On Tuesday, I had a great day shopping with my best friends from my German school, Kathi, Ela, and Isa. We went to CentrO, a big shopping mall in Oberhausen and had a great few hours. Bettina (my host mom) told me that she, Anna (her daughter), and Geli (Bettina's best friend) were going to meet me there at 7:30 so we could all have a nice dinner together. When I went outside to meet them, I could see that there were way more people than just Anna, Geli, and Bettina. Andrew's host family, the Majers were there (except their daughter Lisa who was in Florida for a vacation), Geli's daughter and her friend were there, and so were Rolf's brother Wilfred and his wife Uschi. They started playing the
Heidi song (check out the link to hear it). I busted up laughing, and thought 'What a nice surprise! We're all going to have dinner together!' So I flitted over to them.
As soon as I reached them, Bettina said, "You thought you were going to get dinner tonight. You were wrong...." They said that first we had to go back inside the mall so I could put on some proper clothes. We took over the bathroom as we rummaged through bags to find the outfit.
It was a hilarious Dirndl, a traditional outfit perfect for someone named Heidi. Geli helped me adjust the apron. There were also t-shirts for everyone in our group to wear. They said "Heidi aus Amerika ist die Braut die sich traut" which means "Heidi from America is the bride who is sure." Die Braut die sich nicht traut is the German name of the movie Runaway Bride. On the back it said, "Und Andrew ist weit weg in Amerika... Last chance to kiss the bride!" It was so hilarious!!
They gave me a book that had a list of tasks I had to complete.
I had to put a huge wicker basket full of about 200 random things around my neck and sell everything in it. I had to tell people that I was getting married soon, and unfortunately didn't have enough money for bridal shoes.
If they wanted to buy something, they had to give at least a 1 Euro donation into the Shoe Money piggy bank.
My other tasks included finding 5 men who could write down a reason why I definitely should get married, and 5 who could write down why I definitely shouldn't. Same for finding women. Even though I had all my wonderful German friends with me....
I was still very nervous to become a street vendor.
But it turns out most people were really nice, and knew that it was a tradition to make the bride do embarrassing things before getting married. Some even saw us approaching and asked "Who's the bride?"
I got more and more comfortable selling people things... maybe I could even make a living out of it! One of the guys we stopped on the street wrote a reason why I shouldn't get married in my book, "Because I'm still here!" Then he signed his friend's name who was with him and gave us the friend's cell phone number.
We took a break in a nice comfortable pub, and the waiters were also dressed in traditional German clothes. We were excited to get a picture together.
As we were sitting at our table enjoying our drinks bobbing our heads to the music, I told my friends, "Remind me to show you my roommate's dance called the Hurricane sometime. It's really funny." They said, "Show us now!!!" I said, "No way. Besides, you can't do the hurricane to songs like this!" So they called the waiter over and said, "Heidi has request for a song. She would like to dance for us all." Somehow I ended up walking over with the waiter to pick out a song. Next thing I knew, I was dancing the Hurricane in front of everyone to SexyBack. Since there are only two moves to the dance, I was done after about 60 seconds.
The waiter came back over when I was sitting down and said, "I thought you wanted to dance!!" I told him I already did dance. He walks off, and comes back with a coat rack and says, "Here." I'm definitely not a pole dancer and have absolutely no sexy moves besides what Kiana taught me, so I danced like a dork around the pole.
After much pleading and cajoling, I convinced Isa and Ela to get up and dance with me. We danced for a couple of songs and had a great time.
Everyone agreed that since my dancing was so great, I didn't have to complete the rest of the tasks. Good thing -- it was already 12 and I still had about 1/4 of the stuff to sell. We ended up in another restaurant, where they gave me about 2 dozen roses, each with a funny picture of me and on the other side a German saying about love and marriage. It was so amazing!
I was so touched by all the effort my German family and friends put into making such a fun German-style bachelorette party for me.
I was so glad almost all of my favorite Germans were there to share in the wonderful experience.
Love you guys!!!!
Everything was ornate -- there was an entire hall with gold mosaics depicting Sweden's past and future.
The tiles were all so tiny. The artists only had two years to complete the whole thing.
It's inside the "Blue Hall" (even though it's not blue) that the Nobel Prizes are awarded. It was pretty cool to be standing there. My mom and I imagined walking down the staircase in beautiful ball gowns to accept our Nobel prizes.
After the tour of City hall, we walked across the bridge to Gamla Stan an island that has most of Stockholm's medieval city.
The buildings were so beautiful -- my mom and I were lamenting that they just don't make them so beautiful anymore. I suppose Howard Roarke would be satisfied.
The little winding alleyways were so charming. We even found an awesome antique store where we bought some tea cups and tea pots for the centerpieces of the tables for my wedding.
There were so many interesting plazas, cafes, and people. Don't let the flowers in this picture deceive you -- it was freezing cold!!
I love Stockholm!!!! If I didn't have to come back to get married in a few weeks, I might have just stayed :)
