Wednesday, August 20, 2008

gegrillte nünberger bratwurst mit sauerkraut und kartoffelbrei

Tonight I had dinner with a blast from the past -- Jesse, my co-RA from the old Mirlo days. It's been years since we've actually caught up; any time one of us reached out to see if the other one was around and willing to hang out, the other one was in the process of moving or doing something else. But Jesse's back in town for a couple of months, since his team is based here but he's living in Phoenix, and this time we finally managed to catch up.

We met up at Suppenküche, a German restaurant in the Hayes Valley neighborhood, which is about a mile from my apartment. I should have just walked there, since I ended up paying $7 for parking rather than continuing to circle, but it was nice to be able to drive home at the end of the night. I'd heard good things about Suppenküche, but the majority of my dinner-sharing friends are vegetarian, so places where the only vegetarian options are spaetzel and beer are usually out of the running. It was insanely crowded, especially for a Wednesday; we waited around half an hour for a table, which we ended up sharing with another party because the tables are long, 8- to 10-person communal affairs like beer houses are apparently like in Germany. I don't remember that from Germany, but since my German experience mainly consisted of three days of dancing to blaring techno music and my calories came mostly from vodka, rum, and Red Bull, I may have just missed out on that side of German life.

It was awesome to see Jesse, and I'm sad that we lost touch over the years; there are always a few people whom you will wonder about over the course of your life, and Jesse's one of them for me. I've mostly forgotten the other kids in that dorm (other than Tammy, Shedletsky, Terry, and Lisa, all of whom I'm still in active contact with, as well as characters like Texan Dave, Eric the Viking, Jason, Emma, Peter, and the pot-smoking athletes on my floor), since for me my better RA experience happened the following year in Loro, but Jesse's great. So it was good to catch up, and even better to catch up over pork sausages and mashed potatoes. I probably won't go back to Suppenküche just because of my vegetarian-friend dilemma, but I recommend it if you're into meat, potatoes, or beer.

The rest of my day was pretty uneventful. I wanted to watch Olympics tonight but I got home from dinner at ten p.m., and I'm so tired that I think I should go to sleep, wake up early tomorrow, and make it to the shuttle in a more leisurely way than my forced-march stride up the hill that I had to make this morning. Tomorrow should be interesting; I have a variety of meetings, but I also start my allergy shot series - allergy shots every Tuesday and Thursday for the next three months. I got the results of my blood test back, and it turns out everything's negative, so my doctor thinks that allergy shots will help clear up the cross-reactions I have between certain weeds/pollens and certain fruits/vegetables. With my luck, she'll cure my oral allergy to bananas just in time for them to go extinct, but we'll see what happens. Now, though, it's time for bed!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

did you watch men's 110m hurdles? dayron robles rocked it while wearing steve urkle glasses - half-nerd, half-cheetah. a cheeterd. too cool for school. - tz