by: Jordan Park
Website Editor
Next month marks the four-year anniversary of the summer a German exchange student lived at my house. In honor of Lenart (Like Lenard but with a T), I figured I’d revisit some of the more memorable moments from his stay. All of this is, of course, in good fun.
Maybe this is just me being petty, but I feel like I should mention that I found out he was coming approximately three days before he landed on American soil. Thanks, Mom and Dad.
Lenart wasted absolutely no time establishing his routine, which revolved heavily, almost aggressively, around yogurt. I’m not exaggerating when I say this guy could eat half of one of those Costco-sized tubs every single morning. No granola, no fancy toppings, just yogurt and some fruit. At a certain point, I stopped questioning it and just started respecting it. I mean, Greek yogurt is all the rage right now, and it looks to me like he knew before the rest of us did.
Another key part of his daily routine was lunch, which, according to Lenart, meant one thing: McDonald’s. Every day. Without fail. It didn’t matter that we had a fridge full of food or that there were 50 other restaurants within a five-mile radius. He was dead set on McDonald’s. I understand the appeal of cheap fast food, but this was bordering on obsession. Eventually, we felt obligated to gently introduce him to the concept of alternatives, so we took him to Chipotle. That ended up being a turning point. From that moment on, he was hooked.
Another nonnegotiable for Leanrt was surfing. By the end of the summer, he was basically a Santa Cruz local. I never saw him surf, but I thought he was pretty good. I was proved wrong one afternoon when my mom received a text from Lenart saying that he was at the Emergency Room after his board hit him in the head. Poor guy had to get like seven stitches. He had to wait a week before he could go back into the water, but back into the water he went.
Toward the end of his stay, Lenart wanted to thank us for hosting him, which was genuinely nice. He told us he was going to prepare an authentic German meal, and we were all pretty excited to see what that would entail. What followed was a carefully arranged spread of soft pretzels, an impressive assortment of cheese, pickles, and various cold cuts. It looked legit. The only slight complication came when we realized that one of the meats he had included appeared to be raw bacon. I don’t think you can eat raw bacon. There was then a brief moment where we all silently wondered if this was a cultural difference or a food safety gamble. Regardless, the gesture itself was great, and we appreciated the effort, though we may have strategically avoided the bacon.
He also made a very committed effort to teach us German, which we were very enthusiastic about for the first five minutes. After that, it mostly turned into us repeatedly asking him to say random words and phrases in German, which I’m sure got a bit old. I may not remember the German phrases he taught us, but I will never forget the sheer volume of yogurt he devoured.