We returned back to Tampa and spent Thanksgiving week with both of our families. It was a very enjoyable few days having everyone together. After the holiday, Dan headed back to Ghana and I remained in Florida. Frankly, it was significantly cheaper for me to remain in Florida since Dan and I were meeting in Europe three weeks later. Considering my job allows me to work remotely, it worked perfectly.
Fast forward a few weeks... wonderful weeks filled with quality time with my parents and some of my best friends.
When Dan and I planned our European Christmas Vacation, I was looking into flights. At the time, the easiest route of travel was Lufthansa from Accra to Frankfurt and then directly to Tampa. (Yes, there's a direct flight from Frankfurt to Tampa... surprising, I know). Expecting to fly through Frankfurt, I invited my mom to fly back to Germany with me to explore some German Christmas markets. Of course, she eagerly accepted... and, shortly after that, Lufthansa stopped their service to Ghana. This required some airline/flight finagling but we managed to get it sorted out.
So mid-December, my mom and I flew to Frankfurt. We arrived in the morning on a Wednesday. I needed to get some work done during that part of the trip so I worked early mornings, before dinner, and before bed. After sending some emails, we took the subway to the Christmas market. We roamed the market and had a mug of gluhwein (warm spiced wine) to properly complete the experience. Honestly, neither of us were fans of the drink but the mugs were incredibly cute, soooooo.... worth it. We got the obligatory Christmas tree ornaments and just made note of the items we were interested in for future reference.
Thursday morning, we took the train one hour north to Cologne. We checked into the hotel and went out to see the market there. Ok. Ok. Markets. Cologne has 7 Christmas markets, and we were determined to see as many in our one day as possible. So after a quick stop at Starbucks, we fired the starting gun and we were off. Cologne's markets were much better than Frankfurt's. So much so that we were having trouble deciding on what we wanted to get as souvenirs. We made it to a total of 5 of the 7 markets before we felt like we were seeing the same stuff over and over. We stopped for a glass of wine and a snack and waited for the sun to go down so the Christmas lights would illuminate the largest market (which was just next to the city's beautiful Gothic cathedral).
We walked around again and went back to our favorite places. There was a band playing live music and it was definitely more lively with everyone being off of work and enjoying their evening. I got a wreath, some matching handmade garland and a wooden German Christmas pyramid. My mom also got a pyramid, another one for her friend, and some Christmas cookies in the shape of the cathedral. We went back to the hotel carrying our load of gifts and even the woman at the check-in desk remarked about how we "did some shopping" haha.
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