Maddy’s December Report
Maddy certainly had a great Christmas in Germany! Maddy returns to Frankston on 15th January.
On December 3rd we caught the train to Hamburg for my host fathers 50th birthday, when we got there at 5pm and checked into a VERY nice hotel called “The Hyatt” caught a taxi to “Theater Neue Flora” to watch the musical Tarzan, we got amazing seats and the musical was absolutely awesome!!
It was so well done, with monkeys flying across the audience and so much more it was truly an unbelievable experience! I would recommend it to anyone visiting Hamburg to go and see it. It went until 10pm and we then caught another taxi to a VERY beautiful Italian restaurant where we ate a very amazingly well cooked perfect dinner.
We got back to the hotel at 1am and we were all pretty tired from travelling the whole day so we got ready for bed and slept on the amazingly comfortable beds and slept a most undisturbed perfect sleep. The next day we toured around Hamburg and visited the Hamburg Christmas market and at 5pm we caught the scaring, horrible train ride back…. Well for my host family anyway. It was such a busy weekend that to get a SPOT in the train you would consider yourself lucky let alone get a seat.
I guess that day was my lucky day because I got a seat 3 times in a row while my host family had to stand. I felt so bad because it was so packed that we all got split up and so while I’m happily sitting being offered marshmallow mice my host brother is being pushed up against a train door, my host sister and mother out of sight lost in the middle of a crowd of people, and my host dad trying not to fall out of the train every time we stop at a station, that was the thank you I gave them for the wonderful weekend in Hamburg.
The time leading up to Christmas was an amazing time, being able to open a daily treat from the advents calendar my host mother made herself, spend lots and lots of time in different cities enjoying the SPECTACULAR German Christmas markets and enjoying drinking a nice hot punch in the freezing ice cold, and making snow angels in the snow. 
We also this month went Christmas tree shopping which included the following:
- Finding a Christmas tree
- Wrapping the Christmas tree
- Discovering that to continue the tradition you must WALK back home with the tree even though the car has the ability to get us ALL back.
- Attaching the Christmas tree to 2 sleighs
- Watching your host parents drive away in the warm car
- Being left behind in the cold, snowy, very windy day with your host brother, the Christmas tree, 2 ropes, 2 sleighs, and Maddy with her camera..
- Walking for 2 hours in this horrible weather trying to remember why life is worth living while the tree falls off the sleighs again.
- Taking the longer way back home in order to drink a watery hot chocolate.
- I discovered that day that American movies do indeed lie.
As Christmas day arrived (December 24th in Germany) We spent the day with all us enjoying each others company and my host parents organizing the dinner for that night. A turkey being cooked in the oven for the WHOLE day!
At around 5pm my host Grandmother arrived and at 6pm we were all sitting down eating a delicious home cooked meal of turkey, potatoes, and salad. At 8pm my parents called everyone VERY tired considering my 10 year old brother woke them all up at 5:30am because Santa had come.
We chatted for about 15min then I enjoyed the rest of the night with my host family. We opened presents, I made my host mother a photo album full of everything we had all so far done together, I made another photo album for my host dad full of only our Fuerteventura trip.
I bought my host brother a gumball machine and my host sister a magnet tree full of pictures of us and a lot more side little Australian presents.
The most surprising, generous present of them all was a present I received from my host parents, they bought me an iPod touch! I was so amazed at their generosity I was in complete shock for about 5 min it was also among other generous, beautiful presents. This Christmas in Germany will never be forgotten, I celebrated it with an incredible family, understands the German Christmas spirit and had my very first white Christmas! I love exchange!