"Bratäpfel"

The original purpose of the Owl's Nest was to share my American experience with my friends in Europe and elsewhere. However, today I would like to talk a little about my European life; namely I would like to present my parents. The man with the hat and the the headphones is my father; he is having breakfast in the early morning of the second Advent sunday. He likes music a lot, and he was my initial guitar teacher, so he wears the headphones a lot, also when he cleans the house, for instance. The lady below is my mother, sitting on her desk. Note the little web cam on top of the monitor: it was used to chat with me over Skype while I was in the United States. Unfortunately my own web cam and also my headset recently broke, so I got to use theirs to chat with my friends back in Chicago. (This web cam has a built-in microphone, so I only need to use my own headphones in order to avoid feedback effects.)
Finally, the bottom picture displays a special treat my mother prepared for me a few weeks ago: Bratäpfel (fried apples). You know all very well that I like to stress on language topics, and here is another one: "braten" means "to fry", and "Apfel" means "apple". As I have mentioned before, all German nouns are capitalized, and we tend to agglutinate them; also if the second part in English is actually an adjectiv. There are virtually no limits for how many nouns can be glued together. One famous example (that is used to impress those who learn German as a foreign language) is Donaudampfschifffahrtskapitänsmütze ... Donau = the river Danube, Dampf = steam, Schifffahrt = ship navigation, Kapitän = captain, Mütze = hat. (Note the additional letter s before Kapitän - in some sense it works as the glue between the enclosing parts.)
Oh, but I got carried away a little, so back to the Bratäpfel. There are also two dots on the letter ä, which changes the pronunciation a bit; from close to the u in "but" to close to the a in "many". While the plural is always indicated by a final s in English, there are more than a handful ways to do it in German, not counting combinations. Adding a letter s works for some nouns, changing a vowel a/o/u to ä/ö/ü, respectively, for others. Unfortunately there are no clear rules, so anyone who dares learn German must memorize the plural forms of all the nouns. Really, I prefer eating Bratäpfel than studying their silly German grammar!

Happy New Year

Dear all,

I would like to wish you a Happy New Year 2011, with good health, good luck, and lots of happiness!

I did not really celebrate the beginning of this new year, but I certainly have great hopes in 2011. It be the year in which I find employment. So, I do not have any photos from the fireworks that welcomed the new year, but I took some on Christmas Eve. Complying with a request from a friend, I give you: our Christmas tree the moment all the candles were lit, the dinner table just before the feast, and the kitchen table with the starters. Our annual ceremony comprises the singing of a few Christmas carols, followed by the wishing well, and the gift giving. It only takes about 20 min, because the candles on the tree are real, so we do not want to let them set the tree on fire. (In fact, I had to ask to have a few of them re-lit, so I could take this picture properly.) I am afraid, though, that my camera was not expensive enough to fully capture the beauty of all the burning candles in an otherwise dark room.
As soon as the candles are extinguished (using a special spoon that only serves this purpose), we switch on the light and proceed to the dinner table (which is just to the right of the tree, but you cannot see it in the top picture). My mother is a very talented cook, and on Christmas Eve she usually outdoes herself! (Hail to the chef!) The shrimp puff pastries you see on the bottom picture, which we had as starters, were outstandingly awesome! (Okay, I just made that up, but it was so good that it does deserve a bit of linguistic creativity.) The ensuing main dish (Beef Stroganoff, Spätzle, and Rotkraut (shredded red cabbage)) did not fall short of it. - It may be a stereotype that Germans eat a lot of kraut, but I see Rotkraut as slightly more sophisticated than Sauerkraut, and it is served as a side dish to meat as fancy as game. (Sauerkraut goes well with simpler dishes such as a sausage.) Anyways, we used to have a different tradition until last year, but this one is healthier. Still, we had a final treat: plums cooked in plum spirit, served with vanilla ice cream. I did have nice Christmas celebrations the two antecedent years, but there ain't no place like home!
You see four chairs on the table - my father sat on the far end, and I was across the table from him. My mother sat to my right, and my only remaining grandparent, my paternal grandmother (who lives in a separate apartment in our house) , to my left.
On Boxing Day, as the British call it (Dec 26), I visited my godson Xavier and his sister Noëlle, whose parents Dominik and Simone invited me over. The parents are high school friends of mine and actually the only people I still keep in touch with on a regular basis from those times. (I exchange notes with other people more randomly, though.)
In total I am quite happy with my gifts. Among other things, I got a painting (hand made by seven-year old Xavier - amazing!), a pretty hefty puzzle cube, and an acoustic bass guitar. The latter has been my wish for some time, so I mentioned it when my mother asked me what I would like Santa to bring for me. I must have been a very good child this past year, or maybe I am just a totally spoiled brat! Either way, I love my new instrument, but it is more difficult than I thought to carry my (anyway rather mediocre) guitar skills over to playing the bass. But I only have it for a bit more than a week, so I need to be patient ... However, do not expect any demonstration before the year 2020!