Week 32: Weihnachtsmaerkte

It seems like two weeks behind is about how it working. So, a few weekends ago we visited our first Weinachtsmarkt (Christmas Market) in Trier. We met up with a Meet Up group of ex-pats from Luxembourg City and spent the afternoon drinking Gluewein (mulled wine), eating an assortment of German fair-style food and checking out the stalls of crafts people. As you can see in the picture below, the market is very popular, with people coming in from the surrounding area to enjoy the festivities. 

Crowds at the Trier Weinachtsmarkt

One of the problems with having a wine that is heated, is that sometimes you have to wait for it to heat up. Gluewine is not a particularly "good" wine--one of my German colleagues calls it "horrible", but he also hates the very idea of Christmas markets, so take from that what you will. It really requires being heated to taste at all appetizing. The stall that we found selling the wine for cheaper than anywhere else (it was for a good cause! building schools in Africa, or some such thing) had a problem keeping up with the demand for heated wine and we had to wait on more than one occasion for the big warming pots to do their thing. Nothing like standing out in the cold in a big crowd waiting for cheap wine that brings you closer to your fellow man. Kumba-f'ing-ya.

Present at every Christmas market (at least any that I have seen so far) is a large Christmas pyramid. While I've had the below picture for about two weeks, I had no idea, until just searching on Google two minutes ago, what it was called. Yet again, the Internet saves the day. Anyway, they can be very intricate sculptures, with many various scenes and quite a bit going on. The one below, again from Trier, is a bit simpler than some of the others we have seen.

Weinachtspyramide in Trier

Following our visit to Trier on Saturday, I was off on a work trip that Sunday afternoon to Nuernburg, which is located about a 6 hour train-ride west of us in Bayern (Baveria). Nuernburg is famous for a number of things, including its particular type of sausage (which are spiced similar--at least in my mind--to an American breakfast sausage), Lebkuchen (a type of cookie that tastes similar to gingerbread), Nazi rallies during WWII, WWII related trials and, of course, the Christmas market.

I was told by multiple people, and the Internet, that the Nuernburg Christmas market was not-to-be-missed, so I took a slightly earlier train that I otherwise would have to spend some time walking through the market. It is is a very large market, with many different crafts people and a wide selection of food. Since I was there on a Sunday evening, the crowds were light and I had a nice time wandering through the market. Unfortunately, since it was so dark out, I was unable to get any good pictures of it with my phone, but when I ran across the children's area, I saw the carousel in the below video--it has two floors! Luckily, the video is a bit more forgiving that the still camera when it comes to light, so you get to enjoy it as well.