Der Burritoabend

This Friday, I hosted a burrito evening for six of my linguistics acquaintances.  I had tried to do this once before, on a Monday evening, but it didn't work out.  Monday evening would seem a stupid time to try to host a social event, and it was, but I had my reasons.  I live on the Golm campus, you recall, which is in the middle of nowhere, and my acquaintances live either in Potsdam proper or in Berlin.  Since several of them have class with me on Monday afternoon, I figured I would just invite them to dinner afterward.  This ended up being depressing.  I sent the email to six people; after three or so days, I had one yes, two no's, and three no responses.  Ridiculous.  It turns out that I had gotten the addresses from a bad source (because I had no means of contacting these people), and that two of the three no responses had just not received the email.  The other person had meant to respond, and just forgotten, but would have been a "no." 

Anyway, after a week, I sent out another invitation, for last Friday.  This time, everyone but two people accepted, and one person even asked to bring a friend.  Since I had been meaning to hang out with Raphael for some time anyway, and since he couldn't come, we met at mid-day to do some tourism and lunch before the big event.  We saw Schloss Cecilienhof, got some cool pictures (an elephant!  made of tree!), and then I had to go back to Golm.  And Raphael was just sort of following along.  It turns out that he could come after all.  So that was pretty great.

We arrived back at home in Golm at about 5:25, where the guests were meant to arrive at six.  I searched in my pockets.  Then I searched in my bag.  And I didn't have my house key.  I had a little bit of panic, but it turns out my room-mate was home.  So.  Dodged a bullet.

Anyway, at 6:20, it was still just Raphael and me.  And I was starting to get a little bit worried.  But then there was a ring at the door, and all five other people were there.  The men-folk of the group immediately set off through the forest (quite literally), following my directions to the supermarket, where they were fixin' ter procure beverages and desserts.  In the disconcertingly long time they were gone, Raphael and Carina and Daria and I prepared the rest of the meal.  Mostly I confessed to not knowing how to do things, and to doing things wrong, and was reassured by Carina and Daria that I was doing just fine.  Except with the avocados.  The avocados were probably between 5 and 6 on the Mohs scale, meaning they could be scratched by Feldspar, but not Apatite.  And appetite was the only tool we had.  Two drum beats and a cymbal crash!

The rest of the story is mostly told by the photo album, although Facebook is having a lot of problems right now.  The point is, everyone ate a delicious burrito, most people ate another delicous burrito, the conversation was lovely, and I made some friends.  The next evening, I was invited to Berlin for a birthday celebration with this same group of people, plus others.  Also a good time.