Today was utterly lazy – but wonderful. I slept: a lot. Then I read, and I went on facebook, and I cooked. It was a pretty good day. Susan and I went to the grocery store since our supply of food was running low. Cooking has been up to me, so I’ve been trying to think of new ideas of food to make. Tonight I cooked (a version of) fried rice with veggies and bacon. Sounds weird, I know, but it was actually pretty tasty.
Yesterday I attended class with Professor Kulchyski from Canada. The class was Introducing Canada, and he started out by talking about the various Native-American tribes and their cultures. It was a lot of information, but it was new information that I found quite fascinating. At one point while talking about the diet of some Natives, he mentioned squash. After that little discussion, someone raised their hands and asked what squash was. Because America was the product of Europe originally, I always forget that we actually do have differences. I sort of inwardly giggled at Germany’s lack of squash knowledge, but moved on quickly.
After class, Susan and I had some time to kill before the BBQ lunch for conference members (anything for a free meal here), so we wandered into town to look for an English to German dictionary for me. We killed a lot of time in the book store, but the dictionaries were upwards of at least 10 Euros, so I held off for now.
The day was cold and rainy, so when we got back to the institute at the allotted time, we found Dr. Brauer and several students outside cooking, and they told us that they had set up a room inside with drinks and potato salad. We sat there by ourselves for about ten minutes, and were finally joined by Professor Kulchyski and his wife and daughter. Food arrived not long after and we broke bread together. All too quickly we had run out of things to say, and the Canadian family left Susan and me to our own devices. After another ten minutes or so, a multitude of old men filed in, followed soon by several young female professors and some students. The conference talks had run late, and now everyone was ready to eat. We chatted for several minutes with a professor from Denmark and then settled into conversation with Professor Conny Loder from Greifswald. She mentioned that she lives in Munich and offered to show us around Bavaria during student project week when we have no classes. Excellent luck! We took her up on the offer and are now just trying to figure out the details.
That night, Ulrike invited us to her house to hang out and watch a movie. We had been there once before and were determined to walk there. After half an hour of wandering around Greifswald in the dark, cold, and wet, we realized that we had no idea where we were going. In a fit of desperation, Susan and I went to Ulrike’s friend Jenny’s house, where we had gone on Thursday night to watch Germany’s Next Top Model. After a few minutes of ringing the buzzer, the door was opened and we headed upstairs to her apartment. Naturally, she wasn’t there, but her roommate was. Her roommate spoke English, but not apparently enough to understand why we were there. We told her we knew Jenny, and that we were looking for her to get directions to Ulrike’s house. She seemed to think that we thought Ulrike lived there, and kept assuring us that she didn’t. She understood much of what we said except for the part about us being lost and trying to get directions…yeah. Finally we just excused ourselves because she wasn’t even entirely sure who Ulrike was, let alone where she lived. Around 45 minutes after we left our apartment, we made it to Ulrike’s house – a distinct small blue cottage. She answered quickly and revealed that she was just about to go looking for us.
We watched Donnie Darko (a very entertaining movie, albeit quite hard to follow), and chatted for several hours. Ulrike showed us the way back and we realized that the walk should only take about 20 minutes. Oh well, Live and Learn!
One more comment for the day: Friday was, I believe, the first day I did not trip on the very uneven cobblestone streets of Greifswald, so, after many years of my mother scolding me to pick up my feet when I walk, I’ve finally learned! You’re Welcome Mom. Happy Mother’s Day, I Love You
Gute Nacht!
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