So it turns out that when I called 110 during the emergency situation on the sidewalk, I called the police and not the ambulance. I learned that I should have called 112 and said the man was bewusstlos, or unconscious. Then the ambulance would have come immediately. Oops. Lesson learned.
The rest of the week went well. I cooked yet again. And again it was simply pasta. If you've been following my travel blog over the past three years, you'll recall that I first learned how to cook my own pasta in Rome two years ago (I know, sad). I don't know if I've really improved all that much, but I'm certainly much faster at whipping my tomato sauce and pasta all together.
We've also been having group dinners, and since my apartment with Natilee is the largest and most accessible (we're on the ground floor), we've been designated hosts for the rest of the group dinners. Fine by me. This Wednesday, we're going to have Thai tom yum soup with mushrooms, tofu, cilantro, and maybe some bean sprouts and/or spinach. We'll have Basmati rice as well.
I bought some tom yum paste from the only Asian grocery market I've found in Marburg. I was quite excited; I bought fish sauce, soy sauce, Sriracha chili sauce, and sesame oil. The storeowner is from Vietnam and moved here about twenty years ago. Pretty awesome...German with a Vietnamese accent. I wonder what my German would sound like if I had a Singaporean accent...
Anyway, before Wednesday night's fiesta, I decided I'd rather try making a bit of the tom yum soup in case I screw up majorly on Wednesday. So tonight, James, Paul, and Brandon were my guinea pigs. I added tofu, mushrooms, and fresh cilantro. Check it out.
I thought it was delicious. The guys did too, but James thought it was a tad bit spicy. 'Twas a pretty funny spectacle at the dinner table actually. Thankfully, I had milk handy.
I'm excited now for Wednesday night, but I'm going to have cook about four times as much as I made tonight. Shouldn't be too hard. James and Paul offered to help cook rice too, and Brandon's going to make lentil soup for those who don't like or want spicy soup. We'll have about a dozen people over, so it'll be a full house.
This weekend, I did absolutely nothing on Saturday, except go to the store to buy a new case of beer with James and Brandon. On Sunday though, we had a group excursion on the Lahn River. Nora, our program director, had arranged a canoe tour down the Lahn, so we headed out early for our day-long adventures.
Brandon had our beers packed and ready to go.
Lauren was ready to start rowing as well...even without water.
I got in a canoe with Nora and Brandon. Besides our two guides in their individual kayaks, we had 11 canoes. We paddled 6 kilometers before we arrived at a picnic spot where there was lunch prepared for us already. They had some sort of drink that was basically whey and orange juice. I did not particularly like it, so I opted for a dark Hefeweizen.
I have no idea what Joel was doing here, but he tried sneaking up on the swan. 'Twould seem to be a bad idea.
After lunch, we paddled for another 8 kilometers to the end of our tour. So in all, we paddled 14 kilometers or about 9.75 miles.
Paul, Alec, and Joel tied their canoe to the back of our guide's kayak...without her knowing.
Her reaction was pretty funny when she realized what they were doing.
We moved along slowly at times...so slowly, we could stick our legs in the water and just glide. Except, if you're in the back, you're supposed to steer the canoe. James ended up switching with Dylan later. Haha.
It wasn't a smooth ride for everyone...David, Laura, and Linda seemed to keep crashing from one bank to the next. It was pretty hilarious actually.
Along the way, I saw an otter, a few ducks, a bunch of swans (which are actually very aggressive and dangerous; they can break a human arm with their wing—Nick told me the force of a swan's wing is equivalent to swinging a baseball bat at 40 mph), and a couple of German guys in Speedos. Apparently, they're still in style over here...
There was also one challenging section along our ride. There was a slalom course set up for kayakers, and the water flowed fairly quickly. A couple of canoes got stuck, and we had a bit of a canoe traffic jam. Then someone ran into our canoe, and we almost fell out. My shorts got soaked as did my camera, but thank goodness it's waterproof. :) We were actually fortunate as Nick, Kate, and Sam's canoe flipped over, and they all fell in the water.
We saw more swans when we finished our canoe tour. They seemed to think we had more food since we threw bread at them after lunch.
Anyway, this week is my third week of the language course, and I do think my German is much better already. But I still have a fair bit to learn. I can understand fairly well, but responding quickly in proper German is still a bit of a challenge. But people still understand me fine, so that's good. Still, I want and need to get better. I'm meeting my language partner on Wednesday, so that should be fun.
We're also settling into living in Germany well. Today, we all opened bank accounts at Deutsche Bank. I was actually pretty happy that the bank representative spoke to me in German the whole time. I had no problems answering any of her questions or asking my questions. Brandon and I also bought our train tickets to Berlin today. Looking forward to moving to my favorite city again.
Tomorrow, my German class is actually going to be on a local German radio station. One of our teachers, Frank, is a local radio show host, and each year, his class does a one-hour program live on air. Seeing as how he gave us the exact date just today (the day before), I'm not feeling as excited about this as I had been originally.
We'll see how we do. I'll let you know next time.
Sam
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