The wedding and 50th birthday were both to celebrate Phil's cousin, Stefan, who was getting married to a lovely woman called... Steffy. Yup - Steffy & Stefan. To add to the eeriness, just today, taking a walk through our new (to us) Munich neighbourhood, we came across this in someone's front yard:
Can you see the names on the hearts at the top?? Bizarro... it had kids toys attached to it, so maybe someone has named their twins Steffi & Stefan? My working theory is that it's Germany's version of Shazza and Gazza...
So back to Stefan's wedding. I was looking forward to reporting all the different traditions in a German wedding, but it was pretty similar to an Australian cocktail reception - champagne and canapés, lots of beautifully decorated tables and a massive cake. Actually, there were about 20 cakes which was pretty awesome (for 200 guests, so not totally crazy). Also someone did bring an adorable German pointer puppy, which frankly there should be more of at weddings... I should also mention that it was held in a castle!
It was a very romantic wedding - there were lots of photos of the couple in heart shaped frames on the tables and they made cute, whimsical postcards of their love story as centrepieces:
It was great to meet a side of Phil's family that I haven't met before - uncles, cousins, second cousins, etc. There are a lot of Herrmanns!!
Actually there are a lot of Herrmanns in Germany full stop - Herrmann street, Herrmann bakery, today at the supermarket, my checkout chick's name badge was Herrmann! My favourite rendition of the Herrmann name - though slightly misspelled - was on Matzah at the supermarket in Hamburg (just imagine saying "Herrmann" with a broad New York accent and you're pretty much there!!)
The 50th birthday was really an extension of the wedding celebration, but for a smaller group of friends and family. The romantic theme continued - check out the napkins:
Travelling often presents unusual situations - in this case it was being dropped off and picked up at the party by Phil's dad, Klaus!! I seriously felt like a 14 year old, but in a good way :)
We spent the week being hosted by Phil's (90 yo) grandmother together with his sister Monika, our 3 yo nephew Jasper and Phil's dad, making it a pretty full house! When awake, 3 year olds don't run out of energy - did you guys know that??
Jasper is both very sweet & entertaining though - he loves making crazy suggestions followed by asking quite sincerely, "good idea"? As in "Auntie Sus, let's go and hunt pink rhinos in the lounge room and be tigers together, good idea?" Side note: I now do amazing tiger impressions.
On Monday night, Monika and Jasper headed home to Australia and we headed to Munich to spend the next little while with Klaus and his wife Cornelia via the gorgeous medieval village of Quedlingburg in East Germany. I'd like to say we stopped for the history, but it was mostly about the cheesecake!!
So far, Munich has stumped up some lovely sunny weather and a bug which is currently causing Phil to cough up a lung!
We have no concrete plans for the next few weeks - so it's probably time for a poll. I'll have to think up some possible options. Cross country skiing has been mentioned - I am slightly terrified. Maybe time for some lunges in preparation??
If you want to pull the puppet strings, feel free to make some poll suggestions in the comments!!
*When I say "we", Klaus heroically drove us NINE freaking hours from Hamburg to Munich!!!
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