A slow day of just BEING in Osnabrück—how nice is that! We took it easy at home, futzing with laundry etc., and then dropped Kai off at my former teacher‘s, Detlev, whom we’d visited a couple of days ago, because they wanted to listen to / talk about music some more. Mark and I took a walk in the meantime, stopping at a couple of stores that I wanted to check out (specifically, I was looking for a specific book that I had mentioned to my mom and to Peter and Andrea), and came back by Detlev‘s around 12:20 and sat around for a bit while the two of them finished listening to one of Schubert‘s works. We decided on the spot to all go to lunch together at an outdoor cafe downtown, the ubiquitous Bar Celona (also in Hamburg and elsewhere), and although it was almost getting too hot to sit outside, we found a spot under one of their big umbrellas and had a light lunch while Kai managed to explain some pretty complex musical ideas in Germany. We sat together until about 2 pm, and Kai really enjoyed having found someone whose opinion he really respects when it comes to music, while Detlev was impressed that someone as young as Kai understands and „feels“ classical music as well as he does.
The three of us then wandered through the shops a little more, and finally had our gelato at our Osnabrück favorite, the Cafe/gelateria Fontanella. We really had fun because Kai had a kid‘s ice cream dish that was supposed to represent Star Wars (only the photo will really show how that worked, but it was genius), and I had „gnocchi“ made of ice cream with this fabulous nut sauce they make. Mark was very pleased with his banana split, too. We then went home and took a little break & nap, since it was so hot, and later, Kai and I went grocery shopping at the Aldi, both to get some things Imke needed and so that he could get some candy to bring home (I got some chocolate for the same purpose). We came home and later had a regular German dinner at 7 pm, and ended up going for one more walk with Kai, who was, however, not really up for any crowds, which, given the weather, were everywhere, both in the park and downtown. The fact that there was terrible bad music on the main market square finished him off, and we just wandered back home.