XXIII. How to celebrate St. Nicholas' Day

   In the past week the weather has been crazy. We have been getting snow almost everyday with small intermissions of sun or rain. So, we don't exactly have a foot of snow on the ground right now because it has time to melt a tiny bit before it snows again the next day, but we still have several inches (or I guess I should say "centimeters" since I'm in Europe now). Actually, speaking of measurements, I just realized today in art class that a normal ruler does not exist here. Of course it should be like a "no, duh" fact, but I just never thought about it before. The closest rulers to a foot are either 20 cm or 50 cm long.

   Anyway, December is really busy what with the holidays coming up and all. My host parents are working a lot. My host brother has lots of concerts, I have a couple concerts, and we both have lots of

tests before Christmas vacation.

   Last Monday I was in Basel for my first time, but, honestly, I have to say it was not a pleasant experience. It was in the evening, and I went with my class from school to see a play, so I didn't see much of the city at all, which was very disappointing. Remember that book that I told you guys about? The one that we have to read for German class, the guy is dead, and it has pretty much no plot? (Refer to my earlier blog post) The play was based on the book that this book was based on (which basically means that the original book by Goethe is probably even more boring, if that is even possible). 

   A "play" is a very kind word to call this "play". A catastrophe is much more accurate. The original book is called Die Leiden des jungen Werther which translates roughly into "The sorrows of young Werther". I think that the cast took the "sorrows" part literally and spoke every single sorrow that Goethe must have written in that book. There weren't really any characters, there was no dialogue, the costumes were just black clothes, and there wasn't really a set either. It was extremely metaphorical (Werther turned out to be the plastic head on a pole in the center of the stage), it started in December and ended in August (going backwards, reading the sorrows of young Werther for every day), and these backstage guys kept releasing these bags of fog every now and then. The most exciting part of the "play" was when one dude brought out this cool-looking cannon and shot smoke rings at the audience. Nobody knew why though. All of my classmates seemed to agree that it was a disaster and were utterly confused. Now, imagine that you were watching this and you couldn't even understand what the people were saying... When people asked my opinion after the play, I just shook my head. I was struck dumb, honestly, by how dumb it was. The dumbest part is that the newspaper gave it a good review... 

   Anyway, today is called St. Nicholas Day (Sankt Nikolaus Tag in High German and Samichlaus Tag in Swiss German). At school a couple teachers and the staff in the library put out peanuts, clementines and chocolate for us students to eat. That's like the typical food for today. Basically people here celebrate St. Nicholas, the guy who inspired Santa Clause. 

   For supper Mutti and I made: Gritti Bänz.

Step one: Separate the Zopf dough into mounds like these.

Step two: Squeeze a part near the top to make the neck, cut a slit for the legs, and smaller ones for arms. Then roll out strings of dough to make a cute little hat and a halter thing.

Step 3: Complete with raisins for the eyes, and almonds for buttons. Also, little pieces of dough can become cuffs for the sleeves and pants. This guy here is named Freddy. 

This guy is named Dick Rick (dick = fat). He is smoking an almond cigar and is dancing like a ballerina.

Step 4: Spread some egg along the top to give it a yummy crust when it bakes.

Step 5: Eat Freddy. (His halter thing broke though.)

That was our table all set for supper, complete with clementines, peanuts, chocolate, Gritti Bänze, dates, and the Advent candles. The first one is already lit.

   Well, that about sums up the big points of my week. Christmas is coming so fast!