Today was a day dedicated to family–one of my aunts was celebrating her 80th birthday. I ran in the morning (finally found a route that works) and we had breakfast, and then all four of us set out to pick up my mom at the train station just after 11 am. She had asked for this favor from Mark and me because the main station in Hamburg is unbelievably crowded–it has many more trains going through it than it has capacity for, and it’s really hard to maneuver because of that. Finding the subway underneath the trains is an additional challenge, so we gladly went to get her, and Andrea and Peter came along just to see her for a half-hour. We all got into the subway to where we needed to go, and they chatted with Imke and got back off half-way along the way to go home, while we continued to the Northeastern outskirts of Hamburg, to Ohlstedt, where my aunt Frauke (my mom’s younger sister, and the one who is celebrating her 80th) had reserved a room in a cosy restaurant conveniently close to the subway station (less than 300 feet). Of the fourteen guests (over half of whom were in their 80s), we ran into my mom’s older sister, Ute, and her son Erik and slowly made our way to the restaurant. Other family members–Frauke’s son, my cousin Martin (whom I had not met for 30+ years) and his wife Christiane (whom I had never met), my sister and Michael, a cousin of my mom and her three sisters whom I THINK I’d never met, and then sundry friends and former colleagues of my aunt’s. All in all, we were fourteen, and since I didn’t get permission from everyone to post photos publicly, I won’t. But we had a wonderful time and a yummy in-season dinner of asparagus with new potatoes and various classic sides (prosciutto, salmon, or Schnitzel), and fresh strawberries with mascarpone or the famous Hamburg “Rote Grütze,” a fruit compote made with berries that I am very fond of.
Conversations were fun, as there was a lot of catching up to do, and Michael and Judith were especially happy to be able to talk to Imke, since they had so little time to stay when they dropped us off after our Belgian vacation. (It turned out that they realized something was really off with their transmission when we left Blankenberge, but didn’t want to worry us, so they said nothing–this is why they did not stop once on the drive to Osnabrück, and then again not at all during the rest of their trip! The car just came back from the shop yesterday, ready for today’s excursion to Hamburg.) I really enjoyed talking to my cousin about childhood vacations I spent in Hamburg with him and his mom and her then-boyfriend (summer weeks that made me feel like I was really getting an education in urban living, since I came from a really small town, and Martin knew everything about subways and movie theaters and comic shops at age 10!). Around 4 pm, we wrapped up and said our goodbyes, and my mom, Mark, and I along with my aunt Ute and cousin Erik took off by subway, so we got a little more time with them before they got out at their station. We took Imke back to the main station, and although it looks like we have all the room in the world in this photo, it was actually unbelievably crowded, and we had to wait for the delayed (but thankfully direct!) train to Osnabrück for what seemed forever. When she was finally on board (with 40 minutes delay) we made our way home for a LIGHT dinner and a little walk to the park, but I wigged out pretty early. Long day!
