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A Quiet Week

 

Hallo aus Deutschland!

On the left are chestnuts. They gather them in the woods, but I bought mine from the store. To prepare them you have to cut an X in the outer shell and then bake them for 25 minutes. After that you peel the shell off and eat the insides. Well, I'm so disappointed, because all these years of hearing the song, "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...", I had a romantic idea of what a chestnut would taste like. These didn't taste like that. I expected a rich nuttiness. Instead, I got something with a terrible texture and somewhat sweet. Neither one of us really liked them. So, the rest, unfortunately, went into the compost bin. But they were worth trying. 

It has been raining every other day, with partly cloudy skies in between. The sun comes out now and then and shines into our apartment, and it's so satisfying to sit in its warm rays. The weather is really changeable around here. It could be pouring in the morning and sunny by afternoon, and pouring again by evening. 

By the way...we live on the first floor, yet we have to walk up stairs (or use the elevator, which we never do) to get to our flat. How is that? Yes, officially we live in a first floor flat. Well, in Germany there's the ground floor, then the first floor. Above us is the second floor, and so on. Just another thing to be conscious of. And speaking of different ways of numbering things...

There's the date. Today is November 6, 2023. In the US we write it 11-6-23, but not in Germany! Today is 6.11.23. That takes a little getting used to. It's nice once the day of the month hits 13, because then there's no getting the numbers turned around, as there are only 12 months. So, 13.11.23 means November 13th, a little easier to grasp quickly. Time is also read differently, but it is the same as the military does it, with 13:00 being 1 pm, 14:00 being 2 pm, and so on. 

We had our parish annual meeting yesterday after Liturgy, and with our two priest monks we have now, there's a lot of plans for the upcoming year and all the feast days. We're starting a reading group tonight, aimed mostly at catechumens, but is open for everyone. We thought we'd check it out. A new member of the Board/parish council was needed, and as nobody volunteered to stand for election, I volunteered, and was 'voted' in. 

We took another walk around the Baggersee today with weather in the 50's and the sun dodging in and out of the clouds. I'm so thankful to be able to do so much walking, both for the opportunity and the ability. 

With that, I'll say Auf Wiedersehen!

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Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 28, 2023 at 7:21 AM

    I hope you and Patrick had a lovely Thanksgiving day. It’s always good to give thanks to the Lord - here, there and everywhere.
    Your church there must see you as God’s gift to their parish as you showed up in time to fill an important position on the church board.
    God bless you and them!
    Have a wonderful advent season. It will be interesting and an adventure I suppose keeping the winter advent fast in another country.
    Are you keeping up on your ham radio involvement while in Germany?
    Anyway, I keep meaning to look up and to respond to your note; I just realized it was saved in these open files and I could say hi from here.
    God’s blessings,
    ChrisAnn

    ReplyDelete

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