flowers and chocolate

This afternoon, I went for a long walk around my neighborhood and down to Sieveringerstrasse, my new favorite street (lots of good shops, cafes, and people watching). As it turns out, Sieveringerstrasse turns into a big garage sale on Saturdays (or maybe just this Saturday--who knows). The street was blocked off and people had tables along the sides to sell anything you can imagine (e.g. jewelry, boots, old ski equipment, toys, dishware, flowers, DVDs...).

Luckily, I always keep 20 euro in my jacket pocket precisely for times like this. Here's what I came away with:

• 10 retro little wine glasses for 5 euro (Our house manager stopped buying them each semester because he's sick of replacing glasses that will just get broken again. We keep saying we're going to go to IKEA to get some but it's pretty far away.)
• 3 kiwi and 1 chocolate pudding from the discount grocery store for 86 cents
• 1 apple bran muffin from a really good bakery for 1,76
• 9 gorgeous orangy-yellow roses for 5. Here's how it went:

Me: (holding up roses) Sprechen Sie Englisch?
Him: Nein.
Me: (nervous laughter)
Him: (taking roses) Sieben. (seven)
Me: Fünf? (five)
Him: (rolls eyes, and suddenly I wonder if this is too nice a place to be bargaining. Yet, the roses won't get sold tomorrow because nothing's open on Sundays...and they're definitely a few days old.)
Him: (smiles) Sechs.
Me: (confused look)
Him: Fünf.
Me: (smiling broadly) Ser good.

I clipped some shrubbery from nearby Turkenshanz park (just like we used to do at College Village...wait until there are no cars/people, and discretely rip off the branches or berries), and made what I think is a pretty nice little arrangement for the kitchen table.

Seven of the students went to Budapest this weekend (the others are at Oktoberfest), and should be back in a few hours. I love being here when they get back from trips; they're always bursting with stories and it's fun to listen to them talk about what they saw. Yesterday I found some chocolate chip muffin mix, so I'll try my hand at baking in metric with the hope of having something for them when they get back.