Week 1: Germany

This first week in Germany was a mix of exploring, relaxing and getting over jet lag. We had lots of time to focus on getting into a normal sleep schedule and recovering from the exhaustion brought on by the long travel days. To help get us into the routine we visited a variety of different places near Asperg, Germany which is where we’ve been staying for the week, and had the chance to visit a variety of friends from Holsby, the Bible School in Sweden that we attended last year.

Monday was basically just spent relaxing, sleeping in and hanging out with each other so Tuesday was the first day that we really did anything. In the afternoon we walked to a Christmas market that was in the next town over, Ludwigsburg.

The market was set up in a square closer to the middle of the town and was quite big compared to ones that I’ve been to in the past. People sell all kinds of stuff there, mainly traditional German foods, jewelry, Christmas ornaments and clothes. There is usually a wide variety of other things too but it can also depend on whether the market has a theme and how big it is. While we were there our little group shared a variety of foods that were sold at the market because though Celeste and I had both been to markets before, neither of us had really tried much of the food. I don’t remember the German names for many of the foods that we tried but there was a lot of them. We had one that was with Sauerkraut and a type of noodle, tried different kinds of sausages, spiced potato wedges, a kind of burger with veggies mixed in with the meat. Something sweet at the end that we tried was called Dampfnudel which is a big ball of dough, that has lots of yeast and is left to rise until it gets big. The one that we tried had a filling of some sort of plum jam and was covered on top with vanilla sauce. Neither Celeste nor I cared for it much but it was definitely worth trying it.

The other thing that you generally see a lot of when you go to the outdoor markets is called Glühwein which is a kind of mulled or spiced wine, served hot. I think it takes kinda weird but it’s been a bit different any time I’ve tried it so maybe it’s just an acquired taste.

Once we were done checking out the market we headed back to Joe’s for the evening. Our friend Stefan (also from Holsby) visited for supper and it was nice to catch up and get to see another friend. It was a pretty chill time and we finished the day by watching a movie before going to bed; both Celeste and I were pretty exhausted by that point.

Wednesday was another afternoon of exploring. After a relaxing morning we decided to walk up to the castle which is on top of a hill really close to Joe’s house. I’ve actually been up to this Castle before because it’s where we set off fireworks from when I was at Joe’s house on New Years Eve last year, but I’d never really been inside during the day. We walked around the outside walls which was neat because you can see all of the surrounding towns and stuff from that high up. You could also see a whole bunch of the vineyards that are on the hillside beside and near the castle so that was pretty cool even though they are mostly dead now in the winter.

Once we’d walked around the Castle, we decided to go for a bit more of a walk through the dead vineyards and on the paths between them. This was super beautiful; the leaves are still falling and yellow here so it doesn’t quite feel like winter yet and the sun was nice and warm. As much as it’s cool to see the usual sightseeing things, I think that it’s also fun to sometimes just walk through the normal areas of places that we visit. It really gives you a sense of pace of the place the you’re visiting in a cool way so it’s something that Celeste and I have liked to do when we’ve traveled together before.

In the evening we made an attempt at making homemade Mac and Cheese. We didn’t really use a recipe or anything and were kinda just winging it so all things considered we did pretty good. Our friend Annabel was also visiting for dinner so it was really great to get to catch up and see her because she was a really close friend of both Celeste and I while we were at Holsby. To finish off our evening we once again just watched a movie to relax before going to bed.

Thursday we had another really chill morning and did most of our activities in the afternoon. Around noon we had to drop Mari off at the airport but it actually worked out pretty well because it was kinda in the right direction to another Christmas market that we’d been thinking about visiting. This market was in the town of Esslingen and was medieval themed so there was a lot of different stuff for sale compared to the other market we’d visited. Esslingen was also a bit more of a stereotypical European town with the colourful buildings and stone streets so it was a super cute place to walk around. Because of the medieval theme there were people wearing costumes and also a few little shows going on around certain booths so it was an interesting place to just walk around and observe.

Once we were done at the market we wandered around the streets a bit more and looked into some of the old catholic churches that were around center of the city. This is something that Celeste and I have really liked to do when we are in older cities because often the big stone churches are some of the most beautiful buildings and they are usually always open.

On our way home from Esslingen we stopped and grabbed kebab for dinner. I guess that it’s originally a Turkish kind of food but you can get it all over the place in Germany and it’s actually really good. Every person that I’ve stayed with in Germany has always wanted to get kebab at some point because they think it’s crazy that we don’t really have it in Canada. Basically it just has meat that’s roasted throughout the day on a spit and they shave off meat as you order something. You get to pick what kind of vegetables and sauce are in it usually and it’s served in a kind of wrap or bread that kinda reminds me of a pita though that’s probably the best way I can describe it.

After grabbing food we went back to Joe’s and had a really chill evening. All 3 of us were pretty tired so we just had a quiet night watching a movie and then going to bed early.

Friday was one of my favorite days this week because we got to spend some time with a few other people from Holsby. Our friend Johnny came in the early afternoon to hang out with us at Joe’s and we had a good amount of time to talk and play some board games and catch up. Later in the afternoon we drove about an hour away to visit our friend Stefan’s house and see him and 2 of our other Holsby friends who were there too. We had such a good time hanging out with them. A lot of the time we were there was just spent talking and catching up with the last 6 months of each others lives because a lot of things have changed since we last saw each other. Many of our friends have now started university and so they have a lot to tell about with starting new classes and moving away from home and adjusting to College life.

Later in the evening we decided to go out for a walk and it took us right past the Stuttgart airport. It was pretty neat to see so many different planes coming and going so close to where we were walking. We ended up staying at Stefan’s place till about midnight but we made it home a lot faster because there was hardly any traffic that late at night.

Saturday was our last day in Asperg with Joe and it was also a full day. In the morning we visited the house of one of the members of his small group and we did a whole bunch of Christmas baking which I guess is a bit of a tradition for them. Every person made a different kind of cookie so by the time we were done there was a huge variety and every person took some of each. I guess it’s an efficient way to do all your Christmas baking which is no surprise since Germans are all about efficiency.

In the afternoon we had our last 2 visitors, our friends Elena and Rebecca. As with our other friends we spent a whole bunch of time catching up and playing board games. It was great to see both of them and they both stayed really late into the evening despite the fact that they both came from over an hour away to visit.

So overall it was an awesome first week of our travels. We got to visit and spend precious time with so many of our friends from Holsby and also recover from our significant jet lag. Today (Sunday) begins the next part of our journey. We are currently on the train on our way to Schladming, Austria which is where we will be volunteering at the Torchbearers school. Both of us are excited to see what it will be like there; where we will be living, if we will be roommates and what our work schedule will look like. At this point we don’t have a clue about any of these things but we are really looking forward to finding out later this evening!

If you are at all interested in sending me mail my address in Austria is: