NRW Adventure, Teil I

Remember when I told you guys about NRW? I'll write it out once more just in case you don't, but then that's it, because no matter how hard I try I always manage to leave out a letter or misplace the hyphen. Just like some words don't roll off your tongue, this one doesn't roll off my fingers when I'm typing. And that makes me nervous.

Nordrhein-Westfalen.

NRW (sigh of relief), is the largest Bundesland (state) in Germany containing 4 of the largest 10 cities in the country. Cities such as Cologne, Bonn, Düsseldorf, etc. are in NRW. It happens to also be home to Soest, a small town of 50,000 where my Oma (grandmother) and her family moved during WWII. As far as I remember the story as Oma told it, her mother, my great-grandmother Oma Frieda, acted on instinct by moving the kids from the big city to Soest and a mere day or two later their apartment building in Frankfurt was bombed. Soest and the neighboring village they lived in, Borgeln, were in the countryside, giving them easier access to food.

Here's a picture of my Oma with her brother, Dieter. Irene, their sister, is missing from the picture:

Some of my Oma's family still lives in Soest, namely her sister Irene's two sons, Frank and Jens and their families. They are my mom's cousins but to me, they and their kids are also my cousins because otherwise it gets entirely too complicated. I could never kept track of the difference between "second cousin" and "cousin once removed," anyway.

A couple weeks ago I headed out to Soest to see said cousins and stayed with Jens and his wife Claudia and their kids Lucas, Lea, and Fynn. The last time I was there was back in Spring of 2006 when I stopped by while studying in southwestern Germany during college. A couple blog posts ago I put up two photos of the group and there you can see how much time really passed!

This year it was Christmas time and we made the most of it by going to the Soester Weihnachtsmarkt (Soest Christmasmarket) three times. Lots of Glühwein, Quarkbällchen (mini donuts), and Christmas cheer was had by all. The third day, another cousin Thorsten (one of Dieter's three sons) came with his family and we all brunched and Christmas-marketed together.

Claudia's Christmas cookies:

Thorsten and I with Quarkbällchen:

Mama's favorite Schokoküsse, which she calls a much less PC-term from her childhood. I'll let you be creative on that one:

Serious concentration bei Rummikub:

Lea and I at the Markt:

Fynn and I, the calmest I saw him all weekend:

All the kids at the Weihnachtsmarkt:

The kids also discovered my iPad and all its photo apps and took the following gems:

After three days in Soest it was off to Düsseldorf to see Priscilla for a few days. Priscilla was unfortunately under the weather most of the time but at least that meant she got to stay home from work and we spent time chatting, cooking, and resting. Photos from D-dorf to come!