Travelog for: Ceryni

Snow! How nice and beautiful, even when it is only a whiff of snow.

Here is a view out of a window, where my hosts live. You see the top of the tower of the city church and next to it, you see cranes where they build a new shopping center.





Looking to the other side you see this beautiful building, which is called Santa Maria. I hope, to have a closer view soon.




The large building is the music school. The part of the red tower belongs to the Bergfried, the tower of the old castle, and the small small part of the tower to its left is the tower of St. Damian and Hugo.




Then we closed the window, because it still is really cold outside. My hosts love to decorate the windows with paper crafts.




Then we went downstairs to warm up next to the oven in the livingroom.




I asked my host, whether she would like to take a photo with me and the Adventskranz (advent wreath) and she did.

My host said, that now it would be more than urgent to bake some more cookies or we only would have four sorts. You see, that Sweetsy arrived at our home today and also Princess Sarah. Sweetsy brought some wonderful gingerbread cookies with him. But four sorts of cookies aren't enough for all of us, so we told her, that we all would help together and get some more done.

Here we read the recipe for our host's favorite gingerbread recipe. Sweetsy was so happy, that at his first day he had the chance to try another gingerbread recipe: Zigeunerschnitten. The recipe is handwritten in our host's book, because it is a family recipe from her grandparents. She said, that she never found this recipe somewhere else, but maybe someone knows this recipe too?




At first Pinkz helped to weigh the butter.






Then BineHH helped to add the sugar for the dough.






Galo said, that if it comes to eggs, it would be his turn. We all were a bit nervous, because we didn't know, if he could stand it.









Hey, Galo! What's the matter!





Wake up! We knew it! It was too hard for him!





After a while Galo felt better and we all went back to our places.





Now Jennifer added almonds.




Sweetsy added raisins.




We had to have a break in preparing the dough for Zigeunerschnitten, because we forgot to buy some necessary ingredients. So we went on with preparing other cookies.


Jimmy_D helped to prick out the Spitzbuben cookies.




Smooch and Scotty helped to roll the dough for Zimtsterne (star-shaped cinnamon cookies).




I tried to help to form Nougatkipfert.




Finally one other family member bought the missing ingredients for Zigeunerschnitten and we had been able to finish the dough.

Scotty added candied lemon peel and candied orange peel to the dough.




Spooky used the spoon to add cacao powder to the dough.




Then it was time to add the cinnamon.




At last it was time to add the flour.




Pinkz stirred the dough.




The result is a really heavy brown dough.




Smooch and Galo rolled the dough on the baking plate. It is hard work.






After baking the air smelled of gingerbread, yummy. Nevertheless we still had to decorate the Zigeunerschnitten.






After the Zigeunerschnitten were cold enough we cut them into smaller pieces and put them in a box.




We also decorated the Nougatkipferl




and Husarenkrapferl

Here you have another view out of a window in the attic. It shows the view to the church St. Peter, which is next to the graveyard.

Merry Christmas to everyone at home.


For Holy Eve we have chicken fricassee for dinner. This is a traditional food in my hosts' family.





Later after singing Christmas songs and unwrapping presents we had time to eat some Christmas cookies.

I wish you all a happy new year. There is no big party at my hosts' home, so you only see a photo with me and a part of the Christmas tree.

It is snowing! I'm so looking forward to playing in the snow, but it is night and my host told me, that it is time to go to bed.

I love to see all the snow. I hope, that we will find time to go out, but my host's husband is really ill and I think, that I will have no luck. Please help praying, that he feels better soon.

Today it is time to do some homework. My host helps her children writing vocabulary cards, while they do their homeworks. Here you see Latin vocabularies.






We went to the church St. Peter to have a short rest from writing and of course to enjoy the snow.




Here you see the statues of St. Peter and St. Paul.

Today we went on a short walk around the Michaelsberg, which belongs to Untergrombach. It's a nice place, when there is snow.


The houses on the right side in the far belong to Bruchsal.





These houses belong to Untergrombach. Behind the dust in the far are the Palatinate Mountains.





This chapel is on top of the Michaelsberg. Many people like to marry there.

Last night we got snow again. It is sad, that the old snow just melted away, so there are still only a few centimeters of snow.

Today I saw "New Moon" in the cinema. I really liked it. Not too far from the cinema I saw this church. It is called Lutherkirche, an evangelic church.

Help, Mum. Yesterday we watched this one house burning, that has a little framework. It is the house in the middle of the photo. The flames were really high and we all are still trembling. Thank God, nobody lives in this house and nobody got hurt otherwise we wouldn't have taken this photo.

My host had a disc prolaps in her neck and she felt and still feels really bad. So our activities are rare right now, but today we went on a short walk around this beautiful sea. We really enjoyed it.

Tonight there we watched the full moon.

My host's most activities are watching tv, reading and walking up and down in the house. She doesn't go out alone, still afraid, because she feels so dizzy. So here we watched one of her favourite tv series: McLeods Daughters'. She prefers the ones with Claire