Would you like some sushi with your sugar cookies?

Today at 9:30am we had our class Christmas party. Everybody brought a little something from their homeland - something usually eaten at Christmas or for a festival. It was a little early for all the sweets that were there, and certainly earlier than my tastebuds preferred when it came to the Japanese sushi (fish) and the fish sandwiches our classmate from the Philippines. However, we all had a ton of fun sampling the different dishes and hearing the history behind each one.

Sweetbread from Afghanistahn (on left), apricot-filled cookies from one of the Russian states (right), my tin of sugar cookies with sprinkles is just off the page. btw- a HUGE thank-you to Hillary for coming by yesterday - she and I had fun rolling out all the dough and cutting out the shapes (and eating the 'broken' cookies).

Here are my classmates - well, what we've boiled down to. Lots of people have been dropping out over the last few weeks.




















After class I zipped around Marburg getting some holiday errands accomplished....and then had a situation occur that caused my bike chain to come off. Today's temps were between -2 and 4 Celsius and I really just wanted to finish up and get home. Stefan drove into town to fix my chain (and take home my heavy backpack!) so I could continue with my shopping--my hero!! Ok, so it's freezing out there, but getting around on the bike sure beats schlepping around town like a beast of burden laden with backpack, shopping bags, and an upper body swaddled in three layers of fleece!