So obviously I have been procastinating when it comes to my blog. To be honest with you I am a little bit intimidated right now. There is so much that has happened since I last posted that I'm afraid it really might take me over an hour to write it all out. But I guess you all are probably wondering how my Christmas was and how my trip with Pat went and what other crazy antics I have been up to since then.
I guess I will have to start at the beginning, right before Christmas. I hope for your sake you have set aside some time to read this seeing as it will most likely be the length of a short novel. So maybe right now take a break, get yourself a cup of coffee, make yourself a sandwich, and find a nice comfortable chair to sit in.
So as you all know Maclaughlin's has the pub quiz every Sunday. The one right before Christmas was Christmas themed and there was a drawing for a jackpot of 700 euro as well. I participated in the quiz and the team didn't do to poorly either, I think we got 4th place which is pretty good seeing as there was only 4 of us and most of the other teams had about 10 people or so. At the end of the quiz 10 raffle tickets were drawn for the jackpot. I was one of the 10. I never buy a raffle ticket normally, but they were only selling the jackpot tickets to regulars to I thought my odds would be better. After 10 numbers had been called the 10 lucky ( or unlucky) people had to stand up front and were then each given an envelope. One by one we had to swap envelopes with people. One by one each person was chosen to open an envelope which was followed by more envelope swaping. I was one of the last 3 people left standing. I didn't end up winning which is a shame because you really don't make much money as an au pair.
I spent Christmas eve with my host family. In Germany Christmas eve is the big celebration. Christmas day is meant to be a relaxing day spend with the family. I started working early on Christmas eve. I was helping to prepare the food for the evening meal. The day was very busy and hectic, but I was also in the kitchen the whole day, something I haven't been since I have been here, so I didn't mind. We made all kinds of dips and sauces and cut loads of bread.
After the food was finished being prepared it was time to get ready for mass. The church service was packed. There was a little bit of a nativity scene played out by children as well. I will say that I don't think I will be going to a German speaking mass again anytime soon. I have learned that the Germans don't know how to queue, but I thought it was standard in mass for everyone to queue while going up to communion. Not in Germany. It was like a rat race, a traffic jam, and a wrestling match all rolled into one. As soon as the priest was up front everyone just left their pews and ran to the front. After that they simply turned back into the crowed and fought their way to their seats. It was one of the most dissasterously unorganized things I have seen since being here ( and I had to deal with French railway systems).
After mass Susanne, die Oma, and the children and I rode home in the car, Dirk had gone ahead earlier. The tradition for gifts in Germany is that after mass the children must wait on the stairs to see if they hear bells. The gifts are given by the Kristkind (Christ child). If you have been a good child all year then you will hear the bells of the Kristkind as he leaves gifts for you. I know more and more people here are believing in der Weinachtsman (santa clause) but alot still think it is too commercial and American.
We got back to the house and the doors to the kitchen and the living room were shut. The kids sat on the stairs and waited. This was the best behaved I have ever seen them. After a few minutes a bell started ringing. They opened the door to the living room to find presents and silent night playing on the CD player with candles lit. Dirk walked around the corner pretending to be surprised.
The kids were so excited. Dirk brought out champagne for the adults and sparkling grape juice for the kids. Everybody sang Christmas songs and Maximilian and Carlotta played some songs on the piano as well. After that the kids got to open their presents one by one whilst taking turns.
Dinner was after presents. I was especially excited for dinner seeing as I don't think I had eaten in the past 24 or more hours. I was also excited for dinner because I was told we were going to be having fondue. I could almost picture the cheesey fondue as I was cutting up the bread earlier in the day. After we sat down at the table I realised something was off. There was no cheese in the fondue pots. We had a broth fondue instead. You dip raw meat into it to cook the meat. I will admit I was a little disappointed I was really looking forward to an overly filling meal of cheese and bread. The fondue however was actually pretty good. There was beef, chicken, and I think veal to put into the fondue. I only chose the beef because it looked the safest. There is something about raw chicken and veal that just grosses me out. For dessert we had Panne cotta with a slice of pinapple dipped in white chocolate. I think I was the only one who liked the panne cotta, everyone else thought it was too sweet, but it tasted fine to me. I swear Germans have weak taste buds, they can't handle anything with a hint of spicy, their diet lacks salt, and they don't like things that are too sweet. They also eat alot of pork...
Christmas day was something I had been looking forward to. Katie and I had been invited to spend Christmas at the pub. It was invite only. There was a meal and free drinks. I thought it was so nice of them to invite us. I really appreciate the friends I have made over here. They really make an effort. Dinner was amazing, it was like Thanksgiving. There was turkey, mashed potatoes, broiled potatoes, all kinds of vegetables, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, and soup. I don't think I have had a meal that filling since I have been here, it was great. After the meal we had Christmas crakers and we all put the hats on. The spirit in the pub was great. Everyone was having a really good time. After a while I started helping out behind the bar. Everyone was just supposed to get their own drinks but of course the people who work there normally started washing glasses and serving people. I thought it was the least I could do to help out. I now know how to pour a Guinness the proper way, pour a pils, and make various other drinks as well.
The day after Christmas was the day Pat arrived. I had to take a bus to get to the airport, but found my way alright. After he got here we went back to the house so we didn't have to take the bad with us everywhere. We decided to go into the alt stadt to get something to eat.
The next day we left for Amsterdam. Luckily there were open seats the whole way their so we didn't have to stand. We got to Amsterdam Centraal alright, our next job was to find a tram line that would take us to our hotel. We found it after awhile. It was the coldest outside that I have ever experienced in my life. After we got off at the right stop it took us a little while to find our actual hotel. The directions on how to get to the hotel were awful ( which turned out the be a recurring theme).
After we got situated in the room we decided to go exploring. We had passed a nice looking area on the tram and went back to it. There we found of course and Irish pub. This pub was ok, the Guinness was a little over priced and it hadn't been poured properly. We did more exploring and found a couple other pubs to go to as well.
Amsterdam all in all was nice. The people were really friendly and it was interesting. I do have to say that I would like to go when it isn't so cold. I feel like there would have been much more to do and see if it hadn't been so cold outside. During our stay there we went to Anne Frank's house, the House of Bols ( which is a really interesting museum on the history of Bols liquer, I would recommend this museum seeing as it is interesting and you get a free cocktail of your choice at the end of the tour). We also went to Madam Taussauds wax museum which was interesting minus a scary part of the tour where bloody pirates jump out at you and grab you.
The way from Amsterdam to Paris was a little nervewracking. We could not get a reservation on a fast train so we had to take multiple trains with many stops. At most of the places there was not much of a lay-over as well. Once we were in France we got mixed up and missed a train. We decided instead of waiting to catch the next train a few hours later and possibly missing connecting trains, we would just get a ticket that went straight from where we were at to Paris. It was really confusing and hectic and I don't remember as much French as I thought I would. I could only say hello, order food and drinks, and ask a few simple questions. Anything I else that I would want to say just came out German.
Once we were in Paris things didn't get any easier. The direction from the hotel said to take a bus and it would stop in front of the property, it failed however to mention which stop was the one that we should take. We ended up wandering around the streets of Paris in the dark trying to follow dirctions from Pat's iPhone. Thank God for technology because we eventually found it.
I thought Paris was kind of boring. It was really cold there as well and it was so full of tourists it was hard to go anywhere. We didn't go inside any museums or up in the Eiffel Tour because the lines would take 4 hours at best and it was much to cold to stand outside that long. Needless to say we did do alot of walking in Paris. We saw alot. We found a little Christmas market down by the Seine. They had crepes and Vin Chaud which is the same as Gluehwein. We also took a tour in a river boat so that we could see all of the monuments. It was nice because we could get out on whatever stop we liked.
I honestly can't remember the train ride from Paris to Strasbourg, we took so many trains that they have all blended together. I really didn't like Strasbourg, the people were not nice and we couldn't find our hotel. We actually mayhave been able to find it but as we were walking there we felt like we were going further and further into a 3rd world country. We just decided to go back to the train station and get a hotel there.
We went to a restaurant and I asked the waiter in French if he spoke English, he rudely said "Noh" so I asked him if he spoke German " Ja, ein bissen" which means a little. I knew this wasn't true though because the city has a history of changing back and forth from being French or German, it is right on the border afterall. So I just kind of rolled my eyes and ordered our food.
The way back to Dusseldorf from Strasbourg was stressful, we had to take about 8 different trains it seemed. We also had to stand most of the time. I was nice to finally get back. It was an exhausting trip and I was glad to be back in a familiar area.
That night we went out with Katie. Her and I wanted to show Pat around the alt stadt. We went to a bunch of different places and on one of our stops we ran into a group of our friends from Macloughlin's. We spent the rest of the night with them drinking Alt and this awful shot called a Bombsa.
The next day we decided to go to Mac's for the quiz. The quiz is really boring unless you are taking part in it. Katie was marking the quiz and the rest of the team I play with hadn't come back from holiday yet. Pat and I decided to get a decent night's rest anyway seeing as we had to get to the airport early in the morning.
We took a taxi to the airport, got Pat all set to go, and I headed off on my journey home. I live a 10 minute drive from the airport, yet it took me about an hour and a half to get home because I had to take so many different trains.
Pat's returning journey was the trip from hell. It had snowed alot and the airport was unable to cope. His flights kept getting delayed all day long until finally at the end of the day they said he would have to wait until the morning. He came back to the Meisel's and stayed another night here. Luckily his plane took off the next without too many delays.
After Pat left it was time to deal with Jessica. During the holiday she had sent Katie and I e-mails telling us she was going home. Katie and I were both sad and dissapointed. We didn't want her to leave, but her host family decided to put the baby in day care. She could have found another family to work for, but I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing in that situation.
We had her goodbye night on the night before she left. It turned out to be a good night. We went out to dinner and went around the alt stadt. We went to O'Reilly's for karaoke and made some new friends. We sang a bunch of songs, it was a fun night. Sad, but we had a good time at least.
Not much has happened since Jess left a week ago. Today is Katie's birthday and we celebrated it last night. We didn't much like going from palce to place so we stayed in Mac's and after it closed we went to another pub close by.
Today I plan on going to the quiz ( of course). I am going to make a web album for my pictures. I haven't put any up in a long time because they take soo bloody long to load on my computer. So I will set up a web album and post the link in my next blog. I hope everyone is well and you all had a great holiday.
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