The third time is a charm

Christmas Market (CM) number three was last night in Cologne, specificially the market at Rudopfplatz. Why not on Sunday you ask? Because it was yet another holiday here, Totensonntag, or 'Sunday of the Dead,' translated literally. As my work colleagues explained, it is a day you are supposed to consider everything that you have done wrong. Not sure what that has to do with the dead. If anything it should be called 'Sorry Sunday' or 'Think about your sins Sunday'. Don't do anything about the wrongs, just think about them.

But anyway, in my apartment building, apparently thinking was a quick thing and the rest of the day was devoted to laundry. I ran into at least half of the apartment building in the laundry room in the cellar.

Sundays are prime CM visiting time since almost everything else is closed. However, one cannot be in a merry CM mood and simultaneously penitent, therefore the bulk of the Xmas markets are closed. However, a limited few recognize that you can get your thinking out of the way early with proper planning, so they open at 18.00 on that Sunday. If you are optimizing your CM experience and visiting as many as possible, you may be tempted to visit one of these open markets on that day. However, dear reader, it is not recommended for the faint of heart.

Last year I made the trek out to Aachen on this day. At the time it made perfect sense. Aachen is an hour away by train near the Belgian border, so it's a haul. Further, all the other markets are closed, so what a great opportunity to visit this one that is by itself and not near others that I also need to visit. Unfortunately, the rest of Nordrhein-Westfalen felt the same and made the same trip. Without a doubt, this was the most crowded CM I visited last year and it wore down some of my Xmas spirit. Therefore, I skipped Sunday this year and put the energy into Tuesday instead.

Planning your own holiday visit? As this is my fourth year experiencing the magic, here is the wisdom I pass unto you.

--Plan where you want to go. My favorite site to easily see all at a glance in English: http://www.germany-christmas-market.org.uk/cities&dates1.htm

--Plan for off-peak times, in particular if you go with children, older people or those averse to German crowds (such as yours truly who still struggles to understand why Germans have no spacial reasoning, or in other words, why must every German bump into me en route between point A and B?)

--The best off-peak time for larger markets tend to be non-weekends, or near opening/closing hours on the weekends.

--Consider the tiny markets as those are often full of Xmas spirit. If you know some locals, they can often direct you to small unadvertised neighborhood markets that you would otherwise miss. One of my favorites remains the undiscovered Koeln Deutz market with around 9 stalls. It's a 15 minute walk over the bridge from the Alt Stadt, but since it is not advertised it's more of a local thing. They have fine Glühwein, a special hut for the Xmas storyteller with announced story time, and the market is decorated to the nines with children's artwork.

So back to Cologne Rudolphplatz on Tuesday night. It's a small market with around 60 stands, including two for Glühwein. The market is next to an old castle-like wall which gives it an easy, non-city feel even though you are directly in the city. There is a giant Santa statue that is two or three stories tall and in his hand is a live pine tree, the size that you would decorate in your home.

All over the market is a lot of yellow lighting, so it contributes to the soft, quiet mood. Around the perimeter, where there are fences, they've lined them with live pine trees to give it even more of a non-city, tucked away feel. Finally, on top of many of the huts are plastic in figures in motion, a little kitschy, like a plastic Kmart who is lovingly packed up in bubble wrap and brought out each Xmas for tradition's sake. They seem to relate to fairy tales and it appeared that people were walking around just to look at them rather than what the stalls were selling. I was enjoying a Glühwein standing near one that was three elves that were carpenters. One elf was sawing a piece of wood, one waving a latern. At the elves' feet was an old sleeping elf. Repeatedly, as people walked by I would hear in both German and English 'what is what one?' 'I'm not sure.' I was sans camera, but I may make a special trip back to capture this one for your guesses.

Please keep the recommendations coming of any special CMs I should visit...

the magical season begins

now that T'giving has passed, it's time for my favorite time of year in Germany--queue the dancing elves--Weihnachtsmarkt--or the Christmas markets. Christmas in Germany is great. Well, unless you are a member of another religion and get no representation here, in which case, try Philly at Christmas as per my previous post. However, religion aside, I've never been a big fan of Christmas in the US, because of the intense commercialization and stress of the holiday. I came to Germany with no expectations for the season and was pleasantly and completely surprised.

The Christmas markets, (or CM) as I shall now use for the sake of typing, can be found in German cities large and small. They first ones start four weekends before Christmas, so the first ones near me were on Thanksgiving. Now that's a Thanksgiving treat.

Why are CM so great? First, because they are outside, so no crowded stuffy mall with cheap jewelry, perfume and sweaters brought out for the holidays. Instead, you browse among little sheds that have a window/counter and are decked out with decorations, lights, etc. like a little house. While a small town may have only one market, so perhaps 30 little houses selling food, ornaments, basically anything Xmas, a larger town such as Cologne or Duesseldorf will have multiple markets scattered throughout the city, some of them tiny intimate gatherings of eight huts.

So on Thursday I visited the old standby of Duesseldorf. D'dorf is nice because the markets are spread throughout the city so the crowds are dispersed also. D'dorf has a skating rink in the park which is also interesting to see.

My favorite part of the CM is the chance to drink Glühwein while watching the passersby. I'm not a big fan of the warm wine, so I often switch to hot cocoa. Instead of running around in a spending frenzy, many people are just hanging out with friends and family enjoying the atmosphere and a warm drink. To make this even better, many of the stands serve the drinks in a decorative mug, which you make choose to keep if you would like, they usually cost around 3 euros. They change in design each year and include the name of the neighborhood as well as the date. Scrooge that I am, for some reason they appeal to me so each year I drag my office colleagues out on the quest to find the best one. They are sooooo pleased.

Here is this year's from D'dorf's Altstadt or old town and the first office night at the CM. He is shaped like a snowman, as opposed to others that are shaped like normal mugs, or others like a boot. The writing is tough to read in the photo as he is perched festively among the Xmas lights on my window sill, but it references '2006' on his scarf and 'Die Altstadt' is across the front.

On Saturday I went to the small town of Opladen for their festive get-together. They are pretty tiny so they do not have their own special mugs, only generic ones. However, they still have the atmosphere, even if it was so warm that I needed only a sweatshirt and then it started to rain.

Still on the list--the usual standbys of Cologne, Dortmund, Essen and Aachen. New this year: Schlossburg is this coming weekend since it is only one weekend and I used to live near it. Also I've head great things about the Medieval one at Siegburg so am trying to get to that one.

Any to recommend that are within one hour by train of Cologne or D'dorf? Am open to any and all recommendations.

the magic of december (or november moving on)

One of the things I love about Germany...(I bet you never thought I would start a sentence like that)...is the lack of Thanksgiving. Each year, I generally forget about T'giving while I am here. No ridiculous commericals with turkeys holding 'sale!' signs, no massive crowds at the supermarket with T'giving dinner items on sale, no displays filled with candlestick holders in the shape of pilgrims, none of it! My only indication that the holiday was upon us is that my work email is quiet with our US office getting two days off and my German colleagues proudly wished me a happy T'giving.

No, it has nothing to do with being a vegetarian that I loathe the holiday. Back in my younger days when I was a meat eater I could not stand turkey, hated it. Ate it once per year on this blessed holiday, and under duress. Eventually my mother switched to the 'T'giving ham' since she always overcooked the turkey anyway so it tasted awful to my parents during the five days of turkey leftovers extravaganza. Further, I am not so fond of shopping, so now I had to sit through a day where food was the highlight (Thurs) to a day when shopping is the highlight (Fri). Black Friday in the US is like a three day holiday weekend in Germany in the final hour before the Aldi closes. Then multiply that feeling by one hundred.

I consider this holiday to be a speed bump on the way to the 'real' December holidays of Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa. You are thinking, 'Heather, you cannot celebrate all three!' Of course you can, dear friend, if you are in the Philadelphia area. It was not until I left Philly that I realized 1. other cities don't have such holiday openness or equality, except maybe NYC and 2. those other cities are severely missing out on this one.

If you ever come to the Philly area in December and you are downtown near the Liberty Bell, you'll see a large life-sized Nativity scene, often with people and live animals instead of the usual plastic Kmart figures. Towering next to it on the same grassy patch is the giant Menorah with candles that light up the night with the number lit up depending on which night it is. All around the city you will see the same thing, Nativity scenes beside Menorahs. Top it all off with references around the city to Kwanzaa. Then, serve it up with periodic public displays by agnostics that eschew all religious holiday references. This same rich and multi-faceted conglomeration and mixture of cultures and beliefs is repeated and played out throughout the city in small neighborhoods.

Other cities may have bits and pieces of the above, but they never have it all brought together on the same ground with an equal right and expectation to be there so it always seems one-sided and lacking. When I lived in DC, Atlanta or San Francisco I had parts of the above, but not all of it so something always seemed missing and Deutschland is no different in this regard.

And this is one of the very few things that I truly miss about Philly.

Monday night and reflections on the weekend

Monday night is Polish class and doing homework for Wednesday morning German class. Often I do homework over the weekend as well as the requisite Saturday shopping, but this weekend I instead met some very interesting people at the 'Second Whiney Expat Bloggers in Germany Meet-up' for all of Saturday.

To explain for those of you in the US, it was a chance for non-German bloggers to meet up in person while visiting a city in Germany.

I was expecting a lot of whining as well as good humor based on the writings of those in attendance (as well as the title of the event), but somehow the whining seemed to be underrepresented. However the wicked sharp wit and overall niceness was definitely there as I was impressed by all in attendence. Eventually I'll pretty up the blog and add their links as my endorsement cannot even begin to describe or do justice to their many eloquent, relevant and sometimes absurd, yet truthful writings about life as an expat in Germany.

writing...

have been putting together all of my notes from my Lithuania trip for the family. am up to 11 pages single spaced. if you want a copy, tell me.

St. Martin's Day - Nov 11

Tonight was the celebration of St. Martin here in the tiny German town I'm in. It's similar to the American Halloween. Children carry self-decorated lanterns on a stick and go from door to door singing about St. Martin. In exchange they receive candy or treats.

I've heard various stories in connection to it having seen a bit last year and then researching it. I've heard it's the 11th at 11 AM (tomorrow) and it is the kick-off of carnival. Although it seems similar to American Halloween, in that each community can celebrate closest to the date as they best see fit. Also, it's a celebration of the end of the collection of the harvest. It's connected to St. Martin who gave his coat to a beggar and it reminds the children of humility--that's the version the six children and two adults gave me tonight when I asked.

I had heard them singing in the building, but it seemed that only one or two people were home to open doors for them. Fortunately I had a box of candy on standby so I opened the door and they came to my door to sing and then to explain the tradition after I asked. It was probably the only time they received such a question tonight, but they were very kind and easer to try to explain in simple terms.

It's probably better than last year when I was baffled as to why Kristallnacht (Nov 9-10) would receive such a commemoration when I first saw one of the children groups wandering the streets and I was too afraid to ask the question lest I offend my German colleagues and I spent the days after looking online for "November 9 + lantern + Germany + children + singing."

Iceland (again!)

Since Iceland prices and tourist volume drop greatly in the colder weather, I decided to go back. I was there from Thurs until today. It was very rainy. A fish could have survived for days on the sidewalk it was so wet.

However, it was a nice visit. I went back to the Blue Lagoon. http://www.bluelagoon.com/ It's lovely to step outside in the air temp that was just below freezing to go the 15 steps into the very warm water.

I also went to the Reykjavik Museum of Photography which was showing an interesting exhibit of photos of Poland under communist times: http://www.ljosmyndasafnreykjavikur.is/english/index.htm

Finally, I went to the Reykjavik Art Museum. I went primarily because they were opening a show of young American artists as a part of an Iceland/American program. There was an interesting talk, in English, by the Icelandic and American artists involved. Here is the main museum link:
http://www.listasafnreykjavikur.is/index.en.shtml

The weather was very bad on Sunday so many trips were either cancelled or diverted through Glasgow, so unfortunately, some people arrived in many hours late. Since I was not leaving until Monday, I was ok. On Sunday I went to Keflavik, to stay at a guesthouse near the airport since my plane left early on Monday. I wandered downtown to eat at Pizza 67, the best pizza chain in Iceland. They are the home of the 'Sgt Pepper', which is mushrooms, onions, pepperoni (i skip that), fresh chili peppers, and black pepper (of the salt and pepper variety).

I also went to the local cinema to see a movie. Movies in Iceland are usually kept in the original English, but subtitled in Icelandic. It is a small cinema with two screens and very few movie watchers on a Sunday. I went to see that new Borat movie. Along with me in the theater were around 10 gentlemen from the New York area. They were on a flight back to the US that was delayed six hours so they came to the movies. Around halfway through there is an intermission when they turn off the film for five minutes. At that time they called the airport and found out they were delayed until the next day. It was a great movie to see with other people from the US as I'm sure if I would have seen it here in Germany the Germans would have given it a different spin, although overall it was not a great movie. Then after it was over I left the theater and stepped into a hail storm. Magnificent Iceland!