German smorgasbord

I had my last day of German class on Wednesday. Everyone brought in food and we ate way too much. I learned that in Polish, Russian and Serbian this kind of a meal is called "Swedish table". And you just thought a Swedish table was something you bought at Ikea. In English we just use the Swedish word, and call it a smorgasbord. Though I learned in Sweden that a smorgasbord is actually a big open-faced sandwich. Then I explained that Americans call this kind of meal a pot luck. Whatever you call it, there was a lot of eating to do.

Lefteris, the Greek guy in my class who is 21 and very adorable, came with some pastry-wrapped sausages, my teacher called them "Würstchen in Morgenmantel". That means little sausages in bathrobes. I told her that we have something similar called pigs in a blanket, which I translated as "Schweinchen in einer Decke". I think this is a much cuter image than sausages wearing robes. But it is not as cute as the fact that Lefteris brought his food still warm, because his mom made it. He had asked her to cook but forgot to mention when, so rushed around early in the morning wrapping sausages and feta cheese in dough.

Abdel from Algeria told me the story of how he met his German wife online. She had converted to Islam and was looking for a Muslim husband. She found him on the internet. Then she moved to Algeria and lived there for a year, and learned to make some kind of delicious Algerian cake with almonds and honey that Abdel brought to class for our Swedish table. Elias showed me the letter he'd received from U.S. immigration. He's a Kurd from Iraq, and had worked for the U.S. military as an interpreter before he got out and made it to Germany. Now he should be entitled to U.S. visa and then a green card, which would allow him to bring his whole family over. Unfortunately, he's having trouble gathering all the documents he needs for the visa application and it was denied. He's filing an appeal, hoping to get the verifications he needs another way. For the moment, Elias's family is ok, but living  without running water and electricity now.

As we were discussing the visa, Lalor from Nigeria decided to spice up the party by playing some German pop music from his phone. When I complained about it, he told me not to worry because he had some music in English that I would like - Celine Dion. I told him that was worse, so he played some Nigerian music instead. Michail the Russian ice dancing book thief brought his final load of 'free' books for us to choose from. His contribution to the meal was a bag of whole grain Russian cookies. He gave a 5 minute speech on how they were healthy and contained a lot of wheat, which is good for women, and are of highest quality. You can either buy them at a specialty Russian bakery on the outskirts of town or at Kaufland, which is our version of Walmart. They tasted like sawdust.

I made a quiche, which is not particularly American but it is particularly portable when riding one's bike to German class. Everyone seemed to like it, though Michail kept calling it an egg cake.

Our teacher told us that we were one of the most fun but least disciplined classes she'd ever had. We all left happy and with full bellies, like little pigs in bathrobes.

Back row: Abel (Algeria), Kasia (Poland), Elias (Iraq), Gaby our teacher (Germany), Lalor (Nigeria), Gada (not sure), Beate (Poland), Elena (Russia). Front row: Michail (Russia), Ali (Afghanistan), Lefteris (Greece) and me.