It's time for my yearly window on my life... on my birthday(s). Yes; I still adhere to the logic that when I was born it was the 15th in Europe, and that the fifteenth is also therefor my birthday.

This year it was a fairly quiet few days. I had the 13th and 14th free and went down to visit Pamela in Köln. -for the entire 12 hours we would have when she wasn't at work. I had a long and leisurely train ride, taking the least expensive trains, which then took me 7 hours to get there. I met Pamela when she got out of work at last, (it had been a ten hour day of work for her,) and we did a bit of shopping and went home. It was not long after that we went out again though, as Wednesdays she normally eats dinner with a pair of friends who live nearby. We had a big pot of tea, Almond-Bows (Wonderful German creation! With chocolate on the ends...) and then a nice dinner. We spent the evening chatting about this and that, including our plans for this summer, and their summer house in Chechz which is being restored, and... a bit of everything.

Pamela had brought with her some parts of a cake, and abandoned me into her friend's company while she was barricaded in the kitchen assembling it. She actually waited until midnight, and then had the candles on, and they sang, (I won't comment on their choral abilities, but I have to say their effort was so sweet.) We ate the chocolate and strawberries, and before it got much later went home to sleep. I got lucky in the morning, (Don't even THINK something dirty! It would be most unkind of you.) -I got lucky because she could come to work a bit later in the morning, and we were able to have breakfast together. (If I'd been unlucky, she would have gotten up at 6:30 and left by 7:10. What a horrible way to start my Birthday!)

If not long, our breakfast was at least pleasant. Pamela went to work, and I took the train to Köln. I spent a couple of hours walking about town, enjoying the sunshine... despite my worries that I'd get burned, looking the whole time for the right gift for Pamela. (I will tell all about that... but not yet! Pamela could look here and find out what her Birthday gift is!!! But it WILL be reachable at this link.) I eventually even found... something like what I wanted. I also found some half decent egg cups. Ummm... have I not said anything on my webpage about the egg cups? There was the terrifying disaster at Pamela's house some time back, where half the shelves in the kitchen tipped over, and made the SMASH that only a hundred articles of porcelain and glass can make. Since then, we've had no nice egg cups to have our boiled eggs in; They are these days all of a modern form, or a fat ugly form, or a good form -but horrible colours. The point is: I found some decent looking egg cups in Köln, and got eight of them to present for the approval of the Münch family. After, it was then onto the train for me, and a slow, winding way back to Lüneburg, with the typical 45 minute layover in Hannover, (with a nice bit of dinner while I was there.) My evening at home in Lüneburg was quiet and peaceful. So was much of the next day, the 15th; my European Alternative Birthday. They sang before class, and I got my gift: Pasta, Vodka, Pasta, and a Vanilla Bean. -Should I even try to explain? And I received these gifts in front of the two guys who were auditioning that morning. (It seems like everyone asks me what they were like! I haven't much to say; They were young, just finishing the last year of school, not bad, but not great, I wanted to believe that I was much better than them, but felt that I probably am not in a number of areas. Besides, such... comparing to others, and the wish to be better than others... who are essentially on your level, -is petty.) We didn't have any rehearsal after though, so I had the afternoon to myself.

I decided that with one of the bags of pasta... it would be nice on this day to have some salmon, dill, and lots of butter. Then a leek on the side... But I had so much hunger after I'd finished shopping that I went straight to our "canteen" -and had the lunch there: Salmon. But with Potatoes instead of Pasta! Very different from what I ate in the evening. ("Heck! I'm from Canada's west coast!" I thought, "I can survive salmon twice in one day.") I think I then spent part of the evening working on Pamela's Birthday Gift. -At least, I don't remember doing anything else interesting.

It was the day After that: Saturday the 16th, that I had a little bit more of a party; After the Ballet Studio performance in the evening I invited people, (theater people,) to come and eat and drink with me. It was decided that the dressing room might be a bit small, so I got people to help me bring things into... the... "Cantine" (but different from the other "Cantine..." -Think of us going into a... lounge, with chairs and tables.) The first person took the Ice Cream. The second person took the pickles. -And everyone after that thought that I must be pregnant, because it's a common saying in German that Pickles and Ice Cream is the favourite combination of all pregnant women.

We had a nice time thought, with my Apple-Rhubarb Pie, Vanilla Ice Cream, Prosecco, Orange Juice, A couple of bags of chips. -And the Pickles. Everyone agreed that they were nice. And tastey. But they couldn't get over the fact that I'd brought them with me. They some how would have never thought of bringing a jar of pickles to snack on.

We were there a couple of hours, and had a good time. Not much more to say. I think that four days is about as long as I can stretch my birthday out to be.