Pictures: Part 3

A close up of our christmas tree (candles, spheres, and chocolate ring things)
The carp (the flash makes it look a lot paler than it actually was).
The heiligen Abend dinner table (host dad cutting fish, host grandpa on right)
My heiligen Abend plate (a sampling of everything)
Christmas: first day. Preparations for second big dinner (duck). On far left (redish): Rotkohl. The circle things are Klosters (kind of like potatoes), and in front is the gravy and my host grandmother

Pictures: Part 2

The first carp.
The insides (on newspaper: what not to eat, in bowl: what can be eaten later)

Holger replacing the candles (real).
Our christmas tree

Pictures: Part 1

On the last day of the Christmas market in Potsdam, I went around and took a couple pictures. Here is one of the sweets stands (with gingerbread hearts and candied nuts. yum.). The whole main shopping street is lined with these stands (sweets, wurst, shoes, toys, candles, perfume, etc etc etc).

Yet anonther stand at the Christmas market.
One of the ends of the Christmas market (in the background: Brandenburger Tor).
Some of the more old fashioned stands by the giant blue Christmas tree above.
The poor carp that wasn´t quite dead yet.

Weihnachten in Deutschland ("Christmas in Germany")

Christmas in Germany. Well, first off, Christmas in Germany is not only one day. It´s three. there is the heiligen Abend (the 24th), when people go to church to see the nativity play. They also open their gifts that evening. Then, the following 2 days, the 25th and 26th, are the first and second days of Christmas. That pretty much means time with family and big fancy dinners. The house was pretty full for Christmas. There was the whole family (host mom (Karin), host dad (Peter), host brothers (Harald, Holger, Oskar) along with Harald´s girlfriend (Lena) and Holger´s girlfriend (Sarah), host sister (Irene) and her boyfriend (Daniel), and my host grandparents. Not everybody was there the whole three days, but it was still a cozy fit. The whole atmosphere was wonderful. The nativity play was a little embarrassing (not for me, but for the young actors and actresses) because the kids who were acting weren´t really into the parts and one of them forgot his lines. All in all though, it was wonderful. Oh Christmas.
My host mom has had carp for heiligen Abend every year of her life, and my host dad has also had a long tradition of carp on the 24th (a strange coincidence). Therefore, I got to watch the preparation of carp (it´s not that difficult, just remove the insides, wash, and cook\bake). I missed out on watching the first carp, but the second one (that´s right, we had two huge carps because there were lots of mouths to feed) was most definitely interesting. When my host dad but his hand on it to cut it open, it squirmed and flailed its tail. That´s right, it moved. Normally, when a fish moves, it is not dead. That just proves that the fish was really fresh. We waited a little while for the fish to calm down\die, then he cut it open and removed it´s innards. Even after that, the fish moved once in a while because it still had active nerve endings (like automatic responses) even though it was not only dead, but also organ-less. An interesting experience.

Nikolaus Tag

Fröhliche Nikolaus Tag everybody! Every 5th of December, kids all over Germany (and the world, I assume) clean their shoes and put them my the front door for Saint Nikolaus. Saint Nikolaus then goes from house to house during the night, filling the shoes of good little children with lots of sweets and suprises. The parents and other people get presents too, but not as many. On the morning of the 6th, everyone wakes up to wonderful goodies in their shoes. We have plates with goodies in my host family because they are easier and a little cleaner, but with the same idea. The plates had all types of chocolates and cookies, and there was a special gingerbread-type cookie on each plate. My younger brother, Oskar, got a gingerbread cell phone because he like to play with them (I believe he wants one for his own, so he can download games and movies and so on). My other brother, Harald, got a gingerbread car because he is preparing for his driving test (the whole geting a drivers licence process is much longer and more expensive here). I got a gingerbread bike. The reason: for the past week or so, my bike has been causing minor issues (it has a flat tire, so I can´t use it). All that means is that I need a little for time to get from place to place. Time to smell the roses.
On a completley non-Saint Nikolaus Tag realated note, this weekend is the second inbound meeting (where all the other exchange stundents fron the district meet and have fun) is this weekend. Can´t wait.
Happy Nikolaus Tag!