week's end

We have the sweetest German landlady, Frau Wild, who has been wanting to take us out for "the best speissbraten in Idar-Oberstein." That's a pretty bold statement, so we gladly accepted her offer and went to dinner Friday night. She took us to this small restaurant, Restaurant Kirschweiler Brüke, located on the outskirts of Idar. It was truly fabulous. We had the typical & amazing German salad with the dressing that I will learn how to make before we leave, if it's the last thing I do, fresh bread with lard, ("Please pass the lard" - hilarious) and spoonfuls of some type of sour cream, lox, & garlic-y goodness that you ate in one gulp. We got to watch our speissbraten & potatoes slowly cook over the open fire while we had great, albeit frustrating at times due to the language barrier, conversation with Frau Wild. It was such a fun, special evening that made me remorseful we hadn't spent more time with such an interesting woman. (She was alive during WWII, her house- currently our house- was taken over by French soldiers during the war, she had uncles in the German Army, her husband was a jeweler specializing in opal...) The speissbraten was incredible, and I may or may not have eaten the leftovers straight from the fridge. Cold. With my bare hands. At 10 AM. Don't worry about it.

After bidding adieu to Frau Wild, Zack, Zane, & I walked down to the Jazz Tage fest that was going on this weekend. Much to my delight it was not jazz they were playing, but 50's style American rock n' roll. The band played tons of Elvis, while we drank wine & twisted our little hearts out with friends.

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A while back when I first found out we were moving so much earlier than expected, I began to get panicky at the thought of all the places we hadn't traveled to yet. Each weekend I was determined to go somewhere, even if just for the day, and to not "waste" one hour of our free time. This weekend Zack & I planned to go to Paris, but as the weekend drew closer, the more I dreaded it. (First World Problems, right?) I have already been there twice and it doesn't even make my top 10 favorite European cities list. Plus, Zack strongly dislikes the French people (he has only had bad experiences with them thus far) so I was able to persuade him that we didn't really need to see Paris before we left. When I awoke early Saturday morning, I was hit with that familiar twinge of panic, OMGWHATAREWEGOINGTODOTODAY WE ONLY HAVE 3 WEEKENDS LEFT!? But it was fleeting, and I sat down with a cup of coffee and just watched the morning shower water our flowers. I feel like I have seen so incredibly much in the two years living in Europe, that I have no real regrets about not seeing enough. I think we used our time here in Germany quite wisely, and I'm so thankful for all of the places we were able to visit.

Later that day, we went to Bad Sobernheim for the Barfußpfad, or 'Barefoot Path.' Exactly like it sounds - a 3km outdoor path in which you go barefoot. It was interesting and made for a nice way to spend an afternoon, but I think it could have been much better. My favorite part was the mud pit you had to wade through, and the knee-high river crossing.

After traipsing through all sorts of probably unsanitary conditions, we spruced up a bit and headed over to Bingen to catch the boat for a Rhine River cruise. The Rhine is the 12th longest river in Europe, flowing from Switzerland to the coast in the Netherlands. Lucky for us, it's only about an hour away from our home and the stretch of the river in that area is known as the "Romantic Rhine" because 40+ castles are situated along its banks. The river cruise was great, although I was expecting a little fancier of a boat, maybe with music + dance or something. (First World Problems..) We almost really screwed up because we took one of the last cruises out, and failed to get off at our stop in Bingen because we weren't sure if the boat would turn around again. Well, it didn't, and we got dropped off in Rüdesheim. Luckily, it wasn't that catastrophic of an error because all we had to do was walk down the river for maybe 1km and then take a ferry across to our original dock.

This is a thing.

Saturday evening, we had planned to either walk back down to the second night of the Jazz fest in our hometown, or go to the Kusel Castle for a concert but neither of those panned out. Probably because as soon as we got home from Bingen, our doorbell rang with a German man ranting & raving around our car's oil leak. In his defense, our car was leaking quite badly by that point so we put a bucket under the leak and are crossing our fingers it's not too costly of a repair. (Especially considering we leave in 16 days!) While he was mean-mugging Zack under the car, I asked him- "Did you write this?"

We discovered this oh-so-helpful note on the street a few days ago.

He replied, "JA I WRITE IT. No time for this, I have not the time for this! It makes me very sour! You need fix this now!" Um, okay Herr Freak. I wish my German was better so I could tell him to chill and that there's really no need to get so salty (or sour...) over a few leaks on an already imperfect public street. 

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Sunday morning I awoke annoying early, but made use of my time by figuring out my life plan and making pancakes & syrup from scratch. Two very different, yet both very necessary activities. I'm excited because I think I am finally figuring out what I should be doing career-wise, and because IHOP ain't got shiz on my blueberry & Nutella pancakes. 

We also did something very sad Sunday afternoon- we began to actually get ready for the move. Even though it's less than three weeks away, I guess I have been sort of living in denial that this is seriously about to take place. Today we took the pictures off of the walls, replaced the light fixtures with the originals, sorted items into piles for the movers and it became real. I think this is such a big deal for me because this is mine & Zack's first home together. It's where we spent the first year of our marriage, where we learned and grew and loved to the point I thought these walls would burst. This house has seen such beautiful times, and some very ugly and sad times, too. It will forever be special to us, and it hurts to know we're leaving it for good. It just kind of hurts.