Happy New Year's Eve!!

We've been having a nice week and a half at home visiting with family and friends. Aaron met our new little nephew, we got to watch the Hawks games at a reasonable hour : ) and we spent most of the days just enjoying being home. Today we are headed to Elk to visit Aaron's parents and ring in the New Year on the Eastern side of the state.

2014 has been an amazing year... when I look back and think about all that we've done and seen, it's still a "pinch me" moment. We've had one heck of an adventure and I can't wait to see what 2015 brings for us, and our friends and family.

I thought Real Simple's daily quote by Brad Paisley was a good motto for the next year: "Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one."

I hope you all have a wonderful New Year's Eve and cheers to 2015!

Christmas Markets Part III: Prague

We arrived in Prague after a long bus journey across the Germany and Czech Republic border. Oddly, there are no trains that run Nuremberg to Prague, so we took a double decker bus instead.

We first headed to Old Town Square, where the main Christmas market is. We arrived just in time to see the tall astronomical clock strike on the hour, and then decided to head up into it for a view of the city.

The clock was installed in 1410 and is the oldest astronomical clock in the world that still works. Legend says that if it stops working, something bad will happen to the Czech country. There is a ramp that circles up through the clock and then a viewing platform at the very top. It was cold, but beautiful to see all the city lights and people that filled the Old Town Christmas Market.

Then we did an underground tour of Prague. The city was originally built at the river level but after multiple flooding incidents, they raised the ground level, and what was once one floor up in homes became the ground floor. To this day, many of the old buildings have cellars and some even connect to the old streets.

The next day we toured the castle on a walking tour that met in Old Town. Our guide was great- he was full of knowledge about the history of the city and castle, and some interesting, fun facts and sights that we would've missed had we toured it ourselves. He gave us a few local brewery recommendations so we went to those, and then we also visited a few places my sister, Lacey, recommended. She studied abroad in Prague, so we went to one of her favorite dinner spots, a Czech beer hall, and then an old cave bar for an after dinner drink.

Prague is a beautiful, old city with a lot of history. There is so much to see and do there, that you really need 2-3 days to experience it all.

This was the last stop on our Christmas Market Extravaganza! It was a very fun trip but also felt really good to finally be back home in London : )

Christmas Markets Part II: Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Nuremberg

After Heidelberg, we headed to a very small town called Rothenburg ob der Tauber. It is a very well-preserved medieval town and is also on the Romantic Road in Germany (a picturesque route of castles and quintessential towns).

I had read that the town was very beautiful especially during Christmas, and it definitely was. The town is small but has a ton of history. It was once a very protected town; there is a wall that goes all the way around it and it has lookout towers on all sides. Rothenburg ob der Tauber used to also be very wealthy until the 30 years war when it was conquered as a place of rest for the Catholic soldiers during winter. When they left in the spring, it was basically empty and poor which is actually what kept it preserved so well since there was no money to modernize or develop it.

Then during WWII, the Nazi's used it as an example of idealized family life because they felt it was the "most German of German towns." Towards the end of the war, German soldiers were stationed in the town to defend it from US troops overtaking it. Bombs were dropped on the town destroying a portion of the wall and some of the towers. U.S Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy knew how beautiful and historical the town was because his mother had actually been there and had talked about it when he was growing up. So he decided that instead of destroying the entire city, he send ground troops to try to negotiate with the German local military commander. The US said, if you surrender this town and leave, we will not bomb it. But if you do not, in 3 hours it will be destroyed. The German commander decided to ignore Hitler's orders, and did surrender and leave the town which saved it from total destruction. After the war, the town asked for help in raising money to rebuild the portions of the town and wall that were destroyed. Donations came from all over the world, and as a thank you, the names of those that donated were etched in the stone around the city. Now when you walk around the wall, you can read names and countries from everyone who donated to help preserve the town.

We wandered through the Christmas markets, watched as Sankt Nikolaus came to the town square and handed out chocolates to the local children, and even walked along the town walls reading names of those who donated. We also visited the first Käthe Wohlfahrt store, a German family company specializing in everything Christmas. I've never seen anything like it before: it was like stepping into a giant snowglobe of the Northpole - each room was a different Christmas theme (nutcrackers, trees, nativity scenes, etc).

In the evening, we did a tour with the "night watchman," someone who was hired to walk around the town at night up until 1920 and watch for fires or other disturbances. Dressed in costume, our guide played the role and described what a dangerous position it was as well as the history of the town. (If you are curious, here is a link that goes to a video someone else posted but this is the Night Watchman guide and it gives you a feel of the tour).

And one last thing to mention is just as we were walking around the Christmas markets, it started to snow! Our trip there was complete : )

The next day we headed to Nuremberg, which also has a lot of history. (You are getting quite the history lesson from this Christmas Market post!) You probably know or have heard about the city because of the Nuremberg Trials, where the US prosecuted Nazis after the war. But before we visited, I had no idea that it also played a huge part during the war.

Aaron and I visited the Dokumentationszentrum Reichsparteitagsgelände which was the Documentation Centre Nazi Party Rally Grounds. In short, Nuremberg was declared by Hitler to be the city of Reich Party Congresses, and so he had these huge buildings and grounds built to hold Nazi Party Rallies. Six rallies were held there between 1933 and 1938 and the site served as a place for Nazi propaganda events. It even had a parade route, and he had plans to build the largest stadium in the world. Today, the Congress Hall has a permanent "Fascination and Terror" exhibition which looks at how Hitler came to power and the tactics he used to stay there with particular emphasis on how Nuremberg played a part from these rallies to the trials. Nuremberg was chosen as the site for the trials instead of Berlin because it had been such a symbolic city for the Nazis and the laws stripping Jews of their rights were passed here. The exhibition was truly fascinating, heart-wrenching and terrifying at the same time.

We also walked around the Nuremberg Christmas Market which is one of German's oldest markets. It was the largest market that we visited with stalls for pretty much everything. We even met a couple from Puyallup there and they told us about a cellar-restaurant for dinner that we ended up eating at! We had a delicious seasonal Christmas beer there.

The next morning, we boarded a bus for Prague, where we would spend the weekend. It would be our last stop on the Christmas Market trip... more to come!

Christmas Markets Part I: Frankfurt and Heidelberg

Last Monday, I met Aaron in the Frankfurt airport. He had just a little shorter travel time than I did to get there... roughly 15 hours to be exact. But we ended up in the same place and thus our Christmas market extravaganza began!

When we landed on Monday morning, we took the train into the city. Aaron's coworker and his wife had kindly offered up their second bedroom for us to stay in, so we dropped off our bags at the Russell Frankfurt office and then set off to explore!

Frankfurt is a very business-driven city: there weren't many "sites" that we were interested in seeing so we wandered through the Christmas market and up and down the river, but after walking around for a few hours in the freezing cold, my jet lag began to set in... so where do you go when you are tired and want to warm up? There is one place you can always rely on to be cosy even in different cities throughout the world: Seattle-based Starbucks : ) We sipped on lattes and lounged in two comfy chairs while coming up with a plan for what to do next.

Recently, there's been a popularity boom of "real life escape games" in London. I'm not sure if these are in the US yet, but basically the concept is you are locked in an "area/room" with 2-6 people and have to try to escape using clues that are hidden around it (ex. finding hidden notes or clues with numbers that would then unlock a safe which leads to your next clue). Aaron and I found a place in Frankfurt that did this and luckily they had an opening that late afternoon.

It was just Aaron and I searching through the two rooms, racing against the clock as we only had an hour to get out. I don't want to give too much away, but believe me when I say it was awesome. The whole concept is right up our alley. And yes, we did make it out of the room with 6 minutes to spare : )

That night, we had dinner with Aaron's coworker and his wife at one of their favorite restaurants that serves Frankfurt specialties: schnitzel, Handkäs mit Musik (appetizer consisting of bread with a Germany cheese and onions), and Apfelwein (apple wine that is unique to Frankfurt).

The next morning we caught the train to Heidelberg (only one hour away). I had been to the city about 7 years ago when I studied abroad and loved it. It's a fairly small, college town with narrow walking streets and a beautiful castle that is up on the hillside overlooking the downtown area.

The first thing we did when we arrived was tour Heidelberg Schloss which is the castle. It was built in the late 1200s, but the first mention of a castle on the site was in the early 1200s. The castle has been struck by lightning... twice, subject to wars and damaged by fires, but for the most part it is still in pretty good shape.

Inside the castle is the largest wine vat (a huge barrel). It took 130 oak trees to build and has a capacity of 58,573 U.S. gallons. Basically, people in Heidelberg used to drink a lot of wine. It's not in use anymore but we were able to see it and then have a wine tasting in the cellar : )

There were two Christmas markets in the city: one near the castle and one in the downtown area. We went through both and then "sampled" the mulled wine like Heidelberg college kids : ) Then the next morning headed out to make our way to the next even smaller German town...

Quick Update: Busy Past Two Weeks!

I wanted to post a quick update since I haven't blogged in a while! I've had a very busy last two weeks - one quick trip to Seattle to meet my new nephew and see my best friend try on wedding dresses! Then I flew from Seattle to Dallas to Frankfurt to meet Aaron for a Christmas Market trip that started in Germany and ended with a weekend in Prague. We visited five cities in seven days and it was incredible : )

We are now back in London, but I will have more to come on our Christmas market extravaganza!