Firstly, you know how I mentioned illness briefly at the end of my last post? Well it turns out L doesn't have your bog standard bug, rather he somehow caught Lungenentzungung which, for those uninitiated, is pneumonia (yes I did use a dictionary too). 3 weeks later he's still not better, although you could hardly tell from looking at him. "Ich will raus!" is a common refrain nowadays, but tomorrow he gets his wish, he's allowed to go to school! That has meant he has been at home all the time, but on the positive side, he has got very good at french knitting, dot-to-dot and the rubik's cube. Thankfully M caught only the normal bug, so he only missed 2 days of Kindergarten.
One of these days missed was MY BIRTHDAY! Birthdays are very big things here, so it didn't matter that both kids were ill, the entire family still came round for Kaffee and Kuchen. I was woken at 7 by the kids so that they could give me my present, cake and sing happy birthday before their insanely early doctor's appointment. M and L's present to me was a 4x4 rubiks cube, as I'd got a bit too good at the 3x3 (Many a day was spent with L mixing up the cube, and then giving it to me to solve, now that I have the 4x4 he has actually taken it upon himself to learn how to do the 3x3 himself!) I spent the peace and quiet time playing with that before heading to my friend's house for breakfast. Turns' out birthdays are a big thing here, so she had invited some of the other ladies from church to come too, which was a lovely surprise. I left 'breakfast' at about midday and returned home where the mum was in her element; baking, cooking, and assembling matching decorations for the table (she even had to nip out for red napkins, because the yellow ones didn't go!) M spent the entire afternoon asking when the guests were coming, which wasn't helped when they were delayed by traffic on the lone road to Sonthofen. Eventually all the guests arrived, much cake was eaten, coffee getrunken (I put that in german because I can't remember if it's drunk or drunken), and presents given, which mostly incorporated alot of chocolate! The mum had made this creamy cake which consisted of thin layers of cake, and fat layers of cream made out of the marshmallowy bit from marshmallow teacake, and bits of orange. It had a special name, which I promptly forgot, but it was lecker.
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| The decorated table, completed with matching napkins |
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| A close up of the cream cake (photos courtesy of L) |
The day after I left sick children, mountains and snow behind to visit Helen in Halle/Leipzig. It's about a 7hr journey so I broke it up with a couple of hours in Nuremberg, which is very pretty, and has loads of cool bridges! Unfortunately the marketplace was a bit of a buildingsite in preparation for the world famous Christmas market, that I was about 2 weeks early for.
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| One of the exciting bridges in Nuremberg |
Leipzig is in what was East Germany, which I knew but hadn't really thought about it. I'd not really thought about the east/west division, I knew it existed but assumed it was like the north/south division in England, so I was surprised when I had this converstion (translated and paraphrased for your convenience)
Person A: How was your trip to Leipzig?
Me: Yeah, good, have you been?
A: Hahahahahaha, No.
M: Oh, um, well I suppose it is a long way away..
A: Hahahaha that's not the reason
Person B: Oh, how come then?
A: Well it's in the east
B: Um, I'm from the east
A: Oh my God!
*Awkward pause, conversation quickly terminated*
Despite the misconceptions that it is a terrible place because it is in the east, Leipzig (and Halle for that matter) are very interesting places to visit, and I certainly didn't feel that it's only redeeming feature was that Helen was there! There's the obvious recent history, and we did visit the Stasi museum and saw the Nikolai kirche where the monday demonstrations originated (although ironically, despite still having the 'Offen fuer Alle' sign, the church was closed when we passed). But then Leipzig and Halle are older than that and have played host to many famous musicians (Handel, Bach, Mendlesohn (sp) to name a few). We visited Handel's childhood home and the bells in Halle play the same tune as Big Ben because it's one of Handel's pieces (London being Handel's adult home).
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| A famous composer, a statue of Handel in Halle's marketplace (complete with preparations for the Christmas market) |
So as well as the recent history and older history, the towns also have very pretty and interesting buildings. In Leipzig we climbed the tower of the M?????kirche which has a flat right at the very top where the warden lived whose job was to ring the bells and watch out for fires in the city. From the top we got to go out onto the balcony and got a view of Leipzig at night (we were also lit up very brightly, so most of Leipzig's residents also got a view of us!)
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| Leipzig cityscape at night. That massive tower is the new town hall. |
Nevertheless, it has only been just over 20 years since 'die Wende' and there are still scars from this, particularly in Halle which suffered from mass emigration immediately after the collapse of its industries. There can be one perfectly decent building next to a completely derelict shell, and in some places just gaps where buildings once stood. However industry is recovering, and I went to visit the most important one, the chocolate factory! The Halloren chocolate factory has been going strong since its inception, aside from the slight blip when it was used to produce ammuntions, and was aubsequently bombed. After the war the soviets recognised the amazingness of chocolate and the factory was only out of action for about a year. Of course I visited the chocolate museum too, and sampled some Halloren kugel (very sweet but tasty).
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| The chocolate museum was complete with a chocolate living room, including piano made entirely out of cholocate! (The books on the bookshelf are also chocolate. |
So completes an abridged version of my life to date, and if you've read so far here is your complementary song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG_N0X5WsSo It was on the radio earlier, and I just love the key change!
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