Dresden Christmas Market

Last weeked we took the train to Dresden, Germany to go to the Christmas market. Its the oldest Christmas market in Germany, and its huge. There were stalls selling hats, gloves, wooden santas, candles, cermaics, bags, sausages, and tons of hot drinks. It was so cold, but lots of fun. Matts realization of the trip "I now understand why they're always drinking. They're not alcholics, they're just cold"

Hercules

Its Christmas time, and we went down to the square to buy our Christmas tree. Theres a man with a stand, we pick one out, and then have to get it home without a car or bungi cords. Matt slings it over his shoulder and starts walking up the street. I am no help, I just laughed and tried to keep up. We then gave it a fresh cut with a bread knife.

Christmas is coming!

Christmas is coming and the Christmas markets have been set up all over town. There is a smaller one in our square- lots of lights, Matts favorite hot mulled wine, and vendors selling ornaments and scarves. The big one is in old town square- theres lots of food, live music, and an actual donkey. Also there is a big christmas tree there with a fence all the way around it. Apparently last year it fell over, right onto a whole group of British tourists.

Josephines leaving me!!

Josephine is the little girl I take care of here. She is French, has bright red hair, and for her first birthday I ofcourse made her a crown out of posterboard. She is just learning to walk and talk, and her parents think I am teaching her American noises. I am not quite sure what an American noise is, but I swear she does say "Hey Day" a lot. The best part of her being French is I feel I can correctly use the phrase "Your oot of here Frenchie" on a daily basis. All day I make this proper French lady listen to country music, and on Thanksgiving I spent about 10 hours trying to teach her to say 'gobble'. But very sadly for me Josephine is moving back to Paris with her parents next week, and I will have to find a new family to make hats for.

Our trip to Melnik Castle

Last weekend some friends took us out of the city to visit the Melnik castle, just a few miles outside Prague. The castle sits overlooking the river on a little vineyard, and the tour of the castle was pretty neat. The ossary of the church was built during the plague, and they took the bones of all the dead and used them to build and decorate this room under the church. There were designs and crosses made completely of skulls and femurs- it was pretty funny. Then we had signed up for the wine tasting as well, so after we were done touring we go back to the ticket shop. This lady hands us each a tall shot glass, hands Matt a basket of bread and tells us to follow her. She unlocks this door leading to the cellar of the castle, tells us we have one hour, and locks us in! We walk down these dark stone steps into this room lit with one lightbulb in the corner. In the room were about 10 different barrels placed around the room- each with a different type of wine on them- we were the only people down there. It was so much fun- and so random!

The BBC

The BBC is our gym, it stands for Beck's Boxing Club. You'd think because our last name was Beck we would get a discount, but you would be wrong. Most guys and girls wear the shortest shorts you've ever seen and the tightest shirts they can find. On their feet a few choose tennis shoes, but most choose flat soled shoes, a few wear sandals, and yesterday we saw a girl going barefoot. At our gym you can enjoy a great spinning class, where people who smell normally sweat in a room together and refuse to open the windows because they like to sweat. The music varies from techno (Chere is always a popular choice) to what I would catagorize as pub songs, they sound like something you should toast others to with a stein in your hand. After a good workout you can go to one of the two bars there, complete with every type of alcohol you can think of. Smoking is also a popular choice of things to do at the gym. The ladies who work there wear these lime green polyester wrap dresses, and they are the ones who mix the drinks. Czech health clubs are never dull, I love our gym.

Crocodile Sandwiches

Crocodile sandwiches are these pre-made sandwiches that you can buy from carts on the street, at the non-stops, and the grocery stores. Now, I haven't actually tried one- but I have looked all through them and seen tons of people eating them. My personal favorite is the one that has cold chicken nuggets on a bagette with mayonaise. How does that ever look good to ANYONE?? These are the same people who also apparently don't see the merit of ziploc bags, showering, or picking up after your dog. But on the other hand- they LOVE Cher, anything with faux fur, and Yankee hats. I just don't understand...