January in Luxembourg Part I

Ollie's cake

So, after a pretty uneventful New Years, January is turning out to be a little crazy as I try to jam in as many things on my 'To-do-before-leaving-lux' list as possible.

I spent the first week of January working on a birthday cake for Ollie's second birthday. I made him a train cake, and it took me a bit of planning, three trips to two different supermarkets, several hours spent making three separate cakes, and then a whole afternoon to decorate them. The finished cake was pretty cool though, so now I'm trying to work out what I can make to top it for Pepi's fourth birthday next month.

Vianden

That Friday I headed out for a day trip with Josh, my American friend. He hasn't seen much of Luxembourg beyond the city, so we drove through the Bambesch forest behind my place, through Diekirch and Ettelbruck, up to Vianden on the German border. Our detour through the McDonalds' drivethru for coffee was entertaining, I don't think Josh's american english is easy for people here to understand, so I ended up leaning over ordering in German, and we received two very black, very sugarless coffees at the end.

Ceiling inside Vianden Castle

I had been to Vianden in September, but we didn't really stick around for long. It has the most beautiful and biggest castle in Luxembourg, home of the Counts of Vianden, whose descendents eventually ended up as part of the Dutch Royal Family. It dates back to the 11th century, got trashed over time, was inhabited by Victor Hugo in the 1870s, and was the last place in Luxembourg to be liberated from the Germans after WWII. The castle has been undergoing restoration ever since the 1970s. This time, Josh and I actually went inside the castle and had a look around. The guy selling tickets was funny, he complained that the total was smaller than they usually allow for a credit card sale, allowed it anyway, and then spent ages complaining about it. This seems to be on par for Luxembourgish customer service, they will normally help you, but they will make sure you know they're not happy about it! The castle is pretty cool, but it seemed like we were missing out on some vital information like a map, so we spent a lot of time wandering around trying to work out what things were. Information panels that were only in French and German provided me with a good chance to show off by translating them making shit up for Josh. You can go right down to the foundations of the castle which is kind of cool. We finished off the afternoon having a few beers in a pub out there.

Josh and I went out clubbing on Saturday night, so having a house full of guests and excited kids on Ollie's birthday the next day was interesting. The cake went down well, and Ollie was a real cutie all day - he's just grown tall enough to reach the door handles and has worked out to open them, but mine is a little bit too high, so that afternoon he pushed his little chair underneath it, climbed up and opened the door, and then came and sat on my bed just chilling out with me for quite awhile. We've just begun toilet training him, which has been very cute as well - he's so proud of himself!

Devnull at Rocas

This last weekend has been kind of crazy, Jacquie was away so I spent Saturday helping Rogier with the kids and made a last-minute decision to go skiing the following day, so I ran around like crazy for a couple of hours trying to organize everything for that, tidy the house up a bit and cook dinner for them before I headed off to Josh's to cook dinner for us there. Alex and Steve's band, Devnull, had their first gig that night at Rocas, so we went there. I'd sworn I would be home by midnight but the drinks were free and the night seemed young (and someone thought it would be funny to lock me in the backstage room) and I didn't end up home until 2.30am.

Driving down to La Bresse skifield in France

7am the next morning I was up early to go skiing with Josh. I was not feeling fantastic and Pepi coming downstairs to hang out with me while I was getting ready didn't help, he has just suddenly gotten into the 'but why?' phase and kept asking for an anatomy lesson while I was running around like a hungover headless chicken trying to sort myself out. Eventually I tumbled out of the door into Josh's car, and we were off to Le Brasse, the biggest skifield in North-East France (so still pretty small, bout the same size as Rauris was). It's about two and a half hours drive from Luxembourg, further South than Strasbourg, and Le Brasse is actually only 20km from Le Markstein where I went skiing one day last year.

Me rocking the aviators on the lift with Josh

Rogier had been kind enough to lend me all of his gear, his boots fit my freaky size 45 feet perfectly, although his skis are a little long and heavy for me, and I definitely looked resplendent in his too-big beige colored jacket, oversized mittens and some random aviator sunnies I found in the cupboard! Visibility was a major issue for me all day, so I might invest in some goggles this year, they seem to be the only thing I can never manage to borrow or hire. It took me a hour or so to get really comfortable again, but by the end of the day I think I'd improved marginally on where I was at last year, and the only fall I had was tripping over and whacking my head in the carpark! I really need another day or so this season if I really want to improve my skills, rather than just maintain them.

La Bresse, France

La Bresse is ok, much bigger than Markstein and I think about the same size as Rauris, but the snow isn't great this year and several of the runs were closed due to a lack of snow (not that that stopped us going down them!). I think learning at Rauris really shaped my skiing preferences, I prefer really long runs so that I don't have to get on and off the damn lifts all the time, and I prefer pistes that have sharp curves and drops in them like Rauris did, rather than straight and flat slopes that are only really good for speed like La Bresse has. I should be more sensible with my time and money, but I'm dying to go again this season, so I might see if I can head down that way again, although I'd be keen to check out a different skifield. The region is quite pretty though, its more hilly rather than alpine, and apart from a strong wind at the top the weather was perfect so the snow covered trees were really beautiful glistening in the sun.

Pepi "take a photo of the plane on my shirt!"

I've now only got about seven more weeks left in Luxembourg, and it's starting to scare me a little, as there is still quite a bit I would like to see and do before I leave. On the other hand though, I'm ready to get to Amsterdam, as I'm eager to discover somewhere new and have a change of scenery and lifestyle. Like I've said before, Luxembourg is a hard country to settle down in. Because there is such a large expat community of people who are always coming and going here, Luxembourgers tend to stick to themselves and the expats tend to keep their friendships pretty superficial. I was at an Internations event (for the expat business community) one night and when I told people I was moving to Amsterdam, everyone said it was a good move. Luxembourgers don't have the best reputation among many of the expats I've met here, one said to me that night 'Luxembourgers are like Dementors, they're all gloomy and depressing and if you get to close, they suck the life out of you'. I posted the quote on Facebook and got a pretty angry reply from a Luxembourger, which didn't really do much to prove that they have a sense of humor. On the other hand though, many expats here are so negative about the people and the country that they're hard to be around too! But anyway, seven more weeks...


More photos from this month are here.

Mulhouse - french food, german buildings, and bloody annoying children

Mulhouse

Mulhouse is a city of about 115 000 people in eastern France, close to the borders with Germany and Switzerland. Brett, a friend from NZ is living here while he works as a english teaching assistant in a local high school. Just incase you thought I'd finally found someone to visit who has no AFS association, think again! Brett went to Switzerland a few years ago and was host brother to Tim from Belgium and Corine from Switzerland, so I first met him through AFS too. Mulhouse is in the Alsace region, which has an interesting history. Being formerly a part of both Switzerland and Germany, the culture is a real mixture of the different countries.



Mulhouse

 I got to Mulhouse around lunchtime and armed with very vague instructions from Brett, set about catching a couple of trams to the house of his friend Julia so I could drop off my stuff. I think my ability to arrive in a new city in a different language and still be able to navigate their public transport system shows how far I've come from arriving in Germany in December and being totally lost and dependant on Hauke to look after me all of the time. Then I headed back into town to look for food and something to do. Unfortunately in France, almost everything is closed on Mondays until either pm, or all day (and all day Sunday), so the city was dead. I grabbed a kebab from a kiosk, I think that now I have eaten so many european kebabs that I am no longer so wowed by how amazing they are compared to those in NZ, and I found this one pretty bad.

Mulhouse town hall

I found my way to the tourist centre, located in the old town hall, a beautiful old building that has been decoratively painted like many buildings I saw in Germany. The Mulhouse museum is in the same building so I wandered around it, directed by a very forceful man who keep insisting I follow the arrows and walk around the exhibits in the right order, even though everything was in German and French and I didn't understand a thing anyway. Heaps of cool old stuff there, I quite liked these really old lock mechanisms they had, they were so huge and complicated. Then I just wandered around aimlessly for ages, there is a big church in the square, as in every other European city, but I felt like I was back in Germany again, as the buildings are more their style than French. Mulhouse has some famous museums, namely the biggest car and train museums in France, and some dedicated to weird things like wallpaper and household electrical items. There was only one museum that I thought wouldn't be torturous and it's closed on Mondays, so I just stuck to my wandering.

pre-bed beers

After Brett finished work and we lugged my stuff over to his studio in the university residence, we headed out for dinner with Julia and her french flatmate, Orea (probably not right spelling!) at a restuarant that serves Alsacian food. As I said, I've really been feeling the lack of vegetables in my diet, so I had a massive chicken salad, but I tried Bretts meal, some kind of Alsacian pizza-that-is-not-a-pizza and people get angry if you try to compare the two. The food and wine was good, dessert wasn't, but the waitress undercharged us so I won't complain! We got home quite late and had both gotten into bed and said goodnight at 12.30, commenting on how Brett had to be up at 6.30am to go to work, before he asked "Claire, do you want a beer?", so we just got up again and sat around in our pijamas drinking alsacian beer and eventually going to bed rather late.

European Parliament

I let myself sleep in the next morning, and then headed to Strasbourg, the main city of the region, but I kept missing the trams by just a few minutes. I would have been in time to catch the train in five minutes, but the stupid machines in the French stations to buy tickets don't accept cash or international credit cards, and so I had to wait in line for ages, so I got there quite a bit later than I had wanted. I went first to the European Quarter to check out the European Parliament building and some of the UN buildings, its pretty awesome to see buildings that I saw in pictures for four years of study! Then I headed back to the old quarter of town. Mulhouse isn't a very pretty town, but Strasbourg is really nice, the old quarter is huge and had the first free public toilet I've seen in Europe! Amazing! There is a section seperated from the rest by rivers, its like a little park where people were playing petanque and table tennis in the sun. I was very happy to find both a Bretzel to eat and a shop selling German Christmas-tree decorations, I'd wanted some since we decorated Hauke's tree in Harste. The church here is also huge, a big gothic one like in Cologne.



Strasbourg

 I got back to Brett's place after he had already returned from work, and we went out to try and find a supermarket that was still open, most in France close around 7 or 8. We didn't have much luck, we kept arriving at each just after it had closed, so eventually we decided to just buy takeaways, which turned into us going to an Indian resturant dressed like we'd just left the house to go to the supermarket and carrying nothing but our wallets and shopping bags. But the food was great, I am really missing curries here. We were both shattered and had to get up early the next morning for skiing so we ignored the impulse to spend another night sitting around drinking and just went to sleep.

Strasbourg - Petanque

Skiing was a last minute plan! Brett's school was heading up for the afternoon and it was his day off, so he'd offered to go and help out, so we then decided to go up in the morning too, with me returning at lunchtime to catch the train to Switzerland. We had to get up ridiculously early, and I got dressed in a bizarre asortment of clothes that didn't really resemble real skiing gear, but nevermind! The skifield, Markstein, is only 20 or 30 minutes drive away, but it was a really long journey for us! We took two trams to get to the train station, then a weird tram-train (like a couple of tram carriages running along the train tracks because there isn't enough passangers for a real train) out to the end of line line, a town called Kruth, where we got a bus up to the skifield.

skiing at Markstein

This skifield is really tiny, and it was one of the last days of the season so the snow wasn't great, but the easier slopes meant I could handle the black run here. I felt like something just clicked and suddenly I was skiing properly, so its annoying I now have to wait until the next winter, either in NZ or here, before going again. The other bad thing about the place was the number of kids, and they are all little so-and-sos who have learnt the french tradition of pushing in front of anyone you can in a line. So annoying because they are small and could just duck under the rail and then pop back up in front of me in the lines for the lifts, and I can't speak french so can't tell them off about it. I was amazed that even their teachers didn't seem to care that their kids were pushing in and throwing snow around, they all needed Peggy Burrows to give them a lesson or two about representing your school's image! Alternatively, I kept thinking that a few whacks from my ski-pole might teach a few lessons about manners too, but no.

Skiing

Finally around lunchtime I headed back via all of the trams, went back to Julia's house to pick up my stuff and then headed back to the station again to take a train over the border. The train from Mulhouse to Basel only takes about 20 minutes, and when I was on it I got passport-controlled for the first time by two customs officials who opened my passport and then asked me if I needed a visa to go to France, or Switzerland. I resisted the urge to reply with a sarcastic "shouldn't you be telling me that", although I reckon if these are the guys charged with protecting France's borders I no longer have much sympathy for France's illegal immigrant problems!

Photo album on facebook is here.

New Years, a history lesson, and the end of a week in Austria

Written on Tuesday 4th but not posted until now, sorry!

View from the top of the skifield, 2210m

So after my last post I headed up the mountain to meet up with everyone else, but twisted my ankle on my first run. It was a pretty bad day all around, it was foggy and snowing so visibility was really bad, everyone was tired and sick, and Georg injured himself on the same run down with me. Not fun, but after dinner we went to see a ski jumping show put on by the locals, that was really cool.

Traditional costumes used in Christmas celebrations

The next day I took it pretty easy, Hauke and I went up early and the slopes were pretty empty as everyone had been out partying after the show the night before, so we had some beautiful runs down in the fresh snow. After lunch I headed back to Rauris and went with Georg to see the National Park information centre, the local catholic church and the museum. The church is amazing, its about 15m tall but quite narrow, and all beautifully painted and gilded on the inside, I can't believe how much effort has gone into a church in such a tiny town! The graveyards are amazing too, on the grounds of the church. A lot of them have beautiful wrought iron headstones, and they all have Christmas decorations and miniture trees on them. The museum was quite cool as well, Rauris actually reminds me quite a bit of like Wanaka and Arrowtown in NZ, some of the buildings in Wanaka are obviously styled off traditional alpine houses here, and they are both have old mining industries.

war weapons

Mining began in Rauris before 700AD, with settlers coming from the south across the Alps. Rauris was very prosperous between 1460 and 1560, being the centre of gold production in Salzburg province. It has some interesting history, like in the museum we saw old weapons like a spiked ball, with these kinds of weapons being used by the locals in the first Peasant's War in 1525. Two hundred protestants were banished from the town in 1732, and the current appearance of the paish church goes back to 1780 when they rebuild it. Skiing here dates back 120 years, and now Rauris has the only zero-energy balance skifield in Austria, as they produce all their own power. They take their environmental status very seriously and offer things like free buses to and from the skifield (although things like smoking and throwing the butts into the snow is really common!). Rauris also has the oldest mountain weather station in Europe, the Sonnblick observatory, at 125 years old. It is the highest year-round observatory in the Alps. It takes about 5 hours to walk up there and is quite big, and when they built it they had to carry everything they needed up on their backs. The farming history also interested me, farmers here keep their animals inside barns all winter as it is so cold, and then in summer they let them out to range the mountains, traditionally putting bells around their necks to keep track of them. The mountain grass is better quality and produces good diary products. In summer they made hay and stored it high up in the mountains, and then the farmers walked back up and rolled the bails down when they needed them in winter time!

Georg infront of a weather-station replica

Now Rauris has a population of 3200, tourism and skiing are obviously huge in winter as both our hotel and the one Hauke's family are staying in are fully booked. Our hotel is actually pretty interesting too, the building was built in 1389 by the barons Von Grimming, and then brought by another family in 1780 who still own and run it today. There are really old traditional clocks, cupboards and paintings everywhere, I had to laugh when Hauke pointed at a cupboard and said "look bro, that's probably older than your country".

Food, one of the two pillars of this holiday!

That night Georg organised for us to go to dinner in a horse-drawn sled, it was absolutely amazing to go through all of the snow under the stars. They moved surprizingly fast, I would guess it took make 20-30 minutes to go about 10km. To top off a perfect day we all had a drink afterwards. Arne told me that the pillars of this annual holiday are skiing and eating, but we seem to drink quite a bit too, I am finally starting to get used to this schnapps business!



My final day on the slopes was amazing, Hauke and I headed right up to top and other side of the mountain. To get there we took gondalas, and at 2210m we could see right around the Austrian Alps. Turns out this is where the easier slopes are, so after four days of being on the red slopes I felt like I was flying down all of the others! Hauke took some video on his Iphone, its a bit shaky but we made a quick movie out of it, so you can see me skiing here:

Claire learning to ski in Austria

Schnapps

New Years was pretty straightforward, everyone went out for dinner and then sat around the hotel playing games and drinking quietly until midnight, although I didn't understand the rules of the game at all so I lost every round and had to drink each time - maybe quietly doesn't descibe my own drinking so much as eveyone elses! At midnight a whole lot of fireworks went off, I think both done by the council in the market square and also from people's homes, it was quite cool as they echoed off all of the mountains. Hauke and I then went out and partied with in the local bars - I didn't join everyone else for skiing the next day but caught up on some sleep and errands!

Hauke on a foggy day

Our final dinner was at an amazing resturant with a four-course meal, I was very impressed and took the chance to say thank you to everyone for welcoming me along on their holiday and making me feel so included in everything. We were up early for the 8hour train ride the next day, although this time we didn't have to change trains and got our seats so it was pretty straightforward. After we got in we were joined by a pair of kiwis, and then a pair of Aussies, although we didn't talk to either, it just felt kind of funny. The Aussies reminded me of why I don't like most Australians, they were very rude and arrogant! Hauke spend another couple of hours teaching me German, and it actually all seemed to fall into place, and after a week of only knowing a couple of sentances and words, I got off the train and surprized Hauke's parents (who were in another carriage from Hauke and I) by making up whole sentances about things! I am a bit disappointed that I don't have longer to learn the language, I really want to come back later on and work here too now!

Me on the chairlift, Rauris in background

The last couple of days since we got back have been pretty quiet, we've just lazed around Göttingen doing nothing much. I went to see Hauke's friends play indoor football, quite a weird feeling to be the foreigner taken along to indoor football rather than the one taking foreigners along, and we watched movies, drank and made a 2am trip to MacDonalds with other mates. Today we made a pretty succesful pavlova for dinner, and I gave Karin and Georg a big canvas of a picture of Wellington as a thank you gift. Tomorrow Hauke and I are off to Berlin for three nights before we go to his university city, Mainz, I am really excited!

Learning to ski in Austria

Sitting in the aisle of the packed train

The journey to Austria itself was pretty evenful. Firstly, the taxi arrived early so everyone went into a panic rushing around to get ready to go, but then we couldn't fit everything in it and we had to work out a way of taking the car as well and leaving it somewhere. Then the train was late, and arrived with only half of the carriages, we don't know why, so we had no seats and ended up squashed in on the floor in the aisles. After a few more stops the train was packed and it was very obvious that we couldn't fit more people in, so we sat on the tracks for ages until enough people were persuaded to get off and take a second train. Hauke renamed the German rail system 'Fail Rail', as it was clear the conductors just couldn't cope with the situation, their announcements were quite entertaining. We were standing and sitting on the floor for most of the way to Munich.The delays meant we had to really rush to get on our next train into Salzburg, Austria.  

Train station at Göttingen

The landscape changed quite a bit in lower Germany and Austria, there are more mountains and snow, and the houses are made with more wood but with no framework, with the bottom story or two made of I think plaster and the top story or two and the roof made of wood. We somehow made it onto the next train within about ten minutes, which is quite impressive when you are carrying all of your bags and skiis and have to go underground to reach different platforms. It has become quite apparent that Germans are not as relaxed as New Zealanders, Hauke (who has spent a year in NZ) and I have been very chilled out about all of the problems and rushing around and just accepted that there will be delays and we will cope with things as they happen, whereas everyone else has gotten quite stressed out and angry about it all. Hauke gave me German lessons on the train, much to the delight of all the Germans sitting around us, especially because the sentances he considers most important include ordering drinks and explaining that I am drunk or have a hangover! Finally, we took a bus-sized taxi for about an hour to Rauris, through all of these mountains and valleys with a river running through, it was absolutely amazing but the light was too bad for photos.

Church in Rauris

The ski-hire man giving us scnapps

Rauris is a small village that seems to exist only for skiing in the winter! It's nestled in a dead-end valley in the Austrian Alps, perched in amongst these amazing mountains. The church in the village amazes me, it is really tall and thin, and sticks out above everything else. Sara and I hired a couple of bits of gear from the ski shop in town, the guys there were really cool and gave us all shots of homemade Austrian scnapps. As well as Hauke's parents (Karin and Georg) and his brother Arne and Arne's girlfriend Sara, there is another family with two boys, aged 11 and 15, staying with us. The youngest boy is learning english at school and is really cute,  and his father really cracks me up because he is always saying things to me in english, usually in the context of a german conversation that I wasn't following, that make absolutely no sense! I have perfected the "No idea what you're saying so I'll just smile and nod" again.

Carpacio, raw beef

After everyone saying what an epic failure I was going to be at skiing, Hauke and his family didn't have high expectations of me but after some lessons from Hauke and Georg I managed a red slope before lunch on my first day. By about 2pm I was in absolute agony and really tired so I headed back to the hotel early to nap. My sleeping patterns seem really weird since I arrived in Europe, no matter what time we go to bed I always wake up a hour or so before we planned on getting up, but I never feel like I've had enough sleep. We went to another village for dinner that night, in a fine dining but really old resturant where I tried Hauke's raw beef fillet (carpacio) and calf's liver. Karin said I am pretty brave, not being scared of skiing, trying different types of food, and also doing things by myself like catching the bus back to the hotel, which again might be a reflection of the kiwi can-do and eager to try new things attitude. Hauke and I went for a drink after dinner that turned into several drinks and meant I was even more tired skiing on day two!

Me in the bar in Rauris

Day two was more or less pretty similar, we stuck to the same slopes and I just focused on improving my technique. I had morning tea with Georg, the way he speaks with his limited english is really cute, he speaks really slowly and thoughtfully, wanting to get each word perfect before he says it. For dinner we headed into the hills to a resturant they have visited every year for over 20 years, run by a hunter turned fisherman who cooks amazing almond-baked trout. It rounded off my first week here in Europe, but unfortunately my mood wasn't fantastic, I was just too tired to be upbeat and therefore sick of not understanding what people were talking about, not being able to read a menu and pick my own food and of constantly making an effort to smile and follow the conversation even though I can barely make out what is being talked about, instead of just staring at the wall the whole time. Georg and Karin picked up on my mood and kept asking me if I was ok, they are really lovely, but that just made me feel guilty! I am really grateful to Hauke because he is looking after me all of the time and doing things like ordering food that he guesses I am going to like and translating a lot, and then the 11 year old boy perked me up a lot asking me "would you like to play with me Uno" (taking boardgames to resturants is quite common), so I finished the evening on a much better note, and this night Hauke and I took the 15year old, Constantine, for a couple of beers in the same bar - the first time I ordered drinks and was actually understood! The legal age for drinking and smoking is 16 here in Austria, and they are pretty relaxed about things.

Main street in Rauris

It is now the morning of our third day here, and it is snowing! I am really tired, so I had breakfast in bed and am now just sitting here watching the snow fall over the Alps, everyone else has already headed up to the skifield but I will go up around lunchtime. They've set up a big ramp thing for a ski jumping competition tonight, so we will go and check that out later. If it stops snowing I will take my camera up the mountain today, so I should hopefully have some photos of the view and us skiing next post!

A Winter-white German Christmas

Merry Christmas! or Frohe Weihnachten!

Hardegsen

I felt much better after a good sleep, and so on my second day here we set off to visit some local villages and castles. Unfortunately the weather didn't want to play ball, and many roads and buildings we closed due to the snow and ice, but we visited a little village called Hardegsen that had a wee castle and a lot of amazing buildings. It is really crazy to see houses that are older than New Zealand, and the narrow streets and old slanting and warped framework really amaze me. They are all two or three stories tall, so quite different to most of NZ where houses are mostly one story but sprawled over a bigger area (excluding Wellington!). Hardegsen has a thing about donkeys, so all around the town are these lifesize donkey statues, all painted differently. I made a bit of a dick out of myself trying to climb onto one when it was covered in ice, lucky for me Hauke was on hand with the camera to capture all of that! During the night it had rained but frozen as soon as it landed, so everything was covered in a layer of ice. Things like plants and flowers look amazing encased in ice, my camera is really getting a workout!

Christmas market

In the evening we put up the Christmas tree (it has candles on it instead of fairy lights!) and headed back to the Christmas market to catch up with all of Hauke's old school friends, the place was packed with people all bundled up and drinking mulled wine. It was great to see Anki, a friend of Hauke's that I got to know when she visited New Zealand! A group of us then went for dinner at a modern Italian resturant, and then headed to a club. The Savoy is inside an old prison, with three different bars on different floors. It was quite cool to hear Belgian, French and German songs that I've known for a long time like Alors en Danse in a club. Hauke's friends were all really friendly and welcoming, I really appreciated the effort they put into making me feel comfortable, like finding me an english version of the menu and even those that only had a little english would come over and chat if they noticed I was standing alone.

Opening christmas presents

Christmas Eve is the main celebration here in Germany, so after we woke up, admittedly quite late, we went to collect Hauke's grandparents from another town. They are really delightful, they remind me quite a lot of my own grandparents and were so cute trying to communicate with me! She had baked four different cakes and made a desert, so we spend the afternoon eating cake with coffee; I was full a long time before dinner began! In the early evening we walked to the tiny local church for an informal service where the children re-enact the Christmas story. Hauke and his brother Arne went to great pains whispering to me what was going on, giving me the giggles at their stating the obvious "well they just went to the stable because the inn was full". My attempts at singing German Christmas carols got a few laughs in return!

driving on christmas eve

After church we tucked into dinner: barley and egg soup, followed by wild pork, potatoes (mashed potatoes rolled into balls and cooked again), red cabbage and salad, with berry pudding and a bottle of kiwi wine. Gifts were opened after dinner, and I was really touched to be handed a sack of presents to open first. Hauke's grandparents gave me a handcrafted traditional mug, specially made for me with my name on it - I am so appreciative that they took the time to organise this before I came, and among other things Hauke and his parents are giving me a trip to Austria for skiing. They had me in tears, I feel truly blessed at how welcomed and cared for I am. Hauke's dad Georg is always explaining things and asking how I am, and his mother Karin has an amazing sense of humour, she is always laughing and is always trying to make me feel comfortable in subtle ways. We skyped with my own parents and grandparents, everyone here in Germany thought dad sitting at the piano in his pijamas playing Te Haranui for them was hilarious!


The return drive to drop off Hauke's grandparents was amazing, it was snowing again and it was almost impossible to tell where the road ended and the fields began as there are not roadside fences here like in NZ. I am really impressed with Hauke's driving skills, as the conditions are absolutely terrible. Overall, it was a really lovely Christmas, the snow and -7degree temperatures really give it a different feel to Christmas in NZ!

Hann Münden

Today has been quite relaxed, we went to see Hauke's uncle and their family where I made a complete idiot of myself falling down their internal stairs! 'Fail' has become a big word between us, and as I fail at both walking around outside in the snow and walking around inside Ive been told by Hauke that I fail completely at remaining upright in Germany. Skiing is definitely going to be interesting. We detoured past a castle in Adelebsen, its amazing to see them exactly as you imagine, perched up on the hill with high walls, towers and spiral stairs. We also visited Hann Münden, a really old city with amazing buildings that are hundreds of years old but five or six stories tall. We had coffee in one and I walked up to the fourth floor. Coming from New Zealand, the warped and buckling floors and stairs are quite scary when you think about what would happen in an earthquake! Our attempt to find another castle using the GPS system was quite funny, we ended up firstly in a carpark and secondly in a dead end road where we struggled to turn around! We headed home on the autobahn again, it was still quite dangerous going really fast but even 180km/hr amazes me!

preparing for skiing

Tomorrow we are going to Austria! I have been kitted out with snow clothes, skis and woollen socks handknitted by Hauke's grandmother, although I feel like I've eaten so much since I got here that I will be rolling down the hill rather than skiing down them! Hauke told my family on skype that he was taking me skiing, and I think their laughter in response showed him that I really wasn't kidding when I said it would be quite entertaining! We just had a big meeting about it around the table to go over all of the planning, I love the way they include me even though I don't understand a thing, still have no idea what's happening, and am just going to go with the flow. I do know that we get up early and take a train to Munich, and from there to Rauris in Austria, but after that, no clue! It will be interesting!