They both hugged me!

So, C and I just arrived back at her parents' home in Ostfriesland in northwestern Germany. Last night was a fabulous dinner with two of our friends from the Mainz area (and I was praised to no end for some twice-cooked sting beans (with ginger, garlic, soy sauce, scallions, etc. -Thank you for the recipe, D!) and some Thai-Lemon Chicken (though I didn't make that marinade. :) ) and we all sat around and had a fantastic time with the two and watched Tim Minchin videos on youtube. Dessert was vanilla ice cream with raspberries. Awesome.

Anyways, last night is relevant because we were having such a fun time, we completely avoided packing our suitcases for this trip. So, with our 8:20 train from Mainz this morning, it was a bit rushed! Still, we made it to the train station in time, I slept quite a bit during the journey, and ten minutes ago we arrived at C's parents' house.

And as I walked in the door, I got two hugs - two actual hugs - from her two younger brothers. Oh my goodness, it made me so happy! I think I was kind of a scary-not-part-of-the-family person who only showed up maybe once a year and speaks a strange language, but apparently, I'm not so scary anymore. :D I'm so happy!

I'm watching Claudia help the older of her two younger brothers to play songs on the recorder. It's so sweet to see them working together, and in a few minutes, we're going to walk next door to her grandfather's birthday party. So far, pretty great day!