Christmas Eve Elves

Hello lovely friends and family,

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas, Jan and I had a splendid time. It was my favourite german christmas so far, but that did not stop the homesickness. There are a million and one pictures from Christmas to show you all, but it would be too much for one post, so I will spread it out over a few.

I arrived in Freiburg on the 23rd so that I could help Andrea with Christmas. We shopped, shopped some more, wrapped gifts, cooked, cooked a whole lot more, baked, cooked again, and baked again. It was the kind of satisfying exhausting that one can actually enjoy, because it is the kind of work that everyone is going to enjoy and be merry from. With a family full of boys, Andrea does the majority of the work, especially around Christmas, so I know she appreciated me being there and taking my share.

On Christmas Eve Robert, Jan´s father, put up the Christmas tree in the morning, so Andrea and I could put on old Christmas carols and delight in decorating it, taking a break from food preparation

Oh yes, I forgot to mention, it started to snow at 8.30am in the morning, whilst we were all having breakfast, and the second the boys left the house for their day of boarding and avoiding housework!

Whilst Robert was hard at work, I was hard at work baking Vanillekiperl (gluten free of course) in the Kitchen, a traditional german christmas cookie. They were lovely, the one time of the year I bake and it is so hard to stop eating them!

We drank coffe and ate some fresh kiperl for our morning tea! Complete with snow dusting and my mother´s blanket.

 I also baked edible place settings for everyone, and after our break Andrea and I powered through in the kitchen, making beetroot salad (of which I basically ate the whole thing), carrot salad, green salad, guacomole (which I accidentally added too much chili) and a million other sauces for our dinner of fondue. We then set the table and at 3.30pm it was time for us to get ready for Christmas, as Jan´s grandparents are freakishly punctual, worse than me, so we knew that even though we said 5 - 5:30pm, that actually means 4.30pm to them!

 By this time, the snow was well and truly piling up - had not stopped snowing since the morning, and it made for some amazing scenery for us to go hiking in the next day, just a couple hundred meters up the road is pure forrest. It is a post you will all probably really enjoy, but you will have to wait for!

I have had an annoying last couple of days: it started with a terrible meal out on Sunday (I will just say that Vegetarinism does not exist in Freiburg restaurants, and a tiny plate of the exact same steam vegetables everyone else is eating as a side to their meat is NOT a vegetarian meal. And Gluten-Free? I´m not an alien, but they sure made me feel like one), which just led me to incredible homesickness, as restaurants in Adelaide are at the very least respectful, the chefs are genuinely educated, and even those that don´t speak English still offer gluten free options. Apart from that, there are vegetarian meals on every menu, no matter where you are, it is expected. Australia should be increidbly proud of its food and cultural diversity, and it something I miss every time we go out to eat. 

Then my father´s Coat that he gifted me with arrived, only they sent the wrong size, and then we discovered it was too thin for winter, but the company had already dispatched a replacement, so now I have to send two coats back. One is already gone. This however, got turned around when I went in to a department store looking for a winter jacket, thank god for sales, because I got a warm one in a better style that suits me a lot better. Thank you mastercard.

Having lived out of Australia for so long, something which I am so happy to have done, it is getting to the time where I feel like I would really like to live in Australia again, share all my traditions with Jan. Unfortunately, I set myself a goal of studying in a foreign country in a foreign language, and I don´t give up on my goals so easily, especially when I have already achieved so much toward them. So Australia, Jan and I will all have to wait, and I will try and get through this Winter the best I can.

I am now organising the apartment for Greg and Bel´s visit - I am picking them up at 10am tomorrow, hopefully they arrive, because I haven´t heard from them and I have used all my possible channels. I am stoked to have family for New Year, really stoked. They couldn´t have come at a more apt time.

Talk to you all soon my loves,

Happy New Year.

G xxxxxxxx