Easter in Germany

Easter in Germany

Easter in Germany symbolizes the and of the fasting season and traditionally starts on Good Friday which is called Karfreitag where - following to the catholic tradition - your are supposed not to eat any meat. The day before is Gründonnerstag - green thursday. The origin of this name isn't totally clarified. One theory is that it stems from the tradition to eat much green vegetables and herbs for gaining strength and health for the rest of the year. In some regions it is the first day to dessiminate in the garden for having large crops all year.
Easter Sunday is the happy day of resurrection and the favorite day of the children where they search for Easter eggs. The parents hide small nests with eggs, small bunnies made out of chocolate or caramel and other items for their kids.
Why easter eggs - one explanation is this:
During the fasting period people weren't allowed to eat any eggs. So in the end there was a large overage of eggs. The symbolic relevance of eggs reflects the emergence of new life and the resurrection. The custom of painting Easter eggs goes back to the Ancient Egypt.
In the period before Easter you will find many ideas for Easter handicraft work. The traditional decoration usually includes willow twigs which is adorned with painted empty easter eggs.
Have a look at this handicraft site which offers many ideas not only for Easter but all year.
The last day of these holidays is Easter Monday where many families make a trip or picknick enjoying theses first warmer days of spring.

Frohe Ostern 2010 ! Easter eggs
What do we eat during these days?
Green Thursday - in our region it is the famous "Maultaschen"..
Good Friday - Fish
Easter Sunday - Lamb or rabbit, asparagus, fresh strawberries and sweets like the easter bunny:
Here is the recipe:
Ingredients:

1 kg flour
1 tsp salt
160 g soft butter
600 ml room-warm milk
1 tbsp sugar
40 g yeast
24 hazel-nuts or raisins
2 yolks for coating

Dissolve yeast in the warm milk, add some sugar, and leave the dough until bubbles appear on it's surface. Put the rest of the ingredients into a big bowl, pour the milk& yeast mixture in and mix well till the dough is smooth (~10 min). Put the bowl in a warm place and let it stay there till its volume at least doubles. At this point the dough requires intensive kneading. After that, let it rest for about 20 min.
Knead the dough again and cut it into 12 equal parts. Form the Easter Bunnies: separate the dough part into 3 pieces, and adjust them to each other as a head, body and tail. Form two ears on top of the head. Press the nuts or raisins onto the head as the rabbit's eyes. Put the bunnies onto a greased and floured cook sheet. Coat with the yolk, let rest for 30 min, and bake in the preheated oven for about 25-30 min.

I wish you great Easter holidays - Frohe Ostern! Happy Easter!

International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day and I nearly forgot it. Somehow we don't have this long tradition and the day doesn't have this impact as it has in other countries. If my Russian colleagues hadn't made congratulations I wouldn't have taken much notice.
The first person to organize this day was actually a German woman, the German socialist Clara Zetkin (1857-1933) organized the first Internationaler Frauentag (International Women's Day, IWD) in 1911.
The date however goes back to a strike by Russian women textile workers in St. Petersburg on March 8, 1917. Although it was observed in the GDR (East Germany) until German reunification, the celebration of IWD in West Germany (by the SPD party) never caught on, and the date goes largely unnoticed by most Germans today. Unlike in other countries like Russia or Cuba it has never been a national holiday.
In the last years I noticed that restaurants were taking up the occasion for organizing Women's special evenings. There it is used primarily as another commercial possibility like Valentine's day or Halloween which hadn't been known as German traditions 10 years ago.
The main subject in Germany mentioned by the newspapers are the different wages for men and women. Women still get paid up to 25 % less in wages than men for the same kind of work.
Apart from equal rights and opportunities for women we still have to stand up against violence against women and girls which unfortunately belongs to the life of many female citizens all over the world.

Storm in Germany

The last day brought storm Xynthia to Germany. After passing France where many people died it entered our country causing many incidents mainly by falling trees. People had been warned before to stay away from woods and possibly not use the cars if they hadn't to.

The trains were blocked in several parts of Germany. In the Stuttgart the S-Bahn connections were partly stopped due to falling parts. Traffic signs and parts of constructions sites and bricks had been flying around. After 1 pm the traffic between Zuffenhausen and main station was stopped, the Zuffenhausen was closed entirely. The insulating boards of a shopping center in Feuerbach fell off the building and fell on the rails and overhead contact lines. Firemen had to secure these boards before train traffic could start again.

Of course it is always fastidious if you spend 1 and a half hour to come back home instead of the normal half hour, but I must say that the reaction by the responsible people from the VVS has been very quick and you were informed about alternative possibilities.