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Christmas and New Years in Berlin.

Germans love traditions and if there aren't enough traditions for any given holiday or occasion they just make them up. I encountered some of these traditions during my first festive season abroad.

The first Christmas tradition I discovered was you freeze your arse off. On more than one occasion I thought it was July and despite the overwhelming amount of Christmas trees and Santa Clauses it never really felt like December. I guess it was the lack of a chance of the forest catching ablaze and the abundance of clothing on everyone.

In Germany, as in other parts of Europe, Christmas Eve is when families decorate the Christmas tree and exchange gifts. My Christmas Eve started with a feast of home baked cookies made my Natalie. We then went down to the local Lutheran Church for the Christmas Service. Music featured prominently in the form of a pipe organ and a violin. I was able to practice my German pronunciation singing the Christmas carols. The fine detail of the lyrics may have escaped me but key words such as 'Gott' and a few others mean I could follower the general mood of each hymn. Later that night there was more singing of a not totally religious nature. Most songs I'd never heard before but we were able to sing 'Silent Night' in English.

New Years Eve was a bit of an eye opener. Here in Germany there are quite a few traditions, mainly of the culinary variety, associated with the holiday. On NYE you eat baguettes and fondue. Much like the Queen's Birthday holiday was like years ago Germans go crazy with fireworks. The lead up to NYE was signalled in a similar way to the lead up to the Love Parade here in July, by sound. About a day before NYE you would start to hear the distant sounds of fireworks until midnight on the 31st when the explosions overhead are so loud and frequent you're sure the Red Army will have the city in their hands by daybreak. It is mostly young people letting off bottle rockets and I couldn't help but wonder what the older Berliners, those here in 1945, think of this behaviour.

Just as 2003 was drawing to a close we headed out of the apartment and towards the Brandenburg Gate. Our pace was tempered with a hop, skip and a jump as complete strangers let off sticks of dynamite under our feet. There was also the constant fear of exhausted bottle rockets falling back to earth via our heads.

It really struck me that I was around the other side of the world in a foreign land when the countdown began. Instead of the 'five, four, three'‚ that I had been used to for 23 years of my life it was a huge chorus of 'fünf, vier, drei' and even though I could join in it still seemed strange to me. I had watched NYE in Sydney on the TV half a day earlier and now it was 2004 in Berlin.