7 Germany – Wedding day, dinkel cakes, and schnitzel

You know how how some blogs are written the day of, as the events happen? Not this one. I haven’t had internet for the last few days. And when I do, my internet is limited, so I haven’t had a chance to respond to twitter or blog comments! So thanks guys. 😀

Saturday was the wedding day. I didn’t even sleep in… that much. Actually, I really don’t recall, but I’m sure I woke up with the rest of them. The girls had many hours of getting ready. There were nails to be done, hair to do, showers to be taken. We had the whole morning to get ready because the wedding was at 1pm.

I think I spent most of my time blogging about the previous day and then playing on my DS. They unplug the internets when not in use. They have this cute Airport Mac thing that just plugs into the wall, and when they are done with it, they just unplug it. Very simple. You can’t of course plug cat5 cables into it, but they only have laptops and so it’s plain and simple.

The girls dresses were made by Dove, again. They wanted princess dresses so Dove took them to the fabric store and picked out some fabric. Well the girls picked out the fabric. Dove spent most of the week before the wedding sewing the dresses. I think I made videos myself. Then for the actual day, Ekko painted her fingernails to match her dress and her toenails to match Zoe’s dress. And Zoe did likewise. They were quite proud of themselves and so I will give you a slew of pics of my girls.

The church was about 2000 years old. Yes, that’s right, I didn’t add a zero. It was originally a Roman temple, and when the Romans left, the Christians took it over. By about the 1500’s, it became a protestant church. Inside are all sorts of old stone carvings and artifacts with plaques beside them written in german so I couldn’t read what they were. But it was old. Very cool.

The wedding was completely in German, save for one verse in a hymn which I have forgotten. Sara did prepare for us an English translation, however. She printed one for each of us that couldn’t speak German: Dove, Thebes, myself and a friend of hers named Gil. However, the hymns in German had the words in German and so we sang with gusto! In fact, I think we were the loudest. I know I couldn’t hear anyone else singing, so I don’t know if I was pronouncing things incorrectly.

Actually, that’s wrong, I KNOW I was pronouncing things incorrectly. Who am I kidding? One hymn was so fast and difficult that I actually said “Crums!” outloud as I tried to sight read the notes, the german words, and put them together in something that could resemble music. It didn’t work.

Afterwards, they had a receiving line. Actually, it was more of a receiving clump, as people gathered outside and congratulated the newly wedded couple. But they had champagne and hors d’œuvre for us to snack on! How amazing is that? I had about 4 of the salmon ones. We hung about the church grounds until it was time for us to go to the reception. So here are more pictures.

The church was in Dietmars home town of Langenau, and the reception was in a small place called…. something. It started with an “R” and had two “m”‘s in it. They rented out a bed and breakfast place, and the dining hall was an elegantly converted barn. It was classy and rustic at the same time and Dove found it beautiful. Even though we were still in the village, the air had a hint of cow smell, so we were in farm country.

They started us off with cakes and coffee. You get desert before the meal. How amazing is that? Dietmar’s mother made 7 or so cakes, and others brought some other cakes so we all got to drink coffee and dine on cakes. Dietmar’s mother even made the cakes out of dinkel! That meant that Thebes, who is allergic to wheat and anything else that starts with “w”, was able to eat cake! In fact, she had a choice of cakes to eat from. She was one happy Thebes.

After we had some cake, the dinner part itself didn’t start for another few hours so we just hung about and met people. The place was filled with physicists. Three of them were quantum physicists. I was scared there would be a lecture, or possibly physicist jokes, but I think they refrained. Or maybe not, they spoke in German, so what would I know?

But the whole atmosphere was very relaxed. Because we had the whole afternoon to eat, we just hung around and ate and drank. It was a four course meal after the cakes, and the final main course didn’t arrive until 9pm. Interspersed there were skits, games and dancing! The dessert buffet came out about 10 or so.

I didn’t have to sing my song until 12am, or something. Which was good because a lot of the guests with children had left. And they were all very good about it and sang along with it. They really enjoy that song! I had problems with the third verse. And the second. And the first. As well as the chorus. But we had great fun.

And Dietmar’s favourite song was “Living on a Prayer”, so I played that too and Dietmar sang with me. We definitely weren’t going for accuracy, so when the video finally gets put out, don’t judge us too harshly.

EDIT: Ya… I’m not posting this video. I’m awful. *sigh* Well, it’s posted, but you have to find it.

I went to bed soon after that. The kids had already retired at around 10pm, and I stumbled in to the room at around 1 or 2am. Sara and Dietmar got a room for us in that place, and it was wonderful! The music was loud and I had a hard time keeping myself from getting dress and going back to do some dancing.

You know what’s cool? 80’s bands are still hugely popular in Germany. So there was a lot of 80’s music during the dance. To some of you, that may be considered an affront to nature, but we were having the time of our lives! Huzzah!

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And now, I’m at home. The trip home was uneventful. Well, not exactly true, I could talk about the cool ICE train and their toilets and how everything was so efficient and clean, but I won’t. I could also talk about how after 7 days, I am FINALLY able to respond in German without first hesitating. When someone offers me something, I reply “Danke Shoen” without batting an eyelash. In fact, it became difficult not to respond that way. However, this blog is long enough and I should get back to the real world. 😀 There are still a few pics and vids I may put up, but they are on Thebe’s camera. Maybe I’ll post them. Just maybe.

For those of you who are wondering, “Where’s the Schnitzel?” well, the kids got that for their meals. I ate some of it when they ran off to play. We had a completely different meal which was wonderful.

Thank you Sara, thank you Dietmar. We had a wonderful time in Germany. Some day we will return. It certainly is enjoyable hanging about a new country with friends. I hope you had as much fun as we did, and congratulations. We’ll miss you! Even now, I am missing Bailey’s in my coffee.