Yesterday (Wednesday, October 3) was German Unity Day, which is like Germany’s Fourth of July, but without the fireworks. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989, but it wasn’t until October 3, 1990 that East and West Germany re-united into one country. Germans celebrate the holiday by taking off work, so we do the same at BFA.
I celebrated by having the kids from Intermediate Orchestra over to my house for Kaffee und Kuchen – coffee and cake.
This particular group is younger than in years past, and I’ve noticed that they are talkative in orchestra (I have to work harder to keep them focused on playing), but it wasn’t until yesterday that I realized just how talkative they really are. You have to see it to believe it:
They literally talked and ate cake and other snacks for an entire hour before we jumped into a game. We played a slow-moving game of Apples to Apples; I say slow-moving because each person’s turn took extra time while they tried to get everyone’s attention. Then we played Telephone Pictionary, where each person writes a sentence, then passes the paper to the next person. Then everyone draws a picture based on the sentence, then folds down the first sentence and passes the paper. Next, everyone writes a sentence to describe the picture. The sentences and pictures get convoluted like in the game of Telephone, so it’s fun to see where they end up!
It was a more rambunctious way to celebrate German Unity Day than a typical German would, but it was lots of fun!
