And what not

We need an inspiration for our next destination. I think we'll go somewhere in February or March, a weekend trip, but I don't know where yet. Maybe Amsterdam. I want to go to Italy but not until we have a real trip planned and at least a week we don't mind taking off. In Germany, we get 4 or 5 days of public holidays around April/May, so maybe somewhere around then.

There is a big carnival at the beginning of February in Maastricht, in the Netherlands. Maastricht is only 15 minutes from Aachen so it's very close for us. It's a costume in the streets sort of thing, bright and colorful and crazy from what I have heard. We're going to probably go with Francois, Gerry and the other Dan (guys from work).

Marketing

For the last month or so I have been looking forward to Christmas markets in Germany. Everyone said they were impressive, so yesterday I decided to drag Daniel out to Aachen. Aachen was supposed to have a big market, in the open area around the cathedral in the dead center of town.


A little introduction, since I was relatively unaware before we ended up here:
Every year, for centuries, cities and towns all over Germany celebrate Advent (the Sundays after Nov. 26 leading up to Christmas Day) with Christmas markets in their city-centers. The tradition originates with Dresden, Christmas 1434. The markets range in size and slightly in theme, the bigger ones drawing thousands of visitors. There are even vacation packages offered for "Christmas market touring", with hotel and transportation. Visitors enjoy the traditional atmosphere, the hand-made crafts, Christmas decorations and warm food and drink.

So we took the train, had some trouble at the station with the normal train schedule, strike-related we think, but we finally got into town and walked into the market on foot. At first I thought it might be quiet, it being only the second day open, but there were lots of people.














We wanted to try some Gluhwein, the hot spiced wine that is made just at Christmas time here, but the wine area was completely squashed, so we just pushed farther in. There were lots of Christmas decorations and hand-made stuff (that I never seem to be very good at buying), and music and great food.

It was actually a lot of fun, Dan was happy to go after all. Up til now, all the festivals we have seen were beer and sausages and fried potatoes and German songs we didn't understand. Christmas is pretty straight forward.

We'll have to try the Gluhwein this coming weekend when the market comes to Stolberg!

Paris this weekend!

Taking the train to meet up with Dan in France at the end of the week. I'm excited. I was somewhat anxious about the big train to Paris when I did it the first time. Worried I would do the wrong thing, like there were unwritten rules about traveling by train that I was never taught. And I think there are these rules, but like most things, you watch and listen and learn. So anyway, I'm so excited to be seeing Dan, and it is also a good 3 hours I can put into a book of my choosing.

Side note: The Thalys (the train company doing runs from Germany to Paris-Nord) website, really needs some work. It doesn't work with Firefox (you can look for tickets but some functionality currently isn't working), and even in IE, it shows there are errors on the pages. Doesn't exactly exude clean and safe to me.

Back from somewhere

So Dan and I have been running around in circles for the last month or so.

First Dan starts getting shipping to France, then I came for a Paris trip on the weekend, then vacation to Greece the following weekend for a week. We get back from vacation with Dan needing to return to the France site, and the Tampa office needing me to go to Ft. Campbell for an issue on the project I turned over to the other radar engineer there. I got to see some family in Florida on the way back, luckily. I'm back in Germany as of yesterday, but I thought I lost my keys to the apartment, turns out we left them in my bike bag, but I find them today, after Dan had already driven back to Germany from France to pick me up from the airport, take a nap and eat and then drive back. Sigh. Sad part is, I kinda like that kind of schedule. Though I prefer it when Dan and I are in the same place.

I think we both miss home but are taking these times for what they are, a good experience.

-Katherine