About three weeks ago, on July 18, we celebrated little Lena's second birthday. She is getting smarter and more adorable every day, and I really love watching her grow up. As I've said before, she is the reason I'm not afraid of babies anymore, and that I could actually picture having one of my own someday. She's like a gateway baby. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the party, but it was a lot of fun. There were many delicious cakes, and Lena served us gummi bears and sand ice cream. It's a specialty of hers, actually. Every time we go to the playground, she sets up shop and "sells" cones full of sand. What an entrepreneur.
A few days later, my good friend Aimee Cooper arrived for a visit. She had been traveling in the Czech Republic and Austria with her husband and a few younger musical students. They were on a study abroad trip to visit historic musical sights (I guess?) and to attend a musical camp. Aimee enjoyed the trip, but after so many cathedrals and museums and renaissance blabbity blah, she was ready to just hang out. Lucky, this is just about all I do. She arrived from Prague after a long bus and train ride, and we spent the night in my apartment just talking and catching up. We always have such a good time together, and it was great to have some time just to talk about nothing and everything. The next morning we met Eduardo at the Markthalle in Kassel for breakfast. The Markthalle is just what it sounds like: an indoor market with many stalls that sell fruits and vegetables and flowers and other wonderful things, but there are also little cafes with delicious breakfast and coffee. We had a leisurely breakfast and then went for a walk around Kassel.
That evening we went to Natalia's home to celebrate Ania's bachelorette party. I'm glad that Aimee was able to come along; of all my friends, I can think of almost no one better to drag to a bachelorette party with a bunch of people she doesn't know. We had a delicious dinner to start off, (Jehona made us some Thai food) and then the games began. I can't share too much, because that would violate the first rule of Bachelorette Party (Don't talk about Bachelorette Party), but since Ania is Polish, there was much Vodka involved, much dancing, and some simple but hilarious games. After we were suitably silly, we went out on the town and visited several Kassel bars. We had given Ania a shirt to wear that said "bride", and we brought markers with us, so we asked just about everyone we met to sign her shirt. Most people were friendly and congratulatory and one guy even bought us champagne. I did get stuck talking to one old man who was so excited to hear that I was from the US, because he sells toothpaste! And the US is a great market for toothpaste! And here, take my card! Ok, weirdo. We had such a great evening, and we were out on the town until the wee hours.
 |
| The cropping makes it more mysterious. |
The next morning Aimee and I woke up earlier than we would have liked, because we were meeting Christian and Christine, along with Christine's parents and some of their friends from Australia up at the top of the mountain in Kassel, near the Herkules statue. For those of you who are unfamiliar, Kassel is home to the largest mountainside park in Europe, atop which stands a humungous statue of Hercules. Apparently, Wilhelm the elector (who basically built Kassel), was so taken by Hercules and his representation of strength, that he built a huge statue of him, and waterfalls to flow from the top down to his castle at the bottom. It's pretty badass, I must say.
 |
| Whoa. |
We had lunch with the Svenson clan at a new restaurant at the top of the hill, and it was delicious. Christian and Christine were really looking forward to meeting Aimee, as she is the inventor of the strange old man voice that I use sometimes. This probably also requires an explanation, but it's hard to describe this voice in writing. Just think of an old man from the midwest who has probably smoked too many Marlboros in his lifetime, and you'll get the idea. Aimee has been using this voice for years, and when we met, I couldn't help but do the voice as well. Whenever we get together we have to be careful because we fall into using the voice so easily and we can't stop. Anyway, the Svensons thought it was hilarious. They've only heard me doing it for the past year, and now they got to hear it from the source, and in stereo.
After lunch, we walked down from the top, and it was a perfect day for it. Kassel hasn't given us much weather-wise lately, and so it was nice to have some mildly warm and not rainy weather for a day. Although Aimee did comment that the weather in Kassel "pretty much sucks". She's right, and since I didn't think to warn her of that, she hadn't packed properly and had to wear the same clothes every day. Whoops.
After our "hike" from Herkules, we went back to Christian and Christine's apartment for some coffee and cake. It was an awesome way to spend the afternoon, and we had great conversation and a lot of laughs. We went home in the early evening and spent the night watching terrible reality TV shows and laughing til we peed our pants. It was perfect.
Aimee left the next day, which was a bummer. We don't get to see each other so often, and it's always a blast when we do. But I'm lucky that whenever we do see each other, we can pick up where we left off and have a ton of fun.
The following week was our professor's birthday, and to celebrate he took a group of us out to dinner. We estimated about 18 people, but around 30 showed up. This is a testament to how well respected and loved Professor Teichler is among his current and former students. We ate at a great Spanish restaurant, and we showered him with gifts. It was so kind of him to invite us all, and I especially enjoyed it because I had the privilege of sitting next to him all night. I'm a lucky girl.
 |
| Pictured: Some semi-lucky students, and me, the luckiest of all. |
A few days after Teichler-palooza, we left on our road trip to Poland for Ania's wedding. This 5 day trip was absolutely incredible, and I will need another post to describe it. It was... epic. And muddy. But that's a story for another post.
Until then!
