Tea with Hannelore

Today a few of the girls were invited to tea with Hannelore, the Director's wife.  We headed to their bed and breakfast a little after lunch.  We arrived and Hanneloare already had tea cups out and a dessert prepared for us.  She and her husband, Hans Peter, have three children aged 15, 19, and 20.  They live in the house that Hans Peter grew up in, but they rennovated it.  But they kept the rooms, making 5 of the rooms into two apartments for guests and left 5 other double rooms that come with breakfast.  This is quite common here.  When I had tea with Maja, the Coordinator of the school, yesterday, she too had an apartment in her house.  Much of the income from the community is from tourism, especially in the winter, so this is a way to earn a living here.  After we settled in on the back patio, with gardens surrounding the patio and the mountains in the background, Hannelore brought out a dessert that looked like slim layers of cake with a light cream cheese filling.  Scrumptous. 

Tea with Hannelore Royer (left), Johnna (USA), Jeannette (Canada), Sonja (Canada), Whitney (Macedonia), Dani (my roommate), Dogmar (Austria), Sharon/me (USA)

We talked for several hours about all kinds of topics, but it was good just to be at a house and to be chatting with a smaller group of girls.  Hannelore was so gracious in the conversation and made us feel so much like friends.  That is so common here.  People are very welcoming and expect long conversations of relaxation.  When Maja and I had tea yesterday afternoon, we spent the whole afternoon together and she thought that this was too short! And stores are closed from 12:00 to 2:30pm every day.  It rained on and off while we were at Hannelore's and the sun came out a few times, but she had a small awning over the patio and the conversation was so nice, that we just stayed and chatted.  Hans Peter, her husband, came back from a run just as we were getting ready to leave, and handed her a bouqet of hand-picked wild flowers.  Awww...