Freiburg Finale

I'm already missing the warm coziness of Christmas. I'm not prepared to end this holiday season quite yet, which I guess is good since I still have a few European Christmas Markets to talk about! 

This is the finale of our three day trip to Freiburg, Germany for the Annual Christmas Market. It's still our favorite of all the Christmas Markets we've been to so far, two years running. (You can read my little tips and reviews of those market in the European Christmas Markets tab, soon to be fully updated for 2014.) If you remember from my last post on Freiburg, we began that Friday at the Freiburg Munstermarkt in search of our Cinderella brat, and then headed back for a last spin at the Christmas market to pick up a few last minute ornaments, presents, plates of food and a cup or two of liquid cheer before heading back home.

By Friday afternoon the market was really packed, which added quite a bit festiveness to the atmosphere, but also made maneuvering a little less seamless. Using a stroller would have been a nightmare, as was evidenced by those using them. In a crowded Christmas market such as Freiburg's babywearing was surely the way to go. Oswin was right in the action and loving the lights, accordion players, and all the people. It was as if she wasn't quite sure what to happily freak out about first.

It turns out the appropriate answer to her question was everything, absolutely everything at once. Talk about sensory overload for a little country girl!

We grabbed some warm beverages and striebele, which is very similar to funnel cake, and took in the crowd. I was sad to be leaving when the weekend was only just beginning, but happy we were able to squeeze in a trip, especially on such short notice.

Our times at the Freiburg Christmas Market will always be some of my fondest memories here in Europe. After almost five years it still blows my mind that we can hop in the car, cross country borders, and within three hours be eating brats and drinking liter beers in Germany. It used to take me longer to drive from my parent's house to Penn State for college! Being able to road trip truly opens so many avenues for travel in Europe, without the airline regulations or luggage restrictions, and I'm so thankful we've been able to take advantage of that.

I really hope that we can return to Freiburg for a third year of their Christmas Market and Friday Munstermarkt, especially now that we know where to find our favorite bratwurst, a decent cup of coffee, and late night spaetzel. Some people don't like to return to the same place twice, but for us it's a lot of fun. You learn the spots to go for this and that, and how to get around. We even stayed in the same apartment as we did the year before, and it felt a lot less foreign to us. It was nice to know what to expect of your living arrangement, especially when traveling with a baby.

I couldn't really end a final Freiburg post without showing the goods, could I now? This picture doesn't do justice to these cute ornaments, but you get the idea. Some wooden pine cones, walnuts and pretzels, some little wooden gnomes in knitted sweaters (I've name the old one Gandalf the Grey and the younger one Bilbo), a few wooden snowmen, and the start of our kitschy 70s looking ornaments collection. And yes, that is a ballerina pig you see: one for us, and one for Oswin's collection.We rounded out our haul by purchasing a bag of gluhwein spices, two large hurricanes for votive candles, a special light for atop the tree that is traditional to Freiburg (it looks atomic, which is great since I don't do stars on top of Christmas trees), and finally, after three trips to Germany, my very first Stein. Ahhh it was a good trip indeed.

We took a few days to recover from that little road trip, but not too long as we were heading to Montreux, Switzerland for their Christmas market. Which surprise surprise will be my next post. Stay tuned!

A la prochaine friends...

Honey 

Finally, some shopping.

It's amazing to me how fast things can change when traveling with children. We went from a screaming "I-think-we-might-need-to-go-back-to-the-apartment-this-is-getting-bad" overtired toddler freakout, to a "fast-asleep-in-the-sling-looking-like-a-little-angel-child" in a hot minute. And thank goodness, because none of us (I think Oswin included) really wanted to spend our first day in Freiburg holed up in the apartment, as nice of an apartment as it was.

And so our little Smaug took a 20 minute cat nap, all snuggled up with Mama in our sling. Which meant one thing: let's go buy some ornaments!

(And a gluhwein.)

We loaded up on wooden ornaments from one of my favorite stands, and bought a few of my favorite oranment: a wooden walnut. After almost five years of living here in SwitzerFrance walnuts have a new and special meaning to us, as there are many walnut trees growing in the Jura region. They pepper the landscape, influence the taste of the wine, and leave little delicious treats all over the road once the fall comes. I obviously had to pick up some more wooden walnut oranments to add to the collection, and at 2,50 euro a pop, it was a no brainer.

There was also a random crystal and mineral stand at the market. Dan says it was there last year, I just can't remember seeing it. They had some really well priced rose quartz pieces that were too pretty to pass up, but what I was most excited about were their geode slices. I've been coveting geode slices on etsy for awhile now, as I would like to use them as our new coasters, but all the ones I've found online have been pretty expensive. I grabbed a bunch of pink geode slices from this stand for a sixth of the price, and am pretty giddy about it.

We also picked up a beautiful olive wood soup ladle, which is something we've been needing for a long time as well. Time to let the measuring cups go back to being measuring cups! Hooray!

We were hoping to head back to the market Thursday night for an hour or so to grab dinner, but Oswin's afternoon nap had other plans. Dan went solo and brought some market food back to the apartment, and we watched Elf on the laptop. It was cosy and warm and not a bad way to end our first day at the Christmas Market.

Stay tuned for more on Freiburg!

A la prochaine friends...

Honey  

The Freiburg Christmas Market: A Quiet Thursday

So here's the thing about Freiburg and the Christmas Market: it cannot, in any way, be condensed into one post. Not a chance. It just wouldn't do it justice. Nor would it be any fun.

The Freiburg Christmas Market is our favorite Christmas Market (so far) in Europe. We like it so much that this was our second year returning to the city at the holidays, and I have to tell you that I already miss it. The bratwurst, the bretzels, the spaetzel, the streibele, the gluhwein, the festiveness, I could go on and on, but instead I'll just share some pictures from what was our first day back at the Christmas market.

{Pardon the sloppy babywearing, but babygirl had just had a major freakout and fell asleep in the sling before I realized it could use a re-threading. Don't worry, she was safe and sound for the twenty minute cat nap she took, it's just not the prettiest babywear of all time...}

It was a quiet first day at the market, and compared to how the crowds were the following day, I'd definitely recommend hitting up the market during the week if your traveling and work schedule allow. Thursday was calm and for the most part, not overly crowded, but by Friday afternoon it became very crowded. Not so much so that we couldn't enjoy ourselves, but Thursday was definitely easier to maneuver.

What's my favorite thing about the Freiburg Christmas Market? Well, there's just something so festive about German Christmas Markets, and Freiburg does not disappoint. I don't know what it is, but from our experience so far it's something that French and Swiss Christmas markets can't hold a candle to. We're adding a new Swiss Christmas Market to our roster this weekend, so we'll see if Montreux makes me eat my words. Gauntlet thrown Montreux!

Again, pardon the sloppy babywearing. She's a little low in there for my comfort, but she was safe and sound and sleeping which was all that was important to me. Sometimes when it comes to ring slings a quick re-threading makes all the difference, which is what I did after her little 20 minute snooze. Our sling saved us this time around, as we really began to appreciate the differences of traveling with a toddler as compared to traveling with an infant. Last year Oswin just went with the flow, and pretty much slept for the entirety of the market. This year she was more engaged, more opinionated, more likely to explore, and less likely to fall asleep. Lights! People! Cat burglarin' Santas! People people people! She fought the sleepy dust for awhile, but after an epic freakout (that led strangers to come over and shake their keys in the air for her), she was out cold before she was even fully in the sling. We didn't even bring a stroller this year, which meant more room in the car to bring back goodies. Hooray!

Freiburg is a gorgeous little city with history, culture and a Christmas spirit unlike any little market I've been to. It's winding streets and alleys keep the market fresh and interesting, as compared to markets where the stalls are placed in a circle and once you've walked the circle, you're at the end. And for those who enjoy collecting Christmas market mugs, I can happily say that you can pretty much get a different mug at every gluhwein stand, as compared to markets with one general mug. I look at this as a delight, Dan just kind of rolls his eyes at every mug that I bargain to keep. It's a compromise and one that has benefited our mug collection.

As I said in the beginning of this post, Freiburg and The Freiburg Christmas Market cannot be contained to just one post, so prepare to be inundated with Christmas Market posts all week. I'd love to hear from you guys though: where is your favorite Christmas Market?

A la prochaine friends...

Honey