Pizza, Movies and Visitors.. oh my!

The day was Sunday October 9th, 2011. The time was approximately 4:15pm. The place... Braunschweig, Germany. The event... Mariko and I had our first visitor to our German apartment!! Our friend Rachel lives in Göttingen, which is 40ish minutes SW of us by ICE (high-speed train), decided that she wanted to visit us poor lonely folk in good ol' BS. And of course we were quite ecstatic to have her over.

We picked her up from the train station, and even though it was the coldest day that we have been here (not Colorado cold, just windy cold) it was a pleasant walk back home. Luckily we had an idea that she might be visiting, so we had plenty of food for the 3 of us. We made Flat-bread pizza, which actually turned out rather well! Mariko and Rachel did the cutting of all our toppings: Pineapple, Mushrooms, Garlic, Green Peppers, Onions and of course Pepperoni!

I was busy making the sauce (which was very simple), but mostly trying to open the bottle of wine that we had bought..... we had neglected to make sure we had a corkscrew prior to buying the wine. I know, super smart! So I spent the better part of the evening using a knife to carve out the cork... tiny little pieces of cork were scattered all over the counter. And yes Mariko and Rachel were laughing at me quite a bit, especially since I refused to give up! The girls made their pizzas while I continued to destroy and maim the cork. The nice thing about using flat-bread is you manly just have to melt the cheese and harden up the bottom a bit.... doesn't take that long at all!

When the girl's pizzas were finished, I started making the other two... and handed off the wine to Mariko. She began to slice and dice into the poor piece of now tattered cork. Rachel took her turn and finally with a small pop the pressure in the bottle caused the cork to mostly come out... so finally we had our wine!! We moved one of the beds back, spread out a towel, put Howl's Moving Castle on (Rachel had never seen it) and had ourselves a fun little picnic.
 
The rest of the evening was a blur of food, alcohol and video games... Rachel actually kicked our butts, even though she claims to not be very good.

I woke up fairly early the next day while everyone was sleeping, Mariko had to work sadly but I was going to occupy Rachel with movies and BS. We had a small breakfast of English muffins and cereal, and then sat down to watch Donnie Darko (yes it is an amazing movie... and I know no one would say otherwise). Lunch time was fast approaching, so we headed out in the grey and misty day (which wasn't as cold as it looked) and went in search of food. We found a cute little bar/cafe almost right next to where Mariko works and sat down to eat. The food was a little expensive, but surprisingly the hamburger was HUGE and tasted almost American (I'll probably take Mariko there and we can split the burger).

Next stop was REWE for groceries, and then back to the apartment. Sadly Rachel's time here in BS was starting to come to a close, but wasn't quite finished. We watched one more movie, Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog (I know, another great movie) before she had to leave. I walked her back to the train station, rambling as we walked (she was probably quite happy to leave just so she didn't have to hear me talk anymore).

I dropped her off at her track and headed back home. It was a good visit, and we were very happy that she thought of us enough to visit! But it was also comforting to have some alone time after having a guest. I can see why some people just enjoy silence, as I do on occasion. Mariko and I hope that she, and others, visit us some more.... well I know my dad will be here in just under a month (wow... I still have a lot to plan!)