I'm an Outlaw, Not a Hero: Oswin takes: The Freiburg Christmas Market

After leaving the Mulhouse Christmas Market we hopped back in the car, and crossed over the border to Freiburg, Germany.

{the little miss, road trip extraordinaire}

Doc found us a perfect little apartment to rent in Freiburg for our stay - small, cozy, and a 10 minute walk to the Christmas market. It was so nice to have a little stove to heat up water for tea, and a fridge to house pumped milk. (Oh how traveling has changed since little miss Oswin Jade has come along!)

The following morning we headed out for a day of festivities. After Mulhouse I was excited to hit up a more traditional market, full of little stands serving up Glühwein, brats and pretzels.

I was also excited for more affordable ornaments.

We weren't sure how Oswin would react to the new surroundings - crowds full of people, the cold weather, the hangover (as I like to call it) of her travel the day before - so we opted for our Sakura Bloom sling. We figured that not only would it make it easier to navigate the crowds, but being close to papa would (hopefully) calm an anxieties she may have.

Well, it must have worked, because of the five or so hours that we were walking around the market, baby girl slept for just about all of it.

And I think Papa was happy to keep our little dragon close as well.

We picked up a bunch of awesome wooden ornaments, a little nutcracker that is holding a beer and a pretzel, and had a few Glühweins and hot chocolates to warm us. If you've ever been to a European Christmas market, you know that typically you pay a "down payment" for a mug of deliciousness, which will be returned to you if you bring back the mug. If you don't bring the mug back, they keep the 3 or 4 euro down payment. I typically opt for the latter. Well, not only was this the case in Freiburg, but EVERY STAND HAD DIFFERENT MUGS! Whhhatt?! A-mazing. And I had a perfect excuse to collect all the mugs that I could: last March, when we thought we were moving back to the United States, I wrapped all but a few mugs in bubblewrap, since that was the only activity I could really do in my first trimester of pregnancy. We never bothered to unwrap them because, well, I worked damn hard to wrap them in the first place. So wrapped they will remain until we eventually move back. But I digress. Getting back to the subject at hand, I LOVE collecting mugs from different Christmas markets, so Freiburg was like Christmas mug heaven to me. In fact, I think we spent more money on mugs than we did on ornaments. We picked stands to get drinks from not based on quality of Glühwein, but on coolness of mugs. Much to Doc's chagrin, we brought home 6 mugs from Freiburg. Oh happy day!

I also had a first in Freiburg: my first bratwurst. And then my second. And then my third. (The third was the best.) We also had plenty of pretzels, some raclette, and sauerkraut. Yes, we ate very very very well at the market...

Freiburg is an adorable town, and I'm so glad we ventured 4 hours that way to go to their Christmas market. I can honestly say that after having been to 5 European Christmas markets this year, Freiburg was far and away my favorite. I highly recommend that if you can go to one Christmas market next year, you make it this one. The market wraps around different parts of the city within about a 4 or 5 block radius, and there was a good balance between food stands and decoration stands. The people were all very nice, the city is old and historic, with beautiful architecture, and everything was very well priced. Such a breath of fresh air after dealing with Geneva and Geneva-esque prices on the daily.