We had a visitor!

My friend from college Joe came to Berlin for a long weekend and Arran and I got to show him Berlin! Unfortunately there were record low temperatures the past few days, so we got to see Berlin while being extremely cold. Well, I take that back. I was extremely cold. The boys seemed to be mostly just cold.

Arran and I have actually done very little sight seeing, so this was an opportunity for us to go around and see things, too.

On Friday Joe and I went to the Brandenburg Gate and Check Point Charlie. Here we are in front of the Brandenburg Gate. Fun fact, Napoleon apparently stole the statue at the top of the gate in 1806 and took it back to Paris. Obviously the Germans got it back.


And Checkpoint Charlie, which was one of the wall crossing between East and West Germany.


Oh, look! Another picture! Joe came without a hat, gloves, or scarf, so we hooked him up with some Berlin ones.



On Saturday we went to the Charlottenburg Palace, which was pretty awesome. Here is arran and me standing in front of the palace, which was originally built as a summer home in the late 1600's. Because, who doesn't need a palace as a summer home?


We took a tour and got to see a lot of original furniture and art, and then some that was just from the time period. There was one room which had over 700 pieces of China decorating the room, which was quite neat.

Aside from being awesome inside, there were also grounds outside. During the spring and summer I'm sure it's a lot more beautiful, but everything at least looked pretty with the snow. Here is Joe and me around the back of the palace.


The view looking out from the palace.


The back view of palace with Arran and I.



So, this was just a few of the pictures and things that we did. It was a great weekend and I'm glad I got to see Joe!

It's *really* starting to look like Christmas!

Technically, this isn't the first snow of the year, but it's the first snow of December!


It didn't really stick for very long, but the point was it looked nice and made it feel very holiday-like :)


So in Germany we have two friends- Amanda and Stefan. Amanda is a fellow teaching assistant who happens to be a vegan and Stefan is a German who we met through alternative means. For the past two months Amanda, Arran, and I have been doing weekly dinners. Well, weekly food marathons might be a better description. Basically we pick a theme and then made ridiculous amounts of food in the form of appetizers, main dish, and dessert to go along with it. Then we eat too much over several hours. We've done Thai, Caribbean, Arabic, breakfast for dinner, and Indian- just to name a few.

Amanda and Stefan recently met at our Thanksgiving feast (pictures will no doubt be posted eventually) and he has recently been in attendance at our dinners. This past Saturday our theme was pizza party! We had pop, made pizza, and Amanda made a super awesome salad. And then for dessert- we decorated and baked Christmas cookies!

Proof that we have friends and that we made cookies:


Arran's mom sent us a vegan gingerbread mix (complete with hazelnut flavored agave syrup- yum!!!) and I found a recipe for vegan sugar cookies, which worked out quite well. I mixed all the dough before dinner and then it was chilled and ready to be rolled out!


Then we cut them out with cookie cutters and decorated them with sprinkles, both conveniently provided by Marilee (thank you :) ), and some chocolate that Amanda brought. Arran obviously got in on the decorating as well!

So we had a nice few hours, sitting around, drinking tea and cider, decorating cookies, and then eating the cookies that we just baked. Here is one almost empty plate:


And here is a mixed plate, that also, was also empty shortly there after:


All in all, we had a great night with friends and are getting more and more into the Christmas cheer!

It's starting to look a lot like Christmas!

I present to you, Linnea and Arran's Christmas nook! Here you can see our tree, which is still alive and can be planted outside when the holidays are over. It is decorated with gingerbread ornaments courtesy of Arran's mom (thanks again, Marilee :)!) some ribbon I braided and then Arran wrapped around the tree, some smaller ornaments that were given to me, and some little things that I made. Under the tree are presents courtesy of Arran's parents (we have presents!). On the window sill you can see our advent calender- Arran let's me open the little windows every day because I get so excited to do it. And then we also have a few smaller decorations. Basically we're all ready for Christmas! We've also been listening to Christmas music and have even gone to a few Christmas markets

To further get in the holiday spirit, I plan on making cookies, complete with red and green sprinkles either today and tomorrow. :D

On a completely different note, I was going through pictures I hadn't posted and came upon these:


Can you see the little hedgehog?


So, one day back in October I was walking home from school and I saw the little guy, or gal, trying to cross the street. When they made it about half way across, a car started coming, so I ushered them to the other side so they wouldn't get hit. The next problem was that there were curbs on the street and the hedgehog was too small to crawl up onto the side walk, so I picked them up and put them on the side walk, where they scurried away. And that is my story about saving a hedgehog :)