So here I’ll make up for it with a summary of what has been going on
in Germany for the last couple months.
I’ll start first with October. Nothing too exciting happened
in October. Halloween isn’t a big holiday here, but we did have a break.
Unfortunately, we hadn’t been paid yet so I wasn’t able to travel during it,
although I did get to see some of the sights around Nürnberg. One of the
student teachers at my school, myself and one other person in the program went
to visit the castle and the old medieval prison. We coincidentally did this on Halloween day.
I’m getting ahead of myself though. For the week or so before the break, I was
able to teach about Halloween to a bunch of my classes, mainly in the 5th-8th
class. It’s surprising to note how many of the students have never worn a
costume before. In some classes it took a minute for the kids to even say what
they would want to be if they did/could dress up. Once they finally warmed up
to the idea of dressing up as whoever/whatever they wanted, they had a blast.
Everything from Spiderman to a turnip was mentioned as possible costumes. When
you think about how Halloween started, it’s weird that it never picked up in
Europe. I think it has something to do with Europeans, specifically Germans,
being a lot more practical than people in the U.S. Little kids never believe in
the Boogeyman, there believe in Santa for a shorter time or never believe at
all. It’s a different world for children here. They grow up with stories like "Struwwelpeter" where bad things happen to kids who misbehave.
Now in November, we have Thanksgiving, the coup-de-grace of
the month. Thanksgiving in Germany is non-existent unless you are and ex-pat
who celebrates it with people here. There are no days off of school; life
carries on as usual. Well, being the American that I am, I of course wanted to
eat a lot of turkey and mashed potatoes like everyone was doing back home.
Luckily, I have the amazing people at Studienforum Berlin, the program that I
studied through, that put on a Thanksgiving dinner each year for the people
that are studying in Berlin during the semester and people like me that are in
Germany at the time. So I took of a couple days of school and headed up to
Berlin but before I left, I made my students make hand turkeys and look at
pictures of the parade and delicious foods. I stayed with a fellow Fulbrighter
and got to visit with some old friends and professors and meet some new people.
Thanksgiving dinner was an affair with about 36 people all in one apartment.
There was pumpkin soup, turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce,
mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallows, and so much more along with plenty of
wine to go around. There were also the student-made desserts to eat if you had
room after the feast. The dinner started
at 7 and we all left around 12; a night full of fun. Now this visit to Berlin
would have not been complete without visiting my host family. We've stayed in
contact for 3 years and they have even visited me in the States. I was able to
meet up at their apartment for breakfast the day I was heading back to Nürnberg.
It was so wonderful to be able to see my German family after 2 years. We ate
bread with a variety of cheeses, meats and jams; a traditional German
breakfast. I also tried my host mom’s green smoothie, a combination of
vegetables, fruits, water and cinnamon. It looks weird and I was thrown at the
green-ness at first but once you got passed that, it was actually quite good.
Alas, the time came for me to head to the Hauptbahnhof* and depart back to Bayern. The rest of the month passed
without much ado.
December started out with a Thanksgiving dinner with the
English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) in Franken, the region of Bayern where Nürnberg
lays. I had the chance to make soup for the very first time. I made a vegetable
minestrone and it seemed to go over well. There were the 2 people that ran the
dinner, who were former Fulbrighters to the U.S, and us assistants, bringing
our number to 6. It was a small but enjoyable dinner. Another exciting thing
that happens during December is Weihnachtsmarkts*or Christkindelmarkts*. The markets exist all over Germany, in cities big and small, for the
month of December and sometimes into the beginning of January. Now each Weihnachtsmarkt has its own mug or couple
of mugs. Everytime you order a drink, the most common is glühwein*, you get a mug that is specific to the
market or sometimes the stand. When you order a drink that comes in one of
these mugs you have to pay a pfand*. This may bring the price anywhere from about 4€ to 6€. For this price
you get the mug and the drink, so many people, mainly tourists, will collect
the mug after finishing the drink instead of returning the mug and getting the pfand back. I am definitely one of those
people. The first time I was in Germany, I collected 2 mugs. This time, I think
the count stands at maybe 7. Besides the awesome mugs, Weihnachtsmarkts are unique on their own. To my knowledge, nothing
in the states can compare to it, although Niagara Falls is trying. Some markets
are commercial and you see things that are factory produced, but in some
markets, usually in smaller cities, you can see a variety of hand-made goods. I
bought a wood Igel* carved
from wood from the Black forest. There are a lot of hand-crafted wood products
at the markets. All markets have a similar element but each market is also
different based on the city you are in. This season, I went to markets in Nürnberg,
Erlangen, Bamberg, Rothenberg o.d Tauber, Chemnitz and Potsdam. If there was
ever a time you were thinking about coming to Germany, Christmas is a pretty
good option. It’s definitely busy with tourists, but it can be really exciting
to go to all of the Weihnachtmarkts.
This leads up to Christmas break. I’m going to make it a
separate post to showcase the awesome time I had for break. Thank you all for
sticking with me throughout.
Danke und bis bald!
Vocabulary
Hauptbahnhof: Main train station
Weihnachtsmarkt/Christkindelmarkts: Christmas markets
glühwein: mulled wine
pfand: deposit on a bottle
Igel: hedgehog
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