Vacation, Part I

In which Hearts are Broken, Mysteries Explained, and Drains Unclogged

Disclaimer: I started this last week. Part II will be up soon.

Rob is visiting me over my Easter break. We've been busy sightseeing and such, so apologies (again) for the long pause in posts. Things haven't really been exciting here, what with jet lag and all, but we did take a few pictures (to prove he's really here), but I'll share the highlights.
One of the first things we did was to test out the heart-shaped pancake mold Rob gave me for Valentine's Day. Since I'm clumsy with everything else, it came as no surprise that I was pretty clumsy with molds too. This is Rob with my overflowing-with-love pancake. The next one I made was a broken-heart pancake, but the picture wasn't as good.


Later, we went on a boat tour of the city because the weather was so nice. I ordered Rob a Berliner Weisse, which is a very sweet, girly beer served with red or green flavor shots. We went with red because it was supposed to be raspberry, whereas green was supposed to be Waldmeister, which means Master of the Forest, and no one could really explain what that tastes like. Later Sandra said it's some kind of special German herb which can be poisonous. Yes, poisonous wild herb = popular flavor for beer (also ice cream syrup and jello). I'd just be curious how many brave souls gave their lives to create this flavor sensation. Rob liked the raspberry, and neither of us died, so I think we made the right choice.

Since Rob arrived, my roommates have been more elusive than usual (not because Rob is here): Julian went to Kiel to do one of his short term internships for a few weeks, and Inga, who took off for Bochum right after the baby shower, was MIA for awhile. She showed up again Monday because she had to work, so when I woke up to the sound of splashing water on Tuesday, I thought it was Inga taking a bath or something. But it kept going, so I got up to investigate and discovered that our kitchen had flooded. The splashing was the sound of dirty water from our upstairs neighbors bubbling up out of the emergency drains in our kitchen sink and splashing (not dripping) into the small pond on the floor. Gross. We got it taken care of, but only after lots of filth, mopping, panicky phone calls, black mud, more mopping, cursing, a few tears and the help of our super (Evi) and a pair of Berliner plumbers with accents too thick for me to really understand. It took us a couple of tries to agree that they needed a bucket, and that I could give them one. Luckily, Inga got home and took over. She seemed to have an easier time understanding the plumbers. They found the clog in the cellar, and said it was two meters long, mostly coffee grounds. Eew.
Up next (though not directly caused by the kitchen flood): Rob and I run off to Denmark, and Inga moves out.