Visitors from Blue Ash, Ohio and other experiences

Two Wednesdays ago was a holiday from school since it was Tag der Deutschen Einheit (aka Day of German Unity or Day of German Unification). It also happened to be the day that visitors from Ilmenau's partner city, Blue Ash, Ohio, came to visit Ilmenau. Because I am the only American in Ilmenau, I got invited along on their morning excursion to help them feel more at home. Guess what the morning excursion was? Free rides down the Ilmenauer Rodelbahn - aka the Ilmenau summer luge track. Normally, each ride costs 1 Euro (which is really not worth it). It was quite fun though. There was also a semi-professional luger who would go down the real track (we only got to go down the recreational track), which was more than twice as long as the section we went down, and he still only took oe second longer to go down than we did. That was sort of embarrassing. One of the male teachers from my school apparently used to be a coach and he was trying to teach me how to steer to go faster. He was completely unsuccessful.

After the luging fun was over, we went to the restaurant at the Rodelbahn and had some real German food. I got to be the official translator for my table. That was amusing, especially since I was sitting at the table with our semi-pro luger and it was sort of getting past my limit of ability to translate. On the bright side, I finally had my very first real Thüringer Kloße. Kloße are these large potato dumpling things (about the size of a large apple) and they have a very fluffy but heavy texture. They definitely need a sauce or gravy or some kind. Everyone else had duck and some kind of duck gravy to put on their Kloße, but I had to make do with the sauce from the mushrooms. The next day in school when I told one of the teachers that I had eaten Kloße with mushrooms, she and the entire class laughed at me. After the main course, the restaurateur came around to ask if we wanted dessert. I said yes of course - when have I ever passed up free dessert? Out comes the dessert and it was an eight inch tall giant puff pastry full of ice cream and whipped cream. It was incredible.

Later in the day, I dragged Emily along to the opening of the new dance center at the new Eishalle. They had two free workshops/classes so I spent four hours of my afternoon learning how to hip-hop and Latin dance, both of which I am absolutely terrible at. Thank god I had at least taken that modern dance class last year in school - because at least I had some idea what was going on.

Since it was also my last night as a single person in Ilmenau, I went out with Rich to a new bar in the area, Cafe Bohne. It was a Wednesday night so no one was there, except for one couple who sat at their table and made out the entire time we were there (approximately two hours). The only time they came up for air was when Rich and I decided to go play a game of Foosball (Kicker auf Deutsch), and they immediately leapt up and challenged us to a game - which we proceeded to lose by a score of 10-2 in about five minutes. It was highly embarrassing. On the bright side, Rich says he has been back there since with other people, and the same couple is there every night doing the same thing - so they probably deserve to win. The last time I played Kicker was probably six years ago. Although we've got one in the apartment so I'll practice up before I go off to Cafe Bohne again.