Here in Germany, people celebrate the second day of Christmas as a holiday from work. It's nice - stretches the holiday over an extra day, though the downside is you have to wait longer for those after-Christmas bargains!
We were treated to a Jazz Matinee at the Dortmund Opera House for the second day of Christmas. A local jazz club, domicil, has held this matinee as an annual fundraiser for the last 32 years! There were 10 bands on 5 stages, so we had a chance to see everything from big band and swing to modern jazz. Our favorite was this tango quintet from Essen - not quite jazz exactly, but they played really beautiful music. Also worth noting was a local hip-hop group - it's a little strange to see Germans in dark suits jumping up and down and hearing "Yo Dortmund! Yo Dortmund!"
The rest of the afternoon was fairly quiet, and Christine crashed for a long nap. Then, it was off to a Yugoslavian restaurant with Henni and Peter where we literally had a platter of meat to dig through. All of it was delicious and filling, and we even managed to snag the check and pay it ourselves this time.
We spent the evening listening to music of all kinds. First, we went to a local jazz club ("Jatz") to catch a jam session. After filling Christine up on beer, Toli managed to con her into singing some jazz standards once everyone was back at the house. Then, we listened to some more tango music and had a crash course on the musical stylings of Frank Zappa (Peter is an expert) until our eyes began to droop.
It will be hard to leave today for Amsterdam after having such a relaxing and wonderful time here with our friends. But we've trespassed long enough on their kindness, and it's time to see some new things!
P.S. By the way, our access to email has been restored for the last two days, so we've been receiving just fine. (Hope it keeps up in Amsterdam!) Keep writing, or send us a comment in our weblog! We love hearing from you.
Posted by Christine at December 27, 2003 04:01 AM