hello everyone.
i hope your saturday was warmer than mine was.
sinterklaas arrived in Nijmegen today, it was very exciting.
children everywhere dressed up as black piet, or wearing sinterklaas' hat with their faces painted. they arrived down at the river waal. one of our group members couldn't figure out how to get down to the river so i went up and met her, and somehow we managed to find the rest of our group in the sea of people. sinterklaas came in on boat, and loads of black piets and a white horse.
it was pretty chilly standing outside waiting for him to arrive, so we decided to go get some hot chocolate with whip cream (warme chocolademelk met slagroom). and so, i was expecting a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream on top, right? well, silly me. we got a cup of warm milk, a cup of chocolate chips, a cup of whipped cream, and a shot of vanilla liquor. so...we mixed them all together and made our own.
as we were finishing our hot chocolate, we heard an announcer and looked out the window, it turned out sinterklaas was finishing his tour around the city center where we were. after we were finished we went down to find out what was going on, and ended up with a front seat to see sinterklaas arrive on the white horse and black piet on another horse.
sinterklaas spoke to the crowd, and every once in a while the band would play a song and kids (and some adults) would sing and dance. the black piets belayed down the side of a building and did some flips along the way. the other black piets had bags of pepernoten (little gingerbread & also anise seed tasting cookies) and other small things that they gave out to all the kids wherever sinterklaas went. afterwards some black piets got together and did some dancing and everyone waved goodbye and sung a song saying goodbye to sinterklaas, while he told all the kids they would get a present in their shoes.
it was a lot of fun to see and experience. i also learned after christmas its a tradition here to burn all the christmas trees, hopefully that will happen when i get back so i won't miss it.
dag!
p.s. title song by de strangers (dag sinterklaas = saint nicholas day)
15 November 2008
Dag Sinterklaas
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3 comments:
Why the black faces? Where does the boat come from or start? That is cool to able to see and be a part of.
well, the kids paint their faces like black piet...and black piet being black, the explanation has kind of evolved over the years. originally the story was st. nicholas conquered evil and so a devil was sent as his helper, then the story was piet was an african slave who was freed by st. nicholas and would rather help him than be lonely. now, it's told that it's soot from a fireplace, plus they're supposed to be from spain so he's darker anyway. also, it's said that if you've been bad piet will scoop you into his bag and take you back to spain with him, but this isn't told to children so much anymore.
And as you probably guessed, sinterklaas is from spain, so that's where the boat is supposed to be from, in other places he arrives on helicopter because there aren't rivers in the towns.
Hey I just found out that you have skype and SO do I!!! So we need to schedule a call, eh? let me know!!
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