Silvester is what the German's call "New Year's", and it was quite the party!!
If you are a fan of CS Lewis Chronicles of Narnia, you may recall the bit from The Silver Chair (spoiler warning) after the witch is killed. All of the inhabitants of Bism (the gnomes and sprites and what-have-you's) start setting off fireworks all over the Underland city. As it was described in the book, so it was in Rümmingen. Almost every street and street corner was transformed into a launching zone for fireworks of all shapes and sizes. Sparklers, crackers, black-cats (don't know what you call 'em here, but I've always called 'em "black cats"), as well as Cat. 2 and Cat. 3 rockets (yeah, big ones!) ... in short, it was a loud, bright, festive time! Everyone, young and old, was out watching or participating. We had been invited up the street to the home of two wonderful people. They are both multi-lingual, so we were able to speak English and German. His mom was visiting, and as her English was not as strong, we had a great opportunity to work on our German skills. She knew that I had family from Northern Germany, and as she was from Hanover, we had a good conversation about the differences between the North and South ...
The food was wonderful. We had a huǒguō (Chinese for "hot pot") in the center of the table and had shrimp (Krabbe), sliced pork and turkey (Schwein und Puten) as well as veggies (mushrooms, spinach, etc.), glass noodles and rice cakes!
Chinese hot pot in Germany
Yummy! And for dessert, Madge had made her pound cake, which we had with raspberries and cream.
Madge's Pound Cake (festively dressed)
After dinner, there were "table fireworks" (small poppers and crackers) for the kids, and then we went out for the 'roketten' (the ROCKETS!).
Wils gets ready to pop a cracker
We felt so welcomed into the community this first year, and it was so wonderful to be able to celebrate our first new year with new friends!
