So for the last few weeks there has been a sign on the wall near our house advertising a Small Animal Show that went down this weekend. There was a large picture of a rabbit on the sign, and since it was on the way to school the girls and I have been talking about it every day.
I wasn't exactly sure what it would entail. Germany is such a charming mystery to me. If we were in rural Nebraska I would assume it was a showcase for buyers and breeders of rabbits and poultry. But, this is the magical land of Bayern, where they have cabbage festivals and only serve bubbly water, so I also had some hopes that it might be some kind of rabbit circus, or rabbit grooming contest. It's not that ridiculous an idea. Everyone in this town seems to own their own personal huge rabbit. I thought maybe what I had assumed were pet bunnies were actually extremely competitive racing hares or something. Maybe this was a really big deal in this town. The sign was pretty large.
So today, after church, the girls and I bundled up (FYI it's nice in the winter because if you don't want to comb your little girls hair you can just put hats on them, and then when they take off their hats everyone will just think it's hat hair) and we strollered our way up to the Kleintierausstellung with high hopes. (Chris was at work.)
Turns out... it actually was just a showcase for buyers and breeders of rabbits and poultry. It was a small warehouse room with wire cages filled with birds and bunnies. I was the only one with children. Was it weird and dissapointing? No way. Man, I have never seen such large and beautiful rabbits. Seriously they were as big as Gracie and so soft looking. And those chickens--Zowie! Seriously beautiful chickens if you can imagine such a thing. And I did not think pigeons grew that big.
I think the show people were confused that we were there, until they realized I didn't speak German and then they smiled and made some gestures like, "Oh, let the nice imbecile do what she likes. She's harmless." The only weird point was when a nice old man, seeing the girls were really interested in the animals, showed them some recently laid eggs and started talking to us about them. One of them was totally covered in blood and he picked it up and talked to us about it a lot, gesturing with it. I'm not sure what he said, and I'm not sure if my face conveyed an appropriate reaction to a conversation about a bloody egg. But whatever, he was nice. It wasn't even weird acutally, just kind of funny.
We didn't stay long, just looked at all the animals, got surprised EVERYTIME the roosters crowed (they crowed like 30 times while we were there), almost bought a turkey as big as Sophie that had lovely foot feathers, then left. Definitely the best part of today.
6 comments:
Good story. Your desire to buy the turkey with foot feathers reminded me of a story from my son's best friend, Todd. Todd served his mission in Albania. At Thanksgiving time, he and his companion went to the market to buy a turkey. Turns out they could only buy a live turkey. They took it home; it was freezing out, so they dressed it in one of their tee-shirts for the night. The next morning they had to butcher it. They killed with a Leatherman knife. Todd swears this is a true story. I don't know who to feel sorrier for, the turkey having its neck sawed off with a Leatherman, or the two missionaries desperate for Thanksgiving turkey. They plucked it and roasted it. Todd says it was delicious. By the way, it may or may not be significant that I was Todd's scout leader when he was 11. Years later, when he was an assistant scoutmaster, he finagled me into demonstrating how to start a fire w/o matches in the rain. He said to the boys, "Sister Haynie can do anything." Not so sure I could have killed a turkey with a Leatherman.
Oh Anna...thank you for the "laugh out loud but as quietly as possible so I don't disturb Dusty next to me" end to the day. How do you do it? Being so funny and cool and everything. I now know that my kids did not get the most adventurous mother. Well, I already knew that. It would be fun to live next to you. I hope your girls know how lucky they are!
What an awesome and adventurous mom!
So cool!!! Sometimes misunderstandings like that can be fun.
Man, that is way more fun than going to Stake Conference.
Also, it's so funny to me every time I hear about you not understanding everything there because, in English anyway, you are such a good communicator.
Was the turkey alive or dead? I hope you bought a pet turkey and are planning on cooking it for Thanksgiving.
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