An Amster-dam good time

Title credit goes to Chase, unashamedly pinched by me, since I am obviously unable to resist a good pun.

So, in true year abroad fashion, and because I am currently in the grips of oh-wow-I-only-have-a-month-left-let's-make-the-most-of-it syndrome, this past weekend involved an impromptu (for me anyway!) trip to Amsterdam, courtesy of the ever-efficient-and-reliable Deutsche Bahn. On Thursday night I (along with a sizeable group of other language assistants) threw caution to the wind and hopped on an evening train to the Venice of the North, fully equipped with appropriate supplies of the snack and beverage variety and enough classic British (and American) banter to see our train carriage gradually emptying throughout the journey. Stereotype fulfilled! (Oops)

When we arrived, I was pleasantly surprised by the hostel (Flying Pig Uptown Hostel, in case anyone's curious), which boasted what felt like several thousand flights of stairs, and its own cat (among other things of course!).

Hostel's cat was unimpressed by our hilarious prank.

Good advice in the hostel's stairwell.
I think this was about 4 flights up

On Friday, our first full day, we wandered around for what seemed like eternity trying to find breakfast, before settling less-than-reluctantly for the Hardrock Cafe (no regrets). It was good. In the afternoon we went to a torture museum, which was pretty much just a display of torture equipment and explanations (and artistic interpretations) of their usage, all accompanied by bizarrely soothing music. Gruesome. That afternoon was just filled with general wanderings, visits to touristy souvenir shops (naturally), a brief perusal of an impressive cheese shop, and, to top it all off, a visit to Wagamama's (Yeah, Amsterdam has Wagamama's! Take that Germany!). As you can see, we fully embraced the culture of... er... Japan.

Some clogs in a touristy shop. I think these were about my size.

Saturday was a day filled with culture and that associated smugness which comes with having spent the day looking at art, history and architecture and actually enjoying it. First off was the Van Gogh museum, which, while bringing back happy reminiscences of a certain Doctor Who episode, was also really interesting and insightful. I absolutely loved looking at all the paintings and learning the story behind them, seeing how his style developed, and (of course) buying copious amounts of postcards of the paintings from the museum gift shop. (I have a postcard-buying addiction. It's a serious problem. But hey, these postcards were really nice!)

Just a small selection...

After a second round in Wagamama (don't judge us), we embarked on a boat tour of Amsterdam's canals, which took us the scenic route through the city, giving us beautiful views of the city's unique houses. The boat trip even came with a recorded accompaniment in the form of a cringey 'couple' (definitely actors) telling us all about the local history and architecture, as well as certain random details of their lives. Bonus!

Pretty view of some houses

I took about a hundred identical pictures to this... Seriously, this place is so beautiful!

Our day of culturedness was topped off with a visit to the Anne Frank house, a tour of which we had thankfully booked beforehand (the queues were massive!). Though I'd read the diary of Anne Frank years ago, the story had never really struck me quite as much as when I could see all the rooms they lived in, hear details of what happened to them in the camps, and read extracts of the diary in context. The museum is so beautifully done, letting the rooms in the house where they all lived and the diary extracts speak for themselves. It's so moving and I highly recommend a visit.

That evening we mostly just wandered around getting soaked in the rain, trying to find a supermarket, missing our tram stop twice (that's a skill right there), seeing the red light district (it's not a nice place), and playing the Rennie/country game (don't ask) into the small hours with hilarious results.

On Sunday, after a bit of shopping, wandering around sighing about how we all love Amsterdam and want to move there, and a visit to the best hot chocolate shop in the world (it's official), a very tired bunch of language assistants got back on a train bound for Minden (city of dreams), and were greeted by SNOW(!!) when we got back to good old Deutschland. The icing on the cake of a fantastic long-weekend!

Bis zum nächsten Mal, liebe Kumpels!

The Holly and the Rachel

Hint: the title makes more sense if sung to the tune of 'The Holly and the Ivy'...

So, it's December now. Time to officially break out the Christmas music and drink Glühwein like there's no tomorrow. (Let's pretend I haven't been doing that for weeks already.) Germans do Christmas in a big way, and I won't deny that this was the time of year that I was most looking forward to spending in this country. So far, I've had quite a few Christmassy experiences, which began rather early, considering the school's orchestra started rehearsing their Christmas pieces in September! It even inspired me to download a CD of German traditional Christmas carols. (I'm listening to it right now actually.) I have also been taking every opportunity to purchase all the Christmassy foody goodness in the supermarkets!

Tastefully arranged Christmas foodstuffs. (That house thing is filled with Lebkuchen.) Mmmmmm....

A particularly exciting German tradition that I have discovered since coming here is BAKING. I'm not talking about your standard Christmas cake. Everyone here is crazy about Plätzchen, which are special German Christmas biscuits that everyone seems to bake about a million of around the beginning of December. The Reichelts have about 20 tubs of them, and the mum took a special day off work so they could spend the whole day baking! Now that's commitment. A couple of weeks ago, I went to a Backparty (baking party) hosted by a couple of the teachers from my school, and we spent the whole time rolling out dough and going crazy with the cookie cutters. Yum! Although sadly my attempt to explain the concept of mince pies drew nothing but blank looks (possibly due to my lack of appropriate vocabulary...).

But the most exciting thing (by far) has been the much-anticipated visit from my appropriately-festively-named friend, Holly, which I had been looking forward to for weeks.

A few minor setbacks occurred on the day of her arrival, namely Holly's delayed flight and the perilous combination of giant puddle and passing lorry that resulted in me getting thoroughly drenched (not to mention pointed and laughed at!) on the way to the station to go and pick her up from Hanover. However, these paled into insignificance compared to my gleeful excitement as I waited for her at the airport. I'm pretty sure our joyful reunion at the arrivals gate would have been enough to convince Scrooge of the merits of love and Christmas cheer, or at the very least earn us a place in the final scene of 'Love Actually'.

The next day (6th December, a.k.a. Nikolaustag in German land) we headed off to Lemgo's one-weekend-only Christmas market, Kläschen, but not before discovering makeshift paper Stiefel (boots) on the doorstep, filled with chocolate and goodies courtesy of the lovely Reichelts (I mean, ahem, Nikolaus).

Makeshift paper Stiefel filled with goodness. (Also, yes that is knitting wool...)

When we arrived at the actual market, it was evident that we were super early (keen beans that we are!) and it was mostly still being set up for the day. Undeterred, we headed to the Eiswelt (ice rink) and took advantage of the lack of people, which meant we could skate gracefully and/or flail wildly across the ice without the danger of injuring passing children or embarrassing ourselves (too much). It even snowed while we were skating (!!!) and led to much excited squealing on our part, and much indifference from the Germans. (These people just don't seem to get excited about snow! It saddens me...)

Appropriate levels of snow-related excitement.

Afterwards, we warmed up in a café with a chai latte and a nice game of German monopoly (Holly thrashed me. It was awful.), before taking another wander around the market in its fully festive glory. Of course, the highlight of the experience was all the foody/drinky goodness we were able to sample, namely the ever-present Glühwein, and a hitherto-unknown-to-me delicacy, Poffertjes (like tiny pancake puffs sprinkled with sugar - the best!).

It was certainly nice to see good old Lemgo in its Sunday best, decked out with quaint little huts selling all the foody goodness you could desire (plus plenty of drink-related goodness as well!), and assorted handicrafts, not to mention a bizarre array of canned goods, hideous Spongebob Squarepants hats, and JML-esque kitchen apparatus. It wasn't anything particularly spectacular though. At least, not for Germany! It seems like every town here has a Christmas market. OK, so there are markets in the UK too, but we totally stole this idea from the Germans!

One of my favourite markets so far has to be the Bielefeld one (well, to be fair it's the only really decent-sized one I've properly seen, but still). I went there last Monday with some other assistants, and visited again with Holly on Saturday night.

Part of the food court area - here we had some sort of Glühwein/Punsch/-bowle thing with lots of sugar in it. Lecker!

I have to say, I am loving the festive décor here. It's enough to give anyone the warm fuzzies. Nonetheless, I do miss Christmassy stuff from home, namely carol services (pretty sure they do them here too but I haven't been to one... Besides, they'd all be in German, which is clearly not as good!), Costa Christmas drinks (who'd have thought I'd miss working there!) and putting out all the old Farmer family Christmas stuff round the house. Holly did bring me mince pies though, which is easing the pain a little! Besides, I'll be home in ONE WEEK!!!

Ich freu mich riesig drauf!