Belated. Sorry.

[Wrote this Monday, but only now have internet strong enough to post it (I’m back at the hotel where we watched the football game.) Apologies for the delay.]

This past weekend was much less eventful than last. No Nazis, no German cover bands, no heavy snow. We did have a Zwonitz first, though: our friend Nico (I think I’ve mentioned him before—he plays tennis with Bill) came over to our apartment for dinner Friday night. He was our very first guest, in fact the first person besides Herr Lehm to even enter our little home. Needless to say, I spent the week unspeakably excited about it. Most of you know how much I love to cook for people. And if you don’t, please allow me, next time we’re together, to demonstrate by cooking you dinner.

As I’ve mentioned, we’ve been having computer troubles. Bill’s has a nasty virus which we’ve been trying, even with our technological ineptitude, to get rid of. We’ve read tech help message boards, most of which are a little too complicated for us but give an idea of where we should look for simpler instructions. And it gave me an excuse to use our cell phone to call the US and catch up with my technophilic friend Matt (it had been two whole months since we’d talked!!). But now, after following various instructions for deleting the virus, Bill’s comp is stuck in Safe Mode and occasionally decides to spend several minutes growling (it’s definitely not the fan. We’re very familiar with the fan’s irritated hum, and I’m sure that if we opened the computer up it would be chock full of lint and dust).

Anyway, Nico said he’s good with computers so we invited him over to take a look at Bill’s (and have a go at my internet-phobic laptop) and have dinner before heading to our Friday night spot, Afterwork. What did I cook? Tacos, of course. Not the best Californian tacos, because our resources are rather limited, but I think they turned out okay. I browned ground beef with the taco seasoning Mary sent me (it was perfect). We made guacamole, of course, with one of the 10 or so guac seasoning packets I brought from the US. Nico had never eaten guac, and while he said it was good, I noticed he wasn’t dipping all that many chips before dinner. But he did put it on all of his tacos, per our example. All we have for salsa is a “Taco Sauce” that’s pretty weak. I could easily make my own, I guess. Maybe, Mary, you could send me your recipe? And for cheese, because the Zwonitz stores offer no Cheddar, no Monterey Jack, nothing I would normally put on Mexican food, we used shredded Emmenthaler. And flour tortillas which we can only get at Kaufland, the Walmart-style grocery store that’s a solid 35-40 minute uphill walk from our house. But Nico seemed very pleased by these faux tacos and, charmingly, told several of his friends at Afterwork what a good cook I am (despite a lack of evidence, the only cooking involved in these tacos being the browning of the meat). Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to fix either of our computers, but Bill’s going to bring his to school again to have a teacher look at it, who might end up just rebuilding the hard drive (whatever that means).

It’s very overcast outside (not unusual) and also very windy. It reminds me of a Woodland wind, one of those that whips around the house and makes the windows shake and just sort of drives you crazy. But we haven’t had anymore snow yet, and it’s not as cold as last week, so I won’t complain. Also, I’m starving and am tempted to make a grilled cheese, which would be very naughty. I made the mistake, a couple days ago, of composing a grilled cheese of thinly-sliced French bread (actually, it’s called Semmerbrot, and I suppose it isn’t French at all), a strip of Black Forest ham fried to bacon-like crispness before taking its place between two layers of Gouda sandwich slices. Terrible, I know, but also glorious.

What I’ve spent the whole morning thinking about, though, is how to ask Herr Lehm, in German, if I can borrow a baking dish and use his oven this afternoon in order to make lasagna. We got most of the ingredients at Kaufland on Saturday (including ground turkey instead of ground beef or Italian sausage, because Bill has this crazy idea that red meat isn’t good for us), and Bill is picking up more mozzarella and ricotta on his way home from school today. Cross your fingers that it will work out, because I’ve gotten myself really worked up in anticipation.

As some of you might be aware, the Philadelphia Eagles played in the NFC Championships last night. And as you might also know, Bill is from Philadelphia. So, being very conscious of his self-identification as an athlete and his responsibility as a bro to do everything in his power to watch his city’s American football team in an important game, he spent much of Sunday struggling with my computer’s unreliable wireless connection in an attempt to find a way to see the game. It seems that there aren’t any sportsbars in Chemnitz or Aue (the two cities nearest Zwonitz) that show American football games. And a bro can’t count on my computer’s internet to show him such an important game, so at 830pm we pack up my laptop and walked 20 minutes to the town’s biggest hotel, which has very good wireless in its bar/restaurant. And after some fiddling around with it, we found a fairly good link for streaming the game, and spent the next 3 hours watching it explaining the game to the bartender (we were the only customers). Because the Eagles weren’t playing very well, Bill wasn’t particularly relaxed, but I had brought some knitting with me so I had a very enjoyable evening.