Dinner with the Zachs

Last night I had the most lovely dinner with Sarah, the other 4th grade teacher, and her family. Sarah is from the UK, but her husband, Vitus is German. They met in Africa while volunteering for an aid organization.

Vitus picked me up, but he is extremely friendly and on the way to their place showed me all the wonderful things around my neighborhood like the beautiful riverwalk just north of my apartment (I've always been going south towards the city center, not north). The area north of me is absolutely gorgeous.

Upon arriving at their house, I met Sarah who is very articulate, but also very warm as well. Their daughter, Rosie, was able to be there. Rosie is leaving in a week to live in Madrid as an au pair and study Spanish.

We had dinner out on their deck overlooking their backyard. Dinner was simple and wonderful. A spinach salad with avocado and cherry tomatoes, pasta with a light cream sauce with sun-dried tomato, green olives and fish and a white wine that I could actually tolerate (meaning it was mostly grape juice).

Conversation was fun. They asked constant questions about where I was from, what type of schools I taught in, my family (in a twist of fate, Vitus years earlier had actually looked into being a coffin maker so he felt an affinity with Dad). Finally, I was able to ask questions about them and found out how they met and that 18 years ago, they lived in Botswana working for an aid organization for three years. They've been in Augsburg since 1995 and love the city.

They are also avid cyclists. When I say "avid" I do mean "avid"! Sarah bikes to work every day. I'll be biking maybe 5 km, but she bikes 23km every day to school! They plan their vacations around biking and Vitus alone has put over 30,000 km on his bike in the past 10 months. So guess who's helping me find a bike? You guessed it!

I gave Sarah the Acholi Beads that I had brought for her as a thank-you gift and I got to share about the Acholi Beads story. That led to me also talking about Kiva as well. Vitus was absolutely fascinated with his background in aid work and possibly we might be able to work a Kiva project into our 4th grade curriculum.

Today, Sarah is meeting me at my apartment where we'll walk to some of the interesting places around the city that she thinks I need to know about. Also we'll be looking for a bike as well.

It's so nice to have friends!