Eat Before you Drink

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  Binz, Germany
Sunday, May 13, 2007

I'm not a beginner, I know better...give yourself a food base before you start drinking!  I guess in all the excitment yesterday I just plan forgot to eat.  So as you can imagine I woke up horribly hung over yesterday!  Luckily an hour and breakfast later I was feeling all right again.  I guess this is what I get for telling Frank and Diane last night that German beer does not give me a headache.  They were surprised.  I guess I shouldn't be so cocky!  Last night I drank a couple Schöfferhofer Weizen (heffeweizen) and a couple too many of Radeberger Pils.  Both tasted oh so good!  This time before I left the breakfast room I put some extra food in my bag...just in case! :)  I didn't have any time to travel outside of Binz because I was set to meet with Anya and Roland in the hotel at 3pm.  So I spent some time on the beach, the weather was strange...it was hot and then it was chilly...hot, chilly.  Well, better than all chilly.  Not only is it a lovely view the sand it soft and silky. 

View from balcony, you can just see the beach

Then I strolled the entire Strand Prommande and I'll confess to some shopping.  What is so fun is that there are dogs everywhere and they can go everywhere with you...resturants, shops, etc.  I was thinking because someone had said to me not too long ago that Coke tastes different in Europe, and yes they do.  It's a very slight different, not good or bad just different.

Since it's a beach town they have ice cream shops all over the place and when I saw a sign that said green apple ice cream well I had to give it a try.  It was good, it tasted like...well green apple.  More like a candy than the actual fruit though. 

I went back to my room to get ready to meet Anya and Roland, when I got there my phone rang and it was Horst Engelbrecht (who doesn't speak any English) and he wanted to meet with me also.  Well the times worked out and he and his wife were set to meet me an hour after I was to meet with Anya and Roland.  The phone call was hard, he speaks so fast and I would get hung up on a word a didn't know but after a while he got a feel for how much German I could speak and all was good.  So Anya, Roland, Anna, Horst and his wife (he introduced her as his wife and never signed her name on any of the letters; I asked her at one point and she said Frau Engelbrecht) and I all had drinks together

Hanging at the Beach

.  Roland and Anya are probably in there late 40s early 50s and Horst is 78.  It's funny because Roland and Anya's family is set-up pretty much the same as mine...2 girls, 3 years apart, one is in the medical field, etc...  I noticed in one of the pictures that Roland had his father had a dimple in his chin and I pointed it out (cuz I don't know if you guys noticed or not, but I have one) and Roland pointed his out and then Horst pointed to his.  So funny!

Horst is a blast!  He looks similar to an Uncle of mine.  His Father sailed on the Bismark and he was raised mostly by his Oma because his Mother had to work so much.  After we had talked about that for a while his eyes got really sad, which is a noted difference to his normal laughing eyes, and took my hand and said "War is not good and very sad."  It made a permant crack in my heart especially after looking through photos of him as a little boy, sad for the man and the boy.  He was a Engineer for years and than taught.  He also plays Blaskapelle with 3 of his sons and 4 of his grandsons.  Blaskapelle is horn music.  At one point in the conversations I started to say "Du Bist" which is informal and you should never say especially to your elder, I quick stopped myself and said "Sie sind" which is the correct address but I felt my stomach churning thinking I had really stuck my foot in it.  Then Horst grabbed my hand and touched his chest and then my shoulder and said "with us never Sie, always du"

Beachfront shopping

.  Well, that basically was him telling me he considered me his close family.  Which was nice because I had already started thinking of him as my Uncle.  You know it makes me really sad to think that my Father will never be able to meet this people as well, because of his health.  I wish I could stuff them all in my backpack and bring them home with me.  We all talked and drank (Radeberger Pils for me again) for about 2 1/2 hours.  Than they left with hugs and kisses all around. 

Tomorrow is the beautiful chalk cliffs on the coast of Rügen. 

Right now I'm a day and a half behind where I actually am, hopefully I can catch up soon.  Right now I'm in Köln about half the day in. 

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One of the grand hotels lining the beach	The bar that I had drinks with the family	Roland and family	Horst and I
Hotel room	Do they not want me going in?

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