When in Rome...

Many things have happened since my last post, so I'll stick to the highlights.

On Wednesday, after William, who is my middle brother, and my parents went with the Jungfleisches to see the BMW factory in Munich, both families went over to the Schabmueller's house for dinner. Although Monika is still in Czechoslovakia, Franz, Barbara, and Franz Junior were all there to greet us. We also met the Lohmars there.

The homecooked food that we were served was sehr bayerisch, very typical of the region. I had white beer, red and white leberkaese, and potato salad, with heavy brown bread in the basket in front of me. Leberkaese, if I have not mentioned it before, is a heavier and less watery version of bologne. And, rather than being a cold lunch meat, it is baked in the oven and served hot in thick slices. The white has a different taste than the red, but I could not place how exactly. Maybe it was lighter and more salty, but I am not sure.

We stayed there until late, kicking a soccer ball around in their back yard until settling down to join the adults around their table where they were talking and savoring delicious Spanish red wine.

Back With The Folks

It is good to see my family again. My second family too.

My parents arrived with my brothers late in the evening on saturday the 29th. William, the middle child, has grown significantly, and Stuart, the youngest, has also grown, if not as much. My parents were tired from the long drive up from Spain, but still stayed up late visiting. I am very glad to be back with them.

We all spent the night with the Lohmars, but packed up and left after breakfast. We are now staying in a house-exchange house. We are living in the house of a family that is living in ours at his very moment. Florian's house to be exact.

After settling in to our nice new place to stay, we went ot meet the Lohmars for lunch. The restaurant was very nice, and I had some weiner schnitzel to die for. Afterwards, we went for a walk in the park and headed down to the river to see the fischer stecken.

At least I think that is what it was called. Anyway, it is strange Bavarian sport that resembles jousting. Two boats are paddled at eachother full steam ahead, then all the rowers duck and a fisherman with a lance tries to knock the guy with a lance on the other boat off into the water. It was funny to watch once or twice, but it got old fast; I was happy to see Monika when she arrived.

After talking through the rest of the competition, Monika, her friend Lisa, and my borthers and I all crossed the bridge over the Danube river, or the Donau as they call it here in to town. Nothing was open because it was a Sunday, but we still had fun getting eachother wet with the waterfountain in town square and playing in the park. My little brothers do not speak German, so the girls talked mostly in English, which Monika speaks quite well. It is strange; I cannot remember whether I was talking with Lisa in German or English. Probably both.

After returning to our parents, we agreed to meet eachother the next evening for a night on the town.

The next day was a very quiet day. Mostly the rest of my family needed to recover from their travels. I am fine after Norway.

That night we went to go meet my second family, our German friends from Spain, the Jungfleischs. We met them at the train station where they were collecting their oldest son, Jan, who will be coming with us back to the states to live with us for a year as an exchange student. After a happy reunion, Detlef, Sebine, the parents, Conrad, the younger brother, and Sophie, the youngest sibling and only sister, all got in their car to drive back to their house with us for dinner. We laughed and ate in a mixture of German, Spanish and English, and planned out what we will do together for the next week. We headed home early, at 9:30, because people were still tired from all of their travel and needed to rest.

It was raining so hard when we got back home that Monika and I decided that it would be better to go out after she returns from Prague next Monday. O well. I think that Monika and Jan will get on well.