riparian entertainments

(july 14, 2008)

i had made a plan to go for a riverside picnic for our first proper german sunday together, had bought a picnic basket, and prepared the menu. but when we woke up on sunday morning from a night of drinking german beer in all of the soldier’s old haunts (and our new neighbourhood pub), we had to postpone the picnicking until we both went back to bed to rid ourselves of our 12% hangovers.

we did manage to make the picnic a reality even though i had to sneak by our new neighbourhood pub wrenched with guilt from having stolen fruit from their bartop fruit bowl 12 hours prior (maybe it was there for their customer’s enjoyment??) and it was my idea to stop to get a coke from the shop nearby. and the last time that i remember voluntarily choosing to drink coke was over a year ago when i was hot as balls at the egyptian pyramids. i really don’t like coke, but at times it is a healer.

our picnic got underway, my soldier graciously carried the picnic basket although i don’t think he realised it was about a 3km walk, and we arrived to find our picnic table free and got more than a few ‘bon appetites’ from passing germans (who knew that phrase was so universal?) as we laid out our spread. bakery bread, brie and tilster, raspberry salad, fresh tomato and basil, french wine (bought at the grocery store for a few euro – love that!), and milka chocolate.

a wander back to our flat and en evening spent watching the second pirates of the Caribbean while drinking tea (me) and milk with canadian imported oreos (him) rounded out a day that hadn’t started out exactly as planned, but turned out perfectly in the end.

and thankfully there was no bird involved in this german sunday.