Christmas traditions all over the world

I have just read something about Christmas on share-christmas.com and it talks about the different countrytraditions all over the world.
Now I am going to present three of them to you:

Ireland:

Do you know why children in Ireland lay their stockings on the bed on Christmas Eve?
The answer is very simple:
Irish children lay their stockings on the bed, because Santa Clause comes and take gifts into it.
Kids put cakes and milk for Santa on a table. The following morning, the children are very surprised if the stockings are full and the glass of milk is empty.


New Zealand:

What does a christmas-tree looks like in New Zealand?
A christmas-tree in New Zealand is Pohutokawa called. It is quiet different from ours, because it is a tree with red flowers.
That's because chrismas is in summer there.



Norway:

People in Norway put a bowl of rice pudding out for the barn elf. Why do they do this?
People put a bowl out for the barn elf so that he will continue to watch over the animals and not turn angry, because they often plays tricks on people.

That's what I'll take home with me (Listening/ Businessbook p. 10)

I have heard an interview in the english lesson and it talks about language assistents.

Flora, who is from Ireland visited Austria.
There are some sentences, which are mentioned in her interview.


1. She said, that she met many people in Austria.

2. Flora was shocked, that people in Austria are allowed to take smoking almost everywhere they want to.

3. She mentioned, that she learned a lot of her own Irish culture.

4. Flora added, that now she know a lot about the Austrian way of life.

5. She said, that she learned a lot about clichés in Austria.

39 Hitler relatives in Lower Austria

I have just read an article in autriantimes. at.
It talks about Hitler relatives and I thought you might be interested, because Hitler was born in Austria.

It is also mentioned that the relatives, who have tracked down are living in Lower Austria.
Journalists called “Hitler-Hunters”, tracked down 39 Hitler relatives.


Basically what it says is that Hitler’s other living relatives live in Lower Austria’s Waldviertel region.
They have taken other names, but they aren’t very different from “Hitler”. For example they are called “Hidler”, “Hietler” or “Hüttler”.
Most of them don’t know about the relationship to Hitler.


I took this article, because I think that it is quite interesting to know what has happened with the Hitler-generation.

Link to the original article: http://www.austriantimes.at/news/General_News/2009-09-14/16338/Hitler_relatives_tracked_down



Vokabularies:

tracked down (ausfindig machen): Tracked down means to find out about something.
relatives (Verwante): Relatives are members of a family.