Mark and Nancy went hunting this morning with Mark’s cousin and two friends from Spain. Mark’s cousin Oliver was the interpreter since the friends don’t know German or English. I am still amazed at how many languages Europeans know and understand. It is incredible! I wish I had that gift for learning languages. I had just taken my computer downstairs and was looking at emails and facebook when someone knocked on the back door. I didn’t recognize who it was, so I quickly walked up the stairs calling for Helena. It ended up being Oliver, but we hadn’t met yet. :)
The girls and I played phase 10 (I think it’s Helena’s new favorite game) upstairs while Mark and Nancy entertained their guests, smoking and talking. The smoke smell was worse than usual. The house is large enough that I don't usually smell the smoke for very long, but when multiple people smoke, it's worse.
About that time, the friends from last night (Oli, his wife and daughter Carlotta) came over. They brought out the beer and wine. The hunters had shot two little deer, so we all went outside and gave the deer their final honor (horn blowing) and watched Mark gut it. Carlotta had never seen it before, so she looked away a few times. It was kind of humorous. They asked me if I was okay with it, so I gently reminded them my dad hunts, I have gut deer before, and I'm a nurse. Mark gave several of the organs to the dogs to eat, threw the rest away except the liver. In Germany, you cannot gut the deer and leave the entrails in the woods. You have to carry them out with you and dispose of them. Mark then cleaned the liver, took the skin off, and cut it in half to check for blood vessels and worms. It was a good liver, so he put it in a freezer bag for later. To cook it, they batter and fry it.
We headed out to the restaurant down the road about 5-10 minutes. The snow has been melting all day and so it was really wet and mushy. I guess I don’t have the greatest winter shoes (Gloria was making fun of the ones I was wearing) for that kind of weather. It has been overcast the whole time I’ve been here so far. I’m looking forward to some sunshine.
When we got to the restaurant, Mark gave out seat assignments. I was to sit on his left. At first I thought it was so that he could translate for me, but then I thought of the high place of honor it was. I worked up the courage to ask Mark if I could have water or coke instead of wine. He was perfectly fine with that, said I could have whatever I wanted. I told him he didn’t need to waste the wine on me. J Mark tried three different bottles of wine before he settled on one he liked. After we all had our drinks, Mark gave a toast and prayer. He translated for me after: thanking God for the safety of the Spain friends and especially for my safe arrival. Asked for an enjoyable meal and following evening, etc.
The waitresses wore a more traditional German outfit. Green dresses and bibs with a white blouse. When our food was ready, the lights over our table dimmed and they brought out the goose with a “firecracker” on it, doing fireworks. It was really cool! They served us goose (delicious!), red and green cabbage (I liked the green better than the red), and a potato ball (mashed potato mixed with bread and something else and formed into a ball). The potato ball wasn’t my favorite just because it had a different texture. Mark then ordered a shot of some strong alcohol drink (schnaps) for everyone…except me. J He said he didn’t want to offend, but that he didn’t order me one. I was perfectly okay with that! He had me take a teeny little sip of his and OH MY WORD it was so strong! He said it takes a year to ferment and get ready. They put it in barrels on a ship and it stays on the ship for one year, doing the back-and-forth motion of the ship rocking. After one year, they put it in barrels and sell it.
Mark also told me about some of his time in Nebraska, playing football (he was the field kicker) and wrestling (everyone was afraid of him. He was like a bull. Even broke a couple of arms, although not on purpose).
After dinner we went back to the house and I was updating facebook when Wendy and Janna skyped! It was so much fun to see them and talk for a little bit before they had to get to their alumni track meet. I showed them around my room and the second floor. They met Helena, Gloria, Nancy and Arielle (dog) and Lissy (dog).
The house was unusually quiet when I got finished skyping. I couldn’t find anyone until one of the friends from Spain came up from the basement looking for Oliver (Mark’s cousin). Of course he didn’t speak English and I don’t speak Spanish, so I didn’t know how to help him. I went downstairs to find everyone hauling buckets of water! All the snow that had melted today was in the basement! I put my winter boots on to help and the water literally almost covered the toe part of my boots! There were a few spots in the flooring where you could actually see the water running into the room. We used buckets, towels, and dustpans to clean up the water and then their neighbor (a firefighter) brought over a pump and cleaned up the rest. About that time, everyone starting lighting cigarettes so I made my escape upstairs to my room where I found the girls.
Helena was still working on the word search I created for her, Carlotta was looking at a magazine and Gloria followed me in. She is my little buddy. She tends to find me all the time. They wanted me to play, but I really needed to get caught up on journaling, so I procrastinated as long as I could. In the meantime they got some of Nancy’s shoes and were pretending to be snooty, stuck up teenagers. It was hilarious to see the attitudes, actions, and tone of voices! Mark and the other men left to go join the Los Vegas-style gambling party where they played Texas Hold-em. Mark had never played before but ended up winning (100 euros I think). They drank a bottle of whiskey, another strong alcohol and lots of beers, and smoked 25 cigars (between 8 people)! It was incredible. Mark took a cab home.
While he was gone, us girls got ready for bed and watched a show in Nancy’s room of this guy who swallows objects and brings them back up again. In this episode, he smoked a cigarette without letting the smoke out, made a bubble out of soap and put the smoke in the bubble. He swallowed a game cube, moved the colors around in his stomach and brought it back up changed. He poured sugar down his throat, drank a glass of water, bent over and the sugar came pouring back out….completely dry! It made my throat hurt just to look at it!
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