New Bakery, Wiesbaden, and American Dinner - August 2nd

So after literally weeks of anticipation, the new bakery across the street from my guest family’s home opened up. When I say weeks of anticipation I am really not joking. For at least the past week I have been hear, all I have heard from the conversations with other neighbors is about the new bakery that will be opening on Thursday August 2nd. I guess it is a pretty big deal for those older residents in the building who can now just walk outside their home to buy fresh bread which is such an important part of the German diet. And I must agree with them, bread is definitely a very important thing, and never before have I had so much great bread as in Germany. The rolls, baguettes, and loafs are incredible. Dark, light, with nuts, seeds; you name it, they make it. I truly wish America had such good bakeries. So of course we had fresh rolls and bread for breakfast. Sehr lecker!

After breakfast Werner and I took the train to Wiesbaden to visit a friend of his at the American military base. Unfortunately when we arrived his friend had just left and no one was sure when he would return. I thought we would wait for about an hour or so, but Werner decided to wait and wait, and after about 2 ½ hours his friend finally showed up! I am so glad he did, because I really had no idea how much longer we would wait. Unfortunately his friend was pretty busy and could only meet for about 20 minutes. That was truly a bummer because in total we spend out 4 hours total in travel and waiting for only 20 minutes of contact. On the way home I stopped off at the internet café before walking home.

For dinner Werner and I had been invited by Steve and Terri to an all-American cook out at their housing complex in Gonsenheim. The cook out consisted of course of hotdogs, chips, and most importantly s’mores!! Like any good guests we could not arrive empty handed, and instead of bringing something simple or easy, Petra had made an amazing plum cake that was the size of a normal cookie sheet. Everyone was quite impressed although I don’t think many of them truly appreciated how much work went into it. Dinner was good and the s’mores of course were classic. That was my first s’more since Camp last summer, and it definitely brought back lots of good memories of my campers and the good times had up at Apple Canyon. While it was nice to have a bunch of Americans to speak with, I must admit that it was very weird to be in such an environment in the middle of Germany. What is even stranger for me is that many of these families have lived here for between 2 and 5 years, yet speak very little German. I understand that most of their day is spent in the American complex or around other Americans, but I would think more German would be absorbed purely through osmosis. I guess though that life on the base is just like life in America, with American stores, American people, and American television, but in a different country. All of the people were very very friendly, and it nice to have some American contacts here in Mainz if I ever need to fall back on them for any reason.