Going to Kahla

First of all, I'm fine but...

Today we spent our time going to the doctor and getting X-rays of my neck because Sunday while we were biking to some friends of ours' place, I sped down a hill and didn't quite make the turn that was at the bottom of it. But I broke my catapult-like fall with my head and neck and now I OK. Really, I'm OK. I had an X-Ray that showed that my 5th vertebra might have a fracture, but after a quick cat-scan they decided that my bones were just malformed. This was all done within a one block radius of our house, which is pretty cool considering that we don't live close to a hospital and that we had to go somewhere else for the X-Rays and cat-scan.

My bike is also quite broken. the fork is bent side ways and my front wheel can't really be called a wheel anymore.


But the rest of the bike might be OK. A very nice couple that lived nearby took my broken bike and stored it at their place so that we could come by and get it later.

As for myself, I got away with a gash and a bruise on my forehead and pretty bad neck pain.


After the initial excitement of the crash and making sure that I wasn't going to die, we decided to go to Kahla (a small town about 20 km) to see our friends, Yulia, Marcel and their 6 month old baby Anna, all the same. We had called them before to tell them what had happened and they had offered to come and get us (by car.)

Also, that morning, Julia had made a beautiful pumpkin pie to bring with us. We made a box for it and bungee-strapped it to Julia's bike rack. Now your thinking "good thing it wasn't on Jeremi's bike because it would have gotten destroyed (and he would have gotten it in the back of the head as his bike was flipping over)", but as we waited for Marcel to come and get us, a gust of wind came and blew Julia's bike of her kickstand and the pie landed half out of its pan on to the sidewalk. Boohoo!

Then Marcel arrived and brought us to Kahla. Since his parents are away on vacation and live in a very nice house just outside of Kahla, he, Yulia and Anna were house-sitting. We were well fed the entire time we were there and had lots of fun. It's also good to mention that all this happened primarily in German. We know Yulia from one of our German classes. She is also learning German since she is originally from Moscow. Marcel however is German but used to work in Russia, so they both speak Russian. They also speak a fair bit of English and Yulia also speaks Hebrew since she live in Israel for 8 years. Anna only speaks a bit of Russian so far and says "Da da" (yes yes in Russian). She and Julia are pretty much on equal footing German-wise and learned very quickly. But me, I'm still a little slow in the German, but it's coming.

Close to where we were was also an old brickworks that had to close after reunification. Marcel, Yulia and some of their friends have bought it since then and now collect and repair old cars, most of which are Trabants. These were to cars made in the former Eastern Germany. They have a couple of Trabants tricked out for rally racing. Later, Marcel was nice enough to drive us back home and call the people who now had my busted bike (we were given their phone number) so that we could pick it up on the way back. We got to ride in an old army style Trabant from the 1960s since it had a trailer hitch. So it turned out to be a great Sunday even though I almost ruined it for everyone. Thanks Yulia and Marcel (and Anna)!