Christmas Stories

Hello everyone!Sorry it's been so long (again) but I was busy celebrating Christmas and then travelling, and then school started again, and this is the first time I've had to sit down and update you all.

Let's start with Christmas:

My friend Becca who's teaching English in Spain this year came and visited me for Christmas! It was wonderful! We enjoyed a really nice time of just hanging out, watching some Christmas movies, cooking and baking, and walking around a beautiful

snowy Heidelberg. We headed to

Mannheim the day after Christmas Eve (Heilige Abend) day, Haleigh, Anne, Becca and I made a

big lunch and opened presents before Haleigh and Anne went to their Gastfamilies (host families for Christmas) and before Becca and I went to church. My church had a service and then a really nice dinner afterwards full of real American dishes! We had stuffing! and sweet potatoes! and green bean casserole! and pumpkin pie! It was amazing, and so nice to have for Christmas.she got here to check out the Weihnachtsmarkt there because Heidelberg's had shut down the day she got here, which was sad. We got some Glühwein (see Becca's smiling face to the side!) and it was a nice day

Christmas Day after breakfast we took a walk around snowy beautiful Heidelberg before heading back inside because it was so chilly. Later, Brian and his girlfriend who was visiting him for Christmas, Anske, came over to make dinner- Christmas pasta (which was our way of jazzing up spaghetti and meatballs)! We also made some pumpkin pies because Becca was looking for the pumpkin fix she hadn't gotten from her Spanish Thanksgiving, and because pumpkin pies are delicious and traditional and homey. I got to skype with my mom and stepdad who were in Canada in the early afternoon, and then later at night I skyped with my dad, stepmom, grandmother, and sister in Georgia. We wrapped up the evening with "A Charlie Brown Christmas"- a new favorite and an old friend.

The next day Becca left, and for the next few days, Haleigh and I hung out around Heidelberg and got ready to leave for our New Years trip to Berlin (she also went to Prague) and Amsterdam! Those stories to follow in a different post.

Below are some pictures from Christmas. The snowy ones are from our Christmas walk- the photo at the top of the page is the patio/deck of my building, the one above is of the Neckar and some swans (the building I live in is barely visible on the other side of the river) and the one to the right is of the Alte Brücke (the old bridge).

Becca brought a sleeping bag with her, and in order to justify bringing it, used it for tasks where a simple blanket would never have sufficed, like watching movies, or checking her email :)