Getting ready for Christmas

Dennis and I are going through another stretch of boringness as we prepare for the holidays. We are both spending far too much time at work. It’s easy to get caught up in work when you don’t really want to spend time outside. The weather has turned a bit colder – right around freezing – and the days are so very short. Remind me never to move any further north!

In the mornings, I find myself procrastinating about getting to work. I hate the idea of riding my bike to work in the pitch blackness. By about 8:15, it’s just light enough to go. I seem to have no trouble riding home in the dark, though. It gets really dark around 5:00. A quick check on the internet indicates that the shortest day here is one full hour shorter than in Minnesota. Of course, we get the long days in the spring and summer that help to make up for this horrible darkness.

For Christmas, I am going to Salt Lake City to visit my sister and her family. Our parents are going to be there as well. Dennis is still too new with his job to have any vacation time, so he has to stay home. Feeling bad for him, I arranged to be back in the Netherlands so we can celebrate the New Year together. A one week trip to the US is going to be tiring, but I’m still pretty excited to go.

I’m now trying to figure out what to take along and what I need to buy while I’m back. I’m planning to take the Christmas cards with me. I can address envelopes on the plane. I’m making Dennis write the Christmas letter this year too, so you’ll hear his perspective for a change. Of course, this means that all the cards will be a bit late – sorry for that! I’m also carrying the Christmas gifts that need to be shipped. Shipping from Salt Lake will be much easier than from the Netherlands. You have no idea how complicated the Homeland Security department has made it to ship things to the US. And I better not even start about import duties and taxes! As it turns out, it’s really difficult to find things here in the Netherlands that you can’t get in the US anyway. Next year, I’m going back to my usual internet shopping for Christmas!

For the return trip, I have a long and strange list of things that are difficult to get in the Netherlands. Mostly, I have a hard time finding good cold medicine here. But I also desperately want to go to Eddie Bauer.

Other things that have kept us busy are house projects and Dutch lessons. The house here was fitted with very minimal light fixtures. We installed a couple new fixtures when we moved in, but it was hard in the spring to judge how much light we would need in the winter. It also is a bit of a pain to buy light fixtures for a house you don’t own. Oh well, I’d rather have the lights! With our new lights, it’s much easier to study our Dutch lessons at the dining room table. We’ve been reading and watching Dutch TV programs. Our vocabulary is getting bigger, but we still struggle to speak. It’s going to take a while!

So that’s our boring life: work, groceries, laundry, study etc. We moved halfway around the world to get a taste of a foreign lifestyle and so much of life still boils down to work, groceries, and laundry!

German Swine

Christmas stuff for sale at the Dusseldorf Christmas Market.


A booth with crepes and other sweet treats.


Dusseldorf from the observation tower. This is the Rhine River.

You can see the tower behind the bridge. Fortunately, it was sunny when we went up.

Dennis and I went to the Christmas Market in Dusseldorf Germany for the weekend. Dusseldorf is only two hours away by train, just across the border. While this trip can be done in one day, we decided to spend the night and make it a bit of a vacation.

The first part of the adventure is getting there, of course. Dennis bought our train tickets earlier in the week directly at the train station. The train left at 11:00 am so we even had time to sleep in! Everything was going well on the train. We had our assigned seats and I packed sandwiches. When they announced that the next stop would be Dusseldorf, we got ready to get off. As we slowed into the station, we thought something was wrong because the sign said Duisburg. Knowing the city names can be quite different depending on the language (example being Cologne Germany, which appears is Koln in German), I decided to ask one of the other passengers getting off the train. “Is this Dusselfdorf?” I asked. “Yes, this is Dusselfdorf,” was the answer. So, we got off and the train zipped away. WE headed into the station in search of the tourist information office. We waited in line for a few minutes only to find out that we were at the ticketing office, not tourist information. But, still thinking there was something amiss, I asked the lady at the counter, “Is this Dusseldorf?” “No, this is Duisburg,” she answered. “Oh shit, we just got off the train at the wrong station,” I said. Rather than telling us we are stupid idiots who cannot even handle riding a train, she simply looked up the next train to Dusseldorf and told us which track to go to. We didn’t even have to buy another ticket because we had already paid to go to Dusseldorf! With true German efficiency, we arrived in Dusseldorf only 10 minutes behind schedule!

In the real city of Dusseldorf, the tourist information office gave us a map and marked the location of our hotel and the Christmas markets. Everything was within walking distance – although it was A LOT of walking! So, we headed off the hotel, dropped our luggage and went to the market.

The Christmas Market on Saturday afternoon is a very popular place. The food and drink booths were especially crowded. The traditional drink is Gluwein, spiced wine which is served hot to ward off the winter chill. I could only tolerate a few sips – it was very strong and very sweet. I don’t like sweet wine, but Dennis thought it was pretty good. Another local treat is pork roasted on a spit. Rather than wait in line and eat standing up, we found a near-by restaurant that specialized in roasted pork. The pork came on a plate with French Fries. No bread, no vegetable, not even some parsley. But the pork was divine! It was tender and succulent, with a lovely pork flavor not masked by anything but a bit of salt. Along with the fries, this was a meal to clog every artery in the body. So long heart – pass the pork! By the way, in German, they refer to pork as schwein, or swine, hence the title of the blog.

With full tummies, we walked around the rest of the market. It was easy to get in the Christmas spirit with all the booths selling Christmas decorations, gifts, and holiday treats. I’m not sure how much of the stuff was hand-made, or even German-made, and how much was from China, but it was cool nonetheless. We found a few cute things for us and a few for gifts.

The next morning, we were able to sleep late again. Without the cat, who wakes us up at 6:00 am or before every morning, we were able to sleep in peace. The hotel served breakfast until 11:00, so we didn’t even have to hurry for breakfast. When we did make it down for breakfast, we were pleasantly surprised. Not just bread and cheese, this was a full spread including fresh fruit and make-your-own waffles. It’s nice to be in a country where food is appreciated. The highlight of breakfast was the bacon, which was beyond delicious. These people really know their pork products!

As we had already seen most of the Christmas markets, we decided to go up to the observation deck of the tower (see picture). The day ended up being sunny so we had really good views of the city and the Rhine River. We made a note that the Rhine River is probably nice to see in the summer, too.

After the tower, we spent the rest of our time at the Christmas market tasting more of the treats. We tried the egg nog, but we were surprised at how much alcohol they managed to get into it. It was also served hot, which seems wrong for egg nog. The crepes were really good, though. And we got some sugar-roasted almonds to eat on the train back home.

By the time we got to the train station, we had been walking for four hours and I was seriously looking forward to sitting down for two hours. The train was super-crowded, but Dennis had paid a little bit extra to get assigned seats. It was worth the extra six euros especially since we were hauling all the stuff we bought! Needless to say, we managed to get back home without further mishaps and we deemed it a very successful trip.