Hi everyone,
Here's a quick run-down on my lovely Sunday I had today.
Tea Party
A few days ago I received an invitation to a tea party / meet and greet with the woman who organizes the English Conversation course that I and 3 other people teach. (Different kids, different days). We had been told that the family was deeply religious, and in fact, the bottom of her e-mail contained religious service information. Nevertheless, Eric, Emma, Miles (new, Vanderbilt/Wheaton/Wesleyan) and I trekked out to meet the family, taking an unfamiliar bus route. We were met by one of her sons (she has 4) and his girlfriend. Once we got there, introductions were made and she had us eating cake, drinking coffee and conversing. Eric was particularly nervous and said on the bus (not quite jokingly) that he'd love a beer. It was funny because the father of the family offered beer and Eric and Emma took him up on his offer. Of course, he later offered everyone snuff, but that was declined. It was a perfectly lovely afternoon, and I even wore a dress and my new shoes (but only for 10 minutes, because I now have a new hole in the back of my ankle...sigh). So it was a very nice time.
At one point in the conversation, I apologized to the mother for not being able to find her son the first day. She looked confused, and I reminded her I'd sent her an e-mail. She then told me that all the e-mails she's received from me (about 5) had been completely blank! She somehow managed to think that was normal...lol. What had really happened is, without fail, every time I send her an e-mail it bounces back. It does so because it says I have invalid characters - because the e-mail address line has a title with umlauts...so I'd been clearing it out and clicking send again...after it'd erased my message. Whoops. So I'm glad THAT got cleared up.
Maibaum
On our way back to the bus stop about an hour and a half later (and the bus only comes once per hour on Sundays), we were astounded to see a very large may pole coming our way. It was being carried by a whole fleet of firemen (decked out in full uniform...on a hot day...), part of a soccer team in uniform, and various other stragglers. The guy in front yelled at us to help, and although I first thought he was joking, he definitely wasn't. We yelled we had to take the bus, and we got a little crap for it, but they soon rallied themselves with a song. Honestly, Germans and their singing...
Anyhow, there's a game night happening out in my kitchen, so I'm going to run along (gingerly) and join in the fun.
Hope all is well,
Steph
PS The picture is to show the size of the may pole, and I would've given some left body part to have had my camera along!
2 comments:
I don't think it would be much of a German get together without some beer . Glad you had a good time. Did the conversation flow pretty easy for you? I suppose you did not have time to see if they actually danced around the Maypole. That would have been a cool experience. I wonder how much that sucker weighed. I continue to enjoy reading about your adventures and the more frequent up dates.
The Conversation went pretty smoothly...it was all questions that we've answered 100 times by now pretty much. Plus they were used to foreign students so didn't use very complicated terms. Her husband did speak in Bavarian a lot though...and his wife had to chide him to speak properly!
I also do not know if they danced around the May Pole...but I'm sure they did, and undoubtedly in dirndls and lederhosen!
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