Albany 5 - German Dinners

It was a while ago, but in fall there was Indian Summer. You can see the colors of the photo. I took it during a bike tour.
But now, it rather looks like this:
Apart from studying, shoveling snow became one of my primary tasks. Yesterday there was a foot (30 cm) of snow. Now I know why the inuit have 7 names for snow; I already got 2: light and heavy snow. You start making that distinction quickly once you start shoveling show. Last week's snow was light, but now there is much heavy show waiting to be shoveled in the driveway.
At home this would have created serios chaos and public transportation would have been totally disrupted. Here, cars, buses, etc. also drove after a foot of fresh snow. Nevertheless the town is in "snow emergency". But this is not a real emergency, it is part of the everyday madness.

Apart from that I burrowed myself into my studies. There were a few exceptions though, and they were all about food.
During the last months there were three German dinner at my place. This means I spoiled my guests (Americans, Iranians, Armenians, Turks, and Brazilians) with sauerkraut, red cabbage, and ham beans. Since some of them came more than once, the food cannot have been too bad. But for one American German food seemed to risky. He brought steaks which we then put on the barbecue. In real barbecuing manner we burned them on an open flame. Great taste--inside. And with this we had German foods. And we had German beer.
We heard stories about how Rod sowed his wild oats, and it was a really funny evening.
The German dinners got reciprocated by an Armenian-Iranian dinner. And the others used this opportunity to put me into the center of attention, or amusement.
Well, they tied me to Russell from Malaysia. But the idea was to untie yourself from the other person. Kind of an intelligence test, whether you manage to untie each other and how fast. But the real meaning of it was having a lot of fun, I guess. And we did, as you can see.

And happily untied. ;-)

Another thing that I enjoyed very much are the Holiday Lights in the park. It's holiday, not Christmas, in order to be politically correct. Maybe I am too americanized already, maybe I'm just kitchy, but I love those lights.
For a European who walks this is for free, of course. Not because I am European, but rather because I took the effort to walk through the park. Americans = car drivers have to pay quite a lot. But i can understand them. The temperature was 20°F (-6°C), it was windy, ... .
This Friday, I will continue exploring the big, wide world. My landlords invited me to their parents who just live 40 minutes from the City. So I will spend a day in New York. I'm looking forward to it.

I wish you a nice Christmas, well Happy Holidays!