Merry Christmas!!

I know I'm slightly late on the Christmas update, but technically it's still Christmas here, so it's all good.

The past week has been a little out of control; I've been hanging out with friends in Köln, making new friends at the Christmas markets, playing in the snow, and helping out with all of the usual Christmas preparations and stuff. This past week has really been almost like vacation. Olaf wasn't able to travel to Basel on Monday because of the weather, so he's been home with the kids and helping out with Amelie. Since I haven't actually had a whole lot to do around here, I spent a few nights in town with Elena and Yana and some friends, and I've spent a lot of time at the Christmas markets. I successfully visited all 7 markets in Köln this year, which I had attempted to do last year but failed. I wasn't able to find 2 of them last year because one was in a Biergarten and the other one was on a ship on the Rhein, but this year I knew where to look and I found them.
In particular I spent a lot of time at the Middle Ages Christmas Market, which is by far my favorite. It's small, and apparently every year they have fewer and fewer visitors, but I absolutely love it there. All of the vendors and entertainment personnel are dressed in costume and speak what they call "Marktsprach" which I originally had been told was Old German, but it's not. One of the guys I met at the market explained to me that it was really only developed a few decades ago as a way of communicating at medieval markets and faires to make it sound like they're speaking an old language; if they were speaking true Old German, nobody would actually be able to understand them. I spent all day at the market on Wednesday. I had intended to only stay for a few hours and be home by 4:30 or 5 in the afternoon, but I was having such a great time that I didn't want to leave. Plus, I had befriended the Jester, Götz, and had spent most of the day talking to him and a couple of the musicians, and they all kept telling me about the program for the rest of the evening and how I should stick around. So I asked Olaf if it would be okay if I came home later, and he said not to worry about it and to just have fun. So I did. Götz was a really cool dude. I actually met him because I heard him ask some girl what language she spoke in like 5 different languages, so I asked him how many languages he spoke. The answer was 2, fluently. He was actually speaking to me in English with a perfect British accent, and I thought he was British. He's lived in Germany his whole life and never spent more than 6 months in England. I would never have doubted for a second that he was British if he had told me so. Anyway, I hung out with Götz and the others until the market closed at 9, so I got to see the dancing and their live version of the Nativity, which was hilarious. Then Götz invited me to go to dinner with all of them, so I did. I ended up missing the last train out of where we were and had to wait almost 4 hours for the next one, so once again I didn't get home until almost 6 in the morning. But time flies when you're having fun, and it wasn't so bad. I'm glad that I got to hang out with all of them and have a good time.

Friday it snowed all day. And I thought we got a lot of snow last year! I took Amelie out for a walk and she took off running across the field, and all of a sudden she sunk up to her neck in snow. She is absolutely loving this weather, and so am I. There are mounds of snow lining the streets and the sidewalks from where it has been shoveled to make a path, and Olaf said that the roundabout in Buschbell (on the way to Frechen) has disappeared and is simply a straight road now. I honestly don't even know how to describe how much snow we have and how gorgeous it is. Yesterday afternoon we all went out to play in the snow together, and it was so deep that the kids couldn't even ride on the sled because it just sank. At one point Amelie, who had been a ways down the path with Esther and Olaf, came running at full speed to see me, and as soon as she turned off the path to come to me in the field, she fell flat on her face and disappeared in the snow. It didn't bother her one bit, though, because she just sprung back up and kept right on running. She's so freaking precious. The kids were really fussy, so Esther and Olaf took them back home and I kept walking through the snow to take more pictures. I could seriously spend all day just wandering around in the fields, through town, through the woods, taking pictures and simply enjoying the cold and the snow.

Friday was also our Christmas celebration. It didn't really begin until around 3 in the afternoon when we started getting ready to go to church. We packed everyone in the car and drove to the Evangelical church here in Königsdorf for the sermon at 4:30. Olaf put the kids in the car a little early so that Esther and I could bring all of the gifts out of the basement. That way, when we got back from church, the kids would see that the "Christkind" had been there and brought them presents. That celebration and excitement, however, was unfortunately about an hour delayed because the car got stuck in the snow at the church. No matter what we tried, that car wasn't going anywhere. Eventually Esther got a couple of shovels from the church to help free the car, and a really nice man who was walking by helped Olaf try to push the car around. I say "around" because it wasn't exactly like trying to push a car that ran out of gas out of the intersection where you just push the car forward and have someone steer. It was more like rocking the car from side to side and front to back in an attempt to somehow get the tires to grab something, or just get out of the hole that had been created by pushing on the gas peddle. Eventually the guy from the church went and got a bucket full of gravel to throw under the tires (which, to my credit, I had been telling them to do pretty much from the beginning) and we were finally able to get the car free and drive home.
Once we were at home the Christmas celebration could truly begin. Olaf had to take Amelie for a walk first, so while he was gone Gustav went looking through all of the presents under the tree and separating which ones were his and which ones were Pauline's. When they got back, the kids immediately tore into their presents. Gustav opened his first present, which was a really cool "Cars"-themed electric race track, complete with Lightning McQueen and Chick Hicks. What's the first thing that comes out of Gustav's mouth? "Das hab' ich mir nicht gewünscht!" (I didn't wish for that!) Uh oh, it starts. All in all the kids both got a lot of really cool toys and some books, but that wasn't good enough. When we finally put the kids to bed (after eating delicious fondue for dinner, of course) Gustav called Esther to come up and cuddle with him in the bed. Esther came downstairs crying because Gustav had explained to her how sad he was that he didn't get this one toy from Playmobil that he wanted, and instead got this race track that he didn't ask for. It broke Esther's heart because her child was unhappy, and because she had chosen to get him something he didn't wish for because she thought he'd enjoy it, and he was sad because of it. Olaf didn't really understand it, because as kids they never actually had Christmas wish lists and such and were simply happy to get stuff. Esther, however, vividly remembers having Christmas wishes and how important it was that they came true. It's like my dad. He can still remember the Christmas that he didn't get the one thing he really wished for, and exactly what it was that he didn't get, and that was over 50 years ago. I'm actually slightly torn between Esther's point of view and Olaf's. Of course you're going to feel heartbroken when your child doesn't get his weenie whistle for Christmas. On the other hand, I've witnessed, on several occasions, how simply unappreciative Gustav can be when Esther brings him something (often clothes or something) and he starts crying and throwing a fit because it's not a toy. I think I would have felt more heartbroken if Gustav had wished for one thing all year and had great hopes that Santa would bring it to him and Santa let him down. In reality, Gustav already got his one big wish a month ago for his birthday, and he has a tendency not to appreciate what he does have, so I'm not as sympathetic to his situation as Esther is. Besides, he spent all day yesterday and all day today playing with the race track and commented on how cool it is, so I think he'll get over it.

Yesterday we had goose for dinner, and Jan and Nina came over to join us. After we got back from wandering in the field in the afternoon Jan and Nina were outside in the front yard drinking Glühwein at their "Schnee Bar" (which we had built at the beginning of the week out of the insane amounts of snow that were lying in their yard and in the parking space in front of their house) again, so we joined them. Martin (our neighbor on the other side) was also there, and eventually his wife Delia and Federica, their daughter and Gustav's fiancee (I'll get into that later) came out as well. We stayed there basically until we froze to death, because no matter how much Glühwein you drink, -7° C is still -7° C. And we were able to convince Jan and Nina to come over and have dinner with us, since we were eating goose with home made potato dumplings and we had more than enough since Günther and Silke never made it. They decided it was better to stay in Münster because of the snow, so we didn't have the usual visitors for Christmas. Anyway, the food was, of course, delicious, and we wiped out the goose completely, and it was a very pleasant Christmas dinner.

And there's one really big piece of news: I passed my language test! I finally got the results of the TestDaF exam that I took in November, and I actually did very well. There are 4 sections on the test, and each section gets graded on a scale of 3 to 5, with a TDN 5 being the highest possible score (kind of like the AP tests in high school). My lowest result was in the writing section, and it was a TDN 4. I got a TDN 5 in reading, listening, and speaking! Needless to say, I am very excited. Esther and Olaf are very proud of me, too. They both gave me big hugs, and they bought me flowers and opened up a bottle of champagne to celebrate. So now the next step is to apply to a masters program here at the University of Cologne and hopefully I can start studying in April. Keep your fingers crossed, and wish me luck!

I will never own a female animal that is not spayed, unless she's allowed to have babies. Amelie is in heat right now, and she is the most pathetic creature on the planet. First of all, she has to wear this stupid little doggie diaper while she's in the house, which makes her really uncomfortable, and she gets itchy because she has it on all the time. Then, when I take her outside for a walk, the females all want to attack her, and the males won't leave her alone. Except for Buddy. He's neutered, so even though he seems to realize that there's something different about Amelie, he doesn't know what to do about it. But the thing that makes it so sad is that Amelie gets confused. She knows what she's supposed to do, and she knows what she's allowed to do, and they're completely opposite things. Plus, right now I can't let her off the leash hardly at all when we go for a walk because if she senses that there's a male dog within 500 meters, she takes off like a speeding bullet in his direction. She's so desperate to find a mate that she literally follows me around the house and then stands at the door whining because she wants me to let her out. She even got herself stuck in the foyer a couple of nights ago (she knows she can push the glass door with her nose to get to the front door, but hasn't figured out yet that she can simply push in the other direction to get back into the house) because she wanted out so badly, and we were woken up by the sound of her scratching at the glass door. And she looks so sad, with her big dark eyes and a miserable expression in her eyebrows. Poor little thing.

On another note, I had a hell of a week this past week. Monday and Wednesday I had class, as usual, and Wednesday was the last day for this course. Monday evening I got to play soccer in the snow, too, which was awesome. Tuesday morning I had to get up early because Olaf and I needed to drive to Bergheim to finish the paperwork for my visa. They were only able to extend it until the end of March because that's when my next language course ends, but we can extend it again as I enroll on more courses. When we got home we had breakfast with Esther and the kids, and then I had to go with Esther to take the kids to the doctor in Köln. Gustav had an annual physical and Pauline needed to get a flu shot, and Esther needed me to go with her because apparently the doctor told her that Pauline should not be present during Gustav's physical. I don't get why, but whatever. It had snowed so much the night before, though, that there was snow lying in the street even in the middle of the city, which basically has never happened ever. It's not really supposed to snow here anyway (or so I'm told) and when it does it never lasts very long in the city because it's too warm. Anyway, once we were done at the doctor's office we drove to Ikea for lunch, and so Esther could pick up a few things she needed for her office. We ended up not getting back home until about 4 in the afternoon, so it was definitely a long day. Plus, after dinner I had to stay up and bake cookies and some pumpkin pie to take with me to my language course Wednesday morning. It was after 10 by the time I was finished, and then I had to go outside with Amelie once more because I thought she needed to go to the bathroom. Turns out she just wanted out of the house. Poor thing.
Wednesday was another long day. After I got done with class I had to walk back home to drop off my stuff and then walk to the Kindergarten. This year the Christmas party at the Kindergarten took the form of Advents coffee with Grandma and Grandpa. Each kid was supposed to invite one grandparent to go to the Kindergarten in the afternoon for coffee and cookies and to spend some time playing with their grandchild. Günter and Tante Karin were supposed to drive down from Münster on Tuesday so that one of them could go to Gustav's group on Wednesday and the other one could go to Pauline's on Thursday. Because of the snow, however, they weren't able to make the drive. So I got to go. It turns out that Gustav had actually originally said he wanted me to go anyway, so he was happy that I was his guest Wednesday afternoon. Esther was actually there, too, as Domenic's guest. When Claudia told Domenic that his grandparents were not going to be able to come because they live too far away, Domenic's response was, "Ja, dann die Esther kommt mit." So cute. So Claudia asked Esther if she would be able to go as Domenic's guest, which she of course was happy to do.
Thursday I had to go back to the Kindergarten for the Advents coffee in Pauline's group. While I was there Frau Pfeiffer introduced me to a girl from the Ukraine who is the au pair from a little girl named Lucy in Pauline's group. This poor girl had only been in Germany for 2 days, and doesn't speak a word of German. She only speaks Ukrainian, Russian, and English. To make things worse, her host family only speaks German and French. Don't ask me how she's supposed to communicate with the family, because I know she can't communicate at all with Lucy. That must be really hard, and I feel bad for her. The next time that I see her I'm going to give her Elena's phone number so that she has someone here she can talk to and doesn't have to feel alone. When Pauline and I got home Thursday afternoon we took Amelie and the sled and went out into the field. Pauline wasn't happy about it at first, because the kids always hate when they have to come along to take Amelie for a walk, but she had a lot of fun with the sled so it wasn't too bad. At 6 pm I put Pauline in the car to go pick up Gustav at Florian's and then grab Esther at her office, and from there I jumped on the train and headed into Köln. There was no soccer practice because of the snow, so the trainer arranged instead for the girls to meet at the Weihnachtsmarkt in Neumarkt to drink Glühwein and hang out. It was freezing cold, but the Glühwein helped, and it was snowing, so it really felt Christmasy and festive. It was a lot of fun, really.
Not a whole lot happened during the day on Friday, but in the evening I went into Köln to meet up with Elena and her friend Yana. We didn't really know where we wanted to go or what we wanted to do, so we just hung out at this place called Extrablatt in Altstadt. We had planned to go to Flanagans, the Irish Pub next door, but at 11 we decided we were just too tired and went home instead. Last night I went to the market at Stadtgarten, one of the 2 markets I wasn't able to find last year, to check it out. It was really small, but cozy and nice. Then I met Elena and Yana again at the train station and we headed to Flanagans. Laetitia, who I hadn't seen in a long time, met us there to hang out with us and have a drink, and we also ran into a mutual friend named Johan (also from France) and his friends. We stayed at Flanagans until it closed and then we all went our separate ways. Since it was like 4 in the morning I stayed at a friends apartment in Köln and then came home this afternoon to hang out with the family. It has been snowing like crazy, too. By the time I got home from the train station I looked like a snowman. I love this weather.

I got to play soccer in the snow! Even though it was below freezing, the weather was good so we were able to have practice this evening. There weren't very many of us there, actually only 8 plus the trainer, so we just played a little 4 v. 5 scrimmage. Within about half an hour it started to snow just slightly, and a little after 8 it was really snowing, so we stopped. I made a snow angel before we went into the changing room. I love it when it snows, and being able to actually play soccer while it was snowing was a brand new experience for me. It made for a good night.

What did not make for a good night was losing my freaking keys in the snow while I was out walking Amelie after I got home. We had to take a relatively long walk anyway (at least, longer than we usually do at night) because Amelie was a little sick and was searching for grass to help her throw up. When we got back to the house, I reached into my jacket pocket to get the key, and it wasn't there. Shit. I figured it had to have fallen out when I took my hands out of my pockets to put Amelie on the leash, so I went backtracking. I ended up going the whole route backwards and not finding the keys. Son of a... So I went again, this time slowly (I had hurried on the last round because I wanted to find the keys before they were buried in the snow) and spent extra time in the area where I put her on the leash. Thank god I was able to find them, completely buried and leaving only a small bump in the snow as a trace of their existence. We ended up being out for almost an hour in what according to Southern California standards would be considered a blizzard. Good thing Amelie and I both love the snow.

On Saturday Olaf and I made a little outing with the kids. We drove to Geyen, which is in the way to Pulheim, to the little castle there. Heins and Karin discovered this on the way to Gustav's swim lessons while they were here last time, and were told by the woman who owns it to come by on the Saturday of the Third Advent for the Christmas market and lunch that they have there. So the 4 of us drove over there to meet Heins, Karin, and Karin's sister Gita, and one of Olaf's cousins, his wife, and her parents met us there, too. We looked around the grounds a little bit, ate a delicious lunch of goose, red cabbage and knödel, and then came back to the house to have coffee and cookies.

This weekend was also the first time in a long time that I actually went out and did something. Saturday evening I took the train to Hürth to hang out with Elena and her roommates at her apartment. She had been at home in the Ukraine for a week or two so I hadn't seen her in a while. We didn't really do anything exciting, just hung out watching TV and talking. I stayed the night there at the apartment, and then on Sunday Elena and I went into town to visit the Christmas markets. She had only been to one in the entire time she's been in Germany, so we visited 4. There are still 3 more that I have to make it to this year, but there's plenty of time for that. Although there wasn't anything particularly exciting going on, aside from the fact that the Christmas markets are really cool, we had a great time just hanging out and talking. I really needed the weekend away from the house, too.

P.S.

I forget to mention a couple of noteworthy things in my last blog. First, in addition to all of the cooking and cleaning that I had to do here last week, I also went to the Kindergarten Thursday morning for about 3 hours to bake cookies with Pauline's group. Esther had been asked earlier in the week if she would be able to help out, but she couldn't, so she volunteered me instead. At 9 am Thursday morning I rode the bike to the Kindergarten and was there until just before noon. We had already made the cookie dough (the other 2 mothers and I) and we just had to help the kids roll it out and cut shapes with the cookie cutters. Then they brushed the tops of them with cream, decorated them with sprinkles, and we threw them in the oven. One of the poor little girls has a sever allergy to eggs, so we had to be really careful to make sure that she had her gloves on, and that she didn't come into direct contact with the dough or anything else that the dough had touched. But at least she got to participate. I had a great time, too. A lot of the kids in the group already knew who I was (although they all think I'm either Pauline's other mom or Esther's sister or something) and it was fun getting to hang out with them and bake cookies. Plus, one of the other moms that was there helping is Canadian. She speaks to her kids in English, too, and she actually lives on our street. Who knew.

The other thing I forgot to mention is that Amelie injured herself on Thanksgiving. Olaf took her out for a walk that night, and when they got back she was limping and bleeding. She had chased after a cat and managed to tear one of the nails on her right front paw. The nail was still attached, but it was really crooked and you could tell that it was essentially broken off but still connected to the skin on her poor little finger. Esther took her to the vet Friday afternoon so they could remove the claw, and then they put a bandage on her foot and gave her a shoe so she doesn't get it wet and dirty when we take her for walks. On Monday she got a new bandage, and yesterday Olaf and I took her to the vet again to have it looked at. There was still a little piece of the nail that was attached and they had to pull it off. Poor little Amelie was so tough and such a good girl. Then she got another bandage, of course, but that fell off this morning in the snow when I took her for a walk. I thought about walking with her to the vet, but Olaf and I agreed that if it didn't look bad that we would just leave it, since I'm taking her again tomorrow, anyway. I think Amelie is very happy to be rid of the bandage. She's not walking funny anymore, and she can finally do something about her itchy little foot.

Man, what a week!!! I feel like all that I have done for the past week is cook, bake, and clean up the mess that results from cooking and baking. It all started last week on Tuesday. Like last year we decided to have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner here at the house, only this time we invited guests and were going to have a total of 11 people here, rather than just the family. Since I have class Monday and Wednesday for most of the day, I baked the pumpkin pies on Tuesday. Otherwise there would not have been enough time after class on Wednesday or before dinner on Thursday, especially since taking care of the kids and Amelie needed to be included in my list of responsibilities for the week. Anyway, I baked the pies Tuesday while the kids were at Kindergarten, and I was really happy with the way they turned out. Since it was practically freezing outside, we put the pies out on the terrace so we didn't have to worry about fitting them into the fridge.

The work continued Wednesday evening after we put the kids to bed. That's when I prepared the yams so that we would only have to warm them up Thursday evening. The whole house smelled so delicious, and Esther and I split one of the yams when they were finished. After all, you have to taste it to make sure they turned out ok. These were without a doubt the best yams I have ever made. When making the sauce I used more maple syrup and less brown sugar than usual, so they were slightly less sweet but had a lot more flavor. Delicious. Like Esther said, I didn't even really need to make anything else because we would have been happy just to eat the sweet potatoes. I also made the dinner rolls and cranberry sauce Wednesday evening, neither of which I had ever actually made before. We always bought Brown 'n' Serve (pre-made and partially baked) dinner rolls that only needed to be warmed in the oven for a few minutes, and the Oceanspray cranberry sauce in the can. You know, the one that you serve on a plate in the shape of the can and cut into slices. Typical, "traditional" Thanksgiving fare. These things, however, do not exist in Germany, which means that I needed to make them myself if I wanted to have them. They were both very easy to make, but I wasn't sure how they would turn out since it was my first attempt. And the rolls I only baked half way so that we could finish baking them and have them be fresh Thursday evening. While the dough was rising I also cut up the celery and onions that I was going to need Thursday for the stuffing. It was almost 1 am when I finally went to bed.

Thursday was essentially a full day of Thanksgiving preparations. Olaf went to the market in Königsdorf in the morning to pick up the turkey, which Esther had to order a couple of weeks ago and which she one week before had to request in a larger size so that there would be enough for all of the guests. My parents asked me how big the turkey was, and when I told them it was 5.5 kg (about 12-13 lbs) there was silence on the other end of the phone. Then my dad asks, "Do you have any other meat to serve along with it?" We didn't. It's a good thing that we had so much of everything else, though, because he was right; that really wasn't very much turkey to split between 11 people. Anyway, once the turkey was here it was time to start with the cooking. I had to cook the giblets so that I could use the broth for the stuffing and to baste the turkey, since for some reason I never have any drippings from my turkey that I can use for basting. While that cooked I cut up the old bread into cubes for the stuffing (which I also had to make myself for the first time) and seasoned it a little bit. At around 3 in the afternoon I made the stuffing and dressed the turkey and popped him in the oven. Then I made the green beans with ham and Esther and I set about decorating the table. The kids both went to play with friends in the afternoon so that we didn't have to deal with the little turds running around and being in our way and making a mess of everything. Olaf actually set up the patio table in the dining room because we needed the extra table space, and then he put the other table next to the piano as a drink bar. I brought the fall decorations that my mom had sent down from my room and we put them on the dining table. Then Esther brought her mother's old dishes out of the basement because we only had 9 of the other plates, but we needed 11. The new plates were prettier, though, and the table looked really nice.

Olaf picked up the kids at around 6 and brought them home to feed them dinner and put them in bed. What happened then was unfortunately exactly what I knew was going to happen. The kids saw the big table all pretty and decorated, and began playing with the napkins and moving things around. Then they insisted that they eat their dinner at the big table and started crying when we told them no. Then they threw a huge fit when they were told that at was time to get ready for bed, which turned into an even bigger ordeal when they were informed that the guests weren't coming until 8 and that they were not allowed to stay up until everyone got here. Of course that's what happened. What else do you expect?! Anyway, Esther told both of the kids that they had to go to bed, but that we would call them when the guests arrived and they could come down to say hello. So they gave the kids their milk and put them in bed.

The guests started arriving just before 8 pm, which was exactly the time that it started snowing, and Olaf began playing bartender while Esther socialized and I tried to get all of the food finished. It was actually more stressful than any Thanksgiving I've prepared before because: the kitchen is tiny; there was absolutely no counter/stove space for me to put things down or keep things warm as I was taking them out of the oven; what little counter space I did have was occupied by dirty dishes and various other things that people had neglected to clean up or put away; I was in the kitchen taking care of all the madness by myself while Esther and Olaf entertained; and, to top it off, they had called the kids downstairs from their beds and they were both running around through the kitchen and between everyone's legs, screaming and yelling and laughing, taking up space we didn't have to spare and being completely and utterly in my way. Once again, what the hell else do you expect? I was also the only one who was trying to calm the kids down and keep them out of the kitchen so they didn't knock shit over or get smacked in the head with something hot/heavy. When Pauline started screaming her head off because she managed to hurt herself (which she does, without fail, every time that she's permitted to run around when she's clearly way too tired for such behavior) I simply said that it was time for them to go. Nina took them upstairs and put them in bed and read them a story while we finished getting dinner ready.

When we sat down to dinner, before we distributed the food, they had me stand up and give a quick rundown of what Thanksgiving is and why we celebrate it and, most importantly, what we were going to be eating. Some of them were so cute. A few of them had actually done a little research about Thanksgiving before hand so that they had some sort of an idea as to what should be expected. After I gave my little spiel they asked me if we were all going to go around the table and say what we were thankful for, because that's typical for Thanksgiving, right? It made me smile. I explained that, although a lot of families do that, it's never been a tradition of my family, and therefore it wasn't necessary if they didn't want to. They were ok with that.

Since there was basically no room on the table, Olaf and I carried the dishes around one by one distributing the food. Everyone was so surprised by how many different dishes there were, and by the fact that by the time the green beans came around, there was no room left on the plate for them. That's Thanksgiving. By the end of the evening, the turkey was completely demolished, the stuffing was almost gone, the rolls had long before been wiped out, and of the 2.5 kg worth of candied yams I had made only 6 pieces remained. Everyone had such a great time talking and eating and enjoying the atmosphere. And what got the most raves? The yams (of course), the rolls, and the stuffing. In fact, some of our guests were still talking about them the next day. As far as I'm concerned, even if everything else had sucked, the night would have been a success because the 2 things I was making for the first time ever turned out to be the best. But actually nothing sucked, everything was delicious, and the night was a huge success. Everyone was so grateful that they were able to partake in the festivities with us, and I'm so glad that they were all able to come. And, it was my first Thanksgiving with snow, which made me very happy.

With Thanksgiving out of the way, (and with about 2 inches of snow covering everything outside) preparations began Friday morning for the next event. First of all, I spent basically all day on Friday cleaning up the aftermath of the night before. I had to run 3 or 4 loads of dishes through the dishwasher, plus wash a few things by hand, clean the table, clean the kitchen, vacuum and clean the floor. . .It sucked. Then Saturday Esther and I spent the whole day preparing for Gustav's birthday, which was Sunday. Luckily Silke and Günther were here to help keep the kids entertained and out of our hair. Anyway, he had another pirate themed birthday this year, so Esther and I made paper swords and pirate hats the kids' names on them for the kids to decorate and personalize. This also required us going to Knauber in the early evening to buy little gems for them to glue on their swords. We also picked up some "treasure" because we were going to do a treasure hunt with the kids once their paper costumes were finished. We found little foam rubber pirate coins and some Captain Sharkey knickknacks for the boys, and a couple Lillifee things for the 3 girls. On top of that we had all of the baking to do. Esther baked a double layer chocolate cake with marzipan decorations for Gustav, which was going to be presented to him, along with his presents and the birthday candles, when he got up in the morning. I baked cupcakes with my mom's butter cream icing for the kids at the party. Once again, by the time I was done baking, it was almost 1 in the morning.

Sunday morning Gustav came into my room just before 8 to wake me up, but was mostly unsuccessful. As I said, it had been a long and rough week. He stood at my door and said, "Amanda, auf wecken." I laid there in bed with my face buried in my pillow and simply said, "Happy Birthday, Gustav." "Danke schön." Then he closed my door and went back downstairs, and I heard him explain, with complete understanding, that I was too tired and was going to stay in bed.

I actually didn't stay in bed for too long, partly because I wanted to be with Gustav and partly because I still had more work to do. Esther still needed to bake a cake to take to the Kindergarten for Gustav's birthday celebration on Monday and cook the soup for dinner that night, and I had to bake muffins for the party. Then we had to finish preparing the treasure hunt (which Olaf helped with by distributing the pieces of the treasure map around the neighborhood) and decorations for the party. I also had to get dressed in my pirate costume, because you can't have a pirate party without dressing like a pirate.

The entire crew showed up exactly at 3 pm, and we got the party started. The first thing was to sit all of the kids at the table to eat cake. We had the cake that Esther had made on Saturday, my cupcakes, and the muffins. To my complete and utter surprise, nobody liked the cupcakes! I have never in my life seen a group of children that, when offered cupcakes, either chose not to have them or took one bite, decided they didn't like it, and asked for something else. They were delicious cupcakes, too. I think that it's because American cupcakes are simply too sweet for German taste. I may have mentioned before that, every time someone is having a birthday, I get asked to bake muffins, or somebody asks me for a muffin recipe. Even a woman in my language class had asked me for muffin recipes for her daughter's birthday. I always thought it was strange, and couldn't figure out why in the hell the Germans seem to think that we eat (and especially bake) so many muffins. Now I know why. They don't know what cupcakes are. We eat cupcakes, they think we're eating muffins. I will never forget the look of confusion in everyone's face when I said I was baking cupcakes, because they actually didn't know what a cupcake was. That's the only logical reason for the muffin fixation, and for why kids didn't want to eat the cupcakes.

Anyway, regardless of what cake/muffin variety they chose, the kids weren't very interested in the cake, anyway. After only about 10 or 15 minutes Esther and I started helping them with their swords and hats. We asked each kid where they wanted to put their jewels, spread some glue around where they pointed to, and let them pick out and attach the gems that they wanted. Only Jette and David didn't participate (and Jonathan D. only made a sword) so Silke helped them to decorate their costume items.

Just as we were finishing attaching the bands to the hats so the kids could wear them, Olaf came upstairs with an eye patch on and a bandanna tied around his leg. He told the kids a story about how he was attacked by evil pirates, and in the process of escape he lost his map, and now he can't find his treasure. Then he asked the little pirates if they could help him, and of course they were all excited about it. We got all the kids dressed in their beanies, boots, gloves, scarves and jackets and headed out into the snow to search for the pieces of the map. Olaf had also drawn out arrows on the ground and some skulls in a few places as clues for the kids to help them find the maps. He also had a story that he had made up along with it, like how he had to fight with a giant snake (the balance beam on the next street over is painted to look like a snake) or how he had to crawl through a dark cave (the tunnel going underneath a small bridge over the drainage ditch in the field). He did a really good job. Once we found all the pieces of the map, we put it together like a puzzle and, through multiple hints and essentially stating where the treasure was (the whole map concept is apparently still a little to advanced for these kids), implied that we needed to head to the playground. Esther had hid the "treasure chest" at the top of the tower on the playground. After being coerced by the little pirates, Olaf agreed to share his treasure and each kid was allowed to take one coin and then pick a knickknack from the box.

After the treasure search we came back to the house and made dinner for the kids. They had french fries, chicken wings, fish sticks, and hot dogs. The best thing about this part of the day was watching David eat. That little boy is too funny. Long after all the other kids had left the table, David sat there in his stool quietly finishing his meal. Once his plate was empty, he began eating what was left on everyone else's plate. I sat across the table from David, and every time he emptied his plate I asked him if he wanted more, and he would nod. Or, if I asked him if he wanted more fish he would stick out his hand and say, "Ja, Fisch!" He must've eaten about 4 hotdogs, 6 fish sticks, 4 chicken wings, and a plate full of french fries. And he's 2. When the parents started showing up at 6 he was still eating. Once he had finally finished off everything at the table, David climbed over to his mom, who was eating the soup that Esther had made for the parents, and sat in her lap with his mouth open, waiting for her to feed him soup. We were all laughing so hard. He's freaking hilarious, and I love to watch him eat.

Luckily Emma came yesterday, which means I wasn't stuck having to clean up after the party again. I didn't make it to class either, though, because I was way too exhausted after the past week. To continue with the strenuousness of the previous 5 days, however, I had to wash, dry, fold and iron 3 loads of laundry, plus help Olaf cook dinner. Then today I got to clean up the kitchen and the whole mess that was made with dinner last night, and after we put the kids to bed I had to help Esther make the Advents Calenders for Gustav and Pauline. Now I get to get up early in the morning to go to class tomorrow. Not looking forward to it.

My test is over!!! I have been freaking out for so long about this TestDaF language test that I need to take in order to find out if I can study here at the university. But it's finally done. I took the test on Tuesday, and now I just have to wait about 6 weeks to get the results. It took all day, too. By 8:45 in the morning I had to be at the test sight, which is the same place that I've been taking my test-prep course, so I didn't need to worry about getting lost or not being able to find it. The test "started" at 9, which really means that all of the formalities with explaining the exam, handing out test forms and answering sheets, collecting cell phones and all that junk started at 9. The first section was the reading comprehension part, which is good. It's nice to start with the easiest part first and sort of work your way into the more stressful stuff. Although, I must say, the reading comprehension was much more difficult than any of the practice exams that we did in the course, but I'm sure I still did ok. This is the only part of the test that has as much to do with logic as it does with language, if not more, and as an American I have the advantage of being trained for 12 years on how to take such pointless, standardized tests, and I was always good at them. After a 10 minute break we moved on to the listening portion of the test, which again I think I did fairly well on, but not as well as I have on various practice versions. It kind of sucked because twice during this part of the test there was a loud, obnoxious sound coming from god knows where and we couldn't understand what was being said on the CD. Luckily, they're not jerks and rewound the CD so we could hear it over again. Once the listening was done we had half an hour to relax before we had to begin the writing section. I went to Subway, because it was now about 1 and I hadn't eaten anything. The writing section I'm not terribly happy with, primarily because I didn't finish my essay and the last section of what I did write was a little rushed. I'm sorry, but 1 hour is simply not enough time to write a decent essay in a foreign language. I know people who can't even accomplish that in their native language, let alone someone else's. Not to mention that I was prepared to have to write something about the economy or education system, and instead we got a question about the environment. Great. But, my essay was far more complete than any of the ones I attempted in class, so it could be worse, right? The speaking part we had to do in 2 groups, since there were 12 of us and they only have 6 computers that they can use at one time to record our responses. Luckily I was part of the first group, because having to wait 40 minutes would have been just brutal for me. I was already way too nervous about this part of the test. I think I did fairly well, though. Of course the goal is to strive for TDN 5 result on the exam, which is the highest score you can receive and basically equates to being proficient in the C1 level of the language, but I don't suppose I managed that. Maybe on the first 2 sections, but definitely not on the last 2. I will be surprised and highly disappointed in myself, however, if I don't end up with a TDN 4.

Once I was done with the test, I had to go straight home and pick up Amelie from Esther's office. Since I had to leave so early in the morning and Olaf was in Basel, Esther had to walk Amelie and then took her with her to her office so that she didn't have to drive back home and then back to her office again. Amelie was definitely happy to see me when I got there. So Amelie and I walked home, I relaxed for a little bit (I think I managed to get in a 15 minute nap) and then Esther came home with the kids so we could all get ready to go to the St. Martin parade at the Kindergarten. This year Pauline had her own lantern that she made in the Kindergarten, as opposed to having to use an old one of Gustav's. She was very proud of her lantern. Since it was raining we got the kids all decked out in their rain suits, put plastic bags around their lanterns so they didn't get wet, and headed out. To be completely honest I don't think the St. Martin celebration was nearly as nice this year as it was last year, and I can guarantee that I'm not the only one. For starters, St. Martin didn't have a horse this year because the horse was at another lantern parade. Second, the bon fire was rather small, as opposed to last year when it was ridiculously huge, a fact which highly disappointed Gustav. And, to top it off, because of one woman throwing a fit about the fact that there had been champagne present at a small birthday celebration for the woman who runs the Kindergarten, any and all alcohol has now been completely forbidden from Kindergarten events. That means there was no Glühwein, only tea and hot chocolate. It was quite clear that this was unacceptable, because basically once the parade through Königsdorf was done and the kids had all received their bread men from St. Martin, the place cleared out. Last year everyone hung around for a long time, enjoying the fire and sipping on Glühwein. This year, there was no celebration, nobody wanted to stick around, and it genuinely felt like it was incomplete. So, Esther and I came home and made our own Glühwein and homemade Eggnog. It was our little toast to me completing the exam and a proper end to St. Martin.

Yesterday I spent most of the day babysitting. Esther and Olaf went to the soccer game in Köln so I stayed home with the kids. When Esther and Olaf got back, I went to go take care of Zeynep and Elif because Güner and Seydi had a function to go to. It was a really easy night, just long. They didn't get home until 2 in the morning. But Zeynep mostly listened to me and I didn't have to struggle with her at all, and Elif was quite simple in comparison to last time. She didn't cry very much at all, mostly just when I laid her down to change her diaper. I think she thought I was putting her to bed, and that's what she was fussing about. After I get Zeynep ready and in bed I took Elif into the bedroom, turned out all the lights and closed the door and just held her in my arms with a little stuffed sheep that played a lullaby as I wandered around the room. Within 15 minutes (with very little crying) she was mostly asleep, so I laid down on the bed for a few minutes with her on my chest until she was sound asleep before I put her in her bed. That was at 9, and she was completely silent until about 11. As soon as I heard her fussing I went into the bedroom, picked her up and held her against my chest again, and she went right back to sleep. That was much better and easier than last time, when I had to wander around the apartment for an hour while she cried the whole time. She is so precious, though. Once they got back Seydi drove me home and I went straight to bed.

Happy Halloween!

Tonight we were supposed to go to the Doebbelins' house (Domenic's) for a Halloween Party. They had invited all of us plus the Poulheims (Florian's family) for dinner (Claudia was going to make pumpkin soup) and to take the kids around the neighborhood to collect candy. They unfortunately had to cancel this morning, however, because they had to take Domenic to the hospital. Apparently he had a really high fever, and I don't know what all of the symptoms were, but they thought he had meningitis. He doesn't, and in fact he already feels way better than he did this morning, but they of course don't want to infect anyone so they weren't able to have their party.

Instead, Esther made pea soup and the Poulheims came to us. Andre, Esther and I went around the neighborhood with the 3 kids while Christine and Olaf stayed at home with little Marie. The kids were so cute in their costumes!! Gustav was particularly proud of his Spiderman costume, and when he put his vest on underneath the costume so he would stay warm it kind of looked like a muscle suit. Florian was dressed as a ghost, and even had chains and a key that clanked as he walked/ran up and down the street. The mask never stayed straight on his head, though, so he was always sort of looking crookedly through one eye hole. And as for Pauline, there are no words to describe how adorable she was in her Tinkerbell costume.

Since the kids are so young, and since Halloween is hardly even recognized here in Germany, we weren't out for very long and only visited a couple of houses. That was enough for the kids to collect a fairly decent amount of candy. Since only a few kids come around each year, everyone can afford to give each visitor a handful of candy, and most of them did. When we got back to the house we sat down to eat the soup, and the kids went upstairs to play. They weren't really hungry, and who wants to eat soup when you have candy? I got to hold Marie for a little bit, too. She is so precious! She has the biggest blue eyes, and she's constantly looking around and taking everything in. Plus, she has super soft, shiny golden brown hair that curls a little bit at her ears. She looks like a doll, and she's very calm and quiet most of the time. I would babysit for her in a heartbeat if they ever asked.

Originally I had thought that, since tomorrow is a holiday and Esther and Olaf will be home with the kids, I would go into the city tonight to hang out with friends and do something fun for Halloween. In reality, I'm far too tired for that right now and I will actually probably go to bed soon. I have been up since 7 this morning because I had to go to class, so I think it's ok to get in bed at 9:30. I just hope that the kids let us sleep tomorrow morning.

This weekend I took another little trip. I thought I was going to be going alone, but at the last minute a friend of mine told me that he was able to come with me, which made me really happy because I'm tired of traveling by myself. Anyway, we left Saturday afternoon after my language course and headed down to the town of Trier, which is actually the oldest city in Germany. I had thought that Köln was the oldest city in Germany because that's what somebody told me a long time ago, but it's actually Trier. It was a pretty short trip, but a nice one.

Since his decision to go was so last minute and we weren't going to make the train I had been intending to take at 2:18 Saturday afternoon, my friend decided that it would be better if he just drove, so we went in his car. The drive there actually took longer than we had expected because of a detour (we can't figure out why his navigation system had us leave the Autobahn when we did) but it took us along windy mountain/country roads, and it was absolutely gorgeous. I love this part of Germany because it's just indescribably beautiful. And, since it's fall, all of the trees were turning colors, and the leaves were blowing in the wind. It doesn't get much better than that, really.

When we got to Trier, the first thing we did was check into the hotel. Originally I had reserved a bed in a hostel since it was just going to be me, but when Stefan told me he was able to come along we thought it would be better to get a hotel room. The hotel was actually quite nice. The room itself was nothing spectacular but it was definitely a good, clean, comfortable room. The lobby was really cool, though. They had a full bar at the reception, several nicely decorated, comfortably furnished, cozy seating areas, a pool table, and a Wii. It created a really nice atmosphere and really kind of made you feel at home, or at least happy to be at the hotel. It definitely cost us more than the hostel would have, but I'm really glad that we stayed there.

We were both really hungry, so we decided to head out right away and find a place to eat as we began exploring the town. It was around 6 or 6:30, so it was starting to get a little bit dark, and cold. We had a map that showed where all of the main tourist attractions were but we didn't really use it that much. Trier is so small that it's kind of hard to get lost or to miss something. Plus, there are as many churches as there are people, so there's always something cool to look at. Nothing that we may have wanted to check out in greater detail was open because it was so late, but we saw some Roman ruins and ancient buildings, and more Roman ruins (the town is really full of walls and buildings and ruins from the Roman period). In the center of the Altstadt there was a stand that was selling Glühwein, wine, and something called Federweißer, which is a very young white wine. It was basically grape juice with yeast in it, so it was slightly fermented with a very low alcoholic content and tasted really sweet. Traditionally you would eat Zwiebelkuchen (onion cake) with it, but we just tried the Federweißer. Afterward we went to a fish restaurant to have dinner, and we both got full off of the soup and weren't able to eat most of our meal. It was really good, though.

When we got back to the hotel after dinner we decided to hang out in the lobby and play pool. There were 2 guys that were just starting a game when we got there, so we bought a bottle of Riesling from the bar and hung out while we waited for them to finish their game. After their game they were actually done playing for the night, so Stefan and I were able to get a few games in before we were too tired to stay awake any more and had to go to sleep.

We didn't exactly get an early start Sunday morning, but it was ok because I had hardly slept Friday night and was absolutely exhausted, so I needed to sleep in a little bit. After we checked out of the hotel we put our stuff in his car and started walking again. The first thing we did was go back to the center of Altstadt, partly because it's so gorgeous with all of its old Fachwerkhäuser and partly because we were looking for something to eat. I introduced Stefan to the Sausage McMuffin with Egg (apparently he had never been to McDonald's in the morning before and didn't know there was such a thing as breakfast) and he now has a new favorite food. Then we headed over to the Dom and the Liebfrauenkirche, which is supposedly the oldest Gothic church in Germany. The Dom was originally sanctioned by the emperor Constantine, I believe it is the first Catholic church in Germany, and it houses both the Holy Tunic (not to be confused with the Shroud of Turin) and a nail that is believed to have been used to crucify Jesus. Unfortunately we weren't able to see very much of the inside of the cathedral or to take pictures because it was Sunday and they were having service. If I ever go back to Trier I'll have to make sure I do it on a weekday so that I can really check it out.

After we saw the cathedral we headed over toward the Mosel River, stopping in several churches and taking pictures of ancient buildings along the way. There was a path that ran along the river that was lined with trees and it was absolutely gorgeous. We walked along this path as we headed toward the Roman bridge, and we sat in a bench in the "sun" for a little bit to enjoy the view because it was too pleasant to do otherwise. At first we were slightly disappointed by the Roman bridge when we saw it, because aside from the fact that it looked really old there was nothing spectacular about it, but then we saw the other side and realized that there was a statue on it from the early Christian period.

The next thing we saw was the Kaiserthermen, which is the ruins of the Roman bath in Trier. We were actually able to go inside, which was really cool. I always feel very at home when I'm among archaeological ruins. The underground passages of the bath complex were open, too, so we got to walk around all over the ruins. Next we walked to the amphitheater, which also allowed access into the underground passages. A significant portion of the amphitheater had been destroyed in the Middle Ages because the stones were taken and used to build houses and whatnot.

The last stop on our tour (after eating at a delicious Chinese restaurant where the owner hooked us up with a really sweet deal) was the Porta Nigra, which was the northern entrance to the Roman city. We had seen this the night before but I wasn't able to get any pictures of it because my camera sucks and I can't take any decent pictures at night. I was glad that we were able to climb up to the top of the gate because it's really tall and I was dying to climb those steps and see it in more detail. It was a really nice end to our trip.

Once we had seen all that we really wanted to see, and since my camera battery was dead despite the fact that I had charged it the hotel, we headed back home. I felt bad that Stefan had to drive because he was just as tired as I was, but I was glad that I got to nap a little bit in the car. If we ever take another trip again, I don't think he will be driving the next time.