Yesterday's Weihnachtsmarkt

Went to the market again yesterday. More pics...







(Notice the ladies with the Santa hats on in the background, too. They were certainly not the only ones!)

Wintery greetings from Germany.

Thanksgiving in Germany

For the most part, it was a success!

Here's the before picture of the 20 pound bird:


And the after:


And the rest of the food:




It was a super fun night. I spent about 2 or 2.5 days preparing the food, which would have been challenging enough without converting everything from milligrams to ounces, and Celsius to Fahrenheit. Surprisingly enough, the dessert turned out okay even though what I thought was a half cup measuring cup was actually 100ml (which is actually .42 cups).

Hope you all had a Thanksgiving as nice as ours was.

Yesterday

I'll let these photos speak for themselves, mostly...







This is the street I live on (that's the mailbox on the left):


The Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas Market) started yesterday. It lasts from now until right before Christmas, and goes from morning till night.






And this is Gluehwein (which I have consistently been spelling incorrectly...):


Mmmmm......

I'm sure you'll see more pics like these soon.

More of the same, but better

I woke up to absolute beauty here, in a way that only happens every 10 years or so. It was the second consecutive day of snow, and it is gorgeous, and a reminder of home.

Here's the view from my bed (notice sweet Aengus there, too):



By comparison, here is how it looked when I arrived:


And this is the garden this morning:


And when I arrived here:


And, in keeping with the snow/dinner theme, here's a pic of dinner last night at the Nobis Krug:


It is called sahneschnitzel (schnitzel with cream sauce), and is pretty much heaven on earth. I guess people have been trying and failing to replicate that sauce for years. It's an old family recipe - the Nobis Krug is a wonderful, old, traditional German restaurant that has been in the same family for decades. It was founded in 1578, and was the first guest house in Muenster, and I guess it originated as a tax station, for people bringing salt to the "city" back then from the east. I have some good, old photos that I will post later.

They're a dog-friendly restaurant - they all all are here, really - so Aengus joined for dinner, too!


We sat right in front of the open fire, which was lovely on a snowy evening:


AND, the Weihnachtsmarkts start today! A perfect day for it. I will stop by this evening for my first gluehwein and will be sure to take pics!

Snowy greetings from Deutschland!

More snow

Woke up to this today in Kasewinkel. The pic in the post below was from Borghorst, where Josie and Nessie live, but we had snow overnight in Kasewinkel, too.


Oh, and here's a picture of last night's dinner. It's called currywurst, and is basically a cooked bratwurst, sliced, put into a little paper thing, and then covered with curry sauce and curry powder. It's quite popular here, and is almost always offered with pommes, in this case rot/weiss (red/white, meaning with ketchup and mayo).


Warm wishes from Deutschland...

Word of the Day

Schnee. It means snow.


Lousy day here today. I know it doesn't compare to Minnesota, and I'm a Minnesotan tried and true so I won't complain too much, but it was still a lousy day. I had soup for lunch, though, after being outside for an hour, which really hit the spot. It was a salty broth with chunks of cauliflower, and this weird stuff that looked like slightly orange cheese and with the consistency of tofu, but which was actually egg cut into pieces with sharp edges. Not sure how they did that, but it was tasty.

Not too much else to report. I have bronchitis, although am feeling better today, and the sun still has not come out. I hear November is the worst month here, though, so I still have hope.

Sorry to hear the weather turned cold there. Hang in there...

The City

Okay, I finally did the tourist thing and took some pictures of the city. As you can see, it was another lovely sunless day.

This is on Salzstrasse, one of the oldest shopping streets in Muenster. It is called Erbdrostenhof, and it was built in the 1750s as a city palace for the deputy archbishop.


This is Prinzipalmarkt, which is an amazing area that goes for about 4 long blocks. Along with Salzstrasse, it is in the Altstadt, or old city.


The Peace of Westfalia was signed in 1648 in one of the buildings on the left, called the Rathaus. It ended the 30 Years War and was the first time a war was ended diplomatically.

Saw these guys while walking...



They look pretty excited. Turns out the Muenster Karneval Prince was was proclaimed today. In New Orleans, I'm pretty sure Mardi Gras goes for 5 or 6 days? Karneval here is the same kind of celebration before Lent, but it started on Thursday and lasts until February. I'll let you make your own assertion there...



The Prince is the one second from the left with the red and white clothes. The man on the very left is the mayor of Muenster. I'm not sure who the woman toward the right is, but I'm pretty sure she is not the Princess.

After that brief diversion, I headed toward my intended destination, the farmers' market.


It is hard to get a good picture of it, but it goes from where I am standing back to the church in the background. That's Muenster's Dom, or cathedral, and this whole place where the market is held is called the Domplatz.

An olive stand...


A butcher....


And one of my favorite things about the farmers' market - Backfisch. Deep fried fish with basically a mayo sauce. Mmmmm.


Oh, and they also have plenty of fruits and veggies, although it's hard to tell from this picture. That's the Dom again in the background.


We're almost done here....just a few pics of a fun area of town with cute bars and restaurants. A lot of students hang out here, and John lives about a block away.




And the Schloss - the huge castle right in the city.


One of two distinctly American sites from today:


Yes, that's a Woolworth. And the second...


It's heads up, so hopefully it will bring me luck. Maybe the sun will even come out again someday soon.

Hope you enjoyed the tour. More to come soon...