Jet lag be gone! I woke up with Mom about 7:20 am. While she showered I went downstairs and looked at some news on my iPad, tried to WhatsApp Kenji, but he didn’t respond, and greeted Herbert when he came down a few minutes later. When Mom and Anja came down I went quickly upstairs to get dressed. We left immediately after to go into town to the Bakeri shop where we bought several variety of Bröetchen. I didn’t know there were different varieties! I had only ever known the plain kind. We bought a few different kinds. Anja asked me if I wanted a chocolate drizzled one and I said yes, please. I was surprised when we got home to discover that what had been purchased was instead a chocolate croissant. We also went to local meat market (Metzger - butcher) where they had several types of wurst, salami, prosciutto and other raw and prepared meats as well as some prepared foods like potato salad, coleslaw and beet salad. Anja bought a few different hunks of wurst as well as some marinated chicken breasts for another time.
When we got home with our treasures Herbert had the table laid out with cheeses of a few varieties, the homemade jam and jelly from yesterday as well tomatoes and sliced cucumbers. Anja laid the wursts out on a plate for our selection and put all the breads in a basket. We sat down to a sumptuous feast along with cappuccinos and lattes from their machine.
After breakfast was cleared, Anja offered to do some laundry for us. We gathered what needed washing and when it was done we hung it on a portable, foldable, multi-strand stand in the backyard. It’s not sunny today. I’ll be curious to see how long it takes to dry. My guess it won’t be dry by the time we need to leave to go to their friend Irma’s house at 3:30 pm. I took advantage of nothing going on for a bit and wrote my blog for yesterday and started today’s. Lunch was simply sliced strawberries as I get the feeling dinner will be an event since we are going to a nice restaurant with Irma later.
Anja, Mom and I went to the cemetery in Remscheid to see the family plot and tend to the flowers there. The cemetery was amazing! It was in a lush garden setting, with lots of trees and winding paths, not at all like the cemeteries in the US that I’m accustomed to seeing, large areas of flat space and headstones laying flat in the ground. The plots were typically about 4 feet wide and 6-8 feet long. They all had headstones that noted the Family name and then there were individual stones with the people’s names. Some had dates of birth and death on them, many did not. Mom told me that most people are cremated and their ashes are buried here. We watered the flowers on Eva’s family area and Anja picked a few weeds and dead leaves. We then made our way out by a different route, viewing all the plots and noting the different ways people listed family members and decorated the plots. There were 2 sections for soldiers, one from World War 1 and one for soldiers from World War 2. These areas were laid out more like American cemeteries, all in rows and not grouped with their families, with simple crosses, but the area between all the crosses told me that their ashes were buried here, not their whole body in a casket.
We had a piece of homemade Kuüchen (cake) that Herbert had made a few days ago. It was a vanilla/chocolate swirl cake with the chocolate being a layer of melted/hardened chocolate and a chocolate shell on top. It wasn’t super sweet and was delicious! Anja transplanted some baby lettuce she bought previously into small pots to await room in her garden to transplant and allow time to grow fully before picking for some meal in the future. It was laid back late morning-early afternoon and soon it was time to get ready to leave and sure enough most of the laundry was dry! We brought the drying racks inside to finish drying while we’d be gone.
Just moments before we were to leave the house at 3:30 a massive downpour of rain moved in. I went back upstairs to get my umbrella and honestly, truly I tell you, as soon as we opened the door to step outside the rain stopped and started again as soon as we got in the car. It reminded me of the time I was at the Easter Service at the Vatican in Rome and it was raining until the Pope emerged from St. Peter’s and it stopped while he was walking to the covered area in the square where he was conducting the service and as soon as he was safely under cover it started raining again. I knew we were going to be in the car for about an hour, which meant we’d be going on the Autobahn, which scares the bejeezus out of me. If you aren’t familiar with the Autobahn, it’s a freeway with NO speed limit. Seriously. I’ve seen Herbert go 160 km, which is just under 100 mph. While I think it would be thrilling to do so, the other cars make it a terrifying experience for me. One false move by either and the unspeakable would happen. They all also change lanes within inches of each other’s bumpers which scares me. So I sit in the back seat so I don’t have to watch. Unfortunately for me, I sat behind Anja and had a prime view of the speedometer. I prayed, indeed I did. And it was raining, and not just sprinkles, this was a full on downpour. At least he slowed it down a bit to 130 km (80 mph) for the slick roads. Yikes!
We arrived at Irma’s unscathed and I did truly thank the Lord. Oh! I forgot to mention that we brought Naila along. Irma apparently loves to spoil Naila and Anja says Irma is Nadia’s Oma (grandmother) in that way. When she got out of the car and realized where we were, she got very excited and was pulling on her leash excitedly, eager to get to Irma and whatever doggy treat her Oma had for her.
Irma is Eva’s (Mom’s German sister) best friend, so she’s Mom’s age. Greetings were exchanged and Naila began to wonder where her Oma treats were. She hadn’t yet been given a wurst and she’d been there a full minute already! We moved to the sitting area of Irma’s 2 room apartment and she offered us some chips and some candied nuts. Herbert got a bottle of what looked like pink champagne out of the bag they brought along and poured us each a glass and we skoll’d to our time together. We sat at Irma’s chatting, Mom translating along the way, me assuring her that I really did follow what it was they were talking about without knowing the specifics. After we emptied the 1st bottle another appeared and we all received refills.
After a little more than an hour there we began to make our way out and to the restaurant. It wasn’t far and they had a lovely outdoor seating area and I was wondering if my light sweater was going to be enough, assuming with Naila along we’d be sitting outside. That was not the case, apparently. We strolled up to the hostess desk and and we’re shown a table inside. Naila laid down by Anja’s side and stayed there the rest of the night, except when Anja took her out for a potty/smoke break. I decided to have some fun and try out a little German and asked the server if he had a menu in English. Kenji and I have a fun story about doing that when we were in Tokyo, so I thought I’d try it here. The man told me, in English (!) no, but he’d be happy to help by translating whatever I’d like to know about. They truly had everything on this menu, pizza, pasta, fish, lamb, chicken, with extensive sections for beverages of all varieties. Somehow small glasses of champagne appeared for each of us and again we skoll’d, looking each other in the eye when doing so as is the custom.
I wanted to try some fish and Herbert showed me one item that he translated to salmon, so I ordered that. First, though, the appetizers arrived. Herbert had ordered bruschetta for himself, me & Irma and sautéed mushrooms for Mom. She remarked when it arrived that it could easily serve as her whole meal! For an entree he had a mixed grill with chicken, beef and turkey with a Bernaise type sauce and rice, Anja had what looked and tasted like New Orleans-style barbecue shrimp in a Cajun sauce, Irma had lamb kebob and Mom had the steak, which was huge! We all laughed when the largest plate arrived in front of the smallest person at the table! My fish turned out to be sand dabs in a lemon aioli-type tartar sauce. It was very good, but definitely not salmon. All the entrees came with a mixture of cooked tomatoes, red bell peppers and potatoes that was simple but yummy!
The time passed quickly as we chatted, translated, laughed at funny misinterpretations and stories of our lives. We inevitably got around to politics as Irma was curious about our thoughts of what’s happening in the US these days. We shared frankly that we are angry at the way the country seems to have taken a turn away from the path we’d been on of protecting individual rights with topics like abortion while expanding rights to owning guns and limiting protections for the climate, all of it going in directions we don’t agree with. Mom states she is sad to return home to a very changed America than the one she left almost 4 weeks ago. We live in a bubble in California of protected rights we share values with, but feel we must do more to expand those rights to all in the US, not just the few who live in California. Our work is cut out for us…
Irma looked at me when it came time to possibly order dessert. I was so full but always have room for a bite of something sweet, so I encouraged her to order what she’d like and I’d like to taste it. She told me the items that were available and 1 of them, appfelstruedel, caught my attention. When in Germany, one must have appfelstruedel, which I love anyway. Herbert translated puff pastry for me but pronounced it “poof” and after I told him how to pronounce puff we had a short discussion about how “puff” means prostitute in German and we ended up laughing about that until Mom said I was turning as usually happens when I get to laughing so very hard. It felt good to to laugh like that! The appfelstruedel came with a crème anglaise and Anja thought it was funny that I asked the server for enough forks for us all to have to share the dessert. It was wam and melted in my mouth and the crème anglaise was creamy and smooth, just as it should be and it had full, plump raisins in the strudel. Anja ordered a peach schnapps for herself and 1 for Mom, who objected, but I said I’d share it with her. She liked it, but I easily drank half of it.
I’m not sure how the topic came up, but before I knew it, Mom was saying she wanted to give her VW Bug to Anja and how could we accomplish that. Herbert did a quick internet search about transferring cars from the US and talks quickly escalated until I finally had to let Anja know that this is NOT an historical family car, that Mom only bought it like 15-20 years ago. The major item Mom needs to research is where was the car built, Germany or Mexico. That will help Anja decide if she wants to pursue trying to get the car from the US to Germany. We shall see what happens…
After we left and heartily thanked Irma for her generosity for the meal (when Mom expressed to Anja that she would like to pay for the meal Anja explained that the custom is when someone invites you out, they pay, and Irma had invited us, so it would be impolite to try and pay) we went back to Irma’s place and sat on the glass window enclosed patio and talked for a little bit before coming home. She is a warm, kind person and I understand why Eva was liked her so.
I sat behind Herbert on the way home so as to not be able to see the speedometer while we were on the Autobahn and we made it home safely. After a long 7.5 hours trip away, we all fell into bed quickly.
My journey today was a slow day of waiting to meet Irma, who was a most beloved person to Eva, who was a most beloved person to our family.
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