Finger Disco

I woke up to my mother telling me to get my butt over to the museum Zujus was going to be visiting today. The plan (which is in execution as we speak) was to pick her up after her day excursion today and then drop her off at her camp day excursion tomorrow. It’s pretty convenient – they bring her to and from the city and then only thing she really missed was dinner tonight. Instead she, along with Brandon and Sheila, was subjected to my cooking.

After warding off like four subsequent calls from my mother who was super stressed out I finally got around to getting dressed and leaving my apartment to pick up Sheila and Brandon. I talked to Zujus, and they hadn’t even left camp and after a call from one of her counselors I was told to come pick her up from the museum at one. Plenty of time seeing as it wasn’t even eleven yet.

Before heading to my S-Bahn station, I wandered around the neighborhood making it all the way to a mall complex – my goal was to walk until I found something and the hard metal and screaming behind graffitied nailed up windows didn’t really do it for me as a find. On my way back to Ostkreuz, I was approached by two guys who after asking me for money said “I kill you.” I shrugged my shoulders and kept on going. Now, had they said “shoot you” I might have reacted differently. But this was in broad daylight along a busy street – alles im grünen Bereich.

We schlepped Brandon and Sheila’s stuff to my apartment and after me hassling them out of the door headed to the vegetable market in Kreuzberg – the Turkish neighborhood. On the U-Bahn ride to the heart of this hood, we were treated to some excellent live subway music and we rode over the Oberbaumbrücke! Now all I have left to do is drive over it in a car and then I’ll have fully experienced it. Would it be weird to hitchhike across a bridge?

The market turned out to not be where I was expecting to find it. Instead we ate falafel in a hole in the wall joint across from a “Bollywood Fashion” store. Almost half an hour before one we started heading towards the museum. At ten of I thought we were almost there, but then Zujus called. “Where are you?”. Shit. We ran for a block, stopped to look at the map and I realized that blocks are way longer in Berlin than I thought – I think I haven’t yet really taken in the fact that this city is HUGE and that the scale of any map is very different from all those I used and edited this summer. So we hailed a cab and right at one we were at the museum, but Zu and her group weren’t.

What followed was a lot of running around on our part, an endless calling back and forth, climbing fences while on the phone, and finally finding Zu with her camp people at a park like around the corner from the museum. She needs to learn to stop making places that are two seconds away seem like they’re almost at Potsdamer Platz. But all is good, what ends well, and we had gotten ourselves a Zujus!

After a bit of chilling out on a bench because Sheila and Brandon had to deal with a stressed out me before, we headed to the nearest U-Bahn station and headed for a supermarket to buy food. We ended up purchasing a lot of vegetables and such for dinner tonight along with a watermelon. Sheila and Brandon also got a lesson on picking out a good watermelon (well actually we don’t yet know how good it actually is as we haven’t tried it yet).

[Knock, knock, knocking]

We headed back to the apartment where Sheila and Brandon got to work writing their papers (and napping on Brandon’s part), while Kornelija and I got busy with preparing dinner. First we ran across the street to the local supermarket to get some chicken and emerged with a kilo of turkey which I was convinced was chicken until my mother, whom we had called to tell that I picked up Zujus on time and with no hassle ;), told me that a one kilo, one piece chicken filet can’t actually exist. So right from the outset we were dealing with meat that doesn’t really taste like much and is super easy to dry out.

What followed back in the kitchen was a continuous laughing fit on Zujus’ part and a typical Ieva cooking experience. It all began with me realizing that we had no large pot. Next I had trouble with the gas stove, as in I melted a lighter and had to go looking for my Swiss one. Finally we had the frying pan going, cooking the chunks of turkey – I’ve never cooked turkey before. Next, after the turkey was put in the pot, I decided to use some spices. Zujus was rolling on the ground when I dumped almost half of the bottle of chili powder onto the meat by accident. And this is hot, not savory chili. Next, as the onions were frying, I got a bit sidetracked with the red pepper, and only Zu’s comment on the “burning smell” got me back to the somewhat charred onions and the boiling of the ketchup. Mixed all that in to the pot with the meat and then covered it with paprika and grated zucchini and let it simmer.

Meanwhile Zu made the salad without actual salad and I peeled the potatoes and cut them into strips. The original side dish was going to be boiled potatoes, but not only did we not have a big pot, we only had one pot to work with. But tons of frying pans. Next I took to frying the potatoes and a mini fire later dinner was ready. Well, I hadn’t really looked at the “stew” like concoction yet.

What we found upon dishing out the food was that the bottom layer pretty burned to the pot, but it wouldn’t be my cooking without something burned. At least after trying it, the chili powder wasn’t really all that apparent. And according to Brandon and Sheila, had I not told them it was turkey, they would have never known. I hate the bland taste of turkey, so I took it as a compliment. The best part of dinner was however the “vom Fass” (on tap) wine we had purchased for less that four euros. Nothing like cheap wine in a milk bottle and a little sister who thinks that you’re drunk from just a couple of sips. But the relaxation was limited to one glass each – Brandon and Sheila still had work to do.

A post dinner kitchen cleaning session followed, with Brandon making the stove shine in the dark with its blinding cleanness. While a watermelon and mango eating was planned for dessert, the food actually kicked in during the cleaning. Feeling stuffed we headed back to our previous tasks – Brandon and Sheila to their writing (and napping on Brandon’s part) and Zu and I to, well doing nothing in particular. I put together the puzzle she made me and after feeling like we were being distracting with our having-nothing-to-do, Zu and I headed out for a walk.

We walked around in the light drizzle, talked, explored. Looked for a café with no smokers and finally found one and had some excellent hot chocolate with some of the best whipped cream I’ve ever tasted – so light, so fluffy. We walked some more with Zujus wanting to take the longest route home – she seems to really enjoy this streets at night deal. She even suggested going into this sketchy, very dark, abandoned and overgrown inner courtyard with tons of broken glass. At that point I had to explain to her the difference between cool and outright dangerous.

We came back to a Sheila and Brandon hard at work. I sat down and did a couple grammar exercises myself, while Zu read a book. Soon the tiredness kicked in for everyone and it was agreed that going was a good idea. They’re fast asleep as I type this and I’d better hit the sack myself. I need to rest all those muscles that have been overworked with all the laughing today – Zujus even needed a face massage as she said her face hurt from constantly laughing. What an excellent rainy day with such a large dose of awesome people!