'Cause it's Thriller, Thriller Night

Song of the day, heard on the way to Niederkassel's Kirmes. Yesterday's song was "True Colors" (they're beautiful like a rainbow).

So I come home Friday after Sport and we clean out the shed and clean out the shed and finally get the thing empty and then the Fourth of July explodes inside it- flags everywhere, and these crazy latern things and random Louisiana-retro-theme postcards on a wall and tables and a fridge full of beer and Anna and Verena really like to wash windows (weeeeiiiird) and Allyson got a little lost during one of her 4 train switches and was an hour late but we managed to get her and bring her home and we ordered pizza and talked until 4 in the morning because it is so so SO nice to talk to someone (in English) who understands how weird television is and shares your worries about the lack of grades at school and can laugh about the silly songs they play on the radio. We managed to get up by noon on Saturday and then we had to hurry a little because Casey came a little after 1 and we get her home and there's more excited talking and English and then comes the adventure: making an American cake. We didn't have baking soda because I could not convince my host mom that it is actually a necessary ingredient and German pharmacies aren't open on Saturdays. And I had thought that I had measuring cups because, when I was trying to explain the concept to my host mom, she said "Oh yeah, I have those." She meant that she had coffee cups, which are of course in no way the same. So we found some conversions to grams on the internet but it's actually impossible to convert volume (cup) to mass (gram) so we ended up just guessing and I think we put waaay too much cocoa in (oops) and it was crazy but fun and our cake didn't rise and the pan was too big, so we made two layers that were the equivalent of two cakes and put them together and frosted them with our frosting that was very successful (meaning delicious). Threw the cake in the fridge and started pulling together things to make hot dogs and hamburgers and cutting tomatoes and whatnot and then the Germans start showing up and we head out to the shed and listen to music and talk and wait for the people who were late (and who managed to get lost in Uckendorf, which takes a lot of skill) and we ate and drank and partied. Casey and Allyson got the Germans to sing to me, which was great, and the cake tasted like a super-super rich brownie and all the Germans loved it and I thought it was great but tons of chocolate+beer=super super mellow me (I know this is the opposite of the intended effect, don't ask me to explain it). So as the night got later I got all quiet and let Allyson and Casey and Mirya and Julia and Stefan and Toby and Nina and whoever do all the talking and we wrapped up around midnight and slid into bed around 1 all super-super tired (remember that I was up until 4 am the night before). Slept until noon and then we had to really really hurry because Casey's train came at 12:48. Just barely managed to get her there on time and then waited 15 minutes for Allyson's train to come and sent her off and I went to the farm for some Harvest-Thank-Fest that involved some sort of parade in which people give out apples and wine and candy and then end up at the usual German meat-and-beer fest and hang out. We didn't hang out long because we wanted to get back to Niederkassel's Kirmes, which was actually of decent size (and has been annoying me this week by blocking most of what I want to get to in Niederkassel) and we hung out there for a while and then came back and a big group of people came over to finish off the hamburgers and there was some sort of honey-rum thing floating around that was pretty good and has made my belly very happy. And I get to sleep in tomorrow because it is Monday and I don't have to go to school until 3rd period, when I will finally have econ again, and I can finally turn in this paper that I am sort of proud of, except that I'm not sure that Germans turn in papers after they write them.

This was a good weekend.