What a week...

I have been so worn out making lessons and trying to help all of little Greek kids learn. Some of them never do homework and then expect to learn. Or they don't participate in class. That starts to suck the teaching spirit out of me real quick.

Stefan and I went to dinner this week and that was nice. While we were eating he asked me what I thought about going out of town next week. I was excited because lately, we've hardly seen each other. He will be off of work for nearly all of May, however he has to study for his 2nd exam. We are planning to head to Vienna for a couple of days.

When I got home from a chaotic day (waking up at 7am, working at the tourist company at 8:30am and then having to rush directly to teaching... then go back to the tour guide company), I figured Stefan would have been studying all day so I stopped at Starbucks and bought him his favorite iced chai tea. To my delight when I came home he had done laundry, did the dishes in the dishwasher, and cleaned up the apartment. (How did I end up with the complete package of a guy?!)

I had little time to rest when I was home. Stefan said that we were heading to north Munich for a bike for me and a grill for him (us). We went to the bike shop first and I had never seen anything like it... including 2000 euro bikes. They also sold a small selection of used bikes. And the store was complete with a riding track to try the bikes out with small hills and bumpy strips and all. I tried a new bike, an old bike, and then I saw the one I wanted. I walked up to it and noticed that it looked used, however there was no price on it. It was honestly the bike that I had envisioned in my head. (Who knew someone could be so picky about how a bike looked aesthetically?!) I was even a little embarassed since the last time I rode a bike was about 3 years ago when I visited Stefan. I drove around the track and fell in love. Each time I rounded the bend I felt like a kid and wanted to wave to Stefan and say 'look at me!!'



I started feeling a little similar to Pee Wee Herman in Pee Wee's Big Adventure. I rode the bike and it was the perfect cross between the other two that I tried out. It has a vintage look to it that I love and a giant basket on the front. It's solid silver and will match all things. And then as luck would have it we asked and it was 'used' and only 89 euros. I don't know the last time I have been this excited. I felt like I was reliving the time my Dad had just taken me to get my first bike and I was excited about the surprise. Stefan made laughed at me while I told him how great it was that there was no bar on it because it wouldn't interfere with my dresses.

Then we faced the challenge of getting it into our car. With a bit of effort we figured it out and got it in there. Next on the agenda was finding Stefan a little hibatchi style grill since he loves cook outs. I was having flash backs of when my roommates and I senior year decided to get a small grill and have a cook out. Stefan and Bernd were there... Bernd did most of the cooking and we all complained about how the self distructing hibatchi was a living nightmare. We used it once and then it hit the high road.

Needless to say the hibatchi that we got is really quite nice. We made shrimp skewers and salmon with some mango chutney that we brought back from the Maldives. It was delicious! We put our balcony 'biergarten' into effect and I remembered why I love warm evenings in.

Tomorrow we will head out to the park or somewhere in the city so we can ride our bikes. Here they are so common place. I saw a man in the park the other day riding around the English Garden drinking a beer. I see nuns on bikes, old people on bikes, you name it... bikes are the way to go around here.