After the mall, Amy and I picked up the kids, and we all headed over to Heidelberg with them to meet Phil at an office hail and farewell. Some really good friends of mine are leaving Germany for the States and the Army for retirement, and it was lots of fun to be there to wish them well. I also got to meet some of the summer interns, which was lots of fun.
That evening we went to the German-American fest that happens each summer here on post in Mannheim. We pigged out on fest foods like potato pancakes and chocolate crepes.
All photos are here.
Thursday, 6/29th: Amy and I walked across the field to Gartenstadt to enjoy a nice, leisurely breakfast of Broetchen with butter and jam. After breakfast, we encountered the sweetest little squirrel on our walk home. Shield your eyes from the brilliant cuteness:
My friend (and loyal reader) Robin is getting ready to move back to the States, so I rode with her and her kids out to Heppenheim so that she could pay her electric bill. Heppenheim is a cute little town, and we had a lot of fun wandering around. I had the most amazing pork cutlet with mushroom gravy and potato croquettes for lunch and Spaghetti Eis for dessert.
One neat thing about Heppenheim is the series of street lights that depict scenes from German folk tales, such as "The Lawyer and the Devil":
All photos for the day are here.
Friday, 6/30th: Amy and I spent the better part of the at the mall on Friday. I got some new CDs (like the soundtrack to "Mama Mia" in German), and we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant we used to go to all the time.
The main event of the day, however, was the soccer game between Germany and Argentina. I am quite possibly the least-interested-in-any-and-all-sports person on this entire planet, but the excitement surrounding the World Cup is positively contagious.
After the game, we all walked into Käfertal for a celebratory dinner. Here's Annabelle demonstrating her team spirit:
The streets were full of people joyriding around, shouting and waving their German flags:
Mike's new favorite German drink is cola-beer. It's really not as disgusting as it sounds. I asked the waitress to make it more cola than beer, but then Mike got all offended, and she was winking at him and promising to take care of him. So this could be anything from mostly cola with a little alcohol-free beer for flavor to mostly real beer with a little cola for color:
All photos are here.
Saturday and Sunday, 7/1st and 7/2d: We had a nice, lazy weekend. Saturday night the kids and I went over to Mike's friend Will's house for supper. Phil and Amy and Rebecca left for their Norwegian fjord cruise (yes, I'm insanely jealous) late Saturday night. And yesterday my friend Sibylle came over with her son and brought a huge German breakfast. Nothing major to report for the weekend--just a lot of eating and talking, 2 of my very favorite things.
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