This Isn’t Go Fish!

Last weekend I finally went on another trip. I went to Eltze (a small town near Hannover) to visit Mark and his family. It was pretty entertaining and I was a bit surprised by how different things were staying with them vs. Monica’s family. I enjoyed Mark’s cousin Gustav. He’s a cheerful, plump, 72-year-old German. He knows a bit of English, but we mostly communicated auf Deutsch. Gustav has trouble saying “please” and it comes out more like “pleahza.” He also doesn’t seem to know that we don’t have the same word for please and you’re welcome like they do in German. So almost every time I said “danke” he responded with “pleahze.” lol. It was cute. Gustav and his wife, Helga, found it incredibly odd that I didn’t load up my bread with butter. Gustav would notice that I left it off and shake his head and tell me “No, no. Butter! Butter! You need butter!” I also got a kick out of how no matter how much Mark and I would eat, it was never enough. “Eat, Eat! More bread? You must eat! You’re so thin! Maybe you’re afraid you’ll get fat like me? Ok…it doesn’t matter. Vodka??” (This stuff was said in German, of course, but I’m translating for those of you who don’t know German) An example of how much they wanted us to eat: After a few rolls, a bratwurst, and 3 steaks, Mark finally insisted that he simply couldn’t eat any more. Gustav was a little disappointed but was at least happy that Mark still wanted to drink.

Friday and Saturday included day trips to Hamburg and Hannover. The landscape and architecture in this area of Germany is a lot different from what I’m used to seeing in the south. The cities were pretty, but I wish the weather had been a little better. It rained off and on the whole weekend. And, judging from the forecast, it will rain for another week still. It has been ridiculously cold lately when you consider its late June and all. I’ve been wearing fleece jackets everyday and I’m still cold. At least in Tübingen I can eat my meals indoors. For some reason, Gustav and Helga always had lunch and dinner outside. I mean… if you have to wear a jacket and drape a blanket over your lap, isn’t that a sign that it’s too cold to eat outdoors?? Apparently not. Oh, silly Germans. :) It was an enjoyable weekend.

Monday wasn’t the greatest. Mondays are always kind of exhausting for me because I have class for 7 hours straight with only a few little breaks. In the SAME classroom. Bleh. Maybe the reason I can’t motivate myself to work on my literature Referat is due to the fact that I’m still getting over exhaustion from Monday. I love how my brain gets fried the very first day of the week. How convenient!

Markus left a little bit ago. I swear that guy is going to eat me out of house and home! lol. Just kidding. I prefer cooking for more than just myself. After lunch we played Scrabble auf Deutsch for a bit. I figured it would be easier playing with a German because they would be able to open the board up a bit. Well, Markus had never played Scrabble and kept trying to bend the rules. At one point I said, “Man, I could really use an ‘s’.” He then hands me one of his tiles and asked me if I had an “e”. I was just like, “This isn’t Go Fish, Markus!”