Spent fireworks and snow are still on the ground

January is almost over. Christmas and New Years was long ago. Time you all heard about a traditional German Christmas. Over here it is called Wiehnachten. First comes Heilige Abend (Holy night literally, but Christmas eve for you beyond the pond). I stayed with the Fischbach family for Heilige Abend. Andres and Manuel, both Peruvian brothers studying in Aachen, and Bernd, Verena and Andre, Uncle cousin and cousin’s boyfriend, all came over for the event. We had wild boar for dinner, and my goodness was it delicious. Tino, the son, had been on a meat fasting for the entire month of December, and he basically stuck to meat the whole night. I did not take any pictures, but there was so much food, that the 10 of us did not finish it all. After dinner we opened presents. Their tradition is to pick two numbers from a die – one to pick a present for somebody else and one to roll again. It lengthens the process of opening presents, but then everybody gets to see what everybody gave. It was definitely a fun time. We stayed up until 5 playing card games and just jabbering.
The first day of Christmas (25th of December) I went over to the Hahn’s for a meal. Herbert made some curry meat and of course there were some good old fashion German Christmas beers as well. The whole family came (listing out that many people would be ridiculous). I think the big revelation was that the Hahn’s turned their table sideways in their dining area, so people would not have to squeeze around corners to get to their seats. Afterwards we all sat around and caroled into the night. Ute and her mother played a Mozart duet which pretty much blew me away. I had no idea Mozart wrote duets for the piano, let us just say it was definitely Mozart quality. The caroling continued, as did my feeble attempts to play Silent Night and O Tannenbaum on the Blockflute (Recorder). To my defense, I think it was the Christmas beer, which made me forget the songs.
On the second day of Christmas there were no turtledoves. Back with the Fischbachs, we went out to a lunch at a very German restaurant. I had a very German meal, and it was delicious. Afterwards everybody came over for tea, coffee and miscellaneous Christmas baked goods.
It would be great to say that the gluttonous times of Christmas ended there. But they continued. After the first couple of days of Christmas, we were out visiting friends just about as much as they did us. One of the memorable nights was at Beate’s house, eating Raclette. Raclette is a lot like fondue: it is continuously heated, involves copious amounts of cheese, and comes from Switzerland. When it came time that our bellies were doing that ‘way to much cheese’ turning and bubbling, we decided to turn the machine off. Casper, in protest, decided to put another two trays onto the machine, stating that he was going to Belgium the next morning for a week where “they only have fries and mayonnaise.”
New Years was a success, in the sense that we successfully made it into 2009. Tino, the son, had a party at the house. My reluctance to travel or do anything involving a late train/bus/taxi ride home helped the decision to stay put. The night started off as usual in Germany: “Dinner for One.” “Dinner for One” is a short film done by some older British actors in the 1950’s. There is an old mistress and a Butler. She sits down alone at a table set for six; all of her older friends have died. The butler sets the table anyway, and is obliged to toast with the old mistress in place of every person. Apparently at a proper dinner with three courses, there are also three courses of drinks. The butler gets… drunk so to speak, and hilarity insures. Nobody knows where this German phenomenon comes from, but it airs every New Year on television, in English of course. Anyway, people came, a party was made, and fireworks were set ablaze. Germans love their fireworks. For 2 days before and a day after New Year, sometimes it sounds like a war zone (Max noticed this last time he was here with me). Unfortunately Germans are not exactly fire safe with most of what they do. Nature and the extreme cold help offset their fire safety stupidity. In one memorable moment, one of the party-goers decided to throw a firework (basically a huge bottle rocket). The poor party-goer nearly went up into flames.
It is almost February, and I start my practicum (internship) on the 2nd. Work starts at 9:00 AM, and I am super serious about being on time for that.