So this past weekend was a long weekend. Friday was German Reunification Day (Tag der Deutschen Einheit) so everyone was off! Alexandra Robers (the daughter of one of my mom's cousins) was near Hannover and picked me up to take me to see the relatives. It was wonderful.
We drove home Thursday night and went almost right to bed. Then Friday morning Alexandra, Christa (her mom), Stefanie and Melanie (more daughters of cousins...they are all my age-ish), and I went shopping in Holland for the day. It was packed...with Germans haha. It wasn't a holiday for the Hollandish. Then almost as soon as we got home Alexandra and I went to Oeding (15 Kilometers from Vreden) and cooked dinner with Stefanie and Melanie at their house. We made a delicious spaghetti - homemade sauce and everything! - and then played a dice game , visited a bit with their parents (my mom's cousins) and laughed much of the night away.
Saturday Alexandra and I spent visiting her Oma, my great aunt, Tante Katharina. It was nice to see her. We went around the city and enjoyed a day with no rain an sunny weather. Then Alexandra and I went to the grocery, baked a cake (oooo it was so delicious), and got ready for the evening. Saturday night Alexandra had a few of her girlfriends over and we drank some homemade strawbery liquor from Stefanie and played Cranium and Activity (a game similar to cranium except only with drawing, pantomiming, and explaining). The games were (obviously) played in German, but I will never lose my competitive spirit and would like you all to know that my team won Cranium...(and, yes, I did help haha).
Sunday was a lazy day. We visited the last of Tante Katharina's three children, Georg and his family who also live in Vreden. Then we enjoyed a very nice dinner that Christa made. I headed home by train Sunday night. Alexandra is heading to Hamburg Monday night (tonight) for work tomorrow.
It was just a wonderful weekend of relaxation, family time, and lots of laughing, chocolate, and some high quality - aka Hollandish - black licorice...what can I say I am related to my Oma.
Last week we spent the morning making sugar cookies (t
hanks mom!)
, a good friend of Sabrina's and three little munchins Luna, Hannah, and Leon. When we woke up Saturday morning, we relaxed a bit before heading to the weekly market and the flea market. At the weekly market we picked out a pumpkin, some fresh, homemade honey,
and drank delicious fresh pressed carrot juice. We headed to the flea market a little outside the city to visit Marian who had a stand there. Doris, Leon and I ate lunch and got some ice cream before heading home. Once home, Leon and I got to play lots of legos and build cool towers but then it was time for bed :( Doris and I stayed
up talking for a bit before we both headed off to bed as well. On Sunday (we got an extra hour!!) we drove to Engelern to have lunch with Tante
Mia and then later coffee and tea with many, many Rickes. It was really fun sitting in the middle of the table and trying understand all the different conversations going on around me. We (Doris, Leon, and I, as well as Fabian (a cousin of sorts) and his friend Michael) left and drove to the Osnabrück bahnhof. Fabian, Michael, and I ran to try to catch the train to head back to Hannover but it wasn't supposed to be, I guess. We missed it by 1 minute. So we waited for two hours until the next train came. We played cards the whole way home. I kicked butt...haha just kidding. They taught me a new game. As you can imagine, it was wonderful to spend the weekend with family.
Needless to say, I had a wonderful time visiting Valeska and Julien in Paris. I think the first picture here may be the only one where Valeska and I are both acting normal.
On Monday morning I headed to Versailles were I walked through the beautiful castle gardens and then took an audio tour of Marie Antoinette's little hideaway (ok so it's not so little).
Don't fly with your eyes closed
