Okay, so obviously we're back home now and getting caught up with our normal lives but that doesn't mean that I've forgotten about the conclusion of our German trip! Nope, far from it! So now to relate our last two days in the Hanseatic State of Hamburg:
We all slept in after our night out with Susi and Roland and then spent most of the day packing up and getting ourselves ready for the reception. After the reception, Roland and Susi along with their kids were heading off on an international journey of their own to Denmark so Kendra, Kirsten, and I would be spending our last two nights in Doris' living room.
So by three we were all dressed and loaded into the car and went over to Doris' place, dropped off our luggage and picked up Hedda and Doris and headed to the reception, which was being held at a nice banquet hall overlooking a pond somewhere south of Hamburg. The first half of the reception was standard fare. There were drinks and mingling out on the terrace before hand and then we all went inside for the dinner. Kirsten and I were seated at a table with some of Volker and Christine's english speaking friends which was nice of them, their friends were also very nice and mostly spoke in English so we could follow along even though they were not completely confident in their abilities in the language. And as the night went on our table seemed to become party central with our new German friends ordering round after round of schnapps. Mostly a liquor called Aquavit which is actually Scandanavian and has a very odd aging process. The load it up onto boats and ship it to Australia and then back. Apparently the length of time at sea and the motion of the ocean help give the liquor it's unusual flavor.
The dinner was very nice, we started with a white tomato soup with truffles followed by a main course of steak, potatoes, and vegetables in a red wine sauce, and a hazelnut mousse type dessert. One thing that was interesting was that before and after each course was served a representative from one of the tables would stand up and give a speech or toast to bride and groom and room at large.
After dinner the DJ put on her music and there was dancing and more mingling out on the terrace. At one point the Hamburger SV soccer mascot came by so everyone could get a photo with him and everyone sang the HSV Forever and Ever song. Volker and Christine also did this thing where they sat back to back with one of their shoes and one of the other person's shoes in their hands and were asked questions that they had to respond to by raising the corresponding shoe. Questions like, who is the jealous one? Who does the dishes? Who is good with money? Who is messy? Etc. If they agreed most of the time it was said that their marriage would last. Volker and Christine got a 75% so pretty good odds.
They served cake and currywurst at midnight and we finally left to go back to Hamburg at about 1:30 while the party was still going strong and got back to Doris' place an hour later. Another late night for us!
And I'm sure you're wondering, "Currywurst? What's that?" Well we've been told by quite a few people that it's the junkfood of choice in northern Germany and we had tried it in Berlin and prior to the soccer game with mixed results. The stuff in the crock pot at the reception was quite good though. Essentially it seems that it is summer sausage (or whatever the equivalent is) is cut up and stewed in hot cocktail sauce with curry powder mixed in. Now obviously there are some nuances to making good currywurst and it seems to be similar to getting a coney dog in Detroit or a slice of pizza here in New York - there are lots of places out there selling it and most aren't very good, but when you find a good place you don't go anywhere else.
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