Thursday in Germany

After waking up, showering, and having a delicious breakfast of toast and Nutella (a european wonder-- basically chocolate in a peanut butter form) with Zita and her mom, we borrowed some jeans, boots, and coats from Monika (good thing we were all exactly the same size).

Then-- get ready for this-- we went horseback riding! I had never been on a horse before, and it was a goal of mine to go horseback riding before I left his beautiful continent. So Johannes's sister went out into the field to get her horses, and we helped her brush and clean them before she gave us a riding lesson! I almost fell off the black horse when we took it up to a trot, but we were in the pen the whole time, so it was all good. Elizabeth and I could hardly believe that we were so lucky-- riding horses on a beautiful German farm with a Harz Mountain backdrop-- it was beautiful!

Until... what we called the "Great Glass Fiasco of 2007." While we were tying the horses back up, Johannes and his mom were coming back in the John Deere tractor from feeding the cows. Apparently it was hot and smelly in the tractor, so Johannes opened the windows. And apparently Johannes forgot that when the front window is open, you can't use the tractor lift. So, when he tried, the windshield shattered in his mother's face. She jumped out of the tractor, and Zita ran to help. We didn't know what was going on at the time, so we put our helmets away, went to our room to change, and attempted the castle puzzle in our room. It was clearly an intense situation, and we didn't want to be in the way. As we were working on our puzzle, Monika came in to assure us that she was okay, that she was going to visit her eye doctor to make sure the glass was all out of her eyes, and that we'd be eating lunch a little bit later. (She is an amazing lady!) We ate a lunch of fresh beef from the farm, gravy, dumplings, cabbage, spaghetti, and fresh milk from a neighboring farm. Then, after we were all packed up and ready to leave, we were looking for train tickets and hostels on Johannes's computer. But due to the Great Glass Fiasco, we lost a little time. We didn't want to end up in Munich-- a strange and foreign city-- in the dark looking for a hostel, so we decided to stay for another night (plus we really didn't want to leave the comforts of staying in what felt like our new home).

We told Johannes that we didn't want him to plan anything for us-- that we just wanted to lay around and relax and go to bed early so we could get up early the next day to leave. But he continued trying to plan something... first it was ice skating, then it was the waterpark, then a movie... finally we decided on fishing in the Harz Mountains. We bundled up in Johannes's best Mosinee sweatshirts, and Johannes took us to Timo's house, where we met up with Timo and Eike. From there we went to Timo's dad's fish hatchery. It was getting dark, but Timo was prepared with his head light and fishing vest; he caught a big walley while the rest of us admired the sheep grazing around the pond and listened to Eike sing along with the "Gummy Bears" ring tone on his phone (in German-- hilarious!)

When we got home we took a nice long nap in Johannes's bed again-- one last time-- and had a delicious dinner of cheese fondue, bread, fruit, and Johannes's homemade cake. His mom helped us make some sandwiches to pack for the train ride the next day, and Johannes left for a party while we chillaxed at his house (we weren't up for a party, but we didn't want to hold him back). Although we stayed back to rest and sleep before our early departure, we ended up staying up way too late talking and crying together... I am not the kind of person who cries a lot, but the Grammel family was so incredibly kind to us, we were overcome with happiness at the few days we'd had and saddness at leaving them behind.

We took about a 3 hour nap, woke up at 4, and rode to the train station in Monika's Volvo. As the train pulled away, Johannes waved goodbye, and Elizabeth and I cried again... :(