Translation: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Literal: Merry (Frohe is old fashioned and not used much in modern German, just like "merry" in English) Holy-Night and Good New Year
V and I ended up going to the Luebeck Christmas market on our own sans kids, which was very nice. The kids stayed home with their grandmother. One note for future reference, apparently everything is closed here on the day after Christmas as well (Dec. 26), so load up on groceries as soon as possible. We had a nice Christmas and T's birthday (a day early). He actually said "this is a good birthday". The next day we took Gigi to a hotel in Hamburg near the airport because her flight was leaving early the next morning. Then we went to the grocery store and loaded up on firecrackers! Here in Germany they have some HUGE ones, from sticks of essentially dynamite to rockets that explode in bursts of sparks, all legal. These would be hard to find in most places in the US. I took the kids and we fired some off over a lake. It has gotten colder and the lakes were partially frozen over, so it was fun to light a stick and throw it scooting across the ice where it would explode mid-way out. We made a hole in the ice and threw sticks into it. The explosions under the water were really pretty and gave a muffled THUMP. Then we lit more rockets and sent colored sparks flying everywhere. (Half of the fireworks I'm saving for the fourth of July.) New years eve at midnight things went crazy. It was like a battle was taking place in the town. Everyone lined up outside and lit off fireworks. The sound and lights were amazing. In the US we could never get away with this inside a town, the police would have arrested us. The battle raged on through the night as bands of teenagers roamed through the town setting off random explosions. The next morning the streets were covered in spent fireworks. BTW - 2009 is the last "double aught" year until 2100. I took off New Years day to travel for a few days to get a break away from everything and went to some museums and just returned yesterday (Sun the 4th) and am back at work now. V is flying to London tomorrow for her break and coming back Saturday. Her mother is also arriving from the states on Saturday to visit for a week.
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