Nearly Made It

I’ve been looking around for a health food store. Well, okay, not so much looking as hoping to happen upon one. I saw one a few weeks ago on the way home from Amberg (but none since then) and have been hoping for a chance to get there when they’re actually open. I decided to try to find it this morning. After making breakfast for Wee Laddie (who this morning ate 1.5 waffles, a few crackers and an egg’s worth of egg salad!) and myself and taking a shower, there wasn’t a lot of time before we needed to go meet Guitarman for lunch. He agreed to go later than usual so we could try the health food store.

I had thought it was farther out than Burglengenfeld, but it turned out to be in Burglengenfeld, so I did only a little bit of extra driving. Due to time constraints, we ended up skipping the actual shopping. But I now know where the store is… and there’s another one that has a big “bio” (what they call organic over here) sign in the window right nearby. Both are in a cute little downtown area of Burglengenfeld that I wouldn’t mind walking around anyway. Will try to make it back soon to see if they have soybean pasta (although my mom, bless her heart, brought us 2 boxes of the stuff!) and other familiar things. In any case, I’m interested to see what a health food store is like over here.

Wee Laddie and I met Guitarman on base tonight and we all had dinner at Burger King (well, Wee Laddie got a slice of pizza from Anthony’s, not that he ate much of it). And we stopped at the PX where we bought “Flushed Away,” even though we can’t get it in German yet. Ah well. Wee Laddie can maybe learn a little Spanish or French, too.

After dinner, Guitarman took Wee Laddie home (it’s his night to tuck in) and I stopped by the Kik textile store to see if I could replace Wee Laddie’s car toy that I dropped (and broke) in the garage today. These are not toddler-tough toys, for sure. We just threw away another one the day before Grandma got here. While I was there, a boy around 5 or 6 came up kind of next to me and said, “Hallo.” I said it back, or what I thought was reasonably close. He said, “Oh, you’re American.” Turns out his dad is American (and loudly so, for those of you who know what I mean by that) and his mom is German. I felt silly that a child that young could nail my accent on one stinkin’ word. Gonna have to start using “Grüss Gott,” instead of “hallo.” Just more local. I do know why “hallo” is a giveaway, though, when I really think about it. It’s like “Hello” vs. not just “hallo,” but “halloh.”

Our German teacher taught us the difference between “Grüss Gott,” in general vs. how they pronounce it locally. I’ll be interested to see if I catch people off-guard with that one. I suppose all I’ll be able to tell is if they assume I speak German, as I’ll have no idea what they say to me next unless they bust me on being American.