Saturday BBQ

Saturday evening we joined Mia’s class party.  It was super fun to socialize and get to know the parents and other children in her school class.  It was held at a private park associated with a church.  They had restored ruins there and grave stones from the 1500’s.  There was a memorial by the tower where there was once a girl who was held captive there after she was caught helping the poor.  The kids tried to translate the plaques for us. 

There is one American girl in Mia’s class whose dad is working there in town.  Her parents were amazing and expecting their 7^th child in a few weeks.  I spent quite a bit of time talking with her.  They have lived in other countries as well and it was fun to hear about the differences.  She was a little nervous about delivering here, and I happy to let her vent about the difference in the medical systems.  Later I asked Eva and David more questions about insurance and medical care….more about that in a later post.

Many people speak some English and most are excited to engage in a conversation.  The pot luck food was fabulous.  I didn’t try anything that I didn’t like.  I loved the salads!  My favorite was a corn and tomato salad with little tiny cubes of Gouda with herbs and cilantro.  I had more than one helping of it.  There were multiple potato salads and one that was fresh potato and cucumber salad from southern Germany.  My David loved it, and I thought it was ok.  Basically, it was grated cucumbers, grated potatoes, salt pepper and vinegar. 

We played games after dinner and chatted around the fire until it was time to go.  It got quite cold in the evening, and I didn’t bring a sweat shirt with me to the BBQ.  I’ll have to remember that!  The sun sets very late here in the summer, and so my internal clock is very messed up.  I keep asking what time is it?