Christmas in Germany, part 1

I'll try and be short with my trip to Germany; several of my readers (of the few) were on the trip with me, so they already know the details!

I arrived on the 19th of December in Frankfurt.  That evening I was off to Wurzburg (umlaut needed on the first u), where my sister is studying abroad at a university.  I spend two nights at her dorm and went to class with her.  Aside from a German language class, her subject courses are taught in English.  I sat in on an American literary history course.  As a Christmas "present" the professor showed the class a video about Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance.  This present, however, was a 1980's adaptation of the underground gay community in Harlem during the 1920s, and was full of scenes with naked men.  Not exactly what I expected...and not really what the students had either, many of whom left early.

My parents arrived on the 20th in Munich, where they met my other sister, Anna.  Anna is an au pair near Munich.  We met up in Nuremberg, a city north of Munich famous for its Christmas market.  My grandmother (who lives in the States now) was baptized at a church in Nuremberg and spent part of her childhood there.

Christmas market in Nuremberg

We - or I should rather say my parents, who paid for it (thanks!) - rented an apartment in Nuremberg for a week.  During that time we met a relative who lives in the city, toured the Christmas market and surrounding old city, and took day trips to Mannheim, Rothenberg, Ansbach, and Wurzburg.  Another family contact (Thomas) lives in Mannheim and works at the local opera.  Opera is much more ubiquitous in Germany than the US.  Nearly every city and even large towns have their own opera house along with live theatre.  Stereotypes have their pitfalls, but are often true (generally).  Americans are stereo-typically less cultured and appreciative of the arts than Europeans.  Judging from the sold out crowd at the opera in Mannheim and the lines with hundreds of museum-goers waiting outside in the Berlin winter, I'd have to say it seems to hold true.

Here are some photos from Rothenberg, a well-preserved medieval city in Bayern:

After the opera we met Thomas' family at his apartment for wine, cheese, and meat.  Before heading to Germany I rarely ate bread.  Back home in the States I eat it more often, but almost never had it in Korea.  I was so used to rice, but had an overload of bread - which Germans eat for nearly every meal.  Most dinners and breakfasts involve bread, cheese and deli meats such as ham and salami.  There can be more of course, but those foods show up all of the time.  I enjoy bratwurst or deli sandwiches from time to time, but it was a bit much.  I am looking forward to the cuisine in Southeast Asia once more.

Our family celebrated Christmas in Nuremberg, and although it wasn't the same as Christmas back home, I couldn't have asked for a better present.  It was great just to all be together after having been apart for longer than we'd ever done before.  We didn't get a white Christmas though - several of the days in Nuremberg were even above 10 degrees!  Cold compared to the Philippines but not nearly as bad as I was expecting.

Well considering I still have the second half of the trip to talk about and I've dragged the first week out this long, I guess I'll stop it here and continue with part 2 in the next post.