Birthdays

Birthdays are celebrated a lot differently here than what I am used to.
Since I have been here, we have celebrated 4 birthdays.
If the birthday is on a free day or a weekend, then people are invited over for coffee and cake at 3pm. Coffee is ALWAYS at 3. For my birthday, we had brunch because it was a free day in the middle of the week.
People eat cake, drink tea or coffee, and sit around and talk. Around 6pm or so, supper in ready and we eat chili, or casserole here. When we were at one of the grandma's house, she made a bunch of very delicious foo that I'm not exactly sure what was. It was meat, noodle things, beans, salad, and some other stuff that I can't entirely remember.
The guests sit and talk for a while more, and usually at about 10pm, the last people start leaving.
It's interesting and fun for a the first couple hours, but after a little while I get tired of listening to German. When it's really late, I can barely speak German at all. My brain is just too exhausted.

Last week on Thursday was my host mom's birthday. They strangest thing was that her brother and sister-in-law came over for a little while. They stayed and had cake and coffee, and then they left their two little girls for us to watch while they went dancing. I thought that was the strangest thing in the world.
"Happy birthday, watch my kids". They're fun and cute, but VERY loud, and I just thought it was a little strange.
Yesterday was my host sister's birthday, and I ended up sitting on the couch at 10 playing games with her 10  and 14 year old cousins. None of these people speak English, and my brain was dead.
Today, Maike's friends are coming over. We're going to go somewhere in my town and do something that's kind of like bowling, but the balls don't have holes for your fingers. Should be fun.

More later.