Frohe Weihnachten

Merry Christmas, sending love and well wishes from afar.

 

 

 

 

 

Stuff and Things

We went Christmas tree shopping this weekend in the same little village we did last year. We could have bough a Weihnachtsbaum in Rosrath, but wanted the scenic drive and it was such a beautiful day. Zach picked out our tree, it is short, plump and lovely...until you touch it. We have no idea what kind of tree it is, but its sharp needles cut Zach's hands so bad while he was carrying it back to the car, which resulted in us decorating it with gloves on....


 




 We were surrounded by all of this glorious homemade German food and Zach insisted on eating Chinese.

 

 Heiseshokolade mit Sahne (hot chocolate with cream, my go-to drink)and smoked fish

 I wanted to put him in my purse and take him home with me, he was seriously the size of a loaf of bread.

These guys too...

 

We visited another Christmas market this weekend as well, and the setting couldn't have been more beautiful. 

This Crepe truck needs to make daily visits to my address

Found this gem in our Christmas ornament box of all places, 9 years ago, a couple of weeks after we started dating... when Zach had more hair then he could deal with, and we had to be within five feet of one another at all times.

 The dangerously sharp needle tree, lookin' good. Merry Christmas.

Picture Update

Loving:
 Frosty mornings with every blade of grass and branch covered in white glitter

Thankful:
For a warm comfortable home, dogs to keep my feet warm,  and close friends only a quick drive away

Thinking: 
How many Christmas Markets can we squeeze into one month?

Eating: 
Soup, hot beverages... repeat

Reading: 
"A Wise Mans Fear"

Excited:
For Zach to get home from work so I can beat him at Rumicub

Listening:
 The never-ending renovation  of our neighboring apartment

Life

Rain, rain, and more rain. Rain+Nox=One hot mess. My life these days consists of dirty towels, muddy paw-printed floors, pants and white furniture. I clean mud splatters off of places that have no business having mud on them. I often question why I even bother to bath this dog, because, without fail, he will be covered in mud within the hour. Thus is the life of a dog owner enduring the winter rains of Germany. Newton, is how you would expect... perfect. He likes to stay on the trail next to me and sits patiently when he gets his towel wipe down after every walk. 

I recently showed one of our neighbors some of my American magazines, and she was horrified that one of the titles was "Garden and Gun". "Gun? Why would you have a Gun in a garden?"

We went to the Kino (movie theater) last week. There is one theater in Cologne that shows English movies with German subtitles. We have been there once before but I had forgotten how different the experience is. First you get an assigned seat, which is bad if you didn't buy your tickets two years in advance. Then you want to buy a treat and find that the menu consists of beer and ice cream and decide to give it a miss, and then your movie starts a half an hour late because... well, we don't really know.

We kept my birthday pretty hush hush. They like their birthdays here and usually have a party. This means that YOU throw a party for YOUR birthday. Somehow this seems backwards to me. If someone wants to throw me a party that's great, but here you do all of the cooking, and cleaning, and entertaining. Forget it.