Happy New Year!

happy new year, everyone!

news: 1. our apartment got much warmer after the first few days. it was just a matter of heating up the high celings, i think. we went out and got some awesome blankets, and were given some kitchen stuff by some friends, which definitely made the place more homelike until we left for xmas.
2. the holiday season was more or less fantastic.
on xmas eve, we got on the train and went to Solingen. sarah and anna and fred and regine were there, and we had a really lovely ‘traditional german christmas’. Julie and Johannes also arrived on xmas eve with their huge dog Os. at exactly 6:30pm (anna is punctual) we met in the living room, and we sang songs- anna made us all songbooks- and lit the christmas tree (real candles!!!) and had presents. phil and i got really small things for everyone: mostly chocolate, which is more or less good for people, i think. we tried to get everyone their favorite. we received some really wonderful objects, like glasses and silverware (the silverware pieces are all different colors, which is le bien le bien le bien) for our new house and books and tea! next: we all progressed to the dining room, where we ate lots of food- we had a delicious targine? (maybe i have spelled this wrong) which is a very tasty vegetable dish, while everyone else ate some kind of meat with gravy. the whole house smelled good, although i missed our traditional xmas dinner: pierogies, pierogies. (i tried to convince nick via telephone to freeze some for me, but he just laughed.)
after the First day of christmas (because there is more than one day in germany), we didn’t do much- we went on a really long walk, and rene arrived after dinner (from his family’s house). the walk was beautiful: everything is all wintery and crisp, and the sun finally came out, which means the skies are blue, blue, blue.
the following day, we all went to peter’s house (sarah’s uncle) to have a very big dinner. they had three huge geese and lots of rotkohl (cooked red cabbage) and potato dumplings and homemade applesauce. we got special vegetarian-friendly food- which was super nice. we definitely didn’t expect our own food! they even made this really great vegetarian sauce: and i got to eat broccoli, which is buena-buena. i love broccoli. all of sarah’s dad’s family was there- sarah’s aunt (fred’s sister) hannah gave us tea for xmas! now i have all kinds of tea. this tea even came with rock candy (here, rock candy is for tea-sweetening, not for eating, which i find slightly boring, although fun. it makes a great crackling noise when you drop it in the tea, and sometimes you have rock candy sticks to stir your tea with. very classy. unless you are like me, and you eat them. which everyone else seems to find super strange. alas, alas.)
and so: we ate and ate and ate for a few days! which made me feel very much at home, because that is an essential part of xmas in the states for my family. we didn’t do very much more. sarah and i had coffee (tea, actually) with a friend of hers who lives in berlin, which was buena. it is always good to meet more people who live in berlin. and then it was new year’s eve: we had a really good dinner, mostly of appetizer-type things, and then we all (sarah, rene, anna, fred, and regina) sat around and played yahtzee in the living room. everyone but me had drinks, which was ok. and finally it was midnight: first we had a champagne toast, and then we all went out into the Scary War Zone. apparently, everyone in germany likes fireworks. practically the entire neighborhood was shooting off fireworks everywhere. it was marginally horrifying and also very cool. the sky was pink and green and smoky. there were hundreds of explosions. the whole thing lasted for about 10 minutes. we set off a few fireworks and lit lots of sparklers. zzzzszzzzszzzszz! i kept thinking that someone was going to be in flames, or set a house-roof on fire. apparently new years is one of the only times that you can set off fireworks without getting a permit. after the firework experience, i definitely feel like it is officially a new year.
while we were staying in solingen, regine was going through the house looking for stuff that she no longer needed, which she then gave to us- we had a huge pile in the cellar, where we were sleeping (in a wonderful sauna apartment!). one of sarah’s friends had some additional house stuff and gave us a few small cabinets and about a million glasses and plates! lovely. while we were in solingen, phil took some german driving lessons from fred- we wanted to rent a car to drive the stuff back to berlin. however, in the end, fred decided that we would be safer if he drove the car to berlin with phil as a passenger. i took the train (i didn’t fit in the car with all the stuff). the whole experience ended up being a little more expensive than we had hoped, but it was definitely wonderful to have a professional driver: the weather was all icy, snow was falling, there was a lot of traffic, and german autobahns are fast. anyway, we are still SO appreciative and thankful to have had so much assistance: our apartment is now much more homelike! we have lamps and a cute sort of wicker couch thing and a table and area rugs and a little cabinet (which i have painted) and two mattresses!!!!!! and all kinds of kitchen things! we will work on getting more things over the next few weeks, but it is finally more than just some very big empty rooms.
it is very cold in berlin. it snowed quite a lot and it hasn’t melted- most of the sidewalks are completely iced over, and the street slush keeps freezing and refreezing at night. phil’s teacher said this is not typical: that it is cold here in the winter, but usually not this cold.
job search: i have an interview tomorrow and another one on mondae. we shall see what happens. i really hope to start working soon. i went to hang up fliers all around the city saying that i would teach private English lessons. however, it’s too cold to hang up fliers. my hands kept freezing freezing freezing. it was unpleasant.
otherwise, everything else is buena-buena. this weekend we are going to the zoo! (thanks to my young and beautiful cousin and my young and beautiful mother) and i think we might try to see some of the city on sunday, if it is not prohibitively cold outside. at some point we will need to find a waschsalon, which is what they call laundromats, which will be nice.
well, that is all for the moment: photos of xmas and apartment to come as soon as i can manage to put them on the internet- we still don’t have internet at home, so it might take a while.
adios, xoxoxo!