Thirteen: All Roads Lead to "Ausfahrt"

My mother said, "Germany?? No one in our family has ever ventured into Germany!" While this is not entirely true, I appreciated the sentiment. I was indeed a little afraid. But the reports of hundreds of stalls lit up for Christmas - of plump rosy-cheeked vendors plying market goers with bratwurst, gluhwein, and kitschy curios of every variety - was too tempting. After extensive research we selected Cologne and Bernkastel-Kues. Cologne is a big city with six markets. Bernkastel-Kues is a tiny village famous for its wines.

On the day we arrived in Cologne we decided to explore a veedel (a traditional neighborhood) recommended by Wikitravel. The hotel clerk suggested we take the subway, but on our way to the station I realized that while I had remembered to bring the camera and charge its battery, I had not remembered to insert the charged battery into the camera.

While searching for a place to purchase a new battery, we bumbled onto our first Christmas Market (one of the lesser-known). It was at this little market that we had our first hot coco and bratwurst. I also got the cute hat Kim is wearing in most of the photos. The man who sold us the hat, with the assistance of several customers, explained where we could find a camera battery. It was a long walk but we found the place, and got the sales girl to charge the new battery while we explored that neighborhood recommended by Wikitravel.

The neighborhood was a bust and it was really really cold so we stopped in a cafe for coffee then a pub for beer. Later we picked up our battery and took the subway back to the hotel, where we put on a thousand layers of clothing in preparation for an evening at the Dom Cathedral market.

It was way more fun then we were expecting. A lot of the kitsch wasn't even kitschy. And the food! The bratwurst was great, but there was also bratwurst curry, roasted potatoes, and yeast dumplings with vanilla sauce. At first the gluhwein tasted like hot cough syrup, but it grew on us. It's really the only way everyone can walk around in that 20-degree weather for hours on end.

The next morning we went to Nieumarkt, in the downtown shopping district. This market was completely different from the one at Dom Cathedral, but was just as fun. We tried eierpunsch, which is like egg nog on steroids. We had one of the best grilled salmon sandwiches I've ever eaten (see photo for grilling technique), and potato pancakes with apple sauce. There were lots of wooden ornaments, toys, bowls, cutting boards and cooking utensils.

We left Nieumarkt at noon, hoping to get on the road and reach Berkastel-Kues before dark. But when we got to the hotel garage, the Opel's rear window was all busted out! Several cars had been vandalized in this way but strangely nothing had been stolen. Probably some ex-employee with a grudge. The hotel manager made us go to the police station to file a report. He was nice though, and personally cleaned out our car (broken glass everywhere) and shored up the rear window with heavy duty plastic wrap.

The German police station was a little scary. It was very sterile, very quiet, and very... gulag-ish. The officer who helped us was serious at first, but when I asked if I could take his picture he got all giggly. All in all the process was painless and we were on the road before long.

Our hotel in Bernkastel-Kues was old and... quaint (reminiscent of the hotel in Bruges), but was only about a block from the Christmas Market. This market had a real small-town feel. The food was not as good as the food in Cologne, but the hot coco and eierpunsch were excellent. We tried white gluhwein, made with the Riesling Bernkastel-Kues is famous for. The historic market square, complete with traditional half-timbered houses, cobblestone streets, and surrounding hillside vineyards was almost too German.

By the time we left Germany on Sunday, we had had so much fun that we decided to explore yet another market the following weekend.

Observations about Germany:

• Everyone drives fast.
  
• Most TV programs are dubbed (in German), so you get to brush up on interpretation of body language.
  
• German radio plays lots of old U.S. pop, but they cut songs off before they're done. Is this because they don't understand the lyrics and therefore cannot tell that they are depriving us of the song's denouement?
  
• "Ausfahrt" means exit; it is not an ever-present town, village, city or bodily function (it took us awhile to figure this out).