Festive

Mood: still tired
What I'm Reading: German grammar books

My German class is taking a part of each day this week for people to make presentations about holidays in their countries. Yesterday I talked about Halloween (not my choice) and passed out lots of candy and showed cute pictures of the Brett children and I in costumes. Among the presenters today was a group from Russia. They spoke about Maslyanitsa meant to welcome in the Spring (and since Christian times, to prepare for Lent). It involves all of the men fighting one another in one huge brawl, lots of food and vodka, bear wrestling, and fireworks. They brought Russian cakes, caviar, some sort of pastry filled with raw fish, and pancakes with honey.

Now I'm babysitting at the Bonnets. They have a guest staying for the week. He decided to stay home tonight, so we had a chance to talk about concepts of friendship and openness in German and American cultures for the past couple of hours. Good stuff.