deutscher Grill = German Barbeque

13-July-2009

On Monday we had our official welcome to the marum summer program. Dr. Tobias Mörz, who is the program director of the summer program, outlined the program on the white board of the seminar room:

• introduction (students)
• introduction (marum)
• walk
• eat

Why he felt this simple outline was necessary is still unclear. It seemed pretty obvious--we would go around the room, say a few things about ourselves, hear about how cool marum and Bremen are, walk to him home, and eat dinner.

After the introductions and the death of a laptop battery, we headed outside. But confusingly, we drove instead of walked to Tobias's home. Which was a good thing, because it was about a twenty minute drive. So what about the walk? I had forgotten that in English English (not American English), a 'walk' is really a 'hike.' Had any of us known about the hike, we would have dressed differently. I was wearing a dress, tights, and slip-on flats. Tobias was wearing hiking boots and cargo shorts.


After the 'short walk' (an hour and forty-five minutes), a lot of yummy food was waiting for us. We hung out and ate and played with all of Tobias's cool stuff: backyard pond with fish, trampoline, foosball, a trampoline. And the evening wouldn't have been complete without each of us taking turns at chopping wood.


After we were stuffed full of food, we walked to a meadow nearby to play 'Scandinavian Chess.' Sounds fun, right? Also called kubb, Scandinavian Chess is a yard game where two teams compete to knock down the other teams soldiers. Did I mention I love yard games? It was so much fun! Here's a picture of Lu attempting to knock one of our soldiers down.


After two games of Scandinavian Chess, we went back and had dessert. I don't remember what this dish was called, but it comes from Northern Germany and is somewhere between jello salad and jam, and eaten with warm vanilla sauce.

Everyone had such a fun night! I love German barbeques.