Almost Weihnachten

For those of you who are not Germanically literate, Weihnachten is Christmas. In Germany, Christmastime means lots and lots of Christmas markets. Most of them are filled with kitsch. There is one in Alexanderplatz in Berlin that seems a lot more like a carnival than a Christmas market. The only hint was the overabundance of Gluhwein, or hot mulled wine.

It was an interesting time to spending Thanksgiving away from the US. One of the teachers (not an English teacher) didn't even believe me when I said that we had a holiday in America last week. Germans also seem to have a little trouble grasping the concept of pumpkin pie. Luckily, the group of Fulbrighters in and around Berlin all gathered for a Thanksgiving potluck at someone's apartment. I contributed mashed potatoes and we had a wealth of food that included turkey, potatoes, spinach, cranberry sauce, stuffing, German christmas cookies, apple pie, mixed veggies, bread, and wine. Everything pretty authentic except for the lack of pumpkin pie and the addition of German cookies. It was nice to have everyone together, and we had a lot of fun, but you could kind of tell that everyone was having a bit of a hard time being away from home on a holiday that is all about family and togetherness.

So I thought that 1 Thanksgiving wasn't enough and headed south to Wurzburg, Germany to visit some family friends, the Meissners, for Thanksgiving. They lived in Bowling Green for a year and were excited to celebrate again. I spent the weekend with them where we had a good meal, explored their Christmas market, played games, and ate 12 different kinds of Christmas cookies. I guess that's what happens when you have a retired German grandmother with a baking habit at Christmas.

In Brandenburg, things continue in a somewhat drab, cold, windy, dark, and melancholy fashion. Yes, that's what I always describe it as, and that's cause it hasn't changed. Nothing has changed here except for the fact that it is getting a lot colder and staying dark even longer. Yesterday I got through the entire first lesson of school before sunrise! Currently sunrise is a little after 8 am and sunset is somewhere around 3:45 to 4 pm. The students still don't care. The teachers still don't know what to do with me. There are still communication errors on a regular basis--and that's with teachers that I regularly converse in English with. The ones that I only speak German to, I just go on the basic assumption that there will be communication errors.

I am now going to try to hit up as many Christmas markets as possible and continue to count down days until I return home for Christmas. It will be a hard break though, cause I know I won't want to come back after the 2 weeks there. And spring is a much longer time before returning home. On that positive note, I think it's time to end this before it spirals downward any more.