December 2007 Archives
This was taken outside the old city walls of Rothenburg, which we visited earlier this month. If there was one village that embodied traditional German architecture, it would be this. It's a tourist town, of course, with a store selling Christmas ornaments year-round that one of our friends likes to call a "chamber of horrors"! To each their own. :-)
Tonight we'll be with family around the fondue pot, then we'll take in a performance of the orchestra at one of the cathedrals. We'll be ushering in the New Year at the Nuremberg castle with sparklers and champagne, six to nine hours ahead of most of you in the U.S.
Happy New Year!
Blog blogworthy: I fixed the comments bug! Or more accurately, someone pointed me to the link regarding the bug in Movable Type's Knowledge Base. IF. You ever decide to upgrade to version 4, make sure your archives are set for Individual/Entry, otherwise you won't have them. Or, add some additional code to the permalink. Unfortunately the Comments form isn't working because my templates are all custom-coded, and not in sync with MT 4.x. (Nightmare. I'm so working on a redesign!)
We've been home from our vacation-in-a-vacation for a few weeks now, just taking it easy with friends and family. France and Spain were incredible--unspoiled natural beauty, good food and wine, and some of the best rocks we'd ever climbed. (Will post a few pictures, promise.) We may be moving next year. Who knows, who knows.
With so much down time, I managed to do a few things: upgraded to Movable Type 4.01; redesigned a couple of blogs; read up on CSS. Quite a few things will move around here.
I also finished the Cabled Yoke Pullover and emailed everyone who asked for my revised instructions. Please email me (Yahoo! maryjoy73) if you didn't get the link, okay?
I created a slideshow of one of the Christkindlesmarkts we went to. This is in Lauf an der Pegnitz, just slightly north of Nuremberg. Their market was small and not too crowded, just the way I like it. Enjoy the pictures!
I hate to say it, but the market is definitely more fun at night. It's cold, crowded with families and friends, but most of the people are predictably clustered around the stalls selling glühwein. There are kids, but they're surprisingly subdued, perhaps because of all the eye candy everywhere. The stalls are brightly lit and everything looks so appealing.
Oh, to be a kid again!
Fröhliche Weihnachten!
◊ The Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt during the evening.
Comments closed until January 2008.
BFF and I aren't in the habit of celebrating Christmas with a tree and decorations and whatnot. It's partly because the holiday has become a wholly commercial enterprise, especially in the U.S., especially where we lived. In other parts of the country it could be different, but in SoCal it's definitely soul-sucking. Anyway. Aside from the religious aspect, Christmas is really for the kids.
But I had *always* wanted to go to a Christmas market, in particular the one in Nuremberg, where it all began. Christmas in Germany is definitely more traditional in terms of the customs, such as lebkuchen and glühwein. The ornaments are not your typical plastic things made in China, but things like zwetschgenmännle, or prune people, that BFF remembers making in elementary school. We made it to the market three times: once with BFF's family in the evening, the second with friends in the evening as well (when we drank all three versions of said glühwein and kinder punsch), and the third with just the two of us during the day.
Needless to say, I turned into a kid again all three times, looking and pointing at everything I saw. BFF, for the most part, was amused.
◊ The Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt during the day.
Comments closed until January 2008.
