Christmas Markets

When I came to Europe, there were two slightly strange things on the list of things I wanted to do. One was the Great Scandinavian Road Trip (which I did), and the other was a tour through several of the Christmas markets in Germany. As you'll recall, for the last two years I've visited the market in Aachen. I went there again this year, but due to schedules, I had to go by myself. It was nice as usual, except that shortly after I arrived it started raining heavily, so I cut my visit short. The next weekend, I went to see the markets in Koln (it has several, I went to two). The markets in Koln had a much bigger food selection than in Aachen, but fewer interesting things to buy. Also, many stands seemed to be repeated more than once. On the whole, if you just want to eat, go to Koln; if you want to have nice stuff to maybe buy, go to Aachen.

The final phase of this trip was to Nurnburg and to Rothenburg. I took a day off from work and planned to squeeze in a quick trip down there before flying home for Christmas. That didn't work quite to plan. I got as far as Arnhem when I got a flat tire. I was lucky to be right at an exit with a gas station when it happened, so I pulled in their to change the tire. While I was on the phone to a friend trying to find nearby tire shops, some construction workers came over and changed my tire. That was really kind of them to do (though I should point out that I am quite capable of changing a tire). So, with my little, tiny spare tire mounted, I headed off to the tire shop to get the flat tire repaired. Store #1 could not get me in until 5pm, so I went to store #2. There, they took me in immediately, but quickly determined that they could not effect a safe repair on the tire. So, my Christmas market trip came to an early end and I drove home. Fortunately, I suppose, this happened while I was still relatively close to home, so I didn't have to be stranded for a days someplace waiting for tires to come in.