Christmas Party

A Christmas party with all the students in my study abroad program, our professors and their families. Christmas songs, secret santa gifts, food, wine, talking, and games. I thought I had seen everything at American Christmas parties, until the last half an hour of the party when someone brought out a box of fig flavored vodka, which is apparently common at Christmas time in Germany. So we all took shots of vodka with our professors before we said goodbye (can you imagine this happening in America?)... Prost! And Merry Christmas to my lovely readers xx

Nürnberg

Tuesdays are usually the days I dread most, but not this week. My German culture class took a train up to Nürnberg to see Germany's largest Christmas Market. It's a beautiful medieval town where we got a tour of the castle and a view over the whole city. There was so much to see at the Christkindlmarkt, you could spend all day just looking at the decorations. Bus since it was bitterly cold, some friends and I decided to warm up at a Bavarian restaurant after the market, and we ordered... Nürnberger Bratwurst of course! Hope you all enjoy some of the pictures I was able to take before my fingers froze off.

Tollwood

How do students spend their evenings to get into the Christmas Spirit? At Tollwood, of course! It's a winter festival that takes place in the same area as Oktoberfest, but this time everything is oriented toward Christmas stands and Glühwein (an amazing hot spiced wine that shows up everywhere in Munich once the temperature drops). And so a group of us looked through the handmade Christmas wares, ate some amazing Morrocan food, and tried different variations of  Glühwein to keep warm. I can't wait to go back this week!

Alpentour

Thursday our JYM group took a train from Munich to Tegernsee, which lies at the foot of the Alps. From there we hiked about two hours through thick woods to get to Alm Neureuth, a little Bavarian lodge where cake and coffee was waiting for us. It was really foggy all day, which was disappointing because we couldn't see much when we reached the top, but it'll just be more incentive to come back soon for the amazing view!

My Professor, Hans-Peter Söder