawberries. Roland did one of his famous experimental recipes: he fried mint leaves in butter, which turned out to be really delicious with the boiled potatoes.

Indra, Marni, and I had wanted to make ice cream with the gelato maker at some point, and we considered doing it, but we were all so tired from our day that we decided to go to bed instead and hold off on the ice cream until the next day. We were all in bed by midnight. I crashed out--pretty sure the bike ride helped with that!

This morning, Sunday, we had another semi-late, large breakfast (basically with these big and leisurely country breakfasts, you just eat well and then you don't need to have a real lunch). This morning Gaby made soft-boiled eggs, which I've always wanted to try but can't remember ever eating before now. I have to say that when I started eating it, I couldn't help thinking of the poem from the children's book Bread and Jam for Frances: "I do not like the way, you slide, I do not like your soft inside . . ." Except that, unlike Frances, I thoroughly enjoyed my soft-boiled egg. Also had more fresh cow's milk! The stuff really is amazing.

When we had finished eating, Indra took out her old bow and the arrows she and Alijosha used to play with, and she, Marni, and I went for a walk. We found an open field to do some archery in. The problem was, the arrows were old and ratty and mostly missing all their feathers, so they kept veering off in all directions and sort of tumbling out of the air rather than going in a nice straight arc and sticking in the ground. And the field we chose hadn't been mowed in a while. So we spent most of our time wandering around looking for the arrows, and eventually four of the seven ended up hopelessly lost and we finally gave up on finding them. We took a back-road loop to get back to the house.

After we got back we made ICE CREAM! (Because we just hadn't had enough of it already.) Gaby had bought chocolate bars so we could make it chocolate, and we added some of the cow milk, plus a bunch of cream, sugar, and one raw egg. It only took about 15 minutes in the electric ice cream maker. Definitely not the healthiest thing to have for lunch, but BOY was it good!!!

A funny moment: There were a couple of flies that had gotten into the house, and I was trying to whack one of them in the kitchen with a newspaper. Indra asked what I was doing, and I tried to say something about "die Fliege," which I learned this morning means "fly." Only I couldn't remember the exact right word, and I said "die Fliese," which apparently means "tile." Indra was confused because the fly happened to have landed on the tiles on the wall, and she didn't know whether I was talking about the fly or the tiles. I busted up laughing because the word I said when I had been trying to say "fly" just happened to be the word for the thing the fly was sitting on! It was a really funny coincidence.

When we had finished the ice cream, we packed up our stuff and piled in the car. Roland and Gaby drove us to the station at Itzehoe, which isn't in the Hamburg zone but is still not too expensive to ride to Hamburg from. On the way, we listened to ToTo (Emily, you have to look them up--that's some classic '80s music for you!) and Roland took us on the scenic route through the back roads where we could see nice views of all the fields and farmhouses.

At the station, we said goodbye and hugged Roland and Gaby and thanked them over and over. They were so incredibly generous to me and Marni both times we visited. This weekend they not only let us stay at their house, but they fed us ridiculously well, bought us ice cream and dinner, and took us for afternoon trips (and a bike ride!). I've definitely been blessed by some serious hospitality and generosity here in Europe--Ineke, Joey & Rebecca, Martin & Ivanna, Janos & Anja, and even Indra herself have showed it to me for sure--but I have to say Roland and Gaby were particularly kind. Just the fact that they let us stay the whole weekend and took so much of their time for us really meant a lot.

We got back to Hamburg, without incident, around 3:30. Marni got off the train at Borgweg to find free wi-fi and download audiobooks to her iPad (in preparation for the nonstop homework grind of the next four days). Indra and I walked back to Georgi-Haus and on the way--you won't believe it, but--we decided to stop by Eis Warneke at the end of our street and get ice cream. Indra had a scoop of something whose name I can't remember but which was this amazing fruity blend of apple and lime, and I got quark (plain yogurt) flavor, which had berry swirls in it.

Needless to say, after we got home I was psychologically feeling like I really, really ought to exercise before the day was out. So since it was fairly warm outside, I decided on a whim that a swim in the Stadtparksee was long overdue. I put on my swimsuit, threw on my sundress over top, grabbed my cap and goggles, and zoomed the couple of blocks to the Stadtpark. When I got to the lake I went down to the water's edge, stuck my flip-flops and sundress in a big bush, and waded in. It was rather chilly, but no worse than Alamitos Bay was when I had to swim it in Junior Lifeguards, and it felt soooo nice just to swim again after so long! I went across and back twice, which took about 20 minutes, then got out. Fortunately it was a mostly sunny day and the wind wasn't too cold, because my sundress decided to fall off the branch while I was swimming and land in the water at the edge of the lake, and it was completely soaked by the time I was finished with my dip. I wrung it out and put it on, but of course it did nothing to keep me warm. So a hot shower was much appreciated by me when I got back!

Ahhh, yes, it was a splendid weekend. And now, back to the grind! Marni and I are planning to basically shut ourselves in our rooms for the next four days so we can get our book illustration projects done. Aside from trips to the grocery store, laundry room, and printmaking class, I think I'll be sticking to that plan . . .

Before I sign off, here are photos!!!