December 7, 2019

18 days till Christmas, and another Christmas Market. Since the sun comes out so late now about 8:30am and its cold as ice in the morning, we get late starts on the weekends. We are like the Germans who also get out to a late start.

Michelle wanted to take the train. I looked up a train ticket on DB and found a good price €27 for 3 of us for Heidelberg. That was a deal, if broken down its like €9 per person round trip from Kaiserslautern to Heidelberg and we had a choice when to get on and off. 

It takes 20 minutes from our place to the Kaiserslautern Hauptbahnhof (central station). Near the train station were FC Kaiserslautern fans getting pumped up before the game. I was nervous as these fans can get rowdy in a hurry. For example, I've read stories that they lay in front of the train tracks to block the train from coming into Kaiserslautern. Crazy yeah! Although it was crowded, nothing happened on the way to the parking place (parkplatz). 

The train to Heidelberg took one hour. There are 3 train stations in Heidelberg, luckily Michelle looked it up on her phone and found the right one. The stop was called Heidelberger Altstadt. One thing I've been working on right here in Germany is to layer up to stay warm. Sometimes its not cold around 45F°, but with the rain it feels cold and miserable. Sometimes, it is 35F° with no wind and it doesn't feel cold at all. The trick is to keep the heat in the best you can. I've been working hard at that, trying different scarfs, jackets, gloves. Its a learning process and I have to keep on learning. 

It was raining in Heidelberg when we arrived. We quickly found out that the Christmas Market is broken up and ran through most of the town. Booths were set up blocks and blocks down the street. It was literally over 1 mile long. This kinda throws off Michelle's perspective of what Christmas Markets are supposed to look like. She thought it would be a big square area, but not this one. 

There was a ice skating rink, albeit small, the size of half a basketball court. Just like Luxembourg, the place was packed, it was hard to navigate through the crowds. We learn that to appreciate the Christmas Market, we must do one walk through. This way we see what they have to offer and evaluate what is good and what is not. 

Germans don't like their picture taken by strangers. Every time I have my GoPro on, I get looks from the Germans. Being what I feel is considerate, I try not to take videos in crowds. But today where would I find content? The place was packed and there was no open area to take video. I got some looks, but had to ignore them. 

Everyone was jolly. Michelle and Malia were going nuts because they weren't communicating properly. They both get overwhelmed by the experience. I've learned to shut my mouth and just walk behind them. I try to enjoy the moment and make keen observations on what is going on. When you do this, it becomes very pleasurable and makes you want to come back. 

Since we got here late, the sun set rather quickly. We got a chance to enjoy the Christmas Market at night. I do want to say that this type of festivity is not for everyone. It is really crowded. People are nice, but I can only imagine a place where people aren't nice. It might get tense. 

At around 5:30p, we got on the train and chose to go to the Mannheim Christmas Market. Since we can't read German and used our google translate, we inferred that our ticket said we can take any train between Kaiserslautern to Heidelberg which means we could go to Mannheim, since its on the way. So we did. 

Mannheim is a major transfer stop. Its location is close to the center in Germany, more so south-west. I learned that south in German is süd. Mannheim was also packed, more packed than Heidelberg. But this Christmas Market was way better. Most of it was set up was in a big square area. It was definitely packed. The lines were really long. 

We wanted to buy a Mannheim ornament, however no booths were selling a "Mannheim Ornament". We might just have to go to a store and find an ornament. Off in the distance, we thought we saw another Christmas market. We headed towards the lights. It was almost a mile away, I guess the eye can see things, but getting there took about 15-20 minutes. It was the Kinder Christmas Market, children's market. You could tell because of the kiddy rides and displays. It was cool! Since my GoPro battery died, I didn't take any video, however it something I would like to do next year. 

We left at around 8p and caught the train back to Kaiserslautern. A group of middle and old age people loaded the train and they were loud. They didn't appear drunk, but they were loud, really loud. They were having the times of their lives, so its all good. 

We've been to almost half a dozen Christmas Markets with varying degrees of success. One common theme is that it is crowded, really crowded. Michelle says it keeps people warm being so crowded an all. We've been collecting these mugs all over. I predict we will have around 20 of them by the time we leave Germany. I have to figure out how to store them properly.