Sep 7, 2014

Birthday, parts I and II

So a few days ago, I crossed the line into my 30s.

As far as age goes, at any rate. I was actually in my early 30s when I was in my early 20s, and then early 20s in my late 20s, and since I've been in Germany, I've been bouncing between 35 and 25.

My office threw me a party.
Actually, they threw me a meeting where I brought in some pleasant foodstuffs. It was combined with Christof's (one of the interns) leaving party, so we were both celebrants. It was a quiet affair- the boss and Thomas were gone, and so were most of the interns. The office got me a stainless steel spaetzle maker as a present, which is nice, even if it was obligatory. Spaetzle is a very local Schwabian dish, a kind of eggy noodle. The maker looks like a cheese grater except without the cutting lips. Instead, there is a plastic spatula which you use to push the noodle dough through the holes into the water. I am actually quite excited to try it- I've actually already bought the ingrediants.

I'm getting ahead of myself. The night before my birthday, Saori took me out to dinner. We met up at a local square and she led me to a surprise restaurant. Kicho is by wide recommendation the best Japanese restaurant in town. A very nice place and very traditional. Saori asked me if I wanted to sit in the tatami room, and I said, on my birthday, of course we need the tatami room. It was an elevated tatami floor, so we left our shoes at the sliding door and took a seat at one of the low tables. With two Japanese sararimen talking loudly outside, and with our kimono wearing hostess, it felt like Japan. We got asahi beers and some delicious sake based soup to start before going on to order a massive sushi and sashimi boat. It was so, so good. I'd missed having unagi so we also ordered a few pieces of eel and saori got some of her favorite, uni sea urchin. They didn't have any cakes, but the kitchen staff make us a beautiful dessert plate with fresh fruits, mochi ice cream, and green tea ice cream, as well as a little happy birthday note in Japanese and German.

After dinner, we walked through the town and passed by the weindorf wine festival, so we stopped for a glass of local white wine and enjoyed the scene. The wine festival took over the central alleys and square around the city hall, filling it with stands and small tents filled with picnic tables and diners feasting on traditional favorites. It was quite lovely and lively.

The day of my birthday, I tried to buy a cake on my way, but the store was closed so I showed up to work late and without a cake. I ended up heading down to the bakery on Ostendplatz for a sandich and some cakes to drag back to the office during my lunch hour.

After work, I went to have a beer with Tolli in a nearby beergarden while we waited for Gio to finish swimming. I ended up running to catch Soari at the weindorf after she got off work unexpectedly early for working late. She was lightheaded so I bought us some roasted ox sandwiches with a liberal covering of spicy sweet mustard. Lina met us there, and then the Greeks, and then Saori's coworker and her boyfriend also came, and so did Christof and we dived into the crowd to find us some wine.

The place was absolutely packed. People were surprisingly rude and aggressive (for Germans), actually worse than Oktoberfest, but we finally found a more quiet area to drink wine. We quaffed a quarter liter of white good stuff and then we were all sleepy and drunk, so we disbanded and headed home. You know you're 30 when your birthday drinking consists of a beer and a glass of wine.

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