Advertisement
Published: December 27th 2007
Place Kleber
All covered in snow with the Christmas tree in the centre - beautiful!Merry Christmas to everyone that I haven't yet had the chance to contact, I hope you had a fantastic day! Once again, the Australians came together to celebrate the festivities by having an "orphans Christmas" for all of us still in Strasbourg. Although, calling it an orphans Christmas doesn't seem as fitting as it did earlier in the year when we planned it, because we've all spent so much time together this year they're starting to feel like family anyway. As with so many other food nights we've had this year, everyone prepared a couple of dishes themselves and brought them to share, making, as always, way too much food. But it was fantastic, we had such a large variety of things to choose from, even sushi! We stuffed ourselves silly, drank too much wine, laughed and told silly stories and did everything you would normally do on a Christmas day - except maybe go to the beach!
The entire Christmas season in Strasbourg has been beautiful. Rather than limiting decorations to supermarkets, all the streets, even little alleyways, have been decorated and lit up making it so nice to walk around in the evenings. And of course, like many
other European cities, Strasbourg has its Christmas markets. The markets sell food, hot chocolates & wines, Christmas decorations, clothes, knick knacks, souvenirs - pretty much anything and everything. But unlike normal, shabby looking markets, they have little matching house style talls so the markets themselves look really cool. So many people actually come to Strasbourg for the Christmas markets its Strasbourg's busiest tourist season. It's sometimes difficult just to go to the supermarket because I have to push past a sea of people who are walking like snails staring at everything. (It's good to feel like a local and hate tourists, it really shows how much I've integrated!)
Some of the markets have actually been installed right in front of my house, and one stand in particular sells and plays music, so I've been waking up some mornings to the sounds of Christmas carols playing outside my window. But it's nice, not so loud it'll wake me up, but loud enough to remind me that it really is Christmas time, because I really do need reminding. I know that we all sing songs in Australia about a White Christmas and we have Santa dressed in a wooly outfit made
for the snow, and we all say how nice it would be to actually experience it the way we see on the movies. However, being here and living out the cold, if not white, Christmas where the carols are no longer ironic, even though it's gorgeous and I love it, it just doesn't feel like a real Christmas.
And did I have a White Christmas? No, I didn't. But when I woke up on Boxing Day I looked out the window to see that it was white everywhere! Big, fluffy white snowflakes were falling from the sky at a rate of knots - if only it had been one day earlier! I was so excited that I threw on my clothes and ran outside and went for a walk. It was so beautiful and the town was so quiet, hardly anyone was around except for the odd tourist and a couple of people throwing snowballs. It's a strange sensation watching the snow fall and cover everything, it's really calming, and so quiet. It's perfect. To go for a walk in the crisp, brand new snow is just as beautiful, I think, as going for a walk on a beautiful
Christmas markets
They just look so much better in the snow, much more fitting! sunny day.
I had already started to feel like I was ready for this year to come to an end, and now that I have finally seen the snow again, I know I can go home now. Everything I wanted to happen has happened. I now have only 10 days left and I'm going to make the most out of every single one of them! If you don't hear from me beforehand, have a great New Years Eve, I know I'm going to!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.074s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 12; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0424s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Maa
non-member comment
I have tears in my eyes
I can't believe I have read a whole year of your blog (I don't even know what 'blog' stands for!). It was so lovely seeing the snow pictures and your Christmas scenes. Thankyou for sharing your journey - I really do have tears in my eyes!!