Am Wochenende

Awesome weekend. Stayed in Friday and finally braved a bit of German television. That great movie with Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie... but in German. Apparently the actors are all dubbed by the same voices every time. What a lucrative job that would be! The ad breaks here are sparser but go for like, 10 minutes.

Saturday night - another ex-pat party. I was really looking forward to test-riding the new bike but it rained pretty much all this weekend and wet wool is just not fun. Stephanie hosted a party for the English Stammtisch crew. They are a really great crowd. Met Carolin, who I am going to go ice-skating with soon. Also met Joern who invited me to drink mulled wine at the Christmas markets on Monday night. It was a great party, good food, no-one was excluded, everyone made an effort to talk to everyone even if language was a barrier. But I lack the stamina to go all night like these Berliners seem to be able to do. They were talking about going out after the party (post-1am) just as I was getting ready to put my PJs on. They tell me I'll get used to it but I just think I value my sleep too much.

Yesterday was St. Nikolaus Day in Germany. The kids usually put a boot out and if they've been good, polite and helpful it gets filled with lollies and stuff. So on my way down the stairs after the party I came across this.

Nur fur dich, Nikolaus

Sooooo cute. Reminds me of when I put out milk and carrots for Santa and his reindeer, and I always found massive reindeer teeth marks in the carrots the next morning. Actually, I think the teeth marks were my job last year with Max. I remember eating a lot of carrot (you need 9 bite marks, right?)

KRAMPUSSE

 

But get this, right. My friend Matt (who I met today for brunch) was telling me about Krampusse. Here is an excerpt from Wiki:

But for many children, Nikolaus also elicited fear, as he was often accompanied by Knecht Ruprecht (Servant Ruprecht), who would threaten to beat, or sometimes actually beat the children for misbehaviour as using this myth to 'bring up cheek children' for a better, good behaviour. Any kind of punishment isn't really following and just an antic legend. Knecht Ruprecht furthermore was equipped with deerlegs. In Switzerland, where he is called Schmutzli, he would threaten to put bad children in a sack and take them back to the dark forest. In other accounts he would throw the sack into the river, drowning the naughty children. These traditions were implemented more rigidly in Catholic countries and regions such as Austria or Bavaria.

In highly Catholic regions, the local priest was informed by the parents about their children's behaviour and would then personally visit the homes in the traditional Christian garment and threaten to beat them with a rod. In parts of Austria, Krampusse, who local tradition says are Nikolaus's helpers (in reality, typically children of poor families), roamed the streets during the festival. They wore masks and dragged chains behind them. These Krampusläufe (Krampus runs) still exist.

BRUNCH

There's a Berlin tradition of a long Sunday brunch. Most restaurants and cafes have an all-you-can-eat brunch buffet for about 8EU every Sunday. When I thought about a buffet breakfast, I think of the whole continental thing, you know, eggs, bacon, whatever. But this is magical. Basically they serve cold salads, antipasto platters, hot meals like lasagne, gnocchi, meatballs and sausages, mushrooms, eggs, etc and then they have the dessert table as well. The place we went to today had a make-your-own waffles table. Deeeeeelicious. Because we were so keen to make the most of it, we got there at about 11, started eating and were still chatting at 5pm. "Brunch" generally goes until 3pm. In fact, some people head out on Saturday night, stay out and have brunch as a social call with friends on their way HOME from last night. Then Sunday afternoon they sleep it off. Madness. 

A typical brunch buffet in Berlin

So... tomorrow I'm going to try a step class in German, join the state library (where I can get access to scores and music), prepare for some coachings... Then I'm meeting John and Erica at their apartment when they arrive. Then if they are totally jetlagged and want to sleep, I'm going to go have some mulled wine with the Stammtisch crew.

Tchuss!