Happy Holidays Followers!

It's that time of the year again, my lovely readers!

I hope you all have wonderful holidays and you get everything you want for Christmas!
Once again, thank you so much for following my blog - your support is truly amazing!

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a great start in 2012,
Your Humble Blogger and Simba

Germany: Christmas Done Right

Note: This post will be EXTREMELY photo heavy.  I apologize in advance if it crashes your internet.


The Tübinger Fünf have been living the high life here in Germany, what with Christmas and all, and I decided that instead of boring you with every trivial event from each Christmas market I would do one mega-post on all the Christmas markets we've visited until now.  I hope you don't mind.

The Germans love themselves some Christmas.  They might even love it more than Americans, considering the first round of Christmas stuff came into the stores around October.  This might be because they don't have Halloween or Thanksgiving to gorge themselves on chocolate and turkey, respectively.  On the other hand, Americans might love Christmas just as much, but the Germans just show it differently.

Now the Whos Down in Whoville  Whooops, I meant Germans liked Christmas a lot...

And starting the first of December, German towns big and small roll out the red carpet for street vendors and break out the Glühwein for all (those of legal age).  In bigger towns, the Christmas Market (or the Wiehnachtsmarkt) can go from 2 weeks all way to the 23rd of December.  Other towns, like Tübingen, only have the Wiehnachtsmarkt for a weekend.

We kicked off our Wiehnachtsmarkt experiences in Reutlingen, the next town over (also where I lived my first time in Germany!).  Reutlingen opened their Christmas Market with a "Feuer and Eis Fest", which if you can guess using cognates, means "Fire and Ice Festival".

Emily, Jake, and Me

Rachel, Jake, and Me

The Ice Part of the Festival!

Lookin' good guys.

The Fire Part of the Festival

Warming Tent, or in this case, Igloo

Another Fire Part - Glühwein!
Mulled Wine warmed to toasty perfection!

More Ice.

Now in a more Christmas-y mood, we ready to experience more Christmas Markets.  Unfortunately for us, Tübingen doesn't really have a Christmas Market.  It's tiny and only runs for one weekend.  Cruel.

Fortunately, Tübingen makes up for its lack of a Christmas Market in one spectacular, chocolaty way.

Did you know that Tübingen has the world's largest chocolate festival? 


And that it runs for a week?

Needless to say, your humble blogger over here was ecstatic. 

Apparently, they were building the world's biggest chocolate bar.

Chocolate art!
All hand painted in chocolate.

The cool "spore" decorations around Tübingen

We had caught onto the flame theme that Reutlingen had too!

Emily.
Photobombing.
Again.

Lots of the Altstadt buildings had projections of the market
and chocolate themes on them.

Our beloved Belgians - Niels and Helena!

Jake and Helina!

Well now that looks delicious.

Serving all your chocolate needs.

Seriously, Emily?!

We bought "Hot Chocolate" in special mugs.

And by hot chocolate, they actually meant hot chocolate!
You needed a spoon!

The wild blogger featured here in her natural habitat.

Yours truly and Helina, enjoying our hot chocolate!

That weekend we abandoned our reckless and unhealthy eating habits (although I think chocolate covered fruit cancels itself out...more research is needed), we headed off the Medieval Christmas market in Esslingen, near to Stuttgart.

It was....um....interesting.  As Zach kindly put it:  "I think this Medieval Christmas market is just an excuse for a freakshow."  I had trouble figuring out if they were hard-core Renaissance fair type folk or just gypsies.

Emily is pumped for the day ahead.

Rachel - not so much.

Oh hey there Jake!

Last on the roll call: Zach!

Esslingen!

Love the connected church spires!

And there's the Neckar River!

'Tis the Season and all

What a classy bunch.

"Rustic" entrance to our old fashioned market

Freaky Gnomes.

Because nothing says Merry Christmas like a Buddha.

A Christmas Pyramid above a Glühwein hut.

Getting more Medieval!

The Rathaus.
(I think)

"Caution Donkey can bite!"

I could make a joke here....

Is this Dominic, the Italian Christmas Donkey?

The donkey's next door neighbors, lambs.

A lamb yawn. Awww

It's so cute!

There were a shocking number of pirates there too.

I'm pretty sure Capt'n Jack Sparrow was not from the medieval period, but who I am to question?!

Then we found ourselves in Stuttgart!

Wondering when you were going to show up.

As you can see, Stuttgart was jammed packed!

A stand filled with adorable, hand crafted collectable...
stuff.

The boys enjoyed some Glühwein....

...while I nibbled on a crepe.
 Lovely photo of me, Em.
Thanks.

The next day, Emily and I got invited by a friend we met at Bonn to visit Heidelberg and their Christmas market!  We were game to go.  Like Tübingen, Heidelberg has the Neckar river going through it.  Except theirs is much bigger!

Heidelberg is lovely university town, but the day we went was cloudy, cold, and gray.  Nevertheless, we were excited to visit the Christmas markets - 7 in the Altstadt and one above the town in the castle!

Lovely shot of fine day we had waiting for us!

We first headed into the Altstadt!

St. George doing his thing.

Emily's happy face in the rain.

Yet another Christmas pyramid!

After wandering around a bit of the Altstadt in the drizzle, we took a little train up the hill to the castle.  It beats walking!  (Side note:  When I bought my student priced ticket and handed over by Tübingen ID card, the cashier laughed at my picture.  Such is my life.)

The many ways to die on the train up the castle.

The train tracks going back down the castle.
Eeek!

Despite the rain, Emily has a smile on her face!

 According to one of the other students, the Heidelberg castle was razed to the ground at least twice during the 30 Years' War. So they rebuilt it - twice.  The third time the French (I think) destroyed part of the castle, the Germans threw up their hands and said "screw it", leaving the castle partially ruined.

The Christmas festival was held in one courtyard, overlooking the city and the ruined castle with the fog rolling down the hills, it was quite a sight!

This is what all my Lego castles looked like.
I always lost the important pieces.

Obligatory Skyline Photoshoot: Part I

Part II

After sipping on many cups of warm apple cider and eating a crepe or two, we decided to walk back down and we stumbled upon the most dangerous (and therefore the most awesome) kids' playpark ever.  It was carved into the hillside.  The slide was wicked steep.

I think this would be illegal in the US.

I'm going back to slide this slide when it's not wet!

Back in the Altstadt!

After we went back into the Altstadt, the skies decided to open up and we got completely soaked to the skin.    

We took shelter in a very cool cafe that was movie themed - all the drinks and the crepes were named after movies, directors, or actors/actresses.  They all had cute or witty subtitles.  While we waited for our hot coco, we skimmed the drinks menu and picked out our favorites. My personal favorite (although I didn't get to try it) was one drink called "Die Hard...Drink Faster" (it featured 3 different types of rum!).  When I go back, I'll be sure to order an Audrey Hepburn crepe though!  I might pair it with the William Wyler smoothie.  I think Old Hollywood would approve.

This Saturday, we decided we were sick of Germany and we hopped the border to Straßburg (if you're German) aka Strasbourg (if you're French).  Now if you remember your history lessons, you might know that Straßburg suffers from the worst case of identity crisis ever.  Located right along the Rhine river, Straßburg sits in the Alsace region, which apparently everyone (read: France and Germany) wants.  Since 1681, Straßburg has switched national identities from Germanic (it was part of the Holy Roman Empire) to French (post 30 Years' War) to German (WWI) to French (thanks Treaty of Versailles) to German (WWII) to French.   And as of right now, it's still French.  

But the residents speak both German and French just to make life easier.  But they prefer French.  The locals also speak a dialect of French that is a wee bit Germany.

Nevertheless, your humble blogger is no master of any romance languages and I was terrified to be somewhere where I could not speak the language.  Besides, I was unsure if my French failed me (and it would) and if pointing and grunting would fail, which would be the better option to use:  German, the language of the country next door who invaded you a lot; or English, the language of the countries who freed France from oppression twice, but then again, the French aren't too fond of the Americans now...

It was a lose-lose in my mind.  Luckily, we know Nathan who's from France and was willing to help us out of many scrapes.  Though I think he also had many a laugh at our expense...

We first took a bus tour of the city!

Oui! Paris!

Strasbourg is filled with international organization headquarters.

The Council of Europe and all the member flags!

The International Institute of Human Rights.
(Looks bleak. )

One part of the EU HQ - the big one is in Brussels.

We popped in to remind them not the crash the Euro.
Oh wait...

This is a rich suburb of the city (said the tour guide)
that's why the tram line is covered year round in grass.
Because pavement is uncouth. 

The largest Jewish synagogue in Strasbourg.

Old Parliament building - now the Opera.

Beauty and the Beast did not prepare my French skills enough for this trip.

I wonder what these signs are pointing to...?

One of the main buildings of the University of Strasbourg. 

Teehee.

 The Altstadt was all decked out for Christmas!  And everyone was there, stuffed into the little streets lined with vendors.  It was the kitsch of a state fair, the food of German Christmas, the smell of Glühwein (sorry, that Vin Chaud in France), plus the excitement of the possibility of getting pick pocketed!  But seriously, there were tons of cute stores and shops open.  It just was super crowed!

Mmmm tasty.

Notre Dame.
The other one.
Sans Quasimodo. 

Look at the detail on the door!

We ventured into petite France, which perplexed me
since we were already in France.

Rachel's all bundled up.

Jake and Emily.

Hi Zach!

You can see the German influence on the houses here!

Emily!

Your humble blogger under at least 4 layers.

Yep, it was cold.

This is why I don't take pictures of Jake anymore.

Jake, Veronika, Zach, and Nathan

O Tannenbaum

Back inside Notre Dame, their huge creche scene! 

The gorgeous stained glass inside.

Kids were putting on a Nativity show, with singing and dancing.
Tres cute!

The Rose Window of this Notre Dame

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
And lots of angels.

The huge astrological clock.

The city at night!

"The capital of Christmas"
I thought that was the North Pole...

And then we went home, back to a place where they spoke German.  And we were happy.

And I hope you were happy with all the pictures and you didn't fall asleep!  We visited one more Christmas market yesterday (Sunday), but that will be another post since we also visited some other interesting and deeply moving places by Augsburg.