We have this thing on our schedule called a “homestay”.  This is where we go to the home of someone that lives in the city we are visiting for a personal visit. This gets us away from the hotels and restaurants and gives us a peek into the lives of those that live there.

My Hamburg homestay was on Friday night with Stefanie Ludeking and Marcus Seeman. Stefanie is a director at the art museum and Marcus works in product development for a tea company. In case you are asking yourself what “product development at a tea company” means, he gets to design flavored teas. He actually invents the blends that you and I enjoy every day. Kewl, huh? Marcus was also an exchange student in high school and attended Broughton High School in Raleigh.

Besides working at the museum, Stefanie is an awesome artist in her own right. Check out the photos I took of her art. Nothing replaces the in person experience, but you will certainly see the girl has skills. The white drawing on black paper is particularly impressive; especially when you consider that to do it she had to think in the exact opposite terms of how one would normally approach a drawing.

Marcus cooked up some German fajitas that were just great. He said they considered cooking “traditional” German food (sausages and kraut), but decided they’d rather serve what they actually normally enjoy. They also didn’t want me thinking they sat around eating sausages and kraut every day…

We had a great time talking about Raleigh, Hamburg, friends, family, politics, and life. They are beautiful people and a delightful couple. I especially enjoyed when they shared pictures of their extended families and vacations.

I’m blessed to call them friends. We hope to have them in the big Z sometime soon.