Merry Christmas all.Finally, a white Christmas, but just barely.
The weather here has been cold the past couple of weeks, often with fog rolling in during the night that in turn freezes and turns everything a beautiful white. There hasn't been much snow, only the occasional dusting.
I spent my Christmas here in the Studentenstadt with a half dozen other people from my program, along with an assortment of friends, parents, and neighbors. My tradition of watching "A Christmas Story" several times in the days surrounding Christmas, and at least twice on, remains unbroken thanks to the power of the internet. I am used to having a celebration on Christmas Eve, so I put on a little party and made my great-grandmother's famed beef stew. A few of my neighbors from eastern Europe joined us, as well as one guy in the program's brother who was visiting. We filled ourselves with hearty stew and drank and carried on, making sure our Christmas morning breakfast would be extra quiet and followed by a nap. The next night was pretty much a repeat but with a pot luck dinner with green-bean casserole, corn meal stuffing, chicken (turkey's are hard to come by here), my stew, bread and brie, and some dark Tobellerone chocolate mousse. It was great. One girl in our program's mom came to visit her and they joined us for dinner. I wish I could say that we were on better behavior that night for her mother, but that would make me a liar. We made Feuerzangenbowle after our meal. It is a hot punch with Glühwein, amaretto, orange, spices, and Stroh, which is a 160 proof Austrian rum. You have a little mountain of sugar cubes suspended over the pot (we piled them on a cheese grater) that you then soak with the rum as you pour it into the punch, and then light. The molten sugar in turn drips into the pot. It is amazing, and often if you get it on the street it comes in a clay cup with a little thing sticking out on the side for your sugar cube which they then light for you, a good way of keeping one's drink warm.
The breweries here also put out "Festbier" for the holiday season, not to be confused with "Winterbier" which was invented for the holy season of Lent when people cannot eat, so they make a heavy, filling, and potent beer. Makes sense to me!
The break has been lazy and sleepy so far, as it should be. I am still working out some travel plans with friends for our break which goes until the 6th of January. I have a doctor's appointment on the 2nd, which is inconvenient but that's just tough. My hearing is continuing to improve, but last week when I went in to see the doctor I was informed that there was a small hole in the new tissue over my ear drum, but that it should heal on it's own. Nonetheless, it is very upsetting news to someone who has been plagued by ear problems and pain since August. Having to constantly be mindful and careful of something I cannot and never will see is making me neurotic and generally pissed off, and I don't know what I'll do if I have to get another ear surgery. The thought of having to do it all over again makes me sick. I went just about insane with that bloody gauze in my ear for weeks on end, not to mention being deaf.
I will be spending my New Year's here in Munich, which is supposed to have a great "Silvester" celebration. We talked about going to Berlin, whose Brandenburg Gate celebration is one of the best in the world, but decided against it for a less crowded celebration with a warm bed a 20 minute subway ride away.
Every Christmas season reminds me of singing in the choir at St. Andrew's and practicing all those songs in time for the big Christmas Eve services; I still love Christmas carols. I always enjoy listening to this Sinatra/Crosby holiday radio broadcast that we've listened to at this time of year for as long as I can remember. It must be from the Christmas of 43 or 44, because there is a point at which Bing Crosby plugs for War Bonds, "You know the best Christmas present money can buy are still those ever-loving War Bonds. When you give a War Bond your giving yourself a stake in the future of free men everywhere. When you buy a War Bond you're giving the men on every fighting front the gift that they want most; the assurance that the folks back home know that the toughest battles are yet to be won. Your War Bond is actually just a loan and the sacrifices that our boys make are offered as a gift because they are fighting for a day when Christmas will once again dawn on a world of peace. Let's let them know we're behind them with everything we've got." Hearing that I thought on it rather hard before I went to bed on Christmas Eve. What right do I have to miss home, to feel homesick on Christmas? Others my age, mostly poorer, less educated, and without opportunities for cushy study abroad programs are spending their holidays in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Their year abroad is slightly different from mine. They don't get beef stew and Feuerzangenbowle, they get dehydrated Meals Ready to Eat, water bitter with the taste iodine capsules, and are without so much as the assurance that they will see the sun set on their Christmas Day. It doesn't matter whether they are heroes combating terrorism or imperialist pawns pursuing the goals of our corporations; they are picking up the slack, shouldering the weight of all our fat American asses, and they are there so I don't have to be. That is wrong. Americans are cowards for sending their poor to die off like we do, cowards. Meanwhile those of us with the biggest stake in the future of the country, even if only its economic prosperity, hide behind our moral luxury of debating the worthiness of the cause; fooling ourselves into thinking it will somehow clean our bloody hands and atone us of our sins. Some poor kid shouldn't get killed for me just because he needs money for college. Furthermore, his tour of duty shouldn't be extended because there aren't enough other poor kids joining up to meet the demand. By all rights, I should be in Iraq, and so should the sons of every family that lets others less fortunate send their kids off to die in our stead.
