Where's the snow?
One of my biggest fears/excitements of living in Germany was the snow. The first week of November, Hannes bet Kaila and I a beer that it would snow in two weeks. Well, Hannes lost. December 1st hit, nothing....the weeks pass...and pass...and then it was December 17th, the Glühweinfest. A group of friends (the Hannes, Markus, Brittany group) has a Christmas party every year complete with snow, fire, Glühwein, schnapps and good friends. This year, Anne and I got to attend. Well, it was just a whirlwind of events. It's in the forest, kind of. So around 7:30 PM Markus, Hannes, Anne and I start to walk through the streets of Nellingen to our destination fire stick in hand. For anyone who knows me, you might remember that i am ALWAYS cold. I wish I took a picture of my outfit because I looked like a marshmallow. I had 2 layers of Underarmour on, a thin jacket, a pile jacket, and my rain coat, tights, jeans, wool socks, wool legwarmers, Uggs, gloves, scarf and a hat (and I was still cold). We lit a campfire, cozied up and drank our Glühwein, fortunately I was able to avoid the homemade schnapps. It was my goal for the evening. We got back to the house in Nellingen around 3 AM and spent the next day sleeping and playing Trivial Pursuit on Playstation (which i ALMOST won in German!).
It snowed for one day...
Then came my birthday..the big 21! First, Courtney flew in from Madrid! We spend the day at the Esslingen Weihnachtsmarkt and exploring Tuebingen. After my film class, a few of us went to X, a burger restaurant in the Altstadt for a celebratory and desperately needed hamburger and french fries. We met up with Hannes, Markus, Courtney, Brittany, Tricia, her boyfriend Chris and Cody and headed to a bar in the Marktplatz. I ordered a glass of wine and was then presented with a rose scented candle and marble cake and got sung to...in English. Although spent with good friends and I couldn't ask for anything different, it was the first time I was truly homesick.

