Caitlin

My Praktikum in Germany
2002-07-15 12:25:50 (UTC)

Burning Down the Rhine!!!

The highlight of this last weekend was Saturday night.
With the other Americans from work plus Holly and Lena (my
cousins), we had dinner at Todd's house. He's been here in
Cologne for more than two years, I think, and his apartment
is really nice. As well as being large, it is very well
decorated. Everyone was supposed to bring something to
eat, and because I didn't hear about the party until after
the stores were closed on Saturday, I had to improvise with
what I already had in storage. I ended up making devilled
eggs... something so American (and easy to make!) and we
all enjoyed them. Even Joe, one of our Australians, liked
them. But for the other foods, there was taco salad,
pizza, spinich-artichoke dip, and a noodle dish. Very good
stuff.

From Todd's place, we walked down to the river, (the Rhein
River, of course!!), because that night was a fire-work
celebration called "Rhein in Flammen" (the Rhine in
Flames). The river banks were filled with thousands of
people that night, and we found ourselves
nice "comfortable" seats to watch the show.

Lena and I got to talk for a while together, which was
really interesting. Even though we're first cousins, we
have never really gotten to know each other. It turns out
that she has the same talent for and interest in foreign
languages that I do, and when I go to Finland this
December, she might join me for a week or two. She also
wants to learn to speak Finnish (which makes sense, because
she's just as much Finnish as I am), and I told her that
I'd help her find a good set of books so she can learn the
vocabulary, and then each week help her with pronunciation
and practical speaking. That should be fun....

Today at work, one of the other American girls, Kristine,
surprised us by bringing in chocolate cookies... wow, I've
missed those! Now I'll just wait until someone brings in
Diet Mountain Dew. (I even have dreams about that drink!!
*sigh*)




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