3 Cities- 1 Day

Dec 31st is more commonly referred to as New Years Eve, the last day of the old year where friends and family celebrate and bring in the new. For Mariko and I its usually more of a night of relaxing and one of the few times that we go to bed before midnight.... not sure why, we just usually do. This year was different for us. We had just finished our Christmas trip to Sweden plus the extension to Baden-Baden and we we now on our way to bring in the new year with some of our Fulbright friends.

Goose-Girl and Glühwein

Gänseliesel- Goose Girl

So Weihnachts Markts here in Germany are pretty dang cool, but what is better than visiting a Weihnachts Markt? Well that's simple, visiting a new one with a group of friends!! Since every city really has its own Markt there are quite a few around, and they are all a little different. Mariko and I wanted to visit a few just to see the variety of styles and vendors.

When Germans get together.....

Tis the Christmas season around the world, and here in Germany that is an important holiday. Mariko's lab held a small (unofficial) Christmas party on Tuesday night, as usual it was potluck style (most of the food was desserts). Mariko and I brought an Apple Coffee Cake.... and I won't mention how Mariko got the date wrong of the party and we were scrambling to get something made in time! Ahem... oops. Honestly though it wasn't too bad, and Mariko came home for lunch to help me make it!! I was happy with that so I'm not going to complain.

Life is a game

Mariko and I have met some good friends during our stay in Marburg, though they all tended to be of varied personalities (which is nice, I always enjoy variety). The nice thing about making friends, other than the obvious thing of having friends, is that people come and visit. And one such visit happened to us once more over the weekend. That's right we've had 3 friends stay with us now, and this time was Kirsten. She is the oldest of the three visitors, and closest to my age, so rather laid back and enjoys talking..... we get along nicely.

Kirsten decided to visit us Saturday night. Her train got in late, but she is quite the night owl so it was fine (I made Mariko take a nap so she would stay up longer). We walked home, got comfy, made ourselves some drinks (vodka and apple juice proved very yummy) and started playing our new board game: Das Spiel des Lebens.... aka The Game of Life!

BSing it up

So Mariko and I have a friend, a fun friend, and her name is Mary. And Mary lives in Düsseldorf. Now Mary was feeling a little lonely and sad. So what did she do? Thats right she came to the happening city of Braunschweig to hang with us!

It was a long train ride for her, 5+ hours aboard regional trains all the way here. But she survived and arrived here in good spirits. Of course Mariko and I picked her up from the train station, and since it was dinner time we all elected to go out to dinner on our way home. The restaurant Mariko picked was of course not "on the way home" but it was our favorite restaurant so far. We had a good walk and a good dinner, though we were the last customers of the night, so we felt a little bad as we were leaving. We got home, popped in some BBT (Big-Bang Theory for those of you who don't know) and just relaxed for the rest of the evening.... which wasn't too long as it was late and everyone had a long day.

Pizza, Movies and Visitors.. oh my!

The day was Sunday October 9th, 2011. The time was approximately 4:15pm. The place... Braunschweig, Germany. The event... Mariko and I had our first visitor to our German apartment!! Our friend Rachel lives in Göttingen, which is 40ish minutes SW of us by ICE (high-speed train), decided that she wanted to visit us poor lonely folk in good ol' BS. And of course we were quite ecstatic to have her over.

We picked her up from the train station, and even though it was the coldest day that we have been here (not Colorado cold, just windy cold) it was a pleasant walk back home. Luckily we had an idea that she might be visiting, so we had plenty of food for the 3 of us. We made Flat-bread pizza, which actually turned out rather well! Mariko and Rachel did the cutting of all our toppings: Pineapple, Mushrooms, Garlic, Green Peppers, Onions and of course Pepperoni!