Christmas Vacation - Part 4 (Final) - Netherlands

On New Year's Eve, we took our final train to Amsterdam. I've been excited about Amsterdam for awhile and, aside from being a little cold, it did not let me down. I am absolutely infatuated with all the canals, and the Dutch houses, and all the bicycles... even though I may have almost gotten run over by several of them in 36 hours.

We got in around lunchtime and went to the Hilton Amsterdam to check in. We took a tram back into the central part of town to look for a restaurant for lunch. It was a place called Metropolitain, and it was recommended by the receptionist at the hotel. It was very cute and they served late breakfast/brunch which might be my favorite thing ever. Upon perusing the menu (and eavesdropping on other diners' conversations), I realized most people speak English. Dutch is the official language and I'm sure most people speak that as well, but the overwhelming majority of speech and menus was English. I loved Amsterdam even more for that after weeks of language barriers and Italian gesticulations trying to get my points across.

At lunch, the gentleman sitting next to Dan struck up a conversation. He was very nice, if not a little weird, but it is Amsterdam. Come to find out he's a musician who was in a famous band back in the 80s and created a keyboard riff that is used in tons of music. He called the rhythm "Daddy's little pension" Haha. After fueling up on some food, we roamed around checking out some potential areas to explore later that night during the festivities. Once we felt like we got a lay of the land, we headed back to the hotel for a nap.

Normally, New Years Eve is all about getting dressed up and prancing around. Not this year. For me, it was "how many layers of pants do I think I need?". We layered up and went upstairs to the Executive Lounge for some food and drinks before going out on the town. We took one of the last trams before they shut down for the night at 8pm. It was still very early so we went pub hopping from one Heineken-serving bar to the next. We met some very nice/fun people along the way. We unintentionally walked through the Red Light District which was... well, it's everything you read that it is!

Since it was cold, we decided to stay inside as long as possible and then try to find a spot on one of the bridges over the canals to watch the fireworks. Around 11:45pm we got a spot on a bridge and waited. We knew we weren't in the center of one of the main fireworks displays but it was kind of cool because, when they started going off, they went off in every direction around us. Some were the city's shows, others were individuals setting them off. We watched the show and then wandered a bit. It became apparent that drunk people with explosives is not a good combination so we went on a 2am run to Subway (yes, THAT Subway) and walked all the way back to our hotel.

On New Year's Day, we walked to the "I amsterdam" sign, ate a pretty tasty breakfast and went to Rijksmuseum. There are LOTS of museums but, supposedly, this was the one that could not be missed. We were unimpressed. We've both been to better museums, so we lost hope in the potential of the others. We made some stops for souvenirs and then Dan wasn't feeling great (he had been fighting off a cough for a few days by this point). He asked if we could go back to the hotel and rest. We had been going, going, going this whole time so, as much as I wanted to see more of Amsterdam, I was exhausted too. We took a nap and ate downstairs at the Italian place in the hotel. Hopefully, we will make it back to Amsterdam as there is so much remaining to see and do. We shall see.

Early Saturday morning, we started the trek back to Accra. We flew a budget Spanish airline called Vueling. The tickets were half the cost of our usual fares, so we overlooked the 7 hour layover in Barcelona. We've been to Barcelona before, 7.5 years ago while on the study abroad trip where we met. So last time we were in Spain, we were more like acquaintances. We took a bus into town, got some tapas and sangria, roamed the Ramblas shopping street and pointed out all the things we remembered from 2008. We hunted and hunted for this place where we watched Spain win the Euro Cup. We recalled in detail what it looked like and where we thought it was but we couldn't find it. I'm convinced it's no longer there. Either way, it was a fun way to spend a layover and enjoyable to roam some of the same places now as husband and wife.

One more long flight and we were home safely on a Saturday night. Sunday was a lot of laundry and football and getting back into the swing of normal life after the craziness of the holidays.

Christmas Vacation - Part 3 - France and Germany

After adventuring around Switzerland, we headed to Strasbourg, France. I'll be honest, the only reason this city made the list is that it is famous for having one of the best Christmas markets. The town itself is really cute and looks a bit German in construction as it is on the border between the two countries. Apparently, the Alsace region was traded back and forth between France and Germany over the course of history until it finally ended up with France in the early 1900s.

Strasbourg has a beautiful cathedral that was a very impressive sight. I have to admit that I was incredibly underwhelmed otherwise. The Christmas market that usually stays open until New Years Eve closed early this year on Christmas Eve so, we had missed it. There were numerous little wood shops with the shutters closed on all of them. We read an article in the paper about the tourists being really upset about the change in closure date. People book their holiday travel so far in advance and it was disappointing for many of us to arrive and realize all the markets were closed. 

We enjoyed a walk around the city and admired the sights but, despite it being a weekend, not a thing was open. We suspect that with Christmas being on a Friday, the shopkeepers just remained closed all weekend. This left us with little to do aside from explore, eat and drink. I remain very disappointed in the experience as I don't see any reason why we would ever go back there. France did not do a good job of scoring points with Dan, so it remains one of his least favorite European countries.

On Monday, we traveled to Stuttgart, Germany. There isn't much in this town either; however, it is famous for two museums: the Porsche Museum and the Mercedes-Benz Museum. On Monday afternoon, we went to the Porsche museum, had lunch there and roamed the exhibits. It was very well laid out and full of fun facts. 

That evening, we went to a sports bar near our hotel for dinner and soccer. We had just finished paying when the fire alarm went off. This was not a good sign since it was attached to our hotel. Turns out, someone's radiator or towel warmer or something had started smoking so everyone in the hotel was confined to the restaurant while the fire department de-smoked the hotel. Always an adventure haha. 

Tuesday morning, we went straight to the Mercedes museum first thing and roamed the 7 floors of cars and information. The museum was also very good, but was different in that it traveled a timeline of Germany and how specific world events (wars, technological advances, etc) impacted the company and its trajectory. Very interesting. After all this car inspiration, we rented a BMW and Dan drove the Autobahn from Stuttgart to Cologne. There was little traffic so Dan was able to explore the "no speed limit" idea. I don't recall how fast his top speed was and it's probably best that I don't. Though I never felt unsafe with him behind the wheel. After driving in Cape Town, with a stick on the left side of the road, the man can do just about anything.

We checked into the Marriott in Cologne and roamed the streets in search of a dinner place. We eventually found the area with all the restaurants and opted for an "American Sports Bar" (shocking). We walked home through the quiet streets and crashed after a long day. 

The following day, we walked to the Hohenzollern bridge with all the love locks on it. You may think this is a silly idea given that Paris just cut all theirs off the bridges. Firstly, I trust German engineering immensely. I mean I did just ride there in a BMW. Lastly, this bridge is the one on which all the passenger trains cross the Rhine.... soooo it can hold some weight. Several thousand metal locks are not going to impact the structural integrity of this thing. We walked and walked trying to scope out a spot for our lock. We eventually managed to find a suitable place, affixed our lock, each took a key and tossed it into the Rhine. There our lock will stay, in the shadow of the Cologne Cathedral.

 It had gotten cold and windy, so we wandered a little more and then picked a warm place for lunch. New Orleans creole food that was very good. A bit more roaming and then we went to a quintessential German beer hall for dinner. The kind of place where they don't ask what you want to drink, they just bring beer.

In conclusion, this portion of the trip was a mixed bag. I suppose that's to be expected. Not every place you visit will be everything you hoped for and you will always love some places more than others.... to each their own.
One more stop til we head home to Ghana (well one and a half... but more on that later.)

Germany Part 1 - Oktoberfest

We arrived in Munich around 5pm on Monday evening... just in time to get caught in traffic of people trying to go home from work or meander over to the festival for a liter of beer after a day at the office. Took us quite some time to get to the hotel but the room was spacious, for European standards so we quickly showered off the airplane smell and decided to roam over to check out the happenings.

Monday night's intention was just to get an idea of what this whole thing is about. I knew from photographs that there was a ferris wheel and maybe some other rides but I wasn't expecting the grounds to be as big as they were. They were easily twice the size of what I imagined. We were warned by friends who have attended in years past that it's almost impossible to get into a tent if you weren't there first thing in the morning.

Given that advice, we found a small beer stand off to the side and grabbed a beer and kind of surveyed the land. There are a ton of carnival rides and games that are all over the grounds, mixed in with these absolutely massive beer halls. Each big tent is sponsored by a different German brewery and most of them serve one particular brew in their tent, which is their brewery's Oktoberfest offering and you cannot get it anywhere else. After our beer, we went roaming around to find an ATM. Every one we found was out of cash but we were walking past one of the big tents and Dan noticed there was one inside. Expecting to have to haggle with the bouncer to get in the door, I offered to wait outside as "collateral". Dan walked right by and the guy didn't even look at him, so I did the same and Voila! we were in a tent.

This particular tent was really busy, so we decided to check out a few others before choosing a place to settle down for some dinner. We went to the next tent and asked one of the servers for a table for two, so she took us upstairs. We were looking at the menu when we realized... we had stumbled into the one wine tent that Oktoberfest offers. Dan found this particularly amusing as we then noticed all the  decor was grapes. We sat down, had a bottle of chilled German Reisling and some dinner... roasted chicken, with potato salad and a massive pretzel.

Our dinner and a quick picture from the second floor of the Weinzelt tent

Post-dinner beer

After dinner and wine, we figured we should find some beer so went over to Festzelt and posted up at a table with some nice Canadian guys. We chatted for awhile and then parted ways around 10pm as we were exhausted from our travel. We didn't sleep well at all and were awake at all sorts of crazy hours so our alarm at 9am was not particularly enjoyable. We had breakfast, threw on lederhosen and a beer maiden dress and walked back to the festival.

There was one particular tent that was on my "must-see" list. I've seen so many photos of it and I just needed to see it in person, so we went there first. We got another delicious "base pretzel" to line the bellies before the beer and got the day started. By maybe 11am, people were standing on tables chugging liters of beer while the rest of the tent cheered them on... these people don't mess around. We shared a table with two German girls and two guys from Texas. The table behind us was a whole group of young people from Switzerland so we were having a good time. So good, in fact, that we totally lost track of time and laughed that Oktoberfest is like Vegas where you have not the slightest clue what hour it is. Around 1pm, we decided to go next door to Hofbrauhaus's Tent.

Our tablemates here weren't nearly as much fun but the atmosphere was still worth experiencing. It's funny how much the decor inside each tent changes it's entire ambiance even though they are the same size. We finished our beers and decided to head back to the hotel for some naps.

 My fave tent - Hacker Festzelt/Tired Dan and the "base pretzel"

Silly pictures/Silly hat/Hofbrauhaus Tent 

 After our naps, we noticed it was raining (good thing we came home when we did), so we borrowed an umbrella from the front desk and set out in search of a dinner spot. We found a German restaurant/bar that was showing soccer and had dinner there. I had weinerschnitzel, and Dan had veal medallions with a sausage/sauerkraut starter... very German of us. After dinner, we walked back through the rain to the hotel and tried to get some rest before our early train to Frankfurt the next morning.

All in all, Oktoberfest was a blast. I'm not sure you need more than maybe 2 full days there... nor do I think that would be the best decision for one's liver. That said, I'm so glad we went and it was definitely a worthwhile experience that we would recommend.