A New (and very late) Top Ten List:

THE TOP TEN THINGS ABOUT MY WACKY CHRISTMAS ADVENTURE

10. Erotic Supermarkets
I guess this one is relatively self-explanatory. The first one we saw was in Prague; we were fascinated because it seemed to be cleverly disguising itself as a regular supermarket, possibly to lure in regular customers, who would then make impulse erotic purchase: "Well, I needed baking soda, but I guess I could pick up some flavoured lube while I'm here." Hm. But they kept turning up, like, everywhere. All the way across Germany, at least. So apparently people in Eastern Europe like to mass-purchase their sexual paraphernalia.


9. Climbing Things
This is going pretty low on the list because I'm not a fan of the actual climbing bit. But, as Leah very astutely put it, the best part about going up is being up. And there's a lot of up to be in Europe. Highlights include the Castle and the Fortress in Prague, and of course our hostel in Koblenz... I do love a view, even if it's a sweaty, gasping view.


8. These Giant Pants
My secret highlight of Bayreuth. Don't tell Leah. Bayreuth was a very small town in Eastern Germany (not the Soviet occupied bit, it just happens to be on the East border, right near Prague). Its highlights are a university and the fact that Wagner lived there for a while. There's a nice-ish park as well. If I was a better person the highlight would have been the fact that we were couch-surfing there and got to meet some local German youth, or that Leah had the opportunity to visit the place of her birth... but let's be honest. It was the big freaking pants. Look at them! They're huge! To give you a sense of proportion, that's an average-sized skirt to the left of them.


7. The German Fascination with Sausage
I kind of thought it was just a cultural cliche, like Canadians with maple syrup and Scots with haggis. You know, just not as big a deal as anyone outside the country thinks. But I was wrong. Sausage is HUGE in Germany. There are sausage shops and sausage stands and sausage-themed advertisements - it's like cheese for the French. Case in point:


6. These Really Aggressive Peacocks
So, continuing in my non-chronological fashion, on Christmas morning Leah and Janet and I decided to visit the Chateau Vincennes and have a wander 'round the gardens. The Chateau was a bit boring - I mean, very Chateau-esque, but not very pretty, and not really ruined enough to appeal to me (see entry 3). However, it turned out the Botanical Gardens (or something) were open and free on Christmas Day; seeing as it was cold, we spent our afternoon running from greenhouse to greenhouse, looking at really really old Bonsai trees and photography exhibits and stuff. The Bonsai trees almost won out for #6, because some of them were hundreds of years old, and looked like evil gnomes, but the peacocks were still better. They systematically hunted us through the gardens, chasing us into the greenhouses and then waiting outside the doors for us to emerge. At one point they even hid in a nearby shrubbery to fool us into a state of false comfort, and then leaped out at us when we least expected it. New Christmas Tradition: being attacked by peacocks. It's totally catching on.


5. Hostels in Fortresses
This in inaccurately pluralized, but I refuse to change it. It should actually be, that one hostel in a fortress. I booked our hostel for Koblenz (a really boring town in Western Germany at the junction of the Reine and Mosel rivers) over the phone, without getting an address or directions, because I knew it was the only hostel in town, and I figured, how hard could it possibly be to find it? Well, we lucked out, because a kindly old lady who happened to speak very good English overheard us discussing it at the train station, and offered to help us find our way there. Still having no idea where it was, we followed her blindly onto a bus that took us across the river and up a very high hill. Finally she told us to get off, pointed down a dirt road, and told us it was a 20 minute walk in that direction. And off we went. The hostel was called Ehrenbreitstein, and all the signs were pointing toward an Ehrenbreitstein FORTRESS, no mention of hostel, but we continued on our blindly trusting way. At least I did. Leah was suspicious the whole time. Finally we got to the giant gates of the fortress, where we were stopped by a uniformed security guard. "Youth hostel?" I asked in my best stupid-girl-tourist voice. He nodded and ushered us into the fortress... where we proceeded to wander for about half an hour, across moats, through tunnels, over bridges, until another guard stopped us and asked us if we were lost. "Youth hostel?" (the German for youth hostel is, like, twenty syllables long and I refused to even attempt it). He pointed us toward the south wing of the fortress, which, as it turned out, was the youth hostel. Actually, it was a former barracks, turned into a youth hostel, complete with 3-foot walls, the most endless hallways in the universe, and one of the greatest views I've ever seen. We could look directly over the Reine; one morning it was foggy, and it looked like we were literally on top of the clouds. Turns out we were extra lucky to find that kindly German lady - or be found by her, rather - because the regular route to the fortress involves a twenty-minute vertical hike, which would have been pretty much impossible with our 20kg bags. Still, exercise justifies the eating of more German chocolate. My other favourite thing about climbing things.


4. Accordion Orchestras
Another false pluralization, but go with me. Leah and I were wandering through on of the sixteen Christmas Markets in Berlin when we thought we overheard the sweet strains of accordion music. "Is that 'It's Raining Men'?" Leah asked with a mixture of horror and delight. Of course we had to find out. Lo and behold, a youth orchestra consisting almost entirely of teenage accordion players. Who would've thought there were enough teenage accordion players in the WORLD to make up a whole orchestra, let along in one city? Of course, they were playing a selection of slightly-out-of-date pop hits, but they were actually really good. It may have just been the gluhwein speaking, but I thought they were AMAZING.


3. Ruins
As you may all know by now, I'm a sucker for a ruin. That's why I am now in love with a little town called Trier. It's really really not-famous (the opposite of famous, even) - when we told some German girls in Berlin that we were headed there next, they gave us looks of absolute horror and said "There's NOTHING there." But they were so very, very wrong. Trier is the oldest town in Germany, former seat of the Holy Roman Empire, and thus is action packed with Roman ruins. There are three baths, an amphitheatre, a gate, a bridge, and a villa. So many ruins! And the best part was, because there were, like, NO tourists, there was also no supervision, so we could climb stuff and touch stuff and generally act like kids in a giant, ancient, Roman playground. Which we did. I've come to a realization which might have deep psychological implications: I like ruined stuff more than I like stuff that's still in one piece. What does this say about me? Definitely nothing good.


2. Midnight Mass at Notre Dame
On a more serious note, this was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. We actually didn't stay for the mass proper (several reasons: the metro stopped running before it was over, it was two hours long, none of us speak Latin, none of us are Catholic), but we were there at the stroke of midnight. The giant front doors swung open and the procession walked in with their incense and beeswax candles, and the bells started ringing, and choir broke into "Adestes Fideles." It was a definite goose bump moment. There were people there from all over the world, and it really struck me how effectively religion can bring people together, when all you seem to see these days is how it rips countries apart. It was a really beautiful moment, and was definitely worth being away from home for Christmas to experience it.


1. Christmas Markets
Once again, Leah put it best: "I'm starting to forget that Christmas is a time and not a place." That's because Christmas IS a place, and that place is Germany. You see, the Germans came up with this really fantastic idea, where every Christmas you drink a lot of mulled wine and eat chocolate and gingerbread and candied almonds (and sausage, of course, except not) and put up really giant Christmas trees and fill the streets with choirs and bands and have parades of schoolchildren carrying paper lanterns and set up skating rinks and make sure that it all takes place in the squares in front of really beautiful old churches or cathedrals. Trust me on this: it's a really, really good idea. There is no such thing as a bad Christmas Market. I am bringing this tradition back to Canada. Except it's going to be year-round. And there won't be any sausages. I'm pretty sure my heaven would be a sausage-free Christmas Market, where there are never lineups for the gluhwein and the Ferris wheel is free. Also, in German they're called "christkindlmarkt" which is great.