Zombies, Cornbread & Branson
I also had a lesson with codename Aladdin this morning, my favorite corporate student. Always brings me coffee, always offers me a buttered prezel for breakfast, which I politely decline. He is nearing the end of his private lessons now. His final test is next Monday, so today we did some review & played "the Superlatives game" - a board game with questions like, "What's the most exciting party you've ever been to?" or... "Who is the oldest person you've ever met?" The ingenious game sneakily wraps superlatives and the present perfect into one! Fun, easy, zero prep time. Handy for making a 7:30 a.m. Monday class more enjoyable. He didn't even know he was learning.
Another of my students is in London this week practicing her English with school. Yet another student is in Thailand because she's in limbo at her internship; just finished her Bachelor's degree but is not sure if they'll hire her on full-time. (Uncertain future? Hop a plane to Asia. I feel like Webster students can relate to this one.) So, private tutoring is a little slower this week, but I've got a new family of kids coming up on Friday afternoons right here in Kleinbottwar.
But for now, I'm on a couch in a slightly chilly apartment, thinking about last weekend & waiting for Fabi to arrive so we can cook dinner.
Last Friday night, one of my coworkers hosted a grown-up, bonafide dinner party - on paper plates! Gloriously American. She made Southern chili with cornbread muffins and we ate peach-filled dumplings for dessert (the dough for which came out of a can from the U.S. Army base). We were three couples. Fabi and I brought local wine from the Bottwar valley and beer for the menfolk, but upon arrival discovered a mecca of U.S. soft drinks in Landon's fridge - including IBC cream soda (again, thanks to the Army base).
It was a fantastic time. We mostly talked about high school, where we're from, and then we girls told stories from our English classes. I regailed them with tales of Brigitta, who flashed me her hives last week, but translated incorrectly and accidentally said "Laura! I have herpes! Herpes!" Amanda says I attract the weird ones. I think I'm just so nice that people open up to me... too much. The couple from Arkansas asked me if I'd ever been to Branson, and being thousands of miles away from Missouri, it was actually really awesome for someone to mention that 'cultural hotspot' and then immediately cracked a joke about how mostly old people go there! Who wouldn've guessed that mention of Branson could help cure homesickness? Not me. Ever.
Saturday evening Fabi and I took a little road trip to Karlsruhe to visit Fabi's buddy Felix. All the university studnets had gone home for the weekend except him, so we stayed with him in his new apartment in this fantastic old building - high ceilings, creaky hardwood floors, etc. We jammed to the Django soundtrack and then went dancing at a local student club with Adventure-Time-style artwork on the walls, a string of naked barbies nailed over the bar, and gigantic Persian rugs under the 1970's furniture next to the dance floor. It was the first club I'd been to that played solely hipster music. I'm talking Passion Pit, Phoenix, Mumford & Sons, with Bittersweet Symphony mixed in there somewhere. I knew most of the songs thanks to Lisa's 2008-ish independent music phase, so I sang along as we danced under blacklights. Didn't get home until 5 a.m., which I think is a record for me. We crashed at Felix's place and I drove us home the next morning - my longest trip on the Autobahn so far!
If this weather ever improves, I'm sure my homesickness will as well! But I had some great distractions last weekend - a lot of fun. And pretty soon an old friend from high school is coming to visit, and then we've got a wedding to attend. And then German bank holiday season begins.
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