We headed down to Lübeck, Germany last weekend to try out one of their famous Christmas markets. We left Friday morning hoping to sight-see on Friday afternoon and all day Saturday. Just like DK, most things are closed in Germany on Sunday.
The market stalls themselves were OK - selling fur and knit mittens, ornaments, candies, cookies. And a couple churches (and these are giant churches) had more *art fair-ish* sorts of things. Peter fell in awe with the little log boxes, so we decided we'd get him a small one. He came away from the deal though with a medium size one.
What sets the Germany markets apart (from the Danish ones for sure) is the abundance of stalls selling brats (of many varieties), and Glühwein - hot, spiced, and spiked (with liquor) red wine.
So what you basically do is walk a bit, stop and have a Glühwein (don't forget to get Peter a hot chocolate), eat a brat....walk a bit..repeat.
I know that Pete is almost 5 years old now. But these sorts of things can get a bit long and boring for him. Luckily, we were able to borrow a stroller from a friend. It made the whole weekend much more pleasurable. As did the pool at our hotel. Pete went swimming on Friday evening, Saturday morning, and Saturday evening. Then during his Sunday morning swim he surprised us by swimming on his own. He had his inflatable water wings on which helped, but overall he was really swimming on his own. I put a video of this on our You Tube page - it was too long to put in the post.
After getting back home on Sunday we found out that Santa would be visiting one of our local grocery stores. I didn't go with, but I guess there was Glögg (the danish version of Glühwein) and dough balls; everyone said "en, to, tre" and then the tree lights came on; and then Julemand (Christmas man...A.K.A Santa - pronounced somewhat like 'You The Man!') handed out some candy. Then he jumped into his old BMW sidecar, and sped off to another local.
And for dinner that night Peter wanted to break into the Froot Loops that we picked up in Germany. They were odd looking - only three colors, and weird ones at that. And they weren't very sweet. Funny how they make things differently even though it has the same name and is made by the same company. Pete has not asked for another bowl...we'll probably end up feeding these to the ducks.
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