Volksfest!

Jerry returned to work this past week for a total of one day!! On Thursday, we got a little sample of what our 'real' lives are going to be like, starting at 6:00am most days. Here's Jerry as he headed off to work, the first time he's been in costume (as I like to say) since I've been in Germany.

Seeing Jerry Giant in uniform fills me with a lot of emotion. Of course, I think he's totally hot :) But it also fills me with pride to see him in uniform, proud of a man who is pushing himself physically and professionally, proud of a man serving our country and protecting the freedoms I hold so dear. And it scares me too, as I'm reminded of the possible risks he faces by being a soldier.

Anyway, Jerry returned to work on Thursday. But Friday began a four-day weekend :) Thursday was very productive for me. Jerry had to be up at 6:00 in order to make his 6:30 PT (physical training), which happens every day. I woke up with him and while he was at PT, I walked a mile with Scooter, made 3 dozen cookies for Jerry to take to his office, and went to the recycling center. All before Jerry returned for a shower and breakfast at 7:30! While he was at work, I'll admit that I almost immediately took a little nappy. But after my little rest, I kicked into gear and got a crapload of stuff done around the house. I walked to both the PX and the commissary and cleaned a lot. It felt good to be getting things in order and being productive on my own.

The Schweinfurt Volksfest (folk festival) is being held now. After a few weeks of extensive preparations just outside the housing gates, the festival opened on Friday. Though it's a traveling festival, it has some pretty intense rides that would rival many amusement park rides. And the food!! My goodness. Jerry and I ate and drank so much this weekend. We're lucky that it will be shutting down in a week. Take a look at these giant biers!!

On Saturday night, Jerry and I met up with a few people that he works with and drank a lot. Those beers we're holding are each a liter! We each drank three liters of beer that night. And we felt it the next day! Generally I don't like beer, but I totally enjoyed the beer and the festival atmosphere. It was great to meet new people and I even had a conversation in German with an older German guy who came to our table and started up a conversation.

As I mentioned, the festival food is amazing! We've eaten many bratwursts, sampling and comparing the brats from the various stands. We've narrowed it down to our two favorites. While Jerry's favorite festival food is Bratwurst, mine is the Brezen (pretzels). Not only are the pretzels ginormous and delicious but they come in many varieties. Many pretzels have been baked with cheese, vegetables and meat, and have become encrusted with tasty goodness. Other pretzels have been split in half and filled with meats and cheese, like big pretzel sandwiches (my personal favorite pretzel form). My favorite combination is a pretzelf filled with cold cheese, salami, pickles and butter. Reading that over, it looks a little gross. But trust me, it's delicious. We've also sampled some roasted candied nuts (almonds and cashews) and have tried some sweet popcorn and ice cream. All have been good, though we have yet to find ice cream that's as good as the ice cream at our favorite eis cafe (which also has amazing cappucino and hot chocolate). Oh, on the topic of ice cream, we've also had ice cream from an ice cream truck. Here, the ice cream trucks have ice cream and the drivers make ice cream creations for the curbside customers, instead of carrying pre-packaged frozen treats, as in the States.

Enough (for now) on the culinary delights of the festival!

This weekend, when not stuffing our faces or drowning ourselves in bier, we did manage to take a couple of nice walks, have cappucinos and great conversations at a sidewalk cafe a couple of times (okay, i guess that could be considered part of stuffing our faces), and see the movie Iron Man (which we both really enjoyed). We intended to go bowling today, but failed to remember that the bowling alley is closed on Mondays. Silly us!

Tomorrow Jerry begins a longer week of work (four days) and I'm hoping to do more settling in. Next week I will be starting my German class which meets three days a week and hopefully will be taking my German driver's exam as well. So that I will be able to drive our sweet VW. I have a photo of the car, but every time I try to upload it, it uploads sideways and just looks silly. I'll take new photos and post them later.

Time to call it a night. We have an early day tomorrow. A day that promises to be filled with adventure (cooking a new dish!) and fun (shopping for shampoo!).