When Sinterklaas Came to Town

Did you know that the Dutch traditionally celebrate Christmas with gifts and parties more on December 5th than on the 25th? It's St. Nicholas Day and it's a pretty big deal!

It starts with a Saturday in mid to late November when Sinterklaas arrives on his steamboat from Spain with his helper Zwarte Piet who is a white person covered with black paint with big red lips. This is because Zwarte Piet goes down chimneys which makes him all black from the soot. Not because he is a remnant of colonial history revealing a latent racism in one of the most progressive countries in the world...right?

Well anyway, kids dress up as Sinterklaas (who is a Christian cardinal and rides a white horse) and as Zwarte Piet (black peter). Interestingly, there is only one Sinterklaas but black pete seems to have proliferated - there are always many black petes assigned to one Sinterklaas.

As I understand it Sinterklaas comes to the Netherlands once a year from Spain and gives gifts. However if you have been naughty he will put you in a sac and take you back to Spain to work in a factory.

I celebrated Sinterklass' arrival by meeting up with some friends at the harbour and seeing him come in and watching the little concert that accompanied it. There were lots of families there with their kids. I think the best part was that after the program of dancing and music on the stage was over I turned around and within like 5 minutes the crowd had just totally peacefully disapated without traffic jams. I was like, wow these Dutch people really know how to disperse.

The harbour festivities - it was so windy that day that biking along the beach to get there felt like fighting against a treadmill

See all the black peter's dancing?

Met up with friends there

Sinterklaas had a little concert where someone who looked like Justin Beiber led a bunch of Zwarte Piet dancers.
My friend pointed out that the Zwarte Piets were clearly white underneath because of the quality of their dancing

My friend took this picture. She was looking for people joining the movement of not painting themselves black to be peter but rather multicoloured or at least just not black all over but black with soot like the kid below.

She also took this picture. Good photographer huh?

Some of the traditions that go along with Sinterklaas is that Zwarte Piet hands out these little brown cookies to everyone and kids get chocolate letters (a chocolate letter of the first letter in their name). When I had a couple of my friends over I got us all letters for our names to celebrate: 

This is also the night that we painted our own canvases...with our fingers! It's related because of the chocolate and ...it's so dutch! 

Hard at work

The genuis

Cameron's on the left-he wanted his to be made all of triangles
Mine is in the middle- its a windmill with a canal and tulips
Ashley's is on the right: its autumn. With a cat! 

I like these, my Mormon single friends, a whole lot

So yeah. I myself celebrated St. Nicholas Day by planning to eat my Zwarte Piet fancy chocolate and then waiting because I wasn't hungry (See! I do have SOME self control!) 

Look at how tired I am!

I also spent the day with Cameron going to awesome museums and eating good food as it was his last day in the Netherlands before moving back to the states. But maybe more on that later as that's not the point of this post.

The point of this post is: Sinterklaas. It's a thing. 

Berlin Grunge

Hey All! It's your favorite spoiled traveler and I'm here to tell you about my latest adventure: Germany!
I flew to Berlin on Friday night and got back on Sunday night. It would have been longer but then I had a commitment at work . And I was going to hang out with Laura and her whole family but then something came up and Laura could not make it. I was pretty bummed because sometimes it's lonely living by myself here and I really miss my family.

Possibly one of the best ever whatsapp conversations between me and Laura was when Laura said "is it weird that I thought about sending Dustin to hang out with you on his own?" and I answered, "Is it weird if I thought of that too?" And that's how I ended up spending a saturday in Berlin with my brother in law! (To be fair he went that weekend primarily for a work conference). It was just a funny concept. I'm so glad to be close with my sisters and their husbands. At the end of the day, even though I'm almost 25, I still get to be the baby of the family and they watch out for me. 

Well here goes the chronicles: 

Getting there:

I got to the airport around 10 pm.
I had to wait in the freezing cold for my train.
I took the opportunity to take yet another 'Jenny traveling with junk food" selfie as I waited.

I stayed with my French friend who I met in the Netherlands who goes to university
in Berlin (it's such an international world I've entered!). She just finished her internship with OPCW.
Due to some difficulty communicating I waited at this train station for like 30 minutes.
IT WAS SO COLD!

Being in Berlin felt like I had stepped back into a heavily
graffitied version of the 70s. Luckily Edoxie found me!
She was so sweet and had a great air mattress waiting for me at her dorm.
Also, P.S. lots of people on the train had full bottles of beer-only in Germany!

Exploring Berlin:

In the morning I met up with Dustin under the Brandenburg Gate!
I May or May not have been an hour late.
He May or May not have been the perfect gentleman. 

Checkpoint Charlie:

We went to check point Charlie!
They have people dressed up as guards from the cold war

Now leaving the American Sector

AH-MAYR-RI-CA!
I love this guy's shades

A portable bike bar! So German! 

It started snowing! Don't the stations look 70s as well? I love all the yellow!

East Side Gallery-Turning the Wall into Artwork:

After Checkpoint Charlie we went to the East Side Gallery.
It was soo cool!

Banksy has given my a love of street art dealing with political themes

Communism repurposed for capitalist purposes?

cool, huh?

A friendly dragon!

This is a super-iconic image based on an actual picture taken from the
opposing political leaders. It's called "the fraternal kiss."  
It doesn't seem that fraternal to me but ok...

Reminds me of Banksy which is probably why someone put a
balloon with it

Tearing down the walls between all of us 

"Lose every sense of time. #Drugs"
followed by a smilie face

Do not know what they were doing there but I love the Kooks!
Saw them live once and hugged the lead singer-ah my younger days!

Then we went to a Christmas Market! 

Dustin made sure to introduce me to as much German food as possible.
It was quite good!

This is attempting to be another food selfie with a crepe.
But really it's just an awkward picture of that guy.

Look at how old fashioned this merry go round is!

Better vantage point of the cool holiday decorations!

After the Christmas Market we went to Museum Island. We weren't picky about which museum of the many to go to and we kind of just went into the first one that we found the door to- it was SO cold  I was just happy to be inside!

On the outside- an imperial guard from Star Wars.
Underneath-the beautiful Artemis!
(or Athena or...whoever this is. I should have taken better notes) 

Amazing greek sculptures!

I'm thinking I should get this as my next headband

This is outside the museum where there is a statue of
a woman warrior battling a lioness.
This is me showing my muscle.

At this point it was getting late. We had some Turkish food for dinner and then walked around a bit.

These are the memorials left outside the French embassy in the wake of the bombings in Pairs.

Parliament

A must see attraction was the RitterSport Flagship store! If you get there early enough you can make your own chocolate! We got there a bit late but still enjoyed seeing all the varieties of chocolate and they even had a little museum!

Stairway to heaven

This is my response to learning how a bean inside a flower Becomes a commodity at the grocery store.

So much chocolate!

It's enough to shock anyone! 

Near the chocolate store was this stormtrooper.
Dustin is the one with a beanie on.

Well what does one do at night in Berlin in winter except GO BACK TO THE CHRISTMAS MARKETS!!!

so many beautiful treats!

My own lack of funds is the only thing that stopped me from getting these cool Berlin decorations!

Ice rink and ferris wheel in the Christmas Market!

And they even remembered that Christmas is about Christ! 

If this isn't magical, what is?

The next day Edoxie my hostess took me through a wild-boar filled forest near her house to a hill so we could look over Berlin!

Pretty cool view off the tourist path

Me and Edoxie! Can you tell it was a bit cold? :) 

I just thought the houses in Edoxie's neighborhood were cool

I had the morning/early afternoon to myself in Berlin. I went back to checkpoint charlie to CHECK out the museum (get it?) since Dustin didn't want to do it the day before.

Once again the reenactment guards. 

The museum was quite cluttered but it was cool. It was especially amazing to hear the stories of
those who escaped from East Germany hidden in cars, or hot air balloons or even by boat as this mannequin here shows.
Can't help but think of all the refugees today trying to flee oppression by coming to Europe. I wish that we in the west
would be as welcoming to them as we were to the east germans. 

Selfie because why not

I was having a cash flow problem and lots of places didn't take my credit card.
So I went to the nearby McDonalds for lunch where I knew they would take my card.  I asked for water and it came in this cardboard box which reminded me of the Berlin airlift. 

So there you go! Berlin certainly has its own feel with the grungy graffiti covered streets and old school architecture. It wasn't my favourite place in Europe but I  love the Cold War history there and the present day Christmas Markets and the chocolate and the legit hotdogs. Definitely glad I popped over for a visit :)