Family and other funny stuff

So, the first story I want to tell is from the pool. Most pools I've been in here in Germany have uni sex locker and changing cabin areas but separate sex showers. The showers are open areas with taps on the walls where you shower, nude, then walk over to another area to collect your towel again. So, Maja and I were at the pool and I had finished showering and was waiting by the door near where the towels are. I was half out the door when I realised Maja was close behind so I stood for a while, holding the door wide open waiting for her. It wasn't until she was walking up to me, just finishing wrapping her towel around herself that she gave me a look and said 'GERALDINE! Close the door!!'... hahahaha... I pissed myself laughing for about 5 minutes because I realised I'd been holding the door to a room full of naked ladies WIDE OPEN for everyone that walked past to have a nice big long look at.

So, from Oldenburg it went to to Celle to be with more family. I'm not sure how much people are interested in me and my family, but I'm going to put it in the blog anyway. There is nothing like not seeing people for 3 or 5 years to bring home the fact that people get old, including you, there is nothing you can do about it, and every day time is passing. Thankfully this time wasn't quite as much as a shock as last time when I had a 5 year gap between visits. That is not to say that getting old is bad. In some cases it's quite the opposite. My little cousins have grown up into a gorgeous 20 year old girl that has interesting options, plays the drums and isn't embarressed by family waving and shouting from the audience when she's performing, and a tall and still cute 22 year old guy with a very amusing sense of humour. It's just that when you leave, you always hope that there will still be another time in the future that you will see them again. Unfortunately, in the case of my god father, he died since my last visit to Germany.

So the photos are: Me, my aunt Christiane, my aunt Lek, my aunt Margitta (from Australia) and my cousin Maja, and on the other photo my uncle Carsten, my uncle Chris (Australia) and cousin Ralph (Australia). Women drinking champagne, men drinking beer :) and Christiane's husband Saleh is grilling the meat!

Onto happier things, my aunt's house was filled to the brink with relatives for nearly the whole time I was there. The lunch and dinner table went from 10 the first day, to 13 the next, and then just got more and more as everyone was arriving for the big 60th Birthday Party, until we had meals with 24 people spread over two houses. Maja and I spent lots of time trying to set tables, empty dishwashers and just generally help my aunt. Of course we still running around at 6pm on Saturday when the party was meant to start trying to sort out who was driving older relatives so no one got stranded at the hotel.

And then the party!!! So much fun!! It's very bizarre having people coming up to you saying 'Hello Geraldine! How are you?' or 'You must be Sigrun's daughter, you look just like her', and all you can do is look at them blankly and say 'err... hi'. I quickly got over the embarrassment of asking who they were and how they hung in the whole spiderweb of connections.

(photos: all the cousins and our aunt Lek, and Christiane & Saleh)

We danced lots, we laughed lots and some people dranks LOTS. It was funny to see some people that were previously exceptionally quiet suddenly start pulling people into photos and up on the dance floor. Oh, and we later heard one particular relative not only emptied the contents of their stomach around the corner of the venue but also managed to fall over as they were walking home and got massive grazes on both knees. And guess what??? IT WASN'T MEEEEE!!!!!

I could write a lot more about discovering we have relatives with mullets and going to the Inkognito, the discoteque of Celle, but this is getting a long blog. For now, hasta luego!