I am the Fireworks

Jeremy's smoker arrived just in time for July 4th. We were super relieved, as he had offered to do all the BBQing for his office party. He sacrificed his sleep and day (about 14 hours total) to smoke pulled pork, ribs and chicken. In the end we were stuffed and exhausted.

I spent the day looking around town for a can opener, which in any other country would be an easy find. I had to travel to four different groceries stores miming opening cans with my hands. Yes, most Germans do speak English but how often to do have conversations about can openers when you are talking to foreigners? There are just certain words you don’t learn or forget. Even Jeremy, with his fantastic German, couldn’t give me a hint to go on.

I was so happy and exhausted by the time I finally found a stupid can opener. Unfortunately, in all my joy, I forgot to get my parking validated and couldn’t get out of the underground parking. In true Berlin fashion about five cars piled behind me and began yelling and waving for me to go forward. Now I am HUGE, and there was no way I could open my door to go ask for help. I couldn’t move forward and I couldn’t go backwards. I was stuck and going NO WHERE. To top it off, a homeless guy was trying to get a donation while I was frantically trying to get the machine to take my card.

That’s when the Fourth of July fireworks started. I was leaning out my window screaming for the cars to back up. They were screaming at me to go forward. We SLOWLY moved back into the parking lot with five cars attempting to back up without hitting each other. It took about 2o minutes for EVERYONE to get far enough behind me to not only get out of the way, but for me to find a spot to turn around with my massive van. The whole time they were screaming at me with their windows down and fists out. They were so lucky I didn’t take out my can opener….

That grand event was topped when Abby peed on the grass at our friend’s house while having appetizers. She just squatted right over and let it rip. Good thing we brought an extra set of party clothes.

Happy birthday, Canada and America. You have no idea how much I miss you on days like today!