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BSing it up So Mariko and I have a friend, a fun friend, and her name is Mary. And Mary lives in Düsseldorf. Now Mary was feeling a little lonely and sad. So what did she do? Thats right she came to the happening city of Braunschweig to hang with us!

It was a long train ride for her, 5+ hours aboard regional trains all the way here. But she survived and arrived here in good spirits. Of course Mariko and I picked her up from the train station, and since it was dinner time we all elected to go out to dinner on our way home. The restaurant Mariko picked was of course not "on the way home" but it was our favorite restaurant so far. We had a good walk and a good dinner, though we were the last customers of the night, so we felt a little bad as we were leaving. We got home, popped in some BBT (Big-Bang Theory for those of you who don't know) and just relaxed for the rest of the evening.... which wasn't too long as it was late and everyone had a long day. Saturday dawned and we woke slowly. The day was much warmer than it had been recently so we were more than ready to head out to the city and explore. It was nice to be able to show some one around BS while they visited (our last visitor came while it was raining and cold). We walked around quite a bit, and even found some sections that Mariko and I haven't discovered yet. One of these platz even had a Samstag Markt (Saturday Market). For those of you not familiar with Samstag Markts, they are like farmers markets, and have everything from flowers to cheese to bread to desserts to meats to crafts.... just about everything the Germans do well.

Of course we also showed Mary our castle/mall and as we guessed she enjoyed walking around it. We found a very cool store that had an assortment of liquors... all along the wall in glass dispensers. I was tempted to get something, but it was a little pricey as it was a specialty store. The girls did some trying on of some things.... some good and some not so good.

We arrived back home, put some more BBT on (Mary has a serious addiction) and I started cooking dinner. Dinner was a simple Auflauf (casserole), as I knew that Mary was a fanatic for all things Auflaufy. BBT was then followed by some cards.... we thought the game BS was a good choice. A little wine with dinner and we were enjoying ourselves. The night was getting on, but I had to make dessert... which was plums in a wine/sugar reduction.... very tastey! I actually saved the juice and have been putting it in my tea. The evening ended and we all headed off to sleep, though I wasn't really all that tired.

Another lazy morning on Sunday and we lounged around the apartment. Mary didn't have to leave until the afternoon so we watched another movie while I scrounged the house for food. We barely had enough to feed the three of us for brunch and lunch... but it worked. More BS (in BS!) and the time was nearing for Mary to leave us. She gathered up her things and we walked her back to the train station.... and the walk back always feels like it takes longer than the walk from, but that is just my opinion. We said goodbye to Mary and she headed off to another long regional train ride home. The lovely weekend came to an end and we headed off home to relax and get ready for the weekdays ahead.

Posted by Dave at 15:33