Chinese New Year!

Hey guys! Happy Chinese New Year!! 😀

Hope you’re all having a wonderful Friday evening! I just talked to my parents, they’re doing well, and I got oral English-exam grade today (60 points out of 60), so it’s been a pretty good day!

I’d honestly kind of forgotten it was Chinese New Year today, but luckily remembered as I talked to my parents, so I managed to give my host sister one of the traditional “Hong Bao” – Red envelopes (normally given by the elder to the kids, containing loads of cash), before it was too late. They had some fake 100 Euro notes (fake, as in a note pad with pages that look like 100 Euro bills), so I wrote happy new year in Chinese on the back of one and stuck it in the Hong Bao. I think they liked it.

Anyway, have a blessed New Year, congrats to anyone who’s turning 12, 24, 36, 48 (etc.) this year! (Because of the whole “12 animals” – cycle, you know?).  See you around!

Love, Bianca xx

 

Christmas time in Germany part TWO – Plätchen

Christmas has it’s traditional food in all countries. In Germany, they like to bake cookies, known as Plätchen. Basically they’re flat butter cookies in various shapes, all decorated nicely.

My host sisters and some of the girls from church decided to bake Plätchen with the little kids / actors in the Christmas play. I’m sure it was great fun for the kids, but it became pretty tiring in the end for us “big kids”.

We ended up making 5 different types of dough, and the kids stuck out the cookies with cute christmas cookie cutters. The decorating part was the most fun for them, but also the messiest.

The cookies and cake were for after one of the sunday services, where we would sell it all and hopefully earn a lot. I even made Drømmekage, cause people here love it, even though they don’t actually have the right sugar (I can’t find any “Brun Farin” anywhere!).

Messy, messy, messy

I also baked “Drømmekage”

Lisa – hard at work. Also, don’t be confused by the ketchup – we had sandwiches for lunch.

Host sister and friend – not so hard at work

My two little helpers

German cookies are good, but I’ve gotta say, nothing beats danish cookies. (Except for American Chocolate Chip cookies, maybe ….).

My host family and I also went to a little Christmas market in our neighborhood, Elisabethmarkt, were we drank punch (I’ve never had punch before?!) and it tasted really weird, I didn’t really like it. My host parents both got a  “feuerzangenbowle”, this punch type-a-thing, with a spoon full of sugar and alcohol, and it burns into this weird, sweet drink. It doesn’t really taste that great either, but it was pretty cozy anyhow.

Feuerzangenbowle

Be ready for the last part of “Christmas time in Germany”! 😀

Love, Bianca 🙂

Christmas time in Germany Part ONE – Funny traditions

Experiencing a German Christmas has made me notice some differences between my traditional Christmas, and the typical Christmas here. For example, they don’t really have a Santa Claus here in Bavaria, that’s something “Coca Cola invented” (Which is true). They instead have the Christkind (Literally the Christ-Child), who comes on Christmas eve and gives presents to all the good kids. (Which I think is a bit ironic, since if it really is Christ, wasn’t giving his life to us, dying on the cross, a good enough gift already?) Anyway, the idea sounds simple enough, basically like Santa, right? Wrong.

The Christkind isn’t always a man. Actually it’s normally a woman with long blonde hair – Does it make sense? Nope. I’ve asked sooo many people, but they don’t know why the Christkind (basically Jesus) suddenly turned into a blonde woman.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

So I’m guessing it’s not really Jesus.

That’s just on Christmas eve though. In Germany, there’s also a tradition regarding the 6th of December. This is the day where Nikolaus comes and gives presents. My host family told me about it, and I was like: “Well, okay… ” And in my head I was picturing a little christmas elf, just like the ones we have at home in Denmark (Nisser). I was putting on my shoes in the morning and nearly stabbed my foot on something in my shoe – A present from Nikolaus! The Nisser in Denmark all leave presents for the kids, so I was pretty sure Nikolaus was just a Nisse. Imagine my surprise when I suddenly see this guy dressed in a priest – outfit, come walking down the stairs in school.

I was all alone in the bottom level cause I wanted to buy lunch, but the line was too long so I decided to go back up to my friends. As I walk up the stairs, this guy with a long robe, weird hat, a big white beard, sunglasses (!) and a cane walks down the stairs in front of me. Behind him come two girls dressed as angels, carrying a big, black chest, followed by another guy with a sack over his head and a whip type thing in his hand. I just stop in the middle of the stair case and watch them go buy. This huge hoard of little kids ran by me and I just followed them, cause I had absolutely no idea as to what was going on. Turns out the priest-guy was our Student Council President, and the angels + the sack guy were the second, third and fourth vice presidents.

They do it every year, giving candy and mandarins to the kids, because apparently Nikolaus used to do that as well.

According to the legend, Nikolaus comes in the middle of the night on a donkey or a horse and leaves little treats – like coins, chocolate, oranges and toys – for good children.

– Quote from TheLocal

The guy with the sack over his head is knecht ruprecht, the guy who takes care of all the bad kids. The whip is his tool.

I really wanted to take a picture with our Nikolaus guy, but before I could get over my “shock”, he was gone. 😦 He posted a picture on Instagram though, haha, so all creds to him :’)
(Side note: Dude, if you for some reason see this 1. I’m sorry that i posted a picture of you and 2. Whatcha doin’ on my blog?!)

The sunglasses aren’t actually a part of the outfit, they were meant more as a joke, I think.

Another example of Nikolaus

My gift from Nikolaus! Licorice Chocolate!

Another tradition is Sternstuden – A  Germany wide charity event for kids in need. Lots of high profile Germans volunteer as telephone people, you know, the ones who answer when you call in to donate. Some people from my school went to Nürnberg, where it takes place, and performed together with some other schools.  I could have come too, but some guys wanted to go as well and since they really needed more boys to sing,  I didn’t get to go. It’s too bad, cause they were in the TV and everything!

I KNOW THE GUY WITH THE CURLY HAIR!

Don’t know if this was at all interesting, but there’ll be a part two coming, so be excited! 😀

Love, Bianca

Singing Christmas songs in music class

The blackboard has been nicely decorated with snow, stars, elvish and a bit of chinese if you look closely enough

Art class 🙂

One of my best friends sent me danish christmas cookies!! They were delish, and my host family want the recipes haha