Here’s a belated Christmas present to any readers… a new entry. I believe I may be outdoing my previous achievements at non-updating. In my defence, since my last entry my time has been almost continuously filled with uni work, and I can’t imagine many of you would find long entries about my studies scintillatingly engaging.
But given the opportunity of the Christmas break, there are a few things I should record. Not least of course, Christmas. Saarbrücken had its version of a Christkindlmarkt throughout December, and a less-kitch more-craft Weinachtsmarkt on the first weekend. On the weekend of the 16th/17th, L trained up from her exchange in Lyon to visit, and on the Sunday we went to Strasbourg to be tourists (and investigate the sprawling Marche du Noel). Photos (naturally) at the usual place.
And then on the 22nd, lectures finished for two weeks, giving me (or so I thought) some precious time to recover from the hard work, and an opportunity to get a head start on a few assignments before lectures begin again. Not so. It seems all our lecturers also saw this as an opportunity to do more work before lectures begin again, and dealt out assignments correspondingly. But I’m not writing to complain about my work… I did after all get a bit of a break. After opening all the Christmas mail on the 22nd, R and I caught a train to some of my relatives for 4 days of Christmas food, relaxing, a little laid-back sightseeing and more Christmas food; and following this we moved on to Berlin to visit J and U (and family), see some of the sights (R had never been) and to celebrate New Years Eve.
We were greeted in Berlin with a layer of fresh snow, and some flakes still gently falling from the sky… perhaps not strictly speaking a “White Christmas”, but certainly better than nothing! After that first day though the snow melted away and the weather became a bit more mild (give or take some rain), which we were quite glad of during our sightseeing.
Having weighed up the excitement of the Brandenburger Tor party against the prospect of being crammed into the “Party Meile” with one million other people, we decided to wander past the Party Meile early-ish in the evening to see how it was, and make a last-minute decision. At 7:30 there were no real crowds to speak of (at least, nothing unpleasant), three stages with live music and a festival atmosphere (complete with blinking party hats) in between, so we determined to come back later on (since the prospect of 5 hours outdoors didn’t really appeal!) Although at 10:30 there were considerably more people - in fact the Brandenburger Tor gates were closed at various points because of overcrowding - the crowd at the Siegessäule end was quite bearable, and so we got to see the famous fireworks after all. Well, the famous fireworks and lots and lots of private ones - most of them only confirming that the Australian ban on private fireworks is a very sensible idea… alcohol and gunpowder is not a good mixture! And since (in theory) fireworks weren’t allowed inside the Party Meile zone, everyone was just setting off their fireworks around the perimeter before entering the party… lighting little whirlygigs and throwing them into the bushes at the side of the road, or setting off rockets at dangerous angles… the Aussie bushfire season is bad enough, thankyou very much! (According to official reports, the fire brigade was called out 1800 times that night.)
Once again, photos where you’ve come to expect them.
On Monday lectures start again, so I fear we may be in for another little stretch of “nothing to report”. But at least y’all know I’m still alive, and still (occasionally) capable of something exciting!
