Saarland, Germany - 3rd December 2009
By: Apperveilchen
I arrived save and sound at my first host's. I was told that I am just in time for a great adventure this weekend. It's a surprise though, so I cannot yet tell you what it is. For now I will relax with some tea and chocolate.
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Posted Dec 3, 2009, 3:23 pm
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Essen, Germany - 4th December 2009
By: Apperveilchen
Today we drove about 350 km north to Essen, a big city in the west of Germany. It was one of the first city to have "light weeks" during winter where the city is decorated with lights, rather than just regular lanterns. There's a different theme every year. Next year, Essen and the Ruhr area in general will be the European Capital of Culture, so that's what this light illustration is about.
There are also artificial trees of light like this:
and real trees are wrapped with little lights.
We'll take a closer look at the Christmas market tomorrow.
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Posted Dec 5, 2009, 5:06 pm Last edited Dec 5, 2009, 6:39 pm by Apperveilchen
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Merzig, Germany - 14th December 2009
By: Apperveilchen
We had some errands to run today. It gets dark so early nowadays that there's already very little light when my host comes home from work.
The first building is right next to the church of St. Peter, a building in the rare Rhine-Maas Romanesque style.
The secone one is the tiny Fellenberg castle, now a museum, decked out in Christmas decorations.
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Posted Dec 14, 2009, 8:34 pm
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Saarland, Germany - 17th December 2009
By: Apperveilchen
Today we decided to make muffins for our host to take to work with her.
We mixed butter with sugar, vanilla sugar and eggs, added flour and baking powder andmilk. Later one batch got some chocolate splits, the other some buttermilk and juice.
Don't they look good?
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Posted Dec 20, 2009, 4:50 pm
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christmas market, Essen, Germany - 21st December 2009
By: Apperveilchen
We went to the Christmas market again for some last minute presents. I got another picture with the nutcrackers and the pyramids, in daylight this time so you can actually see them.
The multistoried wooden structures are called pyramids. On can get them in all sizes. Little candles are placed in the holders around each level and when they are lit the warm air rises up and turns the little propellor on top. That moves not only the propellor, but also the plates of the different levels on which figurines are arranged. They often show Mary, Joseph and the Christ in the manger, shepherds and their sheep, the Magi and/or (choirs of) angels, depending on the size.
Here's one of the many booths selling hot spiced wine, hot cocoa with liquor and other hot drinks.
This is an oldfashioned children's carrousel. Unfortunately we were too small to ride and it's more fun at night anyway.
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Posted Dec 22, 2009, 2:58 pm
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Essen, Germany - 23rd December 2009
By: Apperveilchen
The day before Christmas Eve, time to put up the Christmas tree. We bought a big one. It was packed into a net and now has to be shortened and put into the holder. Then the net can come off:
Is it turned the right way?
Later lot's of tiny lights are put in which is the biggest piece of work. A few hours, 3 different chains of lights, some replaced little lightbulbs and lots of frayed nerves later it looks like this:
Then comes the fun part. There are many different ornaments in big and small boxes: stars made of straw; glass orbs in many different sizes and colors, shiny, matt or transparent, with or without little pictures or stripes; wooden angels, Santas, skiing children, moon and stars...
We decided to go for the very traditional Christmas colors: red, green and gold this year.
Tadaa!
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Posted Dec 28, 2009, 3:40 pm
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Essen, Germany - 24th December 2009
By: Apperveilchen
In Germany most families celebrate Christmas on the 24th of December, Christmas Eve. On that day the shops are mostly open until midday and many offices are also open for half a day. The Christmas Days, 25th & 26th of December are holidays: no shops are open and only people in emergency services have to work.
We started out the celebrations with "Kaffee & Kuchen" as they say here, meaning coffee and cake, even if you have tea or cookies instead.
The advent wreaths are in use and many older people have self-embroidered table clothes for holidays.
Here's an old nativity set. Some people leave out baby Jesus until this night and only add him to the scene now.
After dinner everybody gets to open some presents and many people go to midnight mass.
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Posted Jan 10, 2010, 7:02 pm Last edited Jan 10, 2010, 7:07 pm by Apperveilchen
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Essen, Germany - 31st December 2009
By: Apperveilchen
It's Silvester (Sylvester). Actually that's the name day (saint's day) today but it has prevailed as a description for the last day of the year. A long time ago, nearly all the dates were given not as a day and month but as a name day. We are running some errands.
Tonight everybody will do their own small fireworks. Fireworks may only be sold to non-prefessionals in these few days before Silvester because it's the only time of the year that people may do their own fireworks display without needing a special permission. There are also some big organized fireworks of course, but most people do their own tonight. The tradition goes back a long way and is suppposed to chase away evil spirits. Unfortunately it's not a very good photo opportunity, so we can't show any pictures.
People also give each other little talismans like horseshoes to protect home and hearth, chimney sweeps, who used to be the first ones out and about on New Years Day, clover leaves and little pigs made of marzipan or other sweets or simply of plastic.
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Posted Jan 10, 2010, 7:27 pm
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Essen, Germany - 3rd January 2010
By: Apperveilchen
To begin this year we had a lot fo snow and since temperatures remain below freezing day and night and since the city doesn't do a whole lot about clearing the roads, it's pretty much all still there. Perfect for a long weekend of course. We have kind of a winter wonderland:
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Posted Jan 10, 2010, 7:33 pm
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Essen, Germany - 6th January 2010
By: Apperveilchen
It's Jan. 6th, Dreikönigstag or Epiphany. All over Germany children are designated as offcial Sternsinger (star singers). They dress up as the Magi, carry a star and go from door to door to pass on the message of Christmas by singing carols and to collect money for charity. The houses where people donated money are blessed and get a sign on the doors:
year +C + M + B + year (CMB for "Christus mansionem benedicat" (Christ bless this house) which nicely conincides with the common names for the Magi: Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar)
They also leave a flyer explaining the tradition and this year's purpose for the donations.
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Posted Jan 10, 2010, 7:50 pm
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