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!