the 25th is the first, and the 26 the second day of christmas. sven and alexia and the opa came for gifts in the morning. all of my german skills were gone from the night before. i never knew what was going on all day. for lunch we had our big christmas meal. goose legs, knödel ( potato or bread crumb balls), red cabbage-kraut stuff (with lots of vinegar and cloves), and cooked apples and chestnuts. it all seemed very strange to me- i certainly felt like i was in germany! i was thinking of jamie- meike got a board game for chistmas from sven and alexia. Alhatan or something- it´s a big Moorish castle in spain, i guess? won the german game of the year award in 2003. not so hard to play in german- not like sedler (settler) where all the cards have these longish explanations of what they can do. it was just at my level of german- colours, single digit #s, etc. “ein andere karte, bitte, ich hab´ drei! ich bin rot” usw. later, an aunt and uncle came over. about this time, my mom called. so nice to talk in english! made me a bit homesick. not that mom asked what i got for christmas. still, just to talk fast to someone and never have to explain myself was so novel! It was a long day. After those guests left, more came- friends of birgit. there was the wife, who was really chatty, the daughter, who spoke french and german, and the husband who was super nice, asked me all sorts of things in english about me and christmas in america. was nice to talk about santa claus coming down the chimney and leaving gifts for the children to open in the morning. we made feuerzangenbowle- mulled wine and more. we set a little metal thing over the pot and put a cone of sugar on it, then we poured brandy all over it and set the brandy on fire to melt the sugar into the wine. it was good, but strong, and it still was not enough to get me into the conversation. meike did a good job of translating, but there was no way i could be part of the conversation- it just moves too fast.
Vocabulary:
Rollo- rolling shutters
Der Reißverschluss- zipper
Die Bescherung- exchange of the gifts
1 comment:
Just a short comment on the boardgame (Hey, you thought of me, I feel I have to comment!)...
I think (but only think) that you're talking about 'Alhambra'. It fits the description and it is the winner of the 2003 'Spiel des Jahres' contest. So I'm pretty sure it's it.
We have it here, too. I like it a lot, but Pi isn't too convinced, so we don't get to it so often.
(Funny, since we got a spontaneous visit from Sebastian and Max (two teenage boys we know, one is my cousin) and we ended up playing board games until 1:30 am. So I'm in a real boardgame mood right now.)
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