28 Is Great, A Half Blood Prince & Steak Fajitas

On Saturday one of my best gal pals, Amanda and I celebrated our 28th birthday! I spent the day in Nuremberg with Marshall and our friend Chris and had a great time in spite of the unpleasant weather. We had lunch at a place called Vapiano's (I apologize to Chris for mentioning it because I know Sandra is going to murder him now but it was worth mentioning because it was quite good,) and walked around the city.

After lunch we decided to head to Zeppelin Field (the Nazi rally grounds), which none of us had been to before. You simply do not grasp just how enormous it is until you are standing there. It is absolutely huge and the soccer field located within it's perimeter seems minuscule. Much of the seating is overgrown with grass and weeds and the main grandstand has been drastically deteriorated by time. I will try to post the pictures we took that day soon. While we were at Zeppelin Field we were witness to something that I feel was in incredibly bad taste and disrespectful. There was a family visiting the site which I suspect were American and the father convinced his son to stand at the center of the grandstand and take a picture of him striking a very infamous pose. Chris, Marshall and myself were quite shocked and the boys mother probably could tell by the looks on our faces. She simply replied "I'm sure everybody does it." Chris then instructed us that this was illegal and that if a police officer had witnessed this offense that the boy would have been arrested and fined. I felt truly embarrassed as I am positive that they were American. I only mentioned this incident because I have a deep love and respect of history and while not everyone may share my love of it, I just wish that they would at least share my respect for it. I also have a deep respect for the country I am now residing in as well as for it's people and laws and I think that it would serve others very well to do the same when traveling beyond their own country's borders.

Next we continued on to the lovely Roxy theater (if only could you sense the sarcasm in my typing when I refer to that theater as being "lovely,") to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince which sadly turned out to be crapola. I think that Chris was particularly impressed with their sound system and Marshall felt that they took such great care of their projection equipment. But what can I say really, I got to see it in English! lol I did however, have the opportunity to try popcorn with sugar on it rather than salt. It wasn't bad, but I do prefer butter and salt. Chris and I were so incredibly disappointed with the movie that poor Marshall had to sit and listen to us rant and talk Harry Potter in general. I must say that Chris has an excellent memory and was able to recall an impressive array of events and details that were missing from the movie. Now I feel inclined to revisit my Harry Potter collection. I can't be out-Pottered after all! lol That gives me an idea, I think Chris and I should have a Harry Potter trivia showdown sometime.

After the movie we walked around a bit more and then had dinner at Maredo. Was it ever good too! I had a steak, an actual beef steak, not a pork steak, real authentic BEEF! A rump steak in fact, with adorable little sauteed button mushrooms in a creamy sauce with delicious french fries. I think that Chris enjoyed his raw meat (I can't remember the name of the dish) and his "Honey I Shrunk the Bread." lol I also think that Marshall enjoyed his steak fajitas, which Chris and I particularly enjoyed Marshall ordering because of the way he said "fajitas." First I must explain that while looking over the menu before ordering we joked about how Peter Griffin on Family Guy pronounces the word "fajitas." He pronounces it in a way that I cannot even attempt to phonetically spell for you so I will just put it this way, it sounds as though he might be saying vagina's but with an "F" at the beginning. So after all this joking about "fagina's," Marshall then proceeded to order "steak fagina's" rather than "steak fajita's." The look Chris gave me was positively priceless and boy did I laugh! lol So after the waitress had finished taking our orders and had walked a safe distance away Chris said that he could not believe that Marshall had actually said that with such a straight face. However Marshall seemed confused as to why Chris said this and why I was laughing. Naturally I clarified things for him and informed him as to just exactly what he had said. lol So all in all I had a most enjoyable birthday and I hope that my good friend Amanda did as well. Thanks again to Chris for joining and for the lovely gift.

That's it for now but as always we hope that you all are doing well. I will post some pictures soon. Take care everyone and leave us some comments!

Samba, Samba, Samba!

Saturday night we had our friends Helena and Olga over for a BBQ and then we headed out to Samba. Usually during the Samba the weather is quite warm and all the "Brazilian Beauties" are out in swarms. However, this year the weather was cold, rainy and quite miserable. So much to all of the male attendants dismay, there were very few if any scantily clad "Brazilian Beauties" shaking and jostling about the streets of Coburg this past weekend. From what I saw though, the weather nor the lack of well sunned women dancing in thongs didn't seem to make much of a difference. For the streets of Coburg were still crammed with high spirited, some who even perhaps consumed too many spirits, happy, dancing (badly dancing to varying degrees) hordes of Samba goers.

Our night was mostly spent sitting on a picnic table beneath an umbrella and at a table near the back of a bar previously known as Rio Brasil to escape the rain and cold. We met quite a few new people and ran into Thomas and Bernd. I think a good time was had by all. The night was fairly uneventful but pleasant nonetheless. Well that was until we were walking to the car at the end of the evening. After having fought our way through the throngs of people in the bar we were then faced with yet another journey through the crowd on the street. Just when we were almost through them some random drunk girl decided to make a very bad decision and grabbed my husband. I have no doubt that she was in the process of trying to lay her beer soaked lips on him when he pushed her away before she had a chance. lol He saved her from a world of hurt and me from a visit from the Polizei. lmao I have no doubt that this girl most likely spent the rest of her night in one of two places, a) lying in the street with all sorts of cigarette butts, used napkins and other assorted disgusting things stuck to her person, or b) in the hospital having her stomach pumped. Either way would have served her right. lol

So Samba has come and gone and we have all lived to tell about it, I think anyhow. Today we have plans to go out with a co-worker of Marshall's to a street festival in a neighboring town. First we have to do some grocery shopping and mail a letter. As for those demands for pictures, well you will just have to wait a bit longer I'm afraid. We still need to ditch some boxes. Anyhow, we hope that all is well with everyone and look forward to your comments.

P.S.
The VOIP is back in action so feel free to call but just keep in the mind the six hour time difference.