We're walking in a winter Wunderland!
The festive cheer is now engulfing the Vaterland, and I must say it is such a nice atmosphere. I don’t know what it was exactly, but something seems to have twigged in my head, and I’ve realised that whenever I’m having a self-pitying, ‘the-holidays-are-still-so-far-away’ moment, the trick is to keep busy. I’m glad that I haven’t sat around, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for the holidays to arrive, as, actually keeping busy is both a great way to have fun and see new things. And before I knew it, there were only a couple of weeks left till my return to the Heimatland.
On Sunday morning, I awoke to find Bensheim an inch deep in
snow. Not the rain that was disguising itself as snow, as we had in October.
This was proper, full-on, ‘weather outside is frightful’ type of snow. Twas
very exciting. I may be in my twenties now, but that does not mean I still
don’t have the reaction similar to that of a four year old when I look out of
my window to find that the snow really is falling all around me. I always think
that snow is at its prettiest during the night, as there are very few people or
cars around to mess it up and spoil how perfect it looks. The Germans, however,
don’t waste time enjoying the prettiness of the snow. Ever the efficient,
logical people that they are, (and I love them for it,) the minute the world
wakes up, they’re out on the street with their shovels and brooms, making sure
that the weather doesn’t stop them going about their daily business. It made me
chuckle to myself, as at the first sign of snow in the UK, everything comes to
a grinding halt – cars are abandoned, train lines stop running, and God forbid
the schools should stay open, where you run the risk of a child falling over
and getting injured! Not here. Everything carried on pretty much as per, but it
was an excuse for me to crack out my new wellies to walk to school on Monday.
Did someone say 'Schneeeeeee?'
Continuing with the Christmas spirit that has dominated my
blogs for the last few weeks – I do apologise, I’m a big fan of Christmas – 6th December in Germany is ‘Nikolaustag.’ I’d come across
it when we studied German traditions at school, but it didn’t really occur to
me that it was going on until I got to school on Thursday morning to find a
chocolate Santa in my pigeon hole. The lovely Simone had sent it to me, which
put a big smile on my face. I also got a hot chocolate on a spoon from another
mysterious ‘Nikolaus,’ but I have yet to discover who it was.
On a sadder note, I found out this week that both the
Emily’s are going home. It’s a shame that their year has been cut so short,
especially as their German was really beginning to come along. But that’s life, I guess. Full of the
unexpected. Although having said that, even though I’ve only known them a few
short months, I can already tell that they are the kind of girls that will make
a success out of anything they put their minds to, so I wish them the very best
of luck.
On Saturday, I met up with a couple of language assistants
in Nuremberg, to visit the Christmas market there.
Although I walked around for most of the day not being able to feel either my
toes or the end of my nose (the BBC reported a temperature of -4 degrees!), we
had a really lovely day, as it’s always nice to meet up and see how everyone’s
getting on. I think I’ve mentioned this already, but the Christkindlesmarkt in
Nuremberg is one of the biggest and most famous Christmas markets in Germany,
so I’m glad we got to visit it while we are over here. It certainly didn’t
disappoint! Hannah mentioned this, and I definitely agree - the thing that's so lovely about the way the Germans do
Christmas is that it’s so much more traditional than in the UK. Crimbo at home
is lovely too, don’t get me wrong, but I think it’s become much more modernised
in recent years, whereas the Germans choose to embrace the holiday season in
all its traditional, tasteful glory, which makes it feel even more
festive and cosy. We wandered round the market for most of the afternoon, as in
amongst the crowds it felt a little warmer, stopping every couple of minutes to
admire all the little gifts the stalls have on offer -you really can buy
anything and everything to do with Christmas from these places - and stopped to
have a mug of Glühwein, (or Kinderpunsch for the less hardy among us, namely
me) to help warm us up a little bit.
So the woman's head kinda ruins the picture, but at least you get an idea of what a Christmas market sells
Glühwein and giggles :)
To hell with 'Pfand' - I'm keeping this mug!! It's proving useful already.
The last couple of weeks have been so much fun. I am soooo
ready for a few relaxing weeks at home, but life in Germany, apart from the
occasional blip, is proving to be everything I hoped for, and more.
So that’s all there is to report, really. It appears that Christmas
in Germany really is all around.
Emily
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