Thank you

My last post for the year, #52, and it'll be short and sweet. I wanted to use this one to thank everyone who has sent me a postcard or has reached out this past year. My wall of cards is now full, and it's time to start a new one. The same rule applies, if you send me one, I'll send you one. I'll be in Germany throughout this next year, so it'll another year of stories to come.

Additionally, I wanted to add, the Bonn Christmas market the Saturday before Christmas= veruckt (crazy)! It's universal, the last minute shopping, it doesn't matter where you are, there will always be people who wait.

In the meantime, I'll be spending the holidays in the US split between the two states.

To finish things up- here are some holiday terms from Germany:

• Frohe Weihnachten- Merry Christmas
• Glückliches neues Jahr- Happy New Year
• Danke- Thank you (informal)
• Vielen dank- Thank you very much
• Ein frohes Fest!- A joyous holiday
• Zum neuen Jahr Gesundheit, Glück und viel Erfolg!- Health, happiness, and much success in the New Year!

Frankfurt

Brie's last day in Germany was spent in Frankfurt to ensure that we wouldn't have problems getting to the airport due to weather or train delays. We got into the city around lunch time, and checked into our hotel, 25hours hotel by Levi's Frankfurt Main. I was excited because this was not a traditional hotel, more of a boutique hotel. Our room was different to say the least. The room number on the wall next to the door was a Levi's pocket. The lighting was dim inside, without anyway to brighten the room up. The carpet had a raised star in it. There was a coat hook with a pair of Levi's hanging. The oddest thing though, was the bathroom. The toilet was separate from the rest of the area with a closeable door, and there was a painting of Frank Zappa on the toilet in that area. The shower and sink were visible from the bed, and the shower was 100% glass, and there was no door. You read me, no door, no hidden pocket door, nothing. This might be ok if you were staying in the room by yourself, or with a significant other, but still awkward. I don't think I would recommend staying there again (at least not that room type). That being said, the front desk staff were amazing, they were both friendly and helpful.

Yes, our room number really was 501

Good ol' Frank

We left the hotel after dropping our stuff off to go find some lunch. We wandered upon the Alte Oper, which is the local theatre (think plays not movies), and it was gorgeous. In front of it was this fountain that instead of having running water (too cold for it), they had a Christmas light display in it. After taking several photos of it, we continued on our quest for food, settling on Eberts suppen stube where we both got goulash. It hit the spot as it was cold out, with our breath coming out in little puffs of air. Would it snow again like it did the day before? No, but it did rain briefly.

 From there we decided to check out Frankfurt's Christmas market. The first word to describe it that comes to mind as I'm writing this is busy. The second is chaotic. I don't know if it was just because it was a Saturday or what, but there were so many people, we were going at a snails pace trying to get through the crowds. There were tour buses from throughout Europe, the furthest from the Czech Republic, and lots of them. There were people with signs leading these groups. I can safely say I'm glad we saw the other markets before this one.

We wandered about for a little bit (it took forever to get anywhere), and we weren't noticing anything special about this one. We did break down and tried Eier Punsch, which is eggnog, since our mother couldn't try it, we did. It is 100x better than the stuff you get in the states. They put whipped cream on top, and in the eggnog itself, it tasted like they had put a bit of mulled wine in it. The one special thing we did come across was a special art exhibit. Most of the pieces were not exactly my type, but we came across one booth that had these flowers made from peeled leaves (or partially peeled) of some kind of tree or bush (very lightweight). The 'flowers' were hand dyed in various pastel patterns and some of them were scented. This was something that I have never seen before and probably will never see again, and we each bought one.

Eggnog

After checking out the second section of the Christmas market, we walked to the river, so we wouldn't just be sitting in our room so long. We walked up to the pedestrian bridge and it was beautiful to look back at the city. Eventually our fingers went numb from the cold and we headed back to the hotel. I knew the hotel wasn't exactly in the best area, but it was close to the train station which made it convenient. On the way to lunch I saw someone shooting up, and on the way back we managed to walk past someone who used some form of pill, walked past the red light district, and down a not so nice street to our hotel. Yikes.

When we went for dinner, we went to Thai Snack. We even took the longer route to get there to try to avoid the crazies and the junkies. Initially things were going ok, our food was tasty, but the service was way off. We don't know if the server was having an off day or what, but they started treating us oddly. Our food came out much later than other tables, even though we ordered before them, and she kept ignoring us. When we went up to pay like all the other tables before had, she had a hissy fit. Overall it was a bit uncomfortable, and the woman sitting next to Brie kept staring at her or Brie's food the entire meal. It was the most awkward end to an odd day in general. I can honestly say that my first impression of Frankfurt makes me not want to visit there again.

The next morning, we got to the airport, and the clerk at the counter gave Brie the much needed leeway on her suitcase weight (she was 1.5 or 0.5 kilograms over). Luckily her bag was essentially checked through (even though she would have to pick it up post customs and drop it off again for her next flight), which meant the weight would be ok the entire way through. She got back in one piece, although she didn't have the row to herself on this flight (bummer). I'm so glad I got to have her out here while I was here, and to show her a bit of my town.

Who knows what I'll write about next, but if I don't have a chance to write more, happy holidays and have a wonderful new year!

Bonn's Christmas market pt 2

We left ourselves a full day free without planning so we could go wherever we needed to, pick up whatever needed to be picked up, and figure out if were missing anything, and to go to Bonn's Christmas market for real.

We fully wandered the stalls, and we kept going back to this one place that we went to before. This stall had flowers of many varieties on a metal stick and the petals were enamel coated. There were roses, white poppies, bell shaped ones, daisies, poinsettias, and another type who's name I cannot remember. We kept thinking about them so much, that we ended up getting over 30 of them between the two of us total. Essentially at least 1 of each type in about every color. One of the previous evenings over Skype, my dad asked us to bring him back a rake or something like that for the gift exchange his gardening class was having. After having a good laugh over 'how in the world does he think we can bring a rake back, and never mind they use the same tools here for gardening' we decided to bring back some of these flowers, as they are meant to go into the garden. How about that for a creative gift for a gardening gift exchange?

I also had to get more reibekuchen, this time with applesauce on the side. I waited long enough for this one, and it was well worth it. It was warm and had just the right flavors. In the meantime, Brie finally had her currywurst, followed up by a pretzel. We also tried a white mulled wine, which was better than the red.

We got some Christmas gifts, including some items for Brie's work gift exchange, and then we wandered down the market to get some Bönnsch beer. There are lots of debates started on the difference between this beer and Kölsch, people arguing over which one is better. Nothing like a nice little rivalry between cities. It turns out Brie likes Bönnsch better, good choice. So now, not only did she try a German beer, she also had another type to compare against (in Germany).

What I almost forgot to mention was this day was cold. So cold that there were snow flurries coming down. Brrrr.....

After a bit more wandering around, we did a little grocery shopping, as I was going to make some stuff up that night, and we went back to my apartment to pack up Brie's gifts. I finally caved and bought a luggage scale, and its a good thing, because while her suitcase still had plenty of room, it was at the limit she could bring back (and so I'm bringing the rest back with me on my trip back!). I ended up having a multi-course meal spread over several hours consisting of a cheese tasting plate, salad with mushrooms and red bell pepper on it with a dill and heavy cream dressing, vegetable noodle soup, macarons (saved since the Franzosich market in my freezer). We watched How I Met Your Mother until we could watch no more. Quality sister time, priceless.

My list for Brie:

• Try a German beer - check
• Drink Glühwein (mulled wine) - check
• See the Aachen cathedral- check
• Have a pretzel (called bretzel's here)- check
• Have bratwurst- check
• Have currywurst- check
• See as many Christmas markets as possible- check
• Visit First Flush - check

Mission accomplished!

Aachen and its Christmas market

Our day started very early for this day trip. We were quickly out the door and waiting for our train, and boy was it cold on this morning. Off to Aachen we went. After arriving in the city center and getting a map for Brie, we wandered through the farmers market, and drooled over cheese and cookies being offered. We quickly ducked into the Chocolate Company's shop for a quick hot chocolate to warm up with. Brie had a brownie flavored one and I had a praline nougat (I think), mine was yummy, Brie said hers wasn't so sweet.

After defrosting some, we started to wander around the area where the cathedral is. I started showing Brie some of the cool fountains that were around. We then got our tickets for the cathedral tour, and slipped inside so she could see the mosaics surrounding all the walls and ceilings. If you want to see photos of the inside of the cathedral, check out my previous blog. It was interesting seeing the cathedral again after visiting Ravenna, because that cathedral was the inspiration for this one. The octahedral sides, all the beautiful mosaics. Stunning.

After being protected from the wind in the cathedral, it was hard to go outside again. Exiting the building we were hit by some pretty strong winds. At this point the Christmas market was open, and we began wandering through it. We walked around to the Rathaus square, and I slipped off to buy a 2nd scarf while Brie was taking pictures of Charlemagne's bronze fountain statue. When she turned around to find me, she realized the brilliance of my idea. While we were wearing extra layers that day, it was so cold. So we both got scarves, the round ones that you can loop around your neck a few times like a cowl neck. Made of yarn, I got a burgundy red one, and Brie got a forest green one. They helped so much in the cold wind.

All decked out for the holidays

Brie showing off her newly acquired scarf

Pre-second scarf

We then proceeded to Kings College for lunch. I had a broccoli gratin with tea, and Brie had a schnitzel (I think) with tea. Right after lunch we went back to the Christmas market. One of the stands we hit up was Nagel & Hofbaur, which was selling holiday liquors. They had about 5 different varieties and we tried them all. One was a cappuccino flavored one, which was so like a mocha, we didn't get that one. Another one was a cream flavored one (sahne). This one had cream, liquor, champagne and a few other delicious ingredients, of course we both had to get one of them. I went for one in a star shaped bottle, and Brie went for one in a long narrow bottle. Her strategy was to get one that would fit in a wine bottle suitcase bag (if you've never heard of Jet Bags, you've been deprived) [http://www.amazon.com/Reusable-Padded-Absorbent-Bio-Degradable-Accessory/dp/B004FLK2IU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387695610&sr=8-1&keywords=jet+bag]. Another flavor was a cherry liquor. Brie ended up buying one of those too. There was also 2 different varieties of Dom liquors. Much too strong for my taste personally.

While buying the liquor we learned of this massive storm headed to the Netherlands and Germany. It was so massive that they closed the Christmas markets north of us. This explained the extreme cold and wind. They were talking about closing Aachen's Christmas market early too because of the really bad weather, eeeep.... When we checked the weather the night before, we only looked at Aachen's and it said nothing about this big massive huge storm.

We got our liquor then in case they closed the market early (although we didn't want to carry that stuff around for the rest of the day. We marched on to our Aachen cathedral tour. Last time, I took the tour in German, mostly so I could see the upstairs area. This time luckily, we went on the English tour, and while I knew a lot of information, it was nice hearing it in my native language.

We then walked around the Christmas markets even more, buying gifts for work and others, before walking to the Couven Museum. I think Brie enjoyed this one, especially the room with interesting tiles in it. The rain started for a bit while we were warm inside. One of the security/ ushers started pointing things out to us on the 2nd floor which was really sweet, especially since he didn't speak but a word or two of English, but I was able to use my quasi-Deutsch to communicate. Yay to using German!

Our evening was spent wandering the market in the cold, and we started to wander further from the city center, where we ended up pummeled by rain and high winds. We decided to duck in and have dinner while we waited for our train. The first place that we could find that was closer to an area we recognized was Otto's Restaurant. I got deep fried egg rolls and Brie had a Rumpsteak with fries and we shared a plate of grilled sheep's cheese. Brie had a Rose Cinsaul wine and I had a Moelleu.

At about an hour to 45 minutes to go until our train, we headed to the station. We kept seeing lots of trains being delayed. Ours was only delayed about 10-15 minutes. We knew we probably would have to run to our next train going to Bonn from Koln, and when we arrived, we had just enough time before it was supposed to get there, unfortunately it was delayed 70 minutes (to start). I went to the front to ask if we could hop on one of the other trains, and the boards showed delays from 1-4 hours for almost all the trains. There were some guys trying to get to Amsterdam, and later when we looked up the storm pictures, we commented that they were better off staying in Koln than going up there that night. We finally got the attention of someone, and they said yes, hurry, please catch the next train to Bonn, so we ran through the station to catch it. At one point they changed what train was going to be on that platform so I started to run back to a board where I could check where they changed ours to. Brie said she never wants to run that much again, especially by stairs.

Our train finally came and everyone clamored aboard, as every other train was delayed. We got to several stations, and then the train stopped and they said they were having problems. About 10 minutes later they came back on and said it was fine, and then by the next station they said 'oh sorry, we can't go any further, good luck.' Apparently there was a problem with the power lines powering the trains. They didn't give any instructions on how to get out of Timbuktu, we were stuck in Roisdorf without any information. It was about 10pm, and off and on raining, and there were about 100 of us. I had been asking someone else what was going on, and he ended up looking after us until we got back to Bonn. Luckily someone had a smart phone and was able to direct all of us to the S-Bahn. After waiting 30 minutes in the cold, and through a brief hail storm, we were able to catch probably the last train to Bonn. Luckily the thing was empty because we all filled it up. When we got back to Bonn and to my flat, we considered ourselves lucky. We were probably the last ones to get to Bonn that day, let alone anywhere further south was cut off too. We looked at the storm photos and were glad we didn't go to Hamburg or the Netherlands, we were close enough to the storm action in Aachen. So glad to be home and warm!