A Real German Christmas Tree

On Monday Rachel Stuckey, a former RA who now works in the Janz Team offices, invited some RAs over for smores. Now this sounds innocent enough until you realized how she wanted us to make smores! She decorated her tree in the typical German fashion with REAL candles on the tree. (I am not sure I am okay with this having experienced a house fire, but hey if she wants to live life on the edge that is up to her!)

The way Rachel suggested we make smores was to literally roast our marshmallows over the Christmas tree flames! It did work and we ate our smores!

Here I am with fellow RAs Julie & Stephanie. Good times on the day off!

What do you do when you are tired of studying for mid-terms?

When the girls...and Brandon (the dorm brother) were tired of studying for their finals they went outside to play in the snow. What do you do with snow...well you make snowballs-Of Course! Well this group of girls...and Brandon (with the Santa hat) made the biggest snowball they could imagine. I am not sure how they will throw it. In fact the staff has to watch out when we back up the vans that we don't hit the "snowball."

Dorm Christmas Party

On Sunday evening we had the dorm Christmas party. We enjoyed amazing food, awesome fellowship & fun, and a time of celebrating each other at this Christmas season. Above is a picture of the Palmgarten dorm around our tree! We are a good looking group.

The girls had a good time of relaxing and lounging around as they waited for the food to be finished.

Finally they could eat! We had onion rings, shrimp, cheesy bread, punch and hot apple cider. It was a feast of appetizers.

Then the girls gathered around to make gingerbread houses. Well, not really ginger bread houses...more like graham cracker houses.

Finally we gave our secret prayer pal a gift. Each person spoke of what they appreciated about their secret pray pal and then they gave that person a gift. It was a wonderful bonding time as a dorm.

2008 BFA Christmas Concert

On Sunday we had the 2008 Christmas Concert. More than have of the Palmgarten dorm was involved in the concert. There was also artwork displayed. Here "H" shows off her work.

The "String Thing" had an excellent performance. Two of our girls, "S" & "D" show off their violins.

Then the drama outreach did a cool mime with Mary & Joseph and baby Jesus.

Both the middle school and high school choirs sang wonderful Christmas carols.

"R" had an amazing solo.

The sign team had a fabulous display of emotion to the song they signed. Overall it was a wonderful performance.

Shopping in Freiberg

Wow, it has really been a busy weekend...or at least the last two days! On Saturday all of the dorm students and staff took the train into Freiberg. It is a beautiful city in Germany that is a 40 min. train ride and has a great Christmas market.

I hung out with 3 of my good RA pals: Jule, Stephanie, and CB. We all found some cool presents!

While we were walking through the market we saw these 4 Swiss men playing their horns. I am not sure exactly what they are called, but they were happy to play for us. Imagine them on a mountain in the Swiss Alps singing "Riccola"! That is the image that came to mind. The first guy gave Julie and I a postcard of them!

We also found these really awesome street performers...who were BFA students doing outreach! Very cool!

Then CB snagged a good brat wurst! Yummy!!! These are like the German version of the hamburger! You can get it almost anywhere on the street from a vendor.

We then saw a large group of German men with cow bells. Their shirts said something about St. Nickolaus, but I really have no idea what it was about! It was very cool and very loud as they marched by.

Finally we got on the train to go home. "R" and "L" are happy to be heading back to the dorm.

"A" and I are very tired after a long day of shopping! We all made sure we bought our secret prayer pal a gift. The party is on Sunday! So we need to be ready for the big event.

Home Basketball Games!

This weekend we had our first home basketball game against an American Base. Both the JV and varsity girls won their games!! I am so proud. Palmgarten has 2 girls on the basketball team. "E" is the JV team caption and even though this is "J's" first year, she is on the varsity team!

The stands were filled with RAs since many of the students don't have parents who can get to the games.

Here is "J" playing...she is the red head in the white beside the 3 point line. Go "J"!!!!

Decorating the Dorm for Christmas

Finally on Sunday we decorated the dorm for Christmas! It was a festive occasion. I was officially off...so I just sat and enjoyed the atmosphere. The Christmas music was going as some of the girls, "K", "D", and "B", began to decorate the tree.

Elva, the dorm mom, also got into the Spirit! She is a Super Snowflake! How fun is that?

"K" tries to get some of her homework finished with all of the decorating going on. At least she is in the Christmas Spirit!

In Palmgarten Dorm, we have two sets of real sisters. This is one set of sisters who really, really love each other.

Ellie was the only RA on duty this weekend, but she is still enjoying the time of decoration.

Bethany is one of our dorm subs for Mondays when all of RAs are off and when there are two or more of RAs off on a weekend. She loves the girls!

We had eggnog and hot apple cider for refreshments. Here "C" & "A" have eggnog mustaches...sill girls!

There were also sugar cookies to decorate. "E" likes her cookie!

I did decorate my room for Christmas. I brought some ornaments from home, but since I don't have much room, I have a Christmas twig instead of a Christmas tree!

Shopping in Switzerland & France

Lately I have found myself shopping more than I normally do here. I know, I know...it sounds exotic to shop in Switzerland and France...but when the best shops are in another country that is only a half an hour away...it is not really a big deal. I know people in the States who drive much farther than a half an hour to go shopping...this is just part of my life.

Last Wednesday the ResLife staff took all of us RAs to Starbucks in Basel, Switzerland and then we stayed and enjoyed the Basel Christmas Market. Here Julie, Stephanie, and Cara enjoy walking through the narrow streets of Basel.

The shops had some very festive Swiss decorations that you could buy for a pretty penny! I enjoy just looking at them!

In Basel we found this wonderfully HUGE Christmas tree so we had to pose with it. This is Julie, Stephanie and I...we are the size of presents!

This weekend was my weekend off, so Bethany (a teacher) and I went to Carfour which is France's version of a Super-Wal-Mart. It is very nice. They have one entire aisle dedicated to dairy products...they like their dairy here in Europe!

Outside of Carfour we spotted Santa with a mule with bread for the children. It was quite a sight to see a mule in the middle of the shopping area!

After our time at Carfour, Bethany wanted me to experience McDonald's in France. I was fascinated by the fact that there was a workout station connect to the McDonald's. I guess it is the best of both worlds, you can eat the fatty fast food and then you can work out. Does it get better than that?

Here I am inside the posh McDonald's Cafe. Notice the cool red bottles in the background and the modern seats! Now this is McDonald's.

Bowling in Switzerland

This is my friend Amanda Thompson. There are many reasons why I love her and enjoy being with her. She is creative...which is good since she is an art teacher! She loves the kids at BFA and loves the locals here in Germany and Switzerland...but my favorite thing about her is that she is an ALASKAN!!!!! She is from the Anchorage area and she went to UAS. For those of you who are non-Juneauites...it is the University of Alaska Southeast, which is located in Juneau. We love talking about local favorites like the Hanger, Doc Waters, and Pizzeria Roma! Yummy places to eat.

Amanda invited me to go bowling with some of her friends from her church. She attends a German speaking church in Basel, Switzerland. So Amanda and I met up with Kristoff who is a German that lives in Basel and Dany who is Swiss. He is actually from Schaluffhausen, which is near where the Spalinger family originated in Marthalen.

We had a great time. I found that my bowling class I took in college paid off! I was not the worst!!! We each played for the place where we grew up. So Kristoff was Germany, Amanda was Alaska, I was Ohio and Dany was Switzerland! It was really fun to meet some local people.