Mother’s Day in Mannheim…

We decided to take it easy this weekend for a change. If you follow this blog at all, you know we’ve been hitting the road on a pretty regular basis. Since we had a birthday party to go to on Saturday and Sunday was Mother’s day, I was looking forward to limiting the miles we put on the Family Truckster. By the way, we’re headed to Euro Disney near Paris the week of May 28th. While I’m looking forward to going, I’m not sure what we’ll use to blackmail the kids into behaving once we’re back.

Friday night I was absolutely beat so we decided to walk to a restaurant we had seen near our house once when we got lost (a regular occurrence soon after we moved). Sardegna is a small, family-owned Italian restaurant (did the name tip you off?) that’s a 5 minute walk or so from our apartment. The place is small with the busy, eclectic decorating style you see in lots of these places. The service was exceptional as was the food. At less than 8 Euros for most pasta dishes, the price was right as well.

We started out with Capri salad (as usual). It was huge and really well put together. B ordered seafood farfalle which was excellent. I wanted to test the basics so ordered spaghetti bolognese (with meat sauce). This is a great litmus test for Italian restaurants: if they don’t nail the basics, it’s unlikely the rest of the menu will be very good. The same principal applies to cheese pizza at pizzerias. I have no doubt we’ll become regulars at this place.

Saturday morning Robert and I jumped on the Strassenbahn to buy B’s Mother’s Day present, a new digital camera. We bought one last Christmas but Emily dropped it and shattered the LCD. We weren’t that happy with it anyway: the picture quality was sub-par and we assume fixing it will probably cost as much as replacing it. I bought her a Canon IXUS 60, which seemed to be just what she wanted.

Saturday afternoon, we went to some friends’ house (Thomas and Luciana) for their daughter Joana’s 6th birthday party. It was a typical Brazilian affair that started at 16:00 and went until about 22:30 or so. Luciana made some exceptional Brazilian snacks called coxinha. We met some really nice people and Sandra (our visiting nanny) finally found a group of folks closer to her age. The Heidelberg area is an E ticket in terms of nightlife and Sandra has hooked up with a group of veterans.
After the party, B dropped me off at the local watering hole, Zum Wasserturm, where I enjoyed a few Hefe’s while watching the locals heavily under the influence slaughter both American and German hits on Karaoke night. It was highly entertaining. I’ll dedicate a post to this, my home away from home, in the next few weeks.

Sunday we celebrated Mother’s Day at Casa de Palha in Mannheim (we went last weekend as well). As a bit of a twist, the owner invited folks to bring dishes for a Brazilian potluck lunch. The food was incredible, including the sal picão Sandra made (a kind of Brazilian chicken salad). After lunch the kids played at a park in Mannheim. We then had ice cream at the Pizza Hut here in Kirchheim. By the way, Thursday is another public holiday in Germany ({cheap shot alert} I think it’s David Hasselhoff’s wedding anniversary). I’ll probably take Friday off for another really long weekend. I think we’ll plan on taking it easy next week as well. I’m trying to get well rested for the six hour trip to France and the four days we’ll spend in Le Magic Kingdom.

Finally, they laid sod in the common/play area of our building. I'm guessing within a month or so this place will be completely in shape. Also, the cherries on our street are ripening. In case any German attorneys are reading this, is it stealing if the limb hangs over a public sidewalk?