Last Winter In Germany

Unfortunately, our time in Germany is coming to an end. It's been a roller-coaster of emotions the past 3 years, but we're excited to be moving on as well. The one thing we've agreed that we're strangely going to miss the most: Christmas Markets.

Long Weekend: Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

I apologize for the delay in updating about our most recent trip.

'Tis the Season: Christmas Markets in Germany 2014

Nuremberg Market

One major adjustment you have to make when you move to Germany is accepting the fact that winter is miserable and feels like it will never end. I usually love winter, but Germany will ruin it for you. The sun comes up around 9 AM and sets about 4 PM. You're entire day of sun light is spent at work, in an office. That is, of course, if the sun even does make it's appearance from behind the thick, deep clouds that are a permanent fixture in the sky from October to April. Every single day, it rains at least a little. Sometimes it mists the entire day or alternates soft, steady rain. Snow is even more rare than sunlight, even though the wet air makes it feel cold enough to snow. If you have seasonal depression or a vitamin D deficiency, Germany is not a place that you would enjoy living.

Luckily, Christmas markets help make the start of winter a little more bearable. I wrote about the markets last year as well. They get talked up a lot by Americans in Germany. I won't lie, they really aren't anything too special. Most of them sell the same things and most of what they sell is crafts or Christmas decorations. The only redeeming factor that makes you want to visit them all is the food and drinks. Gluhwein (mulled wine) is a staple of all of the markets and each one will have different regional varieties. Some are fruit flavored like apfel (apple) or kirsch (cherry). Most are just red or white. You can also get non-alcoholic varieties. Other than the Christmas decor and gluhwein, the markets are pretty similar to any other festival in Germany.

Christmas market in our town.

Christmas Markets

Let me start this post with some necessary disclosure: We don't celebrate Christmas.

Actually, we don't really celebrate holidays at all. Greg grew up primarily celebrating Jewish holidays and I hate holidays for personal reasons. I don't talk about religion, so we'll keep this short and sweet.


A lot of people we met here told us that their favorite part of living in Germany was the Christmas Markets. Basically, a Christmas Market is the exact same thing as the festivals they have from Spring until Fall except they serve gluhwein instead of beer. Gluhwein is essentially just mulled wine. It comes in red, white and apple, as well as some other regional types. (Greg swears they all taste like Tamiflu, which I don't understand because I thought Tamiflu was only available to adults in capsules...?) We both agree that apple is the best of the bunch, but is still basically just hard spiced apple cider. You could probably get the same experience from warming up some Strongbow.

Our first Christmas Market experience was last weekend in our town. We met some friends down there and it was a pretty good time. Christmas markets, unlike the festivals of summertime, are more similar to craft fairs. There are a lot of vendors selling overpriced trinkets. I'm okay with admitting that I am extremely cheap and would never partake in buying things other than food at a Christmas market. The food, however, is pretty similar to anything that you'll get at any festival all over Germany. We had, you guessed it, bratwurst with curry ketchup on a roll. They were serving lamb wurst the night we went, which was a nice change of pace. They were also selling potato pancakes with applesauce which we had to get since we didn't make latkes at all this year. Aside from that, we drank some gluhwein, hung out with some friends and walked home. Pretty average festival night.

This weekend, we went to nearby Frankfurt for their Christmas market which was massive. However, it was the exact same ordeal, just different scenery. Same booths and trinkets, same food, same giant crowd. It was a fun time but honestly, I'm totally unimpressed with the whole Christmas market thing. I'm actually shocked that people find Christmas markets to be the most enjoyable part of Germany. The weirdest part to me is that people around here actually go around visiting different town's Christmas markets all through December. I can understand going to the local ones within your area, but I wouldn't be willing to take a trip from where we live to say, Munich, just to go to a Christmas market. No thank you. I could get the same trinkets and bratwurst here within the three major cities in my area.

Basically, Christmas markets can be fun for the experience of drinking outdoors, but we weren't impressed by them at all. Festivals in the summer are much more enjoyable for us because they are less focused on purchasing things and more on enjoying yourselves. The festivals we went to during the warmer months typically had entertainment, rides for children and a greater variety of foods and drinks. However, it may be that others find so much enjoyment in Christmas markets because they have an over-all love of Christmastime in general, but that's obviously not us.


Next week, we plan to skip out on the Christmas market scene in order to spend money somewhere that I'd much rather: Ikea. Back in Colorado, Greg had a nice locker at work to store all of his Army nonsense. Since we've moved here, his Army stuff has slowly spilled from our tiny closet, to our bedroom, to our spare bedroom and is now taking up all of our storage space. My goal before going back to work full time is to organize our mess and hopefully get rid of some of the junk we've accumulated. I know I haven't officially announced it, but I will be finally going back to work full time very soon. Once I have the paperwork in hand and details about my start date, I'll give more information on my new position. I will go ahead and say that I am VERY excited to go back to work doing something that I love.

Greg did light the candles for Hanukkah one night this year, but sadly no latkes.

Zermatt, Switzerland and Snowboarding the Matterhorn

Before I start what is about to be a very long and in depth post, Greg and I had a really awesome time on our snowboarding trip to Zermatt, Switzerland. The weather was great most of the time and we got a lot of great pictures and GoPro videos. It was a wonderful break from Germany that left us really missing Colorado and my Jeep. By the time we got home, we were both exhausted and ready to sleep for a full day straight. After the jump is all of the details of our trip and some advice for anyone planning a trip to Zermatt or Switzerland in the future.

One Year

A week ago, Greg and I celebrated one year of being happily married. Even though we've only spent a month of that time living together, it was great to get away and reflect on the roller-coaster that was our first year of marriage. With so many military members having these miserable marriages that end so quickly in divorce, I'm happy to say that Greg and I are adjusting very well back into our relationship together since he's been home.
We drove out to Pagosa Springs for a long weekend of snowboarding, hot spring dipping and drinking. As is typical for us, we took more pictures of the stops we took on the way to our vacation than our actual vacation. On the way there, we stopped at the Royal Gorge to walk Augustus and generally terrify myself on the giant bridge to nowhere. Augustus had an intense stand-off with a bighorn ram, but somehow, we all managed to make it out of that park alive.

Imagine a rickety wooden bridge swaying over a million foot drop to jagged rocks.

The scenery everywhere was awesome. I wish we lived farther west in the Rocky Mountains where everything is beautiful all the time and it snows in increments of feet.

Pictures don't even do it justice.

On Sunday, we spent the day at Wolf Creek, where they actually had 4 feet of real snow on the slopes. No need for the fake snow they have to throw down on most ski resorts in Colorado. I took a snowboarding lesson while Greg boarded the most difficult slopes alone. We are at two very different skill levels, obviously.

It was about 5 degrees outside by 3pm

The rest of the time we ate, drank and froze our butts off getting in and out of the hot springs. On New Years, I was so exhausted I passed out around 10 pm. Guess we're getting old? Augustus had to sleep in a cage because the cabin owners were heartless chihuahua haters. He was happy when it was time to head home.

Along the way back, we stopped at the Great Sand Dunes which really just looked like giant snow drifts this time of year. Augustus chased Greg around off leash to get out some of his energy and then passed out the rest of the way home. 

Just a man and his chihuahua

It was a great trip! Next year, I'm thinking Paris for our anniversary and New Years. I mean, we'll only be a short train trip away, right?