Christmas Party and Christmas Markets

This week has been very cold in Germany.  It is officially winter!  A pretty standard week for me really, with the fun addition of being in charge of 10 very excited year 6's as we decorated Lower School with Christmas trees.  Matt had a more difficult week, with one of his diabetic kids getting taken to hospital in an ambulance.  She is OK, but it was rather stressful for everyone.

Friday night was the work Christmas party, at Bolero's, the Spanish restaurant in the Inner Harbour.  I got ready at Al's house, and her Mum, who is visiting, made us snowballs to get us in the mood for partying.  It was a really good night, and I managed to control myself around the open bar.  I think Matt was a bit worse for wear this morning, and some friends are still in bed now (it's 7pm on Saturday!!!).

This week a poster went up on the Lower School staffroom notice board of Matt in a suit and Pete (below) photoshopped into a wedding dress.  The caption read 'Congratulations on your virtual wedding' with two playstation controllers joined with a heart.  It was really funny, and very much true.  They do spent an awful amount of time talking to each other and playing online games via the playstation.  It wasn't until later on in the week that we realised that Pete looked exactly like Laura (below) in the photo of him in a wedding dress.  Hence this photograph...

The Christmas markets are in full swing now, and we visited them a couple of times after work this week.  Here are a few (wet) photos of Duisburg market, which is lovely.

This is flame cooked salmon, which you eat in a bun.  delicious!!!

... and the lads enjoying bratwurst.

Cats, Indian Festival and Duisburg

It was a busy week last week, as per usual, with lots of people off sick in Primary, which meant lots of cover for me, and missing my favourite lessons of the week; year 8.  Things improved a huge amount on Thursday with the opening of the Christmas markets.  Everyone's mood seems to have improved, and now that there are only 3 more weeks left of school before we break up for Christmas, everyone is feeling the Christmas spirit.

We had a furry visitor at the start of the week, which was lovely.  She's like a hot water bottle; perfect for cold winter nights!

On Friday night I went to a friends birthday house party, which was lovely and chilled out.  I was taught a game called Linkee, which you HAVE to play.  It's awesome.

Saturday night was the Indian Festival at school, organised by one of the Mums at school.  She had payed for the whole thing from her own pocket, and it was a spectacular evening of traditional and bollywood dance, traditional music played live, and a play all put on by the Indian children at school.  I know a few of the kids and they were just brilliant.  Three girls in upper school who performed a dance, with bells all over their outfits, said that they had been rehearsing for 6 months!  It certainly showed during their performance.

There was an Indian vegetarian buffet, which was AMAZING, and the reason that most teachers had bought tickets.  While the food really was superb, I had a great time at the party, and especially enjoyed a year 2 teacher who did a magic show on the stage and at the tables.  He was incredible, and i'm trying to think of an excuse to hire him!

Afterwards we went to our local pub, Shanke for 'a few beers'.  We ended up getting home at 2 am, after several shots of rubarbershnapps, and after playing Linkee, girls vs boys.  See if you can guess from the photos below who won!!!

On Sunday, we just realxed and watched TV, which was what we needed after out night out!

Annmarie sent me some photos that she took on her (much better than mine) camera, of the Landschaftpark Nord, which we visited at night when she was here a few weeks ago.  The photos are brilliant, but you just can't get a sense of how great this place is.  They have a Christmas market there in a few weeks, which I would love to go to.

 

At the top of the 70m high tower.

A Week Without Matt

It's been a bit of a strange week really without Matt.  He flew to England for his first Masters Degree seminar on Wednesday and is due back tonight. So I have had 4 nights in the flat on my own, which has been nice in some ways, but very strange too.  I've mostly been binge watching The Vampire Diaries, making some Christmas presents and not doing a whole lot else.  I went shopping in Dusseldorf with Al on Saturday. We had lunch at the pork place, which we both love, and then got into the Christmas spirit by buying Christmas jumpers, and leggings.  Then we met a few friends for drinks, and headed back to her flat for a girly sleepover.  It was nice to get out of the house.

The landlord has been doing work on the side of the house this week, so for three days in a row he has been hanging out of the window, and there is now a huge silver tube attached to the side of the house.  It absolutely poured with rain on Friday, so the landlord, and the flat got soaked where he was working. Not best pleased with that, since he didnt even tidy it up!

Everyone at work is getting a bit fed up because the weather has now changed, and its pretty cold.  It had been really mild for a couple of weeks, which was actually really horrible because it was so muggy.  Lots of people have been off sick, so i've been kept busy, and I think I turned a corner with the year 8 boy that I have been working with.  He has ADHD and I have finally worked out how to deal with him.  The lessons have become much more productive, which is great.

The photo above is from the kitchen window. It is a st Martin's Day parade that was happening around our block. There was a band (which you can just about see in the photo) and everyone had lanterns. It was nice to watch all the kids enjoying themselves.

Getting into the Christmas Spirit

Last weekend my lovely Californian friend came to stay for a few days.  She arrived on Friday just in time for me to finish work, and meet her at the local pub for a schnitzel (she wanted some typically German food).

On Saturday we wandered into Dusseldorf, and discovered to our delight, and early Christmas drinks stall set up by the Rhine.  It was under a big ferris wheel, which we had a ride on, and then of course a nice not gluwine after.  We had a wander along the river, and had lunch outside (it was so mild for November), and then an ice cream while we continued our wanders.

In the evening, we headed to Duisburg and met one of my friends for dinner at the amazing Asia Gourmet canteen-style restaurant.  Then we got the tram to the Landschaftpark Nord.  This is the landscape park, with the old steel works that we went to when Mum and Dad visited.  Except this time it was night, and all lit up in fantastic colours.  We met another couple of friends there, and spent a happy few hours exploring the park, and sneaking up on each other (I screamed so loudly one of these times, it echoed across the entire park!).  We even climbed the 70 meter tower, some parts of which were completely in the dark.  It was spooky, but also really amazing!  The restaurant there had turned into a bar, so it was a good opportunity for another gluwine, or a beer.  It was really nice to do something different on a Saturday night, and not just the same night out in Dusseldorf that we always do.

Unfortunately, my camera really couldn't cope with the dark and the lights all at once, so I have no good photos.  I did take lots of my friends camera, so i'll post them when I have them.  Until then, you'll have to make do with this fantastic sunset, and Matt making friends with the house cat.

Halloween

This weekend, my lovely friends from school and their partner/fiancee came to visit us in Duisburg.  They went to Duisburg zoo on Thursday and Wuppertal zoo on Friday while we were at work (I think they might like zoos just a little bit!).  We had dinner with them at the local brewery on Thursday - amazing schnitzel with an egg on top - and we had a party on Friday night.

Yesterday we went to Cologne for the day.  They all went a bit earlier to do the Chocolate museum, and we met them in the early afternoon.  The boys went off to see Cologne play football, and the girls went to the Cathedral.  We had a look inside and climbed the tower too.  My knees hurt so much from the 533 stairs!  We went to an Irish pub to watch the rugby final with a few pints of Strongbow, and were pleased that NZ won, because one of the friends who was visiting is half NZ.  We had dinner in the restaurant/hotel that Mum and I stayed at last year, which was lovely, then we headed back for an early night.

Charlee and Ellie left early today so we didnt see them, but we met up for a vegetarian lunch with Louise and Ben, and then a huge Crepe and 'hot chocolate' (it wasn't a drink.  I had to eat it with a spoon.  I couldn't finish it, it was that sickly!)

Charlee and Ellie also gave us their save the date for their wedding, which will take place in May 2017 - very exciting.

Friday was dress up day at school and the Halloween disco.  I went as a siamese cat, with my pal Alex, as you can see below.  I spent the day setting up the hall for the disco, which was fun, but also exhausting!  Two of the teachers got gunged after the disco (the kids had been buying raffle tickets all week for it), which was hilarious. Then everyone came back to our flat for a party.  Another successful Harris party!