Here are a few shots we took at Wiesbaden’s Christmas market, called the Sternschnuppenmarkt (or shooting star market).  Christmas markets are full of colorful lights, delicious food and drink, booths filled with awesome Christmas stuff to buy, and tons and tons of people.  They usually start at the end of November and finish up on the day before Heiligabend (Christmas Eve for us).  At this market, Jason, Antje, Tyler and I enjoyed some Glühwein, bought some awesome Christmas candles, ate crepes with Nutella, and tried to stay as warm as possible.  I’m sad that the Christmas markets are over now, but this means that Silvester (New Year’s Eve) is just a couple days away!  “Why is New Years Eve called Silvester?”, we asked Antje’s mom the other day.  “Warum nennt das Tisch**?”(why is this called a table?) she shrugged and said matter-of-factly, referring to the table we were sitting at.  She has a point…

**these may not have been Karola’s exact words, as I think my mind translated it to English before storing it and I had to re-translate to write it here in German

Jason and I got to experience our first Weihnachtsmarkt, or Christmas market, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  Tyler, Antje, Jason and I traveled to Kandern to spend Thanksgiving with Uncle Laird, Aunt Leigh Ann and Joseph.  This first picture here is the group waiting for the train to Freiburg.

Here is Jason and I on the train–and I have a confession…this was my very first time ever riding on a train!  Everyone would agree that this particular trip wasn’t super-exciting for a first ride, but it was still pretty fun for me.  Jason and I will also be taking the train to Bavaria for Christmas in just a few days. So I’ll be an old pro at this train-riding business in no time.

Below, as you can see, Antje and Leigh Ann are listening quite attentively to the apparently very exciting things that their men have to say.

Here are a couple shots I took while we were walking around in Freiburg.  The Christmas market chaos was behind me in both of these shots, but don’t worry, I snagged some fun night shots of the Christmas market here in Wiesbaden that I’ll be sharing soon.