This weekend was fun and exhausting. As I stated in an earlier post, M invited me to go to Bochum with her. Her husband, T, couldn't come because of work. Her son, L, was also supposed to come. He's been sick for the past 3 weeks and therefore he didn't go either. It was just her and I in the end. Bochum is roughly a 4 hour drive northwest of Nürnberg. M grew up there. Her sister, K, still lives there with her family. The weekend was centered around a big party on Saturday night. The party was supposed to be equal parts a house warming party and a family get-together. K and her husband, A, just finished renovating their house. They inherited it from M and K's parents and spent a year and a half completely renovating it. They just recently finished it, hence the house warming party. Though both of M's siblings were there, four other family members backed out for various reasons. Initially there were supposed to be several of M's nephews (most my age, a couple of whom I've already met), but in the end the only nephew there was K's son P, who is 10 years old. I had been looking forward to spending time with people my own age. However, everyone that I did meet was very nice. They were all very welcoming and also quite funny. More to come on that later!
A map of Germany. Bochum is a little hard to see, but it's between Dortmund and Düsseldorf.
We left at 9:30am Friday morning. We stopped at an outlet mall on the way because M wanted to do some shopping. It had never occurred to me that there would be outlet malls in Germany. I had never heard of most of the stores and some were insanely expensive. In one store I found something for €600, and it was on sale! In the end all I bought was some Lindt chocolate for €5. We ran into some traffic during the last hour of our trip and finally made it to Bochum at 3:45pm. The rest of the day was a combination of being introduced to various people who were helping setup at the house, eating dinner, and then hanging around and chatting. Everyone was pleased to discover that I could speak German. Many people initially greeted me in English. I would respond to them in German and they were all pleasantly surprised and spoke to me in German from them on. At one point we were all outside on the back patio. I was wearing my socks. Before I continue, you must know that Germans are very serious about their house shoes. They often have inside house shoes and outside house shoes. They do not wear street shoes in the house. This is common practice in every German household I've ever been in. When you walk inside, it's understood that you take off your shoes and if you have house shoes with you, you change into them. Anyways, I don't have any house shoes. I have some slipper sock things, but they don't have a real sole. It was a bit chilly when we were all standing outside. K looked at me bewildered and asked if I had any house shoes. I said no and three of them started to get up to remedy the situation. One of the three took off his shoes and gave them to me and then went and got himself yet another pair of house shoes. Anyone who says Germans aren't warm people, well, they're simply wrong. I spent a lot of time talking to S, Maria's brother. He was completely impressed with my German. One thing that plays to my advantage is that I'm American. Everyone knows that Americans mostly don't learn languages, so when they meet one who can speak another language well, even if it's not perfect, they're impressed. We all went to bed early Friday night in anticipation of Saturday.
I was most excited to meet Mia, the family dog (a beagle!). I've missed having pets around.
Luckily we didn't have to be up at a specific time on Saturday. We all got up when we woke up and had a calm start to the day, slowly eating a typical German breakfast (fresh bread, cold cuts, cheese, jams, butter, nutella and chocolate). I finally was introduced to the custom of eating chocolate squares on bread with butter. I'd heard of it before but I'd never had it. It's exactly as it sounds, thin squares of milk chocolate that you put on bread. I'm absolutely a chocolate lover, and it was nothing short of delicious. I'll have to look for some in the grocery store here. Germans basically always put butter on their bread before they put anything else. Though it might sound a bit unappetizing, it actually makes everything better. After breakfast I went into town with M, S, and P. K and A stayed at home to do more setup. M was in search of two specific things, only one of which we found. It was nice to see Bochum. It's not exactly a pretty city but it's not ugly either. We had yet more setup to do once we returned from shopping.
An actual bar/restaurant in Bochum. A piece of home!
The party started at 6:30pm. I assumed the first person surely wouldn't arrive on time. The door bell first rang at 6:25pm. I wore my brand new Dirndl for the first time. Everyone said it looked fantastic. I'll let you decide for yourself (see photo below). A few people asked me if I brought it with me all the way from the US. I would say there were approximately 35-40 people there. I knew 10 of them before the party began. I talked to a number of people, including one adorable couple. The wife spent a year abroad in Wisconsin. My dad is from Wisconsin and I've spent over a year of my life there (yes, I did the math). She also is an English teacher, so we had a lot to talk about. They told me that I speak the best German out of any American they've met. I spent some more time talking with a few other people, one of which told me that my German is better than that of some actual Germans he knows. I'm sure he was exaggerating, but I was pleased to hear it. A few times throughout the evening I heard a few people whispering about how I was "the American." I didn't hear anything rude, they were merely interested in who I was. The closest person to my age was the 10 year old, so I kind of stuck out like a sore thumb in the age department. I finally got into bed at 3am. Many people had already left by then. Everyone was gone by 4am.
Me in my first Dirndl!
Something funny about my German is that it needs to be "warmed up." When I wake up in the morning it's rusty, same if I go a few hours without speaking it to anyone. It gets better and better throughout the day once I've been using it for a while. I noticed this over the weekend, especially on Saturday. I also realized the impact of alcohol on my speaking abilities. A lot of people say that their language skills get better the more drunk they are. This is mostly true when I speak French. It's completely different with German. My level of competency stays the same until I get too intoxicated, and then it drastically gets worse.
Sunday I woke up hungover. It wasn't a raging hangover, just an upset stomach and a headache. I was laying on the couch for awhile with my reusable American water bottle. Everyone thought my bottle was hilarious, saying it was something they'd "see in the hospital here." Germans mostly drink bottled mineral water and reusable bottles aren't common because of their recycling/deposit system. Anyways, we spent the morning and afternoon cleaning up from the party. M and I finally left around 3pm, making it back to Nürnberg just after 7pm.
All in all, it was a good weekend. I was glad to have a complete break from the kids. I won't lie, by the end of the weekend I found myself missing the kiddos a little bit.
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