L'épiphanie, la galette des rois - French traditions

Early in January, we celebrate epiphany and in France the arrival of the three kings includes sharing a special cake with family and friends. The "Galette des rois" is a cake which is prepared specifically for that day and it contains a bean or little porcelain figurine (la fève). The person who discovers it in his piece of cake is crowned as king or queen for the day. He or she gets to choose his/her king or queen and they are in charge for the rest of the day. 

Members of the French Club , which is supported by my wife and my colleague Brigitte Eschenauer, came to our house and baked some galettes from a French recipe and they turned out marvelously. A French exchange student had even brought a galette back from France and that was very special although a public vote determined that the homemade ones tasted better. We spent an activities period with some 25 students eating every last crumb of our galettes. The students appreciated the sweet treat and discussed details about the holiday. As usual, there is a small slide show to go along with this post.

Study Break - a wonderful dinner for our AP class

Yes, I am still trying to catch up with my posts. This one will be short one but you may want to look for the photo album as it will expand. This study break occurred right in the middle of exam week. We had Thursday as a reading day, Friday and Saturday were exam days and everyone was really stressed out. Mrs. Gotthardt had generously offered to invite my AP-German class and all of the German speaking exchange students and our family for a German family dinner. She made "Bratwurst und Sauerkraut", lentil soup, "Laugenbrezel", salad and for desert we had some Apfelstrudel. It was a feast! While it was snowing heavily outside, we had a chance to relax, think about Christmas and just enjoy each others company at the Gotthardt's wonderfully warm and welcoming home. We sang Christmas carols next to the piano and learned that Julian and Kevin although handsome and charming are musically challenged. We played some games and just spent a few nice hours together.  (Wir haben mit unseren Freunden gechillt.) Our heartfelt thanks go to the Gotthardt family and their generous hospitality. 

Still in Christmas Mood

Before I move on to talk about some more recent activities, I wanted to share with you two more posts on the time right before Christmas and exam week. Somehow, we managed to make time to talk and learn about the holiday traditions and had the wonderful opportunity to visit the Christkindl-Markt in Akron. Now in its fourth year, the visitors from Chemnitz, Germany travel to their sister city Akron, Ohio and set up their booths to offer their decorations, toys, gifts and delicious foods to Christmas shoppers in downtown. 

Herr Haller and I took on two occasions our German 3, 4 and 5 groups on a field trip to the market. It is only a 20 minute drive from Hudson to Akron and was easily arranged. At the market, we were given demonstrations on glassblowing and other crafts. We asked the Reserve students to speak with the exhibitors and learned that most of them were actually university students working for the various enterprises. They enjoyed meeting their customers and were flattered that some of them were actually able to speak in German to them. We enjoyed the foods such as Kartoffelpfannkuchen und Apfelmus (potato pancakes and apple sauce) and Bratwurst. The German 4 group insisted on trying out the skating rink and nothing more than pride got hurt, when someone couldn't hang on to the side fast enough.