pre christmas cheers

since I got to Germany it has been pretty much just eating different christmassy things. I arrived Thursday night about an hour later than I was supposed to as the plane left late, but all else was ok. Friday my mom and I went to Hamburg for the day to just window shop and also to have steak. We always go to the same restaurant, and they can cook steak like no where else. It is so nice... After the day of shopping we dropped by my grandma's in the evening for an hour and then we came home to be lazy. Saturday we went to my grandma's house again for advent tea, coffee and cake in the afternoon. My mom's oldest sister and her youngest brother with family were there as well, so there was lots of cake... one of which was this one



it is my favourite christmas time cake, mostly because my grandma always makes it at this time of year, which is odd because it is even better with fresh strawberries, these ones are frozen ones... anyway... after we finished coffee and cake we got dressed up warm and went to a christmas market a few towns away. It was so nice to see a proper German Christmas market instead of the tiny one in Exeter... but it is still nice enough in Exeter. But the evening was spent there wandering around drinking Glühwein and Heißen Apfelpunsch.

oh yes one thing I do miss from Germany at Christmas time is what we call "Naschteller" something like munchie plate in English would be the closest... when I was younger my mom would make one for each of us here, now it is usually just one for all three of us. But this was the one at my grandma's house...



Yesterday my mom and I stayed in for most of the day, watched The Holiday on DVD and then later went out to have pizza at our favourite pizza place (I think you can see a theme there...)

Today we want to go to another Christmas Market, the one in Bremen as it is very big and very nice. I will try and take some photos... but can't promise anything. We went last year as well and really enjoyed it. Not sure how long that will take. But speaking of it, I better get in the shower and dressed now so we can head off.

More soon...