European Odyssey 2009 (still day one)

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December 17th 2009

Published: December 17th 2009

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Perusing the goods

When last I typed, we were attempting to rally ourselves into going to the Erlangen Christ Kindl Markt. A Christ Kindl Markt is a Christmas Market. At this time of the year nearly every city in Germany has a Christmas Market. The one in Erlangen is fairly small, and even that one had a children's merry-go-round, two vendors selling Gluehwein and hot chocolate and maybe 30 vendors selling handmade goods, candy, toys, Christmas Pyramids, etc., etc.

And what, you may ask is Gluehwein? The translation is literally "hot wine", but it's really a hot mulled wine: sweet, tasty and alcohol-ly! And, the colder it gets, the better it tastes! The Gluehwein vendors always sell a children's version, but our kids only want the hot chocolate. Depending on where you get the hot chocolate, it can be just okay, to, so good that you're practically drinking melted chocolate!!

So anyway, Renee, single-handedly managed to wake us all up and get us out the door. If it'd been up to me I would have stayed in the house snoozing away all day. But, it was not to be, we had to fight against the jet-lag and make our way out of

Perusing the goods

the bed. So we piled into the car and made the 5 minute drive over to Erlangen Altstadt (old-town) and cruised the Christ KindlMarkt. We managed to only buy a couple of small souvenirs and, of course, Gluehwein and hot chocolate.

So, the really cool part of visiting a Christmas Market, is standing there, all bundled up in multiple layers with hats, gloves, and scarves, sipping on a piping hot mug of mulled wine and smelling all the cinnamon-ny baked goods, chocolates, and roasting sausages. Oh, and don't forget all the hot roasted nuts. Almonds roasted and rolled in sugar, cinnamon, and ??, they put them in a funnel of paper, still warm and you try not to eat them all at once! Ahhh, finally we decided it was time to get indoors before the cold penetrated the protective Gluehwein barrier, also, we needed to experience our first authentic Franken Deutschen dinner.

Franken (besides being the last name of a sitting US Senator) is an area within Bayern (or, auf English, Franconia is an area within Bavaria). There is an "Over-Franconia, middle-Franconia, under-Franconia, and more. So, we are in "Mittel-Franken" (middle Franconia), and, apparently, if you didn't know

Erlangen ChristKindlMarkt

Some of the booths in the Christmas Market.

which part of Bavaria you were in, you could simply walk into a restaurant and order sausages and then you could tell where you were. Cool.

I had my first german dark beer, Tucher, a plate of Goulash, hungarian style and some of Carter's Nuernberg Wuerstchens (small sausages). Ahhh very good! Plus, it only took one day in Germany to have Gluehwein and Beer; score!! After dinner we rolled back to the car and headed to Timmo's house.

We set Carter and Camille up with a little nest on the floor at the foot of the bed. The plan was, they would sleep there, and Renee and I would sleep in Timmo's bed (while Timmo sleeps in her roomate's room, who kindly volunteered to stay with friends while we visited). Amazingly all four of us fell asleep fairly quickly (it was about 1pm in the afternoon, according to our body clocks, and 10pm local time), but then Camille woke up, starting pushing Carter, who then woke up, then Renee woke up and had to quiet them, then I woke up, then we slept a bit longer. Somehow Camille crawled into our bed, then Carter. After several hours of

Camille

Camille posing in front of her favorite things,.... sweets!

this, I couldn't figure out why it wasn't daylight yet! Surely it'd been at least 12 hours since we went to bed, and yet, it was still pitch black outside! Just as it was getting light outside, we all fell deep asleep.... at last...

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