A German Christmas.

A direct quote from one of the teachers at school, addressing a 4th year class (9-10yrs old) learning an English Christmas Carol: 'Because after all Christmas is a church festival, maybe you've heard the story about Jesus being born in a stable?' and even that doesn't emphasise enough how it was such a throw away comment, as if it was perfectly normal for 10 year olds for really never to have heard the nativity story. I know the Germans have a lot of their own Christmas traditions, and possibly it is more about Nikolaus and the Weihnachtsmann, but they are big on Advent, and I thought that was always linked to the Christian side of things. Possibly it's to do with the fact that the childrens parents nearly all grew up in East Germany, where religion wasn't taught in schools, and wasn't very widespread, but still, it surprised me.

It snowed today, and at least this time the children seemed excited about it, though I explained the concept of 'Snow Days' to the group I was working with, and they were completely and utterly mystified. Which is promising, considering I have to get a train and a plane tomorrow, but hopefully the snow won't affect that!

At school one of the teachers invited me to join her and one of the others getting a Glühwein before the proper teachers' Christmas celebration starts. It was nice of her to invite me, though it was funny how she seemed to be trying to convince me, and telling me that Glühwein is nice! (As if I didn't already know- a fair few of our trips to Weihnachtsmarkts in different places have involved a Glühwein at some point).

So I better be off, I don't want to miss out on the Glühwein!

For anyone who has been counting, as of tomorrow I have been in Germany for exactly three and a half months. I still think the most impressive thing is that I actually got on the plane at all, once I'd got through all the stress of packing my life into a bag, saying bye to everyone I knew, and then leaving mum behind at the 'Passengers only past this point' sign at the airport, I suddenly remembered that I don't actually like flying, which didn't really do much to improve how I felt. Hopefully the excitement of returning home will get me through the flight tomorrow, and then I will see the vast majority of you at some point in the next couple of weeks!

Now that's an exciting thought! =)

German TV

I now have a working German TV, so here are some of the highlights I have found so far:

Gute Zeiten Schlechte Zeiten- (Good Times Bad Times) seems to be some kind of German Hollyoaks, I plan on getting seriously addicted (it's something to do in the evenings, isn't it?) and then talking about the characters like they are my friends. I've only seen it twice so far, but there is romance, arguments, a money scam, a gay subplot, and so on, and so on. It looks promising!

Viva- A music channel which seems to be like The Hits, or Music Factory, whatever the free ones are called. It is extremely exciting to own a music channel, and the temptation to watch it the whole time is strong. Luckily there is not always music videos, and when programme which features some weirdo skateboarding around the studio shouting 'Yippee!' comes on, I turn it off and go and do something useful. It is quite good to watch the music videos though, seeing as they are the exact same ones trhat have been on the radio the past few weeks.

Jimmy Neutron-auf Deutsch! It was actually quite good! And it didn't have any annoying voices, unlike the Simpsons, where everyone just sounds wrong.

Michael Mittermeier- My first experience of German stand-up comedy. I found a lot of what I understood quite funny, but maybe I've just been in Germany too long.

Das Super Talent- Germany's talent. My vote is with the Swedish Juggler, he learnt German specially for the competition since he got through the first round, so not only is he juggling, with flaming toy hamsters, he was narrating in German, despite only learning the language a couple of weeks ago. And he was just so smily. I hope he got through! Also, the finalists are performing in Rostock next year, we are thinking about going. It's um... cultural...right?

The adverts- some of them are boring, obviously, and some of them are just the English versions dubbed over, but some of them are funny, and there are lots of Christmassy ones for chocolate and so on. I saw the German version of the Christmas cola advert too, I wasn't sure if they had it in Germany, but apparently they do.

I've only had a TV since Friday, and I was out most of the weekend- I promise I haven't spent the whole time watching TV! Everything just seems a lot funnier because it's all German and weird!