Our last place to visit in Germany was Cottbus. We travelled with Nadja and Nadine to their Mum (Karin) and Dad's (Gunter) place in Cottbus and stayed there for about 4 or 5 days. Once again we were blown away with the kind hospitality they showed us. We were incredibly well fed and watered for the whole time!
Cottbus is a small town that has a lot of mining industry near it. It's really interesting because they mine a special type of coal called brown coal. The mines are all open mines so you can see into them like we did albeit a little sneakily! We weren't supposed to be there... Anyway, also nearby is a huge power station and you can see the steam it's putting into air from miles away. Apparently though it's a very clean green power station and the steam is pure water vapour so it's all good. We did wonder if it made it rain a lot though... they reckon it doesn't??? One thing we thought really interesting was how sandy the area is! Dig a few centimeters down and all you get is sand.
Anyway, back to our German hospitality. We were fed a massive breakfast, lunch and dinner each day and they were all really really lecker (yummy in Deutsch). Each dish was a bit different but all very German so we asked lots of questions about it all the time. The dish we had Christmas Eve was carp and potatoes. Apparently Germans traditionally have carp on Christmas Eve and New Years Eve (?) so only twice a year. Our hosts Gunter and Karin bought 3 big carp that morning from a farm just down the road and they actually chose them while they were still alive! Gunter then prepared the fish himself and showed us how putting salt on the skin made the flesh ripple and move. I was a bit girlie and found this slightly disconcerting!!! He also made up a preparing sauce of some kind (I think it involved vinegar) that made the fish turn blue, very interesting! It was really tasty and very fresh too. Other dishes we had often involved sausages (bratwurst) and potatoes oh and of course sauerkraut or a tasty red/purple cabbage. Our Christmas day lunch was lecker roasted chicken and potatoes and maybe sauerkraut but I can't remember! I can just remember the chicken... we were given a half a chicken each! Lecker!
Our Christmas started on Christmas Eve which is the traditional time that Germans give each other Christmas presents. We were astounded that Gunter, Karin, Nadja, Nadine and Uncle Georg treated us like part of the family instantly and we had presents galore! We got just as much as Nadja and Nadine got! Thank you so much Skoluda family! Johnnie got lots and lots of Chocolate, I got a really gorgeous black bead necklace, we both got a beautiful bottle of Champagne, Johnnie got a lovely traditional nut cracker and so much more! It was a really fun night. I also love the way the Europeans decorate for Christmas. There's nothing gaudy about it, just beautiful often hand made decorations. Also, they don't really use tinsel, it's more plain coloured lights and gold decorations or just one colour decorations. Gunter and Karin's tree was especially nice as they have a lovely set of hand painted china decorations on their tree.
The next day was spent eating and drinking (I'll get to the drinking bit later) and we also visited a park in Cottbus which was really lovely. The park includes the resting place of a duke (?) and he loved pyramids as you can see from the pics. That night we went outside to the fire and had gluhwein (hot mulled wine). It was so so lovely being outside (a bit crisp at -2 though) and drinking gluhwein. I discovered the next morning that the pond had frozen over about an inch thick! Very cold!
Ok, so the drinking... well, firstly, I don't want to give the wrong impression. German tradition is to drink with guests and friends and not on their own but when they are with guests - WOW there is a lot of alcohol consumed! We had gorgeous wine, champagne, beer (oh Johnnie loved the beer so so much, so much nicer than xxxx!) and schnapps! My goodness, the schnapps! I soon discovered that some schnapps has a lovely flavour while some tastes like straight whiskey! Johnnie particularly had a challenging time as he wasn't drinking fast enough for Gunter and Uncle Georg! It was pretty hilarious them going off at Johnnie in German because he couldn't keep up! They also taught us some drinking songs which involved the song getting progressively harder as you have to leave out words and use actions for a new word each time round. Lots of fun! We played celebrity heads a few times too, and we were definitely outclassed on world history. We got our butts kicked many times!
We've had an wonderful Christmas this year even if it was spent away from our families but our family away from home made it just as enjoyable and we truly count them as family now. Thank you Skoluda family for a wunderbar Weihnachten!
