Holiday Update

We had a white Christmas this year! There was still some snow left over on the ground from the previous storms and Christmas night it started snowing again. Since then the snow has mostly melted with some flurries occasionally and frosts in the mornings.

V's mother and sister flew in Christmas day and are visiting now. After Christmas we had T's birthday, then we went to the Luebeck Christmas Market on Tuesday. Ran some other odds and ends and today I just got back from firing off a few early fireworks with T and V's sister.

Tomorrow the plan is that V and I catch a morning flight to Palma, Spain!

More Snow

From Thursday morning it has snowed intermittently up until this morning (Monday). This also happens to be the shortest day of the year (sunrise at 8:38 am, sunset at 3:56pm Central European Time, so after this point the days will start getting longer again!!! (tomorrow is one second longer according to Weather Underground)). With the overcast sky and low sun angle it only feels like a few minutes of daylight. It has been in the negative single digits (Celsius) for the last few days, but the next few days are supposed to get above freezing. The weather has caused quite a few problems across Europe (BBC news link and here).



Yesterday, T and I walked into town. It was very windy, blowing off of the lake. The water seemed to be warmer than the air so a think fog was forming over the lake and blowing off as ice dust. My beard has been getting frost and icicles frozen onto it when I go outside. Again, it feels more like upstate New York this year.

GEZ

Another living-in-Germany task is done ... I think. This is another one of those things that is very strange for Americans. Here there is a fee that has to be paid, about 18 euros a month, for having a TV and/or a radio ... ??? Also, since 2007 you have to pay the fee if you have a computer with internet access that could be used to watch video or listen to internet radio. I know I am being a foreigner, but taxing means of communication doesn't seem right to me. We have also heard stories that they can be very aggressive about the GEZ tax, going door to door and demanding to see your TV ... I've heard that Britain also has something like this, a TV police, so maybe it is a pan-European thing. Anyway, for a year we didn't have a TV or a radio or even a home internet connection so we didn't pay the tax and that was fine with me. I really dislike having too much TV around kids. It is addictive for both the kids (mindless, effortless entertainment) and parents (free child care) and in general very unhealthy. However, back when we were having so much trouble with the kids at school, several people suggested that TV would be a way to expose the kids to German language in a passive way and that it might help them learn to speak to other kids faster. I fell for it and we got a TV (as a gift to us actually). We also have a car now and it is obvious to any radio police that happen to walk by that there is a radio in it. So, I knew that we were supposed to register with the GEZ and pay the TV/radio fee, but how do we actually do that? V mentioned a website (gez.de) so I went over it and with the help of a colleague we are now registered (I think) and will get a quarterly bill in the mail so that we are as completely legal as possible.

Snow

It has been snowing here since Thursday morning. The snow is starting to pile up. It is not deep (by upstate NY standards) but people here are talking about it and that it is the most snow the area has had in many years.

School Christmas Market

This year we came for (and were invited to) the school's Christmas market. M really planned ahead for this one. She reserved a booth, planned to make "snicker doodle" cookies (which Germans seem to not be aware of but love them once they try them) and asked V to buy the ingredients for them. The night before they cooked tray after tray and M organized them into little bags tied with ribbon to sell for one euro each. She made an entry into her notebook for each bag and marked off how many she needed to sell to pay V back for the ingredients (5 euros total, so 5 bags), beyond that was profit and she had 26 bags total. She didn't stop there! She kept the broken cookies and put them in an open bag as free samples so people could taste the cookies and get hooked. She also had a basket of little slips of card paper that had the ingredients written on them that she would give to each person (in case they might have allergies to the ingredients) and she had her tool box to organize the money in. She practiced making change for different amounts the night before. She also had a sign that said they were one euro, so people knew what they were getting into. To top it off she had a small wreath decoration with a candle to make it more Christmas like and a bakers hat to wear.


Picture from before she put on the hat.

T on the other hand had a platform where he set up an MP3 player with speakers to play music to dance to and hope people would donate money. That didn't go so well, so he packed up and went over to M's booth and subcontracted. M is very quiet at school so T held up bags to extol to passersby. Together they sold all 26 bags which left her with 21 euros of profit! She also, I learned, already has plans for reinvestment. She wants to use the profit to buy seeds to plant for a garden next spring and already has her plot reserved at the school. Then she can sell the produce. I am amazed.

Also, snow started falling in the morning and it snowed all day in Selent. It looked nice in an "Hansel and Gretel" kind-of-way on the timber frame thatch roofed houses in town. T and I walked around town a bit and snapped some photos.

Amber and Gingerbread

On Sunday morning, T and I drove up to the Baltic coast and walked up and down the beach. It was cold and windy, but it was good to get out for a bit and walk next to the ocean. We looked for amber just for fun; we didn't really expect to find any. There was a guy on top of some cliffs that had a sail-wing out and every now and then he would take off into the air and glide around. It looked like fun, but he must have been freezing up in the wind. Around 2pm we got back in the car to warm up and headed back.

Sunday night M and I started putting together a gingerbread house. We connected the sides with melted sugar (which I wouldn't let M do because I was worried she might get burned, sure enough I got burns on two of my fingers). Now we have the bread frame together and she can decorate it with frosting and candy.

M&M visit from the states

Saint Nicholas Day

Today, Dec. 6th, is a holiday in central to eastern Europe, St. Nicholas Day. I was clueless but V remembered. Kids put a boot outside the door to be filled with candy. We leave our shoes out on the stairs leading to our apartment anyway, so we put some candy and two small gifts out there for the kids to find this morning. They were suprised, "whaaat ... wow," because they didn't expect it at all, not realizing that it was a holiday here in Germany.

The Real Thanksgiving

December is here!

November is a cold, wet dark month here in N. Germany, always overcast and raining. I feel like, and it is essentially true that, I haven't seen the sun for weeks. Even Germans tell me it is the most depressing month. Right on cue, on this morning of December 1st the clouds have broken up a bit and there is blue sky visible. Plus December has Christmas markets and a chance of snow. I can hear a flock of birds chattering away outside; even they seem happier that it is December now.