chinese food, knitting and flohmarkts

So far God has blessed me with some really great girl friends here in Jena. This weekend I was lucky enough to spend some time with a couple of them. My new friend TianTian is a girl from my German school who is here getting her doctorate degree as well as working in the institute on lung cancer research. Both her and her husband came to Jena from China a couple of years ago. They invited Ryan and I over for dinner last night and not just any dinner.... A Real Chinese Dinner!!! We were sooooo excited! And let me tell ya, we were not disappointed because everything was so amazingly good. The night was filled with laughter, language barriers, good conversation despite it all, Chinese dumplings, fresh soy milk...fresh almond milk, camera talk, and yes.... even KNITTING!

I have been bringing my knitting to class sometimes to work on during break and earlier in the week TianTian told me she wanted to learn! So a few days ago after class, we went to the local yarn shop and picked out some yarn for her :) She caught on SO fast and in like 20 minutes she was already almost as fast as I am at knitting! So I'm delighted to be able to say that I have found me new knitting buddy!



There is a Chinese Christian home church in the city that meets with our church sometimes, so I have really been encouraging TianTian an her husband to come to church sometime when the Chinese group is there!

AND this morning I got to hang out with my new friend Ashleigh! Ashleigh married a man from Jena in April and she just moved here last month! She is also in my German class AND she is also from the Bay Area in California! We pretty much hit it off right away and let me tell ya, it is SOOOO nice to be able to spend time with another American sometimes :)



So anyway, her and her hubby picked me up this morning and we went to a local Flohmarkt (flea market) to do some exploring! I got a couple things, but my dear little Ashleigh go more than the car... and her husband.... could handle! But we just kept telling him it was necessary because it's her dream to open up a vintage home interior decor shop in Jena someday, so she needs to find cool things to put in her shop! :) It was really a ton of fun and we both got to practice our German!




So that is just a little bit of what has been going on in Elyse world lately! I'm loving my German life!

ps- Be sure to always check on my Flickr account for all of my pictures!