The First Advent in Paradies

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A light jolt makes me open my eyes and the slumber that I have been lost in for the past few hours is instantly lifted from my tired body. I sit bolt upright as I realise I am in the middle of a vast expanse of water, hemmed on one side by gleaming montain peaks. Little by little I become aware of my surroundings. I'm on a boat, to quote "The Lonely Island", or more accurately sitting inside a bus on a mini-ferry. In the middle of a lake. Discovering the joys of travelling from Friedrichshafen Airport to Kostanz, the Paradise Town on the Boden Lake.

Actually, the word is "Paradies" - the residential area where my beloved cousin Eva lives in a flat intended for two people all by herself, her only neighbour being so kind as to rent a whole room in a two-people flat, while living with her boyfriend. She drops by sometimes, of course, to grab a tea or have a shower. She is extremely rarely there, and stays for longer than 5 minutes even less frequently, so we had the entire flat to ourselves for a week. The word "paradise" is a good fit to describe such luck, considering Eva is a Masters student, experiencing all the joys of student life without the uninviting living conditions.

Konstanz met me with the first day of the Christmas market, stretching all the way along the banks of Lake Boden, smelling of temptation and contentment. Eva picked me up from the station on her shiny new bike and we made our way through the centre of town towards the paridise that she calls home, making the obligatory and extremely traditional stop in a staple German bakery for a coffee and a Danish/German pastry. A fitting start to a week of catching up after an unnecessarily long no-contact period. As I sit opposite her at the table, holding my cup of coffee with both hands to stay warm, I realise that although we haven't seen each other for almost a year, not spoken for almost as long, and so much has changed during this time, it almost feels as if this precipice between us had never existed. We are back in the old times in less that a minute and I can't help feeling excited about the week to come.

Konstanz wins my heart over instantly, as wonderfully charming in the winter months as I imagine it must be in the summer. A border city, it separates the conservative south of Germany from the trim and proper German Switzerland, the lake itself acting as the main dividing line between the two European states. Although not as obviously religious as Bavaria, this area of the country is also heavily Catholic, and as such it was preparing for the all-important celebration of the First Advent on Sunday 28th November - a holiday I was always vaguely aware of, but had never celebrated in any way. In Konstanz, the celebration is unanimous and almost fanatical, and for once I feel ready to participate in such a riligious festivity, despite my less than warm feelings towards organised religion.

On our first introductory stroll trough the city centre Eva shows me the main Cathedral, a grande construction giving the city a sense of style and sophistication. As we walk in, we notice an advert for a family celebration of the first Advent, one of a succession of four weekly events celebrating the advance of Christmas. We immediately decide to attend the Mass on Sunday, and despite changing our minds a number of times in between, we still rise on Sunday morning in time to have breakfast, wander over to the Cathedral and solemnly hide in a middle row, amongst the proud parents who have brought their children in for their first communion and the idle observers eager to catch a glimpse of traditional German piety. This morning it comes in a user-friendly, child-oriented form. After a traditional introductory speech, a frail little lady addresses the children, jokily testing their understanding of this religious celebration. "What are we celebrating today?" she asks the audience, and immediately a child responds confidently: "The first Advent". That's right, and how many advents are there? Well, four of course! What a well educated child...and the million dollar question is: "What are we preparing for?" "We're preparing for the birth of Jesus Christ" - the child confidently replies. And when was Christ born? "He was born on the fourth Advent"..."Are you quite sure?" - the lady smiles. "Was Christ born on the fourth Advent?" A cloud passes over the child's face, only to be replaced with a look of pure delight as she joyfully corrests herself: "Oh...on the twenty-fourth Advent!" A polite, but genuine burst of laughter accompanies this eager response. The children don't quite understand how the age-old religious system works or what it all means. I am reminded of my childhood in Belgium, where I would go to church as often as once a week and sing along to songs whose words I did not understand, let alone the meaning. For the first time in years I don't feel awkward in a church, and even though I don't belong to this religion or this tradition, at this moment in time, sitting amongst the Southern German public in the central cathedral of Konstanz, I make the decision to give my own children a chance to discover this tradition for themselves in a friendly and non-judgemental environment, just like this one.

The celebration doesn't stop at this, of course. Even before my arrival we made plans to bake traditional biscuits on Sunday evening with Eva's coursemates, a customary activity to celebrate the first Advent. As the girls arrive we realise that we have no scales to measure the quantities of each ingredient, so we improvise, imagining that one kilo is equal to one litre. We aren't that wrong - after standing outside for half an hour, a much colder environment than a normal fridge, the dough rises as expected and we happily roll it on the table, cutting it into countless little biscuits with the different baking forms, including, unexpectedly, a penguin. We are excited about the biscuits and can't wait for the first batch to cook, only to be disappointed with shapeless baked dough at the end of the process. Maybe our calculations were more off that we thought....We don't stop at the failed experiment, determined to save the dough and make perfect biscuits. We add more flour to the mixture and roll thicker layers of dough on the tables in front of us, cutting out more and more shapes. This time it seems to be cooking beautifully, and we relax with mugs of mulled wine, waiting for it to cook. Yet wine makes one forget the flow of time, and the second batch comes out of the oven almost jet-black. But isn't there a saying: "Third time lucky"? So we make another batch, the last perfect one that will justify this whole endeavour. And it does, of course. The biscuits come out nice and golden and we shamelessly indulge for the rest of the evening. A massively enjoyable experience all in all, especially in such amicable company. And the best part is knowing that this is only the middle of my week in paradise.

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