Photos! And a bad day.

This morning, Torsten and I planned to drive up a mountain near his parents' house to take in (and photograph) the great and apparently famous view. We stopped for lunch on the way at a little restaurant run by a rural German family with accents so thick that even Torsten could barely understand them. We had a delicious meal, and then some woman ran into Torsten's car. He was stopped, waiting for me to come back from the bathroom, and she reversed right into him. Apparently some people don't find it necessary to look behind them while backing up.

She was driving very slowly when she hit him, and nobody was hurt, but both cars had some damage--her back bumper was all scraped and the side panel of Torsten's car had a dent and a bunch of missing paint. The woman who hit him had these two other women in her car and the three of them were all talking very loudly in German, and everyone was discussing and I didn't understand what anyone was saying and it was very frustrating. I was trying to tell Torsten that he should call the police to file a report, since the woman was not being cooperative and was not willing to accept the blame for the accident. Then the restaurant owner came out and everyone talked really loudly at the same time, and it was just a madhouse. At some point Torsten had the presence of mind to get the camera out of the car and take pictures of the accident scene, and to write down her license plate number.

She wanted us to go with her to her car dealer to see how much her guy thought it would cost, so that Torsten wouldn't try to slap her with a huge bill, so we followed her there, where she was still so freaked out that she parked her car in the middle of two spaces and then stalled out when she tried to readjust. Everyone calmed down when the dealer said the damage probably wouldn't cost more that much, even though the entire side panel of Torsten's car would have to be taken off. The woman gave Torsten her contact information and more or less acknowledged that the whole thing was her fault and that she'd be paying, and then we headed to Torsten's car dealer to get an estimate for the repairs. Before we left, though, Torsten called his dad to make sure it wasn't necessary to file a police report.

But when he called his dad, his mom answered the phone and told him that his dad had fallen and hurt his knee. Apparently he was walking down the stairs and missed the last step and fell. They were waiting for the ambulance, and we were to meet them at the hospital. So we drove like mad to the hospital and met Torsten's parents there in time to see his dad get an X-ray. Then they brought us into a surgeon's office to wait to have a chat. We waited maybe 15 minutes, which felt like nothing compared to how long the waits are in most American hospitals. Or at least, it would have felt like nothing if the man in the next office hadn't been quite audibly vomiting everywhere. I have never heard anyone gag or throw up like that before--the noises were incredibly dramatic and horrifying, and people kept running by with mops.

The doctor came in and did an ultrasound, and it turned out that he partially tore the muscle away from the bone just above his knee, and will need an operation to fix it. They're going to wait a few days for the swelling to go down, then they'll operate, he'll spend a few days in the hospital, then he'll make a full recovery in four to six weeks. So it could have been worse, but it was extremely traumatizing and the worst luck ever to have a car accident and a nasty fall on the same day.

Plus, just to make it all worse, today is Torsten's mother's birthday. She had to call all the friends who were coming to the party this evening to cancel, and when we got back from the hospital, we cooked some of the food she'd bought for the party and we all collapsed in the living room, where we still are now. Torsten's dad is in a leg brace and has crutches, but isn't really in pain and is being very calm about the whole thing. His mom is rather more upset, but she seems to be doing better.

So, we did not end up driving up the mountain for the view, so the only pictures on the camera from today are the pictures of the accident scene, which I'm not going to post. But! I do have a few photos from the weekend that I can share.