thanks for your cute cards and pictures. It it so nice of you that you keep writing me for christmas. It feels great to be able to stay in touch with you and read how all of you are doing.
Especially at christmas I think a lot about you and christmas in America. Since our christmas is alreaady over on December 24th there is a lot time to think about you on christmas morning.
I want to let you all know how much I appreciate, that you keep in touch with me and let me be a "part" of your family.
I love christmas - but it takes way too much time to decorate.
Here are some pictures of our decorations.
Moose welcome you in the entry: Since you only use real trees - the stay only about a week or two - you set it up short bevore christmas eve and kick it out right after.
since I hadn't seen lots of my school friends, I invited them to make christmas-cookies. I love the smell of chocolate and cookies in the house. Ist't it wonderful? I think that christmas-time starts with the smell....
I made some cute invitations and got tons of stuff to bake: 5 kg of flour 5 kg of sugar 20 pkg. of Vanillinsugar and 20 pkg. of Bakingpowder - and loooots of decorations. 6pkgs. of Butter and 20 eggs.
We used almost all of it.
4 of my friends found time to come. It was great to see them again. We made some "Design"-Cookies, which turned out all right.
Here you can see Jenny on the right, she was in Indiana for a year, when I was in Idaho. We still love to philosophize about the time in USA. On the left its Steffi, a friend from high school.
This is another friend: Kristina.
And here are some of our cookies. Snowflakes.... Yummie. Maybe you guys can smell the cookies, if you close your eyes and try to think about them :-)
I bet you guys all love the temple lights - they are great, I know - but Hamburg has the best Christmas Markets in Germany.
There are abou 10 different markets in Hamburg, and one is more beautyful than the other.
This is the main market at the town hall: We love to go there after a long college-day and get something warm to drink. There are about 80 different wooden stands where they sell historical stuff like toys and candles. They also have great hot choclate and crêpes. I love them. Usually we meet with friends and stay there an hour or more. Since lots of us work or study downtown, it easy to find time together and round the day.
One evening we took christophs grandma and went on a trip on the Alster (the river in the middle of Hamburg). It was a lot of fun to see all the nicely decorated houses.
Isn't Hamburg pretty? Why don't you come over for a visit?
There are 375 universities in Germany, 159 of these are universities of applied science, 95 non-state institutions (of these 51 privately-, 44 church-operated), and 56 which teach arts or music only. Until recently there were no tuition fees levied at German universities for either German students or foreign nationals. The situation is still under discussion but it must be remembered that educational matters including the charging of tuition fees is the decision of each individual Land. A general fee of up to €500 (350 $) per semester has been introduced for all students in the summer semester of 2007. I do study economics at the Hamburg University. This is my 10th semester (5th year) and I am still not done. The average to study economics in Hamburg is 5.5 years - I might take a little longe - have been too lazy the last years. The best thing in studying in Germany is that you don't HAVEto go there. You just HAVE to take the test at the end of the semester - how you get to understand the stuff is up to you. You either go there - of you don't.
Here are some pictures:
This is the main building The Hamburg University was founded in 1919.
The University of Hamburg, with close to 40 000 students, is Germany's fifth largest university. There are also 2,200 international students. There are about 850 professors engaged in teaching and research; in addition to that, the university's academic staff numbers 1800 and its technical and administrative staff, 6650. The university has 270 buildings throughout the city, but its center is the Von-Melle-Park Campus in Eimsbüttel. Students may choose from around 120 different subjects offered by six faculties.
Faculty of Law
Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences
Faculty of Medicine
Faculty of Education, Psychology, and Human Movement
Faculty of Humanities
Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics, and Natural Sciences
Here are some impressions of the campus: This is the main auditorium (almost 2500 seats). We often have lectures in this building - it's usually totally full up.
This is the new law libary: Until August 2006 the different institutions were spread all over the campus. Now they are all situated in the Lawhouse on Schlüterstraße 28. The Hamburg ZBR is one of Europe´s most modern libraries. It is opened until 12 pm each day - starting to open on 7 am from monday to friday, 8 am on saturday and 10 am on sunday. You´ll find 380.000 books as well as 900 different magazines there, covering all sectors of law. Users can conduct research in various electronic databases from 75 computer terminals or by connecting their own notebook computers in one of the 1000 available network-sockets.
I also found these nice 360° pictures, I thought I would just upload them for you!
Maybe - if some of you wnat to get over here to study - just come around - it's fun!
Such a sweet surprise - I work at a company right now, that does coachings. That brings "not being in the office" along. Since all the trainers werge gone, the day after my birthday - I was all by myself... too bad I thougt - but then the bell rang.....
and who came up the stairs?
THE FLEUROP-MAN - a deliverer for flowers..... isn't that cute - my head of the office had sent me flowers..... I really thought that was a special gesture!
And again - one year is over.... dudes - I love my birthdays. It was wonderful....
Everything started out with Christoph waking me up and showing me the cute decorated birthday-table. He even baked a cake for me and decorated it with hearts.
Allthough we took a day off - we got in a hurry - cleaning takes time! And we always need to clean up a lot. :-) So we got going - great - that we have our new dishes-lady! Thanks a million - silver star!
Finally we set up the table and I started to fold the napkis... I love doing that!
This is the decoarted table: I even baught some new dishes - we only had some with cute flowers on - but they just don't match in November!
Getting in a hurry with the cake is normal - I guess it turned out ok, though - it was a cherrycake with cream. YUMMY! We invited only my family and Christophs Mom, since his dad doesn't live at home anymore. So there were one 9 of us - a good number to be able to talk to everyone.
There were: ME, Christoph, my Mom, my dad, my grandma, my uncle, the cousin of my grandma, Christophs mom Christa and my brother Sönke (known as Sö).
My mom and I:
My dad and I: My grandma Helga and my uncle Oliver: And finally - the best part of being the birthday girl - ALL THE WONDERFUL PRESENTS: Dude - that was a nice day - we all had a lot of fun and it was great to have all of my family together. Allthough it is always a lot of work to get everything ready - I truely think this is worth it. Thanks al lot for this nice day!
Our good old dishwasher gave up! Too bad - since we NEVER wash by hand.... so we were stuck! What to do?
We went to the Worlds best Store for electrical equipment.....ELEKTRO DREISSIG And - Tataaaaa - one day later - we were able to let someone do our dishes again!
Christophs Mom made us a great present - 2 years ago - a gift certificate for the musical of "the lion king" which is beeing presented in Hamburg. We never found time to go - but in the summer we finally got time to buy a ticket - thats not enough, though. It took 6 months till they had free tickets.
So today - it was time to go! I got my hair poofy - and we got ready to go. We went out to eat at a nice steak house in the centre. It was really nice.
The best thing about Lion King in Hamburg is, that it is being performed in a marquee on the other side of the Elbe river - this leads to the wonderful matter, that you go there by ferry.
This is the tent - doesn't it look pretty right at the river?
It's a special "lion king" ferry and it takes you to the other side of the elbe. this is the ferry:
The musical itself was wunderful. They had great masks - which kind of folded down in front of the face. They were electric. And then there was a huge elefant - there was a man in every leg. The costumes were sooo amazing. In my opinion - the best thing was the gras - you will ask "THE GRAS?????" Yes - the gras - those were men and women - and they had a square piece of gras on their heds. And they wore cute skirts which wound up when they turned. It was great. Here I found a picture online.
We had a great evening and decided that we should take some time-out more often. We hardly never find time to get some nice stuff done, like that. It's weird. I wish we could "break out" a little more frequent.
When you guys come to visit - we will take you to the "lion king"! Hamburg is just beautiful! This is the proof - we were there:
