Touring Guben
Staying in Guben gave us the opportunity to take things easy. We slept in and had another typical German breakfast of bread and meat, and even though it was drizzling, we hopped on our bikes and began our day. Dirk took me to his families church, and since his dad is a deacon, we had a key to get in with. The Church was old on the outside with beautiful ivy, but fairly simple and clean in the sanctuary. The youth had their own area upstairs which was pretty cool. It was interesting to see the similarities between American and German churches. I think that faith and worship is something that helps to bridge the language and culture barrier. After touring the church we went on to the errands. Dirk had to fax something to his new landlord, so he did that at a doctors office in the village. I rode my bike by a REAL kindergarten (Children’s garden in German) where little kids were speaking in German. Why is it that little kids speaking a different language is so entertaining? We rode our bikes through Guben and along the riverbank, which was quite the peaceful ride. We stopped by the grocery store to pick up some batteries and snacks (more good custardy yogurt) and then went back home. Since we were going to be leaving the next day, I decided to use the cookie ingredients I had packed along.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
I had been told by my sister in-law that in Germany, you can’t get the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. So, most likely a typical German family has never experienced the wonders of a warm, homemade chocolate chip cookie. I packed everything I would need to make the cookies (including measuring spoons since I didn’t want to convert to metric). I made a good batch of cookies. I mean, they were perfectly golden brown and had that nice chewy texture. I knew that most people loved cookies, but the response I got from Dirk’s family was awesome. I think Dirk’s mom loved the cookies the most, but his brother and sisters were quite smitten by my discs of chocolate goodness. There were some ingredients left over after making them, so I made sure to tell them how to make more (I sure hope they made another batch). We saved some cookies for Dirk’s dad since he was still at work.

Mini Road Trip
When Dirk’s younger sister came home from school, Dirk, Anett, Marie, and I decided to take a little road trip. I had told Dirk that I wanted to stop by the giant windmills I had seen earlier. We drove out to them, and I was pleasantly surprised. The “windcraft,” as Dirk called them, were HUGE! They made a eerie, peaceful swishing sound far above out heads. I shot a lot of video and took a lot of pictures. They are something that is so common in Europe, but so uncommon in America. After the windmills, dirk drove us out to a place that he and his brother liked to visit. It was also a place where you could go mushroom hunting. The forest was beautiful, and the small lake where we stopped was very peaceful. We spent some time finding mushrooms (some poisonous and others edible) and just talked while enjoying nature.

Food and Entertainment
We drove back home where a late lunch/early dinner was waiting for us. It was quite the spread. We had bratwurst, fancy meats, cheese, beer, grey bread, and vegetables. This was the type of meal I was expecting, a nice selection of meats and the ever-present grey bread. It is like a light rye. I liked that Germans aren’t uptight about their alcohol, they have it with dinner and it is nothing special. It all comes back down to moderation, something that Americans have yet to master. After lunch/dinner we took it easy and asked Dirk’s dad if he wanted to watch a movie that we had picked up earlier in the day. We rented the Machinist, an American movie, set in Los Angeles, filmed in Spain, and watched (for the sake of Dirk’s dad) completely in German (no English subtitles available) I understood the majority of it, but once again no knowing the language can be difficult. After the movie, we gathered our things together to leave in the morning. We went to bed on our bunk-beds, prayed together and went to sleep.

Video from this day posted at Stone Farm

Google Earth Placemarks for Day 4: Open this map