Merry Christmas, everyone! We’ve been listening to church bells the past 24 hours from the main plaza just a few blocks away, ushering in the celebration of Christmas on the afternoon of December 24th. (Germans celebrate Christmas with family the afternoon and evening of the 24th, and cap it off with Midnight Mass.) Part of [...]
Archive for December 2011
Frohe Weihnachten from Muenchen!
December 25, 2011Strasbourg, C’est Tres Jolie!
December 22, 2011Our next stop was the city of Strasbourg, in a region of France heavily influenced by Germany. This region, called Alsace, is near the German border. One of its main cities is Strasbourg. The main part of town is an island surrounded by the Ill River (hm, any coincidence I came down with a fever [...]
Luxembourg!
December 20, 2011Luxembourg is small. (OK, maybe not as small as Liechtenstein… or San Marino… you can’t walk across Luxembourg in a day, for instance.) I really knew nothing about it other than its location, and that the locals speak primarily French. And this is why I decided we’d stop over for about 3 hours to break [...]
Bruges (or, Brugge, depending on your language…)
December 20, 2011The Flemish call it Brugge, but most (the French speaking, and the outside world) call it Bruges. It’s a charming canal town an hour northwest of Brussels, and we took a train there for the day to see what all the fuss was about. After days of skyscrapers, subways, and big cities, this would be [...]
Bonjour, Brussels!
December 18, 2011Before we move on to Brussels, I need to share my moment of pride: our last night in Cologne, we ate in a more locals neighborhood at a little takeaway Thai place. The staff didn’t really speak English….. so rather than the “Deutschlish” that I’ve been using (well… 90% English, 10% Deutsch) with locals, I [...]
Cologne day two
December 18, 2011One of the great things about Cologne was that each of their Christmas markets had a different character. One, right along the Rhine River, had a more nautical theme (and we picked up a “fish bratwurst”, and they had more seafood offerings in general). The Mustard Museum was across the street from this market. Germans [...]
Cologne/Koeln day one
December 17, 2011Our next adventure took us to the west side of the country, to the city of Cologne, or Koeln, as locals call it (imagine that there is an umlaut over the o… and take out the e… then, it may be more recognizable?). Again, the driving force of each city visit was to experience the [...]
Berlin Part Zwei
December 15, 2011Oh, I failed to mention yesterday that the gluhwein booths–at least at the larger markets–sell quite the variety of alcoholic beverages. You can get your gluhwein with a shot of amaretto, with a shot of rum, some had gluhbier (a mulled cherry beer, I think)… and then, there was a drink that I was tempted [...]
Berlin Part Eins
December 14, 2011This is what I was waiting for!!! Berlin has been one of my favorite cities since my first visit 3 1/2 years ago. I so looked forward to coming back and seeing what it was like in the winter! (However, winter has been mild here, and there has been no snow so far on our [...]
Day 1-2: Nuremberg
December 14, 2011We landed in Munich, but immediately took a train north to Nuremberg (our trip will end in Munich). The Christmas Market (Weinachtsmarkt) in Nuremberg is touted as one of the most popular in the country, so why not stop by? (And, if we happened not to like it, the city was the headquarters for the [...]
