Weihnachts in Deutschland!

The christmas period here was wonderful! It was a time when my relationships with my German colleagues grew and developed so that I now think of many of them as friends rather than people I work with (it's amazing what a bit of mutual drunkeness can do to build a relationships). I think I evolved a little from being a visitor to the lab group to into an actual member of the group - which is great! It has made life much more pleasant.

The Germans invented many of the traditions we associate with Christmas - they are responsible for christmas trees and christmas lights. One of the great treats at Christmas is the Weihnachtmarkt (Christmas markets). You can buy all kinds of German delicacies (yes there are some) my favourites so far being: Feuerzangenbowle - a very tasty drink made from juice, glühwein and rum - which is poured over large cones of sugar and set alight to melt the suger into the glühwein; and the Bombardino which is whiskey, warm milk and Eierliquer topped with whipped cream....as the germans woulds say "sehr lecker"! I visited the Christmas markets many times with my fellow auslanders sampling a different food and beverage each time!

 The Christmas parties I attended were also GREAT fun - the Germans really know how to plan a party. The MPAT (our lab group) Christmas retreat was held in St. Andreasberg in the Harz mountains - it was an amazing winter wonderland. The party was of course a well organised and well oiled affair - dinner, presents, international table tennis tournament, cocktails, the MPAT  band playing a medley of christmas carols and organised games!

 

The HZI Institute Party was awesome...so much fun..possibly one of the best parties I have ever been to. It went over 5 floors, the cellarwas a dance floor with a DJ playing a really 

good mix of songs, the ground floor had tables for eating and a buffet of food and glühwein. The first floor had the cocktail bar manned by the boys of MPAT and they had made this awesome bar out of eskys that looked a bit like an igloo. The first floor also had....wait for it....singstar! The 2nd floor was another dance floor playing really good music too and then the 3rd floor was more tables and food. There was a champagne bar in the elevator so you could take the elevator between floors and have a drink at the same time - we ended up hanging out in the elevator for quite a bit of time cause it was so fun....So we (myself and some of my Auslander friends) danced up a storm for hours with so many different people - all of us dancing like mad (after a few drinks everyone was dancing like mad not just me and Leo!). The Germans from my workgroup weren´t really into dancing so much but I talked to nearly everyone for quite some time....then later on in the evening when most of the people had gone home there were about 12 of us still partying away and singing our hearts out on the singstar into the early hours of the morning!

So this party makes me ask the question: what exactly is it about dancig that makes me so euphoric??