New City, New Christmas Market...

On Thursday, I went with my fellow Better Halves Club (BHC) to the Birmingham Christmas Market, or as it is truly called, Frankfurt Christmas Market and Craft Market.  It was a "win-win" as I could visit another Christmas market without dragging Jeff around like a puppy dog.  I think Jeff appreciated I went with other people as well!


I rode in with Jeff to work, went to a cafe to have a cup of coffee, muffin, and catch up on some articles for my online coursework. It was a lot cheaper to ride from Derby than Nottingham.  I waited to meet up with some friends to head on the train to go to Birmingham, which is less than an hour away.  We enjoyed some quality time on the train, catching up, and swapping stories.

This area in Birmingham is known as the Bullring

The Christmas Market filled multiple streets in Birmingham! It reminded me a lot of Oktoberfest because there were many German individuals running the stands, all the structures looked similar, and of course all of the yummy German food! We made our way around the entire market, taking one side at a time.  Most of the structures had Christmas decor, hand-carved items, ornaments, beer/wine, and other souvenirs.

 Lots of homemade, hand-carved toys. You can see the stand to the right

I wasn't really looking for anything in particular, although I found a couple cute wallets. But then, after opening them up, I realized they were not going to be able to fit American money into this wallet. So unfortunately, no purchase there. Sidenote: If you are intrigued about the money differences, I found a blog post written by an American about the money difference & his experience in the UK as well. 

So no wallet, but then I started realizing how many wonderful cakes, candies, nuts, etc. that were available.  I stopped at a homemade candy shop, and got Jeff about 6-7 pieces to enjoy later that night.  Anywhere from a vanilla donut inspired chocolate to amaretto or even chili flavored. I think we picked some good ones. Only one left...

We then enjoyed a wonderful lunch sitting outside (non-rainy, might I add).  We all got sausages, and a few of us got some mulled wine.  It was first of all...amazing! Second, I loved it so much that I think I am going to start serving it for Thanksgiving/Christmas celebrations next year. Such a warm and holiday-type drink! Look for that, Christmas 2015! Plus, we got to keep the little souvenir cups! #score

The area at the top is where all the food vendors were located.

We continued around the market-filled streets. I was disappointed about the lack of samples at this market. I'm sure it has to do with the amount of people walking the streets.  I was able to sample a few different warm almond flavors. I was deciding between the Amaretto or Bailey's flavored. I went away with with Amaretto one, as it wasn't as sweet as the Bailey's. I was hoping to enjoy it on the train ride home, although the train was so packed I kept it in my purse.

Birmingham has a great shopping centre.  Many different stores, and I especially enjoyed Selfridges, a high-end department store.  They had all designer brands, but I really enjoyed the lowest level which was Christmas decor, LOTS of different foods, gifts, and American food products.  Although the American products were EXPENSIVE! I mean, would you pay six pounds (roughly $9.60) for a small container of Hershey's cocoa? I was laughing as there was a whole section dedicated to Hershey's kisses and Reese cups. Yum! I resisted.

 Reeses. Reeses. Kisses. Kisses.

Another bull, only this one is made out of JellyBellies!

Jeff met up with me, we played some squash, and enjoyed a few of the treats I purchased earlier in the day on our way home.  All-in-all, a great experience at the Birmingham Christmas Market.

*This post has been done for a while, but I was waiting on a few pictures a friend took during the day. Hoping to update the post soon with some of those pictures, as I know she has some great ones.  Check back in a week or two if you'd like to see some more pictures of our Birmingham trip.

Onto the next adventure...

Sausage, Beer, Beer, Sausage, Beer, Pretzel, Beer, Beer, Sausage, Beer

The title of the post pretty much sums up our time in Munich, Germany for Oktoberfest, where we had lots of amazing German food and lots of amazing German beer.  We had a friend join us, Travis, for the festivities.  He came in from the states, and met us in London to head to Stuttgart, Germany on Wednesday. After an hour, fifteen flight to Stuttgart, we headed by train to Munich for another two and a half hour ride.

We made it to Munich, and the boys immediately put on their lederhosen, and I put on my dirndl.  We headed towards the festival where thousands of people were already drinking, eating, and enjoying the festival.  What a sight to see all of these people dressed up in the traditional attire.  There were 14 large "tents" that held all the different local beer.  And by "tent" I mean a standing structure that holds about 10,000 people.  Not so tent-like, right? 

Jeff and I in our Bavarian attire

Inside one of the beer tents. (This was taken Sunday so less people in their Bavarian attire)

Oktoberfest is known for its traditions like the cookies. 

We walked a little bit, grabbed a giant sausage, and headed into the Hofbrauhaus tent.  It was pretty funny to see the three of our faces as we walked into the tent. I think we were all in shock as there were people everywhere, the band was playing local tunes, hops were hanging from the ceiling, and everyone had giant beers in their hands (1 liter of beer, approximately 2 pints).  We walked around, a little overwhelmed, and found room at a table where we enjoyed a few beers.  We loved the songs the band played, even though we did not understand any of the words.  It was also fun to meet new people, mostly Germans to talk about the festival and whatnot.

Giant sausage. So yummy! (PhotoCred: Travis)

The festival area. You can see the large tents (buildings) on both sides of the pictures. One of which has the giant beer on top!

This was our favorite tent. The only one with sit down and standing tables. 

The boys in their gear with their beer! (PhotoCred: Travis)

On Thursday, the three of us walked around Munich.  We went into a couple churches that were really pretty, popped into a few shops, and ate at a cute little outside restaurant before heading back to get back into our gear.  We could not make it inside a tent, so we enjoyed an area outside a tent before meeting our friends, Julie and Andrew who were joining us for the remainder of the Oktoberfest excitement.  We all had a great night, grabbed some sausages, and headed home for the night.  Another successful day.

 The insides of the two churches in the city of Munich. 

Julie and I with our giant beers (PhotoCred: Julie)

On Friday, we got up early to rent a car. You're nervous about how this story is going to go, aren't you? Luckily they drive on the "right" side of the road and the driver's seat is on the American side as well, and Andrew took the lead, so that was nice.  No issues as all, really nice roads, only "bad thing" was the signs were in German.  We drove about 2 hours to the Neuschwanstein Castle. This is the castle in which Disney modeled their famous castle after. We were the lucky ones who could barely see the castle up close because there was a crazy amount of fog that morning.  We looked off the edge of the castle, and it was pure white...we couldn't even see the ground.  It was pretty disappointing that the weather was so yucky.  Other than that, the inside (no pictures allowed) of the castle was beautiful. It was not like the other castles we have been to because it wasn't used for war; it was purely for the joy of the king.  The rooms were still decorated as if the king still lived there, so that was pretty great to see the fine details.  Sidenote: The story of this king is pretty interesting if you want to read more.  We walked down from the castle area, grabbed a great local meal, and began to head back to the car for our journey home. Funny story though...the fog lifted and we looked up from the sidewalk to see the castle perfectly in the background.  Just our luck!

 Inside the castle grounds. Fog was so bad I didn't get many pictures

After the fog "magically" disappeared as we were leaving the city 

We ended our evening at another beer tent, and enjoyed the festivities.  Saturday morning we woke up early to head to the festival.  We knew that since it was a Saturday and the last "big hurrah" day we were going to need to get to the tents early.  We stood in line around 8:15, and the tents were supposed to open at 9:00.  The line began to move, and immediately everyone smooshed into one giant blob of a crowd.  At one point the line was moving, but I was not physically moving my feet. The line was pushing (not roughly, just tightly) that we were just moving together.  The 5 of us were split into 2 groups by accident.  Jeff, Travis, and I were sent to sit outside while Julie and Andrew made it inside the tent.

The Oktoberfest gang! (PhotoCred: Travis)

Inside our tent on Saturday morning. Great environment! (PhotoCred: Andrew)

We eventually met up in a few hours, and hung out until the early afternoon.  We took it easy the rest of the evening, and rested up for a long day of traveling the next day:

• 2.5 hour train ride to Stuttgart city centre
• 30 minute metro ride to the Stuttgart airport
• 1 hour 15 minute plane ride
• 1 hour long underground ride in London
• 2 hour train ride back to Notts (Back at 1 AM)

I leave you with a few little videos that capture the environment inside the tents. Pretty hard to describe it all in writing. Prost!

Video of the band's first song. Immediately everyone got up on the benches and began singing some German song. (VideoCred: Travis)

This video is of everyone singing the "What's Goin' On" song by 4 Non Blondes. (VideoCred: Travis)

Thank you to Julie, Andrew, and Travis for allowing me to use some of your pictures on the blog. You definitely saved me from lugging around the giant camera all weekend!

Onto the next adventure...