German Song

Today I listened to a German song with my parents and Michelle, in English it's called 99 Ballons. Listen to it here.

Important German People

Germany has had many important people, some include Beethoven (musician), The Grimm brothers (writers), von Braun (scientist), Planck (scientist), Bismark (politician), Goethe (writer), Schiller (writer), Benz (industrialist), and Einstein (scientist). These men all had a large positive impact on our current world. Some important women are Angela Merkel (politician) and Sophie Scholl (activist).

Renaissance Era

The Renaissance style contains elements from the ancient Greeks and Romans. The first example of the Renaissance period in Germany is St. Anne’s Church in Augsburg. While it was being built German citizens had very few rights, because of this large plots of land remained barren and unused. A few examples of important Renaissance buildings are Augsburg City Hall and Heidelberg Castle. Many churches in Germany are built in the Renaissance style. The picture is of Trausnitz Castle.

Gothic Era

Gothic building started being made in Germany in about 1230, an example of this is Liebfrauenkirche, a German church. Unfortunately bombing raids in November 1944 destroyed many buildings from this period. A subseries of gothic is brick gothic, which uses mostly brick. An example of brick gothic is Stralsund City Hall. Houses in this period were mainly timber-framed buildings. The picture is of Cologne Cathedral.

German Cookies

I made German cookies! (Vanillekipferl) with Michelle, the recipe is attached...(in german, the second recipe) These cookies are traditionally made for Christmas. A lot of them broke when we coated them in sugar but this may partially be the dough being too dry. Technically they are biscuits, not cookies. Vanillekipferl are also considered Austrian, Czech, and Hungarian.

Weather

Here are some terms and phrases related to the weather.

Cold-Kalt

Warm-Warm (pronounced varm)

Hot-Heiß

Rain-Regen

Snow-Schnee

Sun-Sonne

The weather is good-Das Wetter ist gut

It's raining cats and dogs-Es regnet in Strömen

German Alphabet

The german alphabet is the same as the english one just with Umlaute (ä, ö, ü) Umlaute can be replaced with their respective vowel followed by an e.

(image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tastatur-Umlaute-deutsch.jpg)

Plan for December

Learn the alphabet and how to talk about the weather. Make two German recipes. Study Gothic and Renaissance eras. Listen to one song in german. Learn about christmas in Germany and important people in Germany.

Advent Calendars

These are calendars that have little chocolates in them , every day you open the door assigned to whatever day it is. I got mine for Esther's German Bakery in Los Altos.

Saint Nicolas Day

Today is Saint Nicolas Day! Last night we cleaned our shoes and put them out with milk and cookies. This morning when we checked them they were filled with goodies. This is celebrated to honor the bishop Saint Nicolas, today is his feast day. I read Erika's Two Guests by Isobel Millier Hellender from the book Christmas Stories Around the World to get a further understand the holiday and learned that a similar holiday is celebrated in Austria. Originally they put in apples and oranges and nuts. Nowadays they are filled with gelt and candy. In mine was jelly bellies, chocolate reindeer, candy canes, bubble bath, and gelt. This holiday originated because Saint Nicolas put coins in poor people's shoes when they left them outside because the church had all the money.