Deer, langos and crumble
This weekend, other than counting down the very few days left until Going Home For Easter, I went to my tandem partner's house. Having accidentally followed the advice of year abroad people and formed a real friendship with a German, Katrin and I now do actual friend stuff like play games and watch films and bake together. Amazing!!
Katrin had threatened when we planned the weekend that we would go on a bike ride, at which my heart filled with dread; my bike in Chemnitz is the heaviest and most uncomfortable that I have ever ridden. This is of course still five thousand times better than having no bike at all, so I try to keep the complaining to a minimum, but the thought of going on a bike ride with Katrin who did a cycling marathon of ONE HUNDRED KILOMETRES last weekend and didn't even feel achey the next day was just too mortifying to contemplate.
Quick note about German here: as far as I am aware, we don't have a word to describe the ache in your muscles the day after you do hardcore (or in some cases that shall not be named, quite gentle) exercise. In German, there is a perfect term: Muskelkater, which literally means 'muscle hangover'. Thank you, German.
Anyway, fortunately on Saturday the weather was a bit grey and cold, so I ended up going to Katrin's later in the afternoon. However, this did not stop her making good on her threat. After we and her 15-year-old daughter, Lucy, had prepared the dough for the Langos she had promised to make with me for dinner we had a bit of time while we waited for it to rise, so before I knew it, I was borrowing Lucy's bike and helmet and straggling behind Katrin up the road, wrestling with the gears and trying to look calm and professional. Another ninety nine kilometres to go, you say? Kein Problem. I do this all the time.
At Lucy's suggestion, we went on a 'short, easy' bike ride to 'visit the deer'. This was somewhat confusingly explained to me as, "you know those animals that should live in the forest? Well they don't live in the forest, and we can go and see them!" "You could bring an apple to feed them?" (Lucy's suggestion.) "My nice apples to feed the deer!! NO." More confusion followed when we arrived at what turned out to be an enclosure/farm thing where deer are raised for venison, and Katrin tried to explain to me what sort of deer they were. The words Hirsch and Reh and Hirschkuh and Rehbock were all mentioned a number of times, along with an explanation along the lines of, "this one means deer, but this one means deer! And this other longer word means female of one sort! And this longer word means male for the other sort! And some people say deer when they actually mean deer! LOL!"
I foolishly then endeavoured to explain the lol-scenario that occurs in England on the frequent occasions where we discuss deer. My halting explanation was something like this:
When we finally reached the top after eleven thousand years of muscle strain, Katrin congratulated me jovially for having made it, while I lay facedown on the ground with the bike on top of me, trying to remember how to respire like a human. The fun of having self-diagnosed asthma but being too lazy and fearful to go to the doctor about it will never wear off, and neither will the feeling of being unable to fully draw air into my lungs - I still hadn't recovered this morning after a good night's sleep.
Despite this exertion, and my vow to never cycle again, the weekend in general was lovely. Langos are the flat fried dough bready things that I tried for the first time in Vienna, briefly documented in this post, and, like the doughnuts I made with Katrin on a previous occasion, the homemade ones are better than the bought variety. It also means you can control the amount of topping and slather them with an irresponsible quantity of garlic and cheese.
In other delicious-food-news, I introduced Katrin and Lucy to apple crumble, which they absolutely loved. It was a great success - "I'm going to make this again tomorrow!! And every day from now on!!!" "...And you don't have to use apple, you can also use pear or berries like strawberries and raspberries..." "OH MY GOD THAT WOULD BE EVEN MORE DELICIOUS!!!!!!!"
In conclusion, if anyone asks me to make any kind of food ever again it is going to be crumble. Incredibly easy, hard to get wrong, and just crushingly delicious.
After watching a film that evening (Corpse Bride) I made the startling discovery when I attempted to go to bed that having packed my usual washbag in preparation with such items as toothbrush, contact lens solution, glasses and everything else necessary to stay over at someone's house, I had then failed to actually put it in my backpack. Having been blessed with eyeballs that are not only very short-sighted but also don't like contact lenses and demonstrate this disdain by adopting the moisture level of the Sahara Desert, this was not an ideal situation. Fortunately, Katrin's older daughter Lisa unknowingly saved the day by having left her contact lens solution and a spare pot in the bathroom last time she was home. Thank you, Lisa. You saved me from choosing between keeping my lenses in and my eyeballs shrivelling up and falling out of my head, and taking out my lenses and having to feel my way onto the bus and into my house the next day.
On Sunday after a lovely late, peaceful breakfast, during which I was introduced to the revelation that is scrambled egg with feta and spring onion cooked into it, Katrin and Lucy taught me some new card and board games. Phase 10 was my favourite, an incredibly complicated and long-lasting card game in which I made the mistake of accidentally and through no skill of my own doing really, really well at the beginning. Fortunately Lucy overtook me about half an hour in, which turned Katrin's competitive rage onto her rather than me, THANK GOD. We also played Blokus, that board game with the mesmerisingly jewel-like pieces that fit together so pleasingly.
After we'd played three rounds of Blokus and each of us had won once, we spent another ten or fifteen minutes playing with the pieces. It's like real-life Tetris but better. I am a total convert, as may be apparent.
Katrin had threatened when we planned the weekend that we would go on a bike ride, at which my heart filled with dread; my bike in Chemnitz is the heaviest and most uncomfortable that I have ever ridden. This is of course still five thousand times better than having no bike at all, so I try to keep the complaining to a minimum, but the thought of going on a bike ride with Katrin who did a cycling marathon of ONE HUNDRED KILOMETRES last weekend and didn't even feel achey the next day was just too mortifying to contemplate.
Quick note about German here: as far as I am aware, we don't have a word to describe the ache in your muscles the day after you do hardcore (or in some cases that shall not be named, quite gentle) exercise. In German, there is a perfect term: Muskelkater, which literally means 'muscle hangover'. Thank you, German.
Anyway, fortunately on Saturday the weather was a bit grey and cold, so I ended up going to Katrin's later in the afternoon. However, this did not stop her making good on her threat. After we and her 15-year-old daughter, Lucy, had prepared the dough for the Langos she had promised to make with me for dinner we had a bit of time while we waited for it to rise, so before I knew it, I was borrowing Lucy's bike and helmet and straggling behind Katrin up the road, wrestling with the gears and trying to look calm and professional. Another ninety nine kilometres to go, you say? Kein Problem. I do this all the time.
At Lucy's suggestion, we went on a 'short, easy' bike ride to 'visit the deer'. This was somewhat confusingly explained to me as, "you know those animals that should live in the forest? Well they don't live in the forest, and we can go and see them!" "You could bring an apple to feed them?" (Lucy's suggestion.) "My nice apples to feed the deer!! NO." More confusion followed when we arrived at what turned out to be an enclosure/farm thing where deer are raised for venison, and Katrin tried to explain to me what sort of deer they were. The words Hirsch and Reh and Hirschkuh and Rehbock were all mentioned a number of times, along with an explanation along the lines of, "this one means deer, but this one means deer! And this other longer word means female of one sort! And this longer word means male for the other sort! And some people say deer when they actually mean deer! LOL!"
I foolishly then endeavoured to explain the lol-scenario that occurs in England on the frequent occasions where we discuss deer. My halting explanation was something like this:
"There are two... um... brands? of deer that I know - the normal deer, and the tiny one. Hunchback? Humpback? Ah yes, Muntjack. Anyway, the Muntjack is tiny like a rabbit and the other deer is big, and we call them both deer! Haha! Hahaha! Deer. Yes."Perhaps as a justified punishment for this speech, Katrin then took me up the steepest hill I've ever seen, laughingly explaining that the street is called Hartstraße (hard street. Because it's really hard and will break you!! Hahaha!). Anyway, toiling up the hill, the world morphed into a fishbowl around me and my vision narrowed to the ground directly below my handlebars - all I could hear was my own laboured breathing and Katrin's relaxed words of encouragement as she cycled a foot behind me breathing normally and listening to me dragging air into my lungs with the sound of a credit card scraping across a frosty windscreen.
When we finally reached the top after eleven thousand years of muscle strain, Katrin congratulated me jovially for having made it, while I lay facedown on the ground with the bike on top of me, trying to remember how to respire like a human. The fun of having self-diagnosed asthma but being too lazy and fearful to go to the doctor about it will never wear off, and neither will the feeling of being unable to fully draw air into my lungs - I still hadn't recovered this morning after a good night's sleep.
Despite this exertion, and my vow to never cycle again, the weekend in general was lovely. Langos are the flat fried dough bready things that I tried for the first time in Vienna, briefly documented in this post, and, like the doughnuts I made with Katrin on a previous occasion, the homemade ones are better than the bought variety. It also means you can control the amount of topping and slather them with an irresponsible quantity of garlic and cheese.
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| Apologies for the unprepossessing picture. They tasted amazing. |
In conclusion, if anyone asks me to make any kind of food ever again it is going to be crumble. Incredibly easy, hard to get wrong, and just crushingly delicious.
 |
| No, we did not have a correctly sized dish. Let's move on |
On Sunday after a lovely late, peaceful breakfast, during which I was introduced to the revelation that is scrambled egg with feta and spring onion cooked into it, Katrin and Lucy taught me some new card and board games. Phase 10 was my favourite, an incredibly complicated and long-lasting card game in which I made the mistake of accidentally and through no skill of my own doing really, really well at the beginning. Fortunately Lucy overtook me about half an hour in, which turned Katrin's competitive rage onto her rather than me, THANK GOD. We also played Blokus, that board game with the mesmerisingly jewel-like pieces that fit together so pleasingly.
 |
| This picture does not demonstrate the full glowing beauty of the colours, and how satisfyingly they clip into the board. |
Overall, apart from my failure to bring the various things I need in order to live a life where I can actually see anything, the weekend was just lovely. Katrin is so incredibly welcoming that it's never awkward in her house, and it was a brilliant way to distract myself from how close I am to going home now, and how I only have three more lessons in total before I am free from school for twelve whole days.
Tomorrow brings more swimming, chores, and a lesson with the Year 5s. Tiny and cute though they undeniably are, I have absolutely no interest in teaching them things at the moment, or in fact being around them. Last week's round of Pictionary nearly led to their beating me up when I gave the wrong team a point, so, keen to avoid that happening again, I am possibly going too far the other way in terms of excitement. Tomorrow we are going to look at a poem their teacher gave me to do with them, and my inability to think of ways to make it fun means it will assuredly lead to one, if not all of our number, falling asleep. But at least that will be quiet.
Two sleeps to go until hometime!!!
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