EXPANDING

We picked our word for the year: Expanding. On the trail of last year's word "exploration", we are becoming imperialists. Expanding vocabularies, expanding horizons (what are we doing after this?), expanding our concepts of home, expanding Ben, (how fat will we get on wurst and potatoes?).

Do you pick a word for the new year? If so, what is it this year?

Bye Bye Christmas Books and Songs

We just cleaned the whole apartment - almost as satisfying as the New Year's Eve clean that makes us wake up on New Year's Day feeling beyond resolutions - of all the Christmas books and Christmas songs books. I am so ready to say good bye! Ben likes every Christmas song on repeat except Silent Night. Now we just have to figure out how to properly dispose of our perfect tree.

Merry Christmas/Happy Hannukah/Bright Solstice

We have been entertaining family and ourselves with lots of celebrations of light! All the traditional foods have been made - spinach cheese ravioli with a red and white sauce for Christmas, breads for Solstice and latkas for Hannukah. The focus this year has been on experiences instead of presents - we just did stockings and lots of day trips (more pictures later). It has been lovely.

For Christmas day we were worn out of cooking, but not of eating, so we went to Frankenstein's Castle (an inspiration for Mary Shelley's scary story) and had a huge German Christmas feast. Below is our attempt at a family picture - Ben did awesome for the whole dinner (there was lots of playing outside in the castle between courses) - but when the camera came out it was all screams!

romantic fire lit date night

Feeling brave and Christmas-y, George and I set out for a Christmas market with a vague location that was advertised as just ONE day, in the middle of woods, with the biggest gingerbread cookie in the area, and a genuine St. Nick. We took the tram to the end of the line and with our trusty map set out into the woods as the sunset (16:30).

Our meandering and uphill walk - full of promises to ourselves to come back maybe in the spring, maybe when it is warmer, or maybe when it is light - took us up to lookout tower, a brass band, lots of merry makers, beer and gluwein tents, St. Nick handing out chocolate and the typical German countryside restaurant serving nothing but wurst and salat. The proprietess gave us a talking too about coming to dinner so late (17:30?) and expecting the oven to be on. So, I asked her to suggest my dinner because she knew what was good but she declined saying it was all good because it was local and she did not know what I liked. So, I asked her to suggest my dinner because she was the only one who knew what was actually available. This is why I ended up with a Frankfurter, which is a large hot dog. But our fellow patrons reassured us that the food was "Made in Germany" and therefore the best, as they continued full of holiday beer and cheer and song.

(This is for another time, this "Made in Germany." Usually when I am most frustrated with the price or the options or the situation, someone will chime in and say in English "Made in Germany." It is a phrase that to Germans is about pride and economic security and so on.)

After dinner, we wandered around eating candy covered almonds, admired the view of the cities lights, and being very happy we did not have to keep track of Ben in the dark.

But how were we going to walk back through the now dark woods? Luckily, for sale there were huge fire sticks with a long wick of paraffin dipped muslin and a beer mat to protect your hands from dripping wax. We tentatively followed another group down the hill and, in spite of my fears they would lead us to no-where and we would end up begging for a ride or walking for miles, we actually ended up next to a different tram stop. Germany, is your public transport really that good? And we made it home, but 10 minutes late.

Doch!

"Who's wearing not pajamas?"
"What?"
"Who's wearing not pajamas? The Elephant is wearing fuzzy pajamas, the Warthog is wearing ugly pajamas. Who is wearing not pajamas?"
"Oh... Sandra Boyton is writing 'Some are fuzzy. Some are not. But we can all pajammy in whatever we've got. It's Pajama Time!' They are not not pajamas, they just are not fuzzy."
"So, who is wearing not pajamas?"
"The moose."

It is not a potato sack

The only German TV show I could follow (a children's show called Elefantastisch! featuring an elephant and a rabbit and a word of the day and some silly songs) has been replaced by the adventures an old guy and his helpful potato sack. The strange hopping sack and old friend have a timelessness to them - one show everyone was wearing doublets, breeches and ruffs while in the next week the villain was wearing a tight dark Star Trek styled suit.
But it turns out, based on my research for an image so you could see the whole situation, the old guy is probably Weihnactmann (Germany's Santa Claus) and the potato sack is probably filled with toys. So, it is just seasonal TV.
And in retrospect, a equal sized pink rabbit and purple elephant friend pair is weird, too.

Advent

is a big deal here! There are advent candles and wreathes everywhere (that started last weekend) and advent calendars start today. Chocolate for breakfast every day this month! Below is ours from Hussel Confiserie:

Now we just need to get some snow, some gluehwein in a special edition mug, some lebkuchen (gingerbread) shaped like hearts, and a tree. And all of our Christmas music is in the US - so right now we are doing Norwegian Institute of Sound Recording's Advent Calendar. It is a little scratchy.

First Night of Language Class - German 101

I showed up early for my first class (as one does) and then ended up wandering around for a while outside and then wandering around for a while inside. Eventually I wandered up stairs to the room, made polite introductions to the others standing outside and then someone came running up the stairs saying, in German, this class has been moved downstairs.

So, down we go and the teacher introduces himself and then asks us to introduce ourselves. And then the student in the front of the room starts to speak, in German, in complete sentences, all about herself. Where she is from, how long she has been in Germany, what she does. And then the next one does, too. And then the next, and then the next. And I am starting to sweat bullets and make some notes cryptic to even me.

And then I stammer out, "I am Elaine. I am American. I live USA. In USA, I am acupuncture. In Germanish, I am a housewife and mother. Two months here." And the teacher listens and tells a story about acupuncture and then says, "You (and Anthony) are not on my list, you should be back upstairs." Or something like that.... Thank goodness. I just started laughing.

And up we went. There the same thing was happening.... but much slower but still no one had any clue what the teacher was saying.

I am in a class of all men, except the lovely teacher, Lucia. Three men from Poland (Bogdan, Milosh (maybe this is his name - what is important is that he is the bright one and sits in the middle) and Jan), 2 men from China (Jacky and Jinn - I sat between them), and Anthony a British dancer who also made the mistake of going down to the more advanced room (but his German is much better than mine). I hope we have fun. The teacher only speaks in German - Das ist prima! Maybe. But when you know nothing - well sometimes it is hard to make something out of nothing.

And when I was asked to read aloud I had to say "Wohlfahrt. Sabine Wohlfahrt." Which is like saying Bond. James Bond. Only the last name sounds like "Wolf fart." Tee Hee.

More Garbage Tales

Almost every piece of "Welcome to Germany" literature include a part about how you must sort the garbage correctly or someone will come and scold you fiercely. And it is true, there are several closets in front of our apartment (that hold cans) and they are all labeled (in German) to tell you exactly were to put your waste. This is a good summary.

But what if you cannot read or understand (gelber Sack?), well you just take a look inside each can. And then you see a yellow bag (gelber Sack) with more German about what can or what cannot go in it. So then you examine the yellow bag very closely. (Turns out most packaging goes in - but not glass.) And then your new neighbors walk by - so you say "Hello." However, they do not respond. This makes sense, because also in every piece of "Welcome to Germany" literature it says that Germans may walk by people they know even very well without saying anything. (Although for a midwestern not saying hello is so rude - you have to keep repeating to yourself they don't hate me, they are just German.)

On the next occasion we ran into those neighbors I did not say anything. The woman said, "Hello, hello... Do you live below? We saw you and your son and the garbage."

"Oh..."

"Yes, we thought you were someone else. Someone in the garbage?"

Oh, you thought I was some delinquent digging through your garbage. Delightful, what a great first impression.

(Not that we don't dig through the garbage or that we have not seen lots of German dig through the garbage. We saw a bunch of old ladies picking through a pile of furniture on a corner and had to take a look - we found Ben's booster seat there and a German measuring tape. We just would not dig through our own garbage.)

Looking for Oscar

Oscar the Grouch could be in any trash can - including German trashcans, ashtrays and some backyards. They should all be checked. Above is Ben doing his daily inspection. "Oscar's in 'der."

"But he is sleeping" (just like when Ben wants to skype in the morning with folks in the US).