I’m in the market for love

Where: Vienna, Austria

Has anyone ever surprised you with a trip? It’s truly fantastic. There is nothing quite like setting off for the airport, but not knowing which flight you’ll be on.

Matt planned this trip and only told me what weather to pack for (he’s not an idiot; not letting me properly pack would have been a disaster). When he revealed that we would be spending a long weekend in Vienna, I was thrilled – a place steeped in culture and history, and more importantly, a place with my beloved Christmas markets. Well played, Matt.

Plate of food: Growing up with the Calgary Stampede as a fixture in my summers means that I am not afraid of food that you eat with your hands or food that is deep-fried (please refer to deep-fried pickles, Oreos, Pop-Tarts, and so on). So I felt right at home when I discovered Langos at the Christmas market in Vienna.

Langos are large discs of puffy dough, deep-fried, and then – get this! – slathered with garlic. Imagine the glorious smell when the fresh garlic hits the hot dough….deliciousness.

The garlic vehicle

I’ll confess – we ate a lot of langos. They were comfortingly hot on those cold nights; warming our hands as much as our bellies. And the salty, garlicky flavour was the perfect accompaniment to the sweetness of the mulled wine we were guzzling sipping.

You should definitely try these if you get the chance. Just make sure anyone you are with eats one, too. The saying goes, “If one has Langos breath, all must have Langos breath”. At least I think that’s a saying…well, it should be.

The best: I have fully admitted my love for German Christmas markets. Vienna, to her credit, did not disappoint.

There were a number of small markets, but the main one in front of City Hall was spectacular: loads of stalls selling decorations, nutcrackers, gingerbread, and food. In the centre of all the action was a huge fir tree that sparkled with white lights and smelled heavenly. There was a brass band that wandered around playing carols (is the French Horn not in its element during the Christmas season?).

Surely there is some joke here about cracking nuts, but it eludes me…

The trees surrounding the square were festooned with glowing decorations in different themes: there was an angel tree, a heart tree, a sweets tree, a teddy bear tree. The very best thing about this market? The city hall was one giant advent calendar with its lit windows being the numbered tabs for each day. You crafty, festive Austrians!!

View of the market with the city hall looming behind.

Story that needs to be told: After many langos and a few grilled bratwurst thrown in for good measure, we nabbed another mug of mulled wine. We wanted to get away from the bustling crowds and sit for a bit; we’d been on our feet the entire day. We found a park bench under the trees and sat down to admire the decorations dangling from the branches.

Glowing hearts

It was a wintery night; the cold bit at our cheeks and I could feel the chill of the bench on the back of my legs. We could still hear the cheerful murmurings of the crowd and the distant notes of Christmas music.

Matt reminded me how much he loves me, spurred no doubt by the effects of mulled wine and the romantic scent of…garlic? I was touched, but could not be distracted from taking in the sights of the market.

Suddenly a family passed by, the children lingering over the festive scene and shrieking with delight. Matt seemed annoyed, which was unusual even for us who were childless at this point and therefore had a low threshold for noise, mess, and interruption. (Ask me about that threshold now.) Just as suddenly the family disappeared between the twinkling market stalls.

And Matt repeated his sentiments. Oooookay. I get it, you love me. Let’s get another langos!

Then he was on one knee.

Then there was a very sparkly ring on my finger.

And “Yes” became the sweetest sounding word in the world.

Turns out he had more than one surprise up his sleeve. Well played, Matt. Well played.

xx

“Love withers with predictability; its very essence is surprise and amazement.” 

– Leo F. Buscaglia

I’ve got a Krakow of a headache

Where: Krakow, Poland

Plate of food: I loved the food in Poland because it was simple, comforting, and similar to meals that my German Grandmother used to cook for us: sausages, perogies, and sauerkraut. Luckily we visited Krakow in the middle of a snowy winter, so this type of food was exactly what we wanted to warm and fuel us.

We ate mostly at an outdoor market set up in the main square. There we feasted on grilled sausages and small perogies filled with cheese, potato and onion. We washed it all down with mulled wine, as it was just after Christmas when we visited…and mulled wine goes with everything. Everything except a long bus trip, but we’ll talk about that in a second.

The only things that didn’t rock our tastebuds were cheese logs soaked in a salty brine (go figure) and a bowl of pork fat for spreading on bread (you remember our other encounters with pork fat, right?).

Fat in a bowl, sausages, cheese logs and , no, we aren't blurry - you've just been drinking too much mulled wine.

The best: Wieliczka salt mines, just outside of the city. These mines functioned for 9 centuries. Now there are tours offered 135m below the surface along the 200km network of tunnels.

We took a rickety tram along snow-covered tracks (can you say “slippery”??) out of the city to the mines. Once there, the crowds were organized into large groups to descend nearly 400 steps to the starting point of the tour. The tunnels and chambers were well lit and the salt crystals sparkled. The miners had carved incredible statues out of the salt. There were beautiful scenes depicting fairy tales, Biblical stories and Polish legends. One does wonder how much mining was happening if the miners were busy creating such works of art! They had even created a cathedral underground. Everything from the chandeliers to the altar to the staircase were made from salt. The cathedral was immense with a huge vaulted ceiling, and the floor looked like polished marble, but it was, of course, salt that had been polished to a high sheen by centuries of footsteps.

Incredible underground salt cathedral. A-MAZ-ING!

We only saw a small portion of the mine, but it was awe-inspiring and hauntingly beautiful. We were transported back up to the surface in large cage lifts. 30 seconds later – back at the top!

One more interesting tidbit: the air is so pure down there that they have a sanitorium for asthma and allergy sufferers. You can stay down there for days at a time as part of your medical treatment. I bet you they serve those salty cheese logs down there.

One of the wall reliefs in the cathedral. Talk about hidden talents of miners!

Story that needs to be told: As I mentioned, we enjoyed the mulled wine on offer in Krakow. One evening we went on our very own Mulled Wine Crawl, a lesser-known cousin to the Pub Crawl. Let’s just say this: it should remain lesser-known.

Many of the bars are underground in central Krakow which lends some mystery and coziness to your evening of beverages. They were gloomy, candlelit places bustling with people. Each bar had their own mulled wine concoction which we felt obliged to try in a compare-and-contrast sort of way. We ended up at our old faithful, the main market, for a midnight snack and a few more cups of wine.

Fast forward (not all that far forward) to our alarm going off very early in the morning. We were booked on the first bus of the day to the mountain town of Zakopane. Cue gargantuan headache, bone weariness, and general malaise. Off we went.

The walk to the bus station nearly killed me. The bus trip itself finished me off. We arrived in sunny Zakopane with the day stretching ahead of us and a desire only to fall face first into the snow.

We thought some food would help matters so we found an alpine themed restaurant on the main street. The complimentary dish brought out to every table? A bowl of fat. I said something that made the sweet couple next to me with their toddler glare at me and shake their heads. I apologize.

Once fortified, we rallied somewhat and walked around this picturesque village. I was blinded not only by the sun glinting off the pristine snow, but by the wealthy Germans strolling about in golden full-body ski suits and glitzy jewellery – and that was just the men. It appeared that skiing was not so important for some in Zakopane, but the ski apparel was very important.

People-watching was the perfect remedy for a Mulled Wine Crawl, but then Matt dragged me through a historical museum which was eerily quiet and had dusty displays of hand tools used for ploughing fields back in the good old days. I buckled.

Never has it been so obvious to me that we are not "clever ones".

I spent the rest of our circuitous route lagging 50m behind Matt and whimpering slightly.

Highly recommend Zakopane, though. No, really. Look at this:

C'mon, how quaint and inviting does this look?

“Bizarre travel plans are dancing lessons from God.” Kurt Vonnegut

Never spit at a German

Where: Düsseldorf, Germany

Let the eating begin!

Plate of food: We went to Düsseldorf specifically for the Christmas markets. It was our first foray into these typically German festive events, but it started something in me that became a slight obsession. I discovered that Christmas markets combine twinkly lights, shopping, sausages, mulled wine, festive music and enough atmosphere to rival the North Pole itself. I ask you: how are the rest of us managing the holidays without all of this?

Before you even take a bite of food at a Christmas market, you are tempted by all the wonderful smells. There are sausages grilling, spiced wine simmering, chocolate melting, and dough frying. This is not a place to be picky about having your dressing on the side or having low-fat cheese or having less than, say, 3000 calories a day. It is best for everyone if you just surrender – trust me, it is not difficult.

To make it easy I have some step by step instructions for eating at a market:

1. Go directly to one of the many Glühwein vendors and buy a mug of mulled wine. You’ll easily find these wooden huts because they are surrounded by jovial groups of Germans standing in the swirl of steam from the vats of wine.
2. Don’t be alarmed that you were asked to pay 6 Euros for your drink. You just paid for the mug, too, and that is fantastic because then you have your very own specially designed souvenir with the name of the market and the year on it. This will spark some sort of kitsch collecting craze in you. Don’t worry.
3. Sausage will be your main food group when at a market. There are quite a few sausages to choose from, just pick the best of the wurst (that’s in there for you, Dad). Try the long, thin ones (Thüringer Rostbratwurst) grilled over coals served in a fresh bread roll. Eat this with mustard.
4. Admire the inventiveness of the rows of metal spikes upon which the rolls are skewered to create the perfect sausage-sized tunnel.
5. Go back and refill your mug with Glühwein.
6. Buy some honey roasted almonds in a paper cone. They will still be warm from the roaster. Yum!
7. Buy a lebkuchen – an oversized gingerbread cookie usually in the shape of a heart. Don’t eat it. Wear it around your neck like the Germans do. It’s like a festive version of an 80s rapper.
8. Walk to another market a few streets away and buy another mug (each market will have their own). It comes filled with Glühwein, so it would be rude not to partake.
9. Eat a bretzel – a large, soft, salty pretzel.
10. Repeat steps 1-9 for each meal.
11. Surreptitiously unbutton the waistband of your pants.

The best: The whole Christmas market shebang is the best way to kick off the festive season. The markets transform a part of a city and the people in it, so that everyone is floating along on a happy cloud of goodwill, good cheer and Glühwein. An evening spent at a market is cozy in a Norman Rockwell way. The little wooden huts glitter with lights and garlands; each one offering something special: wooden decorations, glass candleholders, ceramic angels, and food, glorious food. Bands and choirs entertain the crowds with songs to which everyone knows the tune, no matter what your language. In the centre of the market usually stands an enormous Christmas tree, fresh and fragrant. The streets surrounding the market remain busy with traffic, alleys are dark and people are short-tempered, but once you pass under the market archway all is brightness and joy. That is a magical thing, even just for an hour or two. If only we could have such a reprieve from real life at other times during the year…with collector’s mugs, of course.

It was a struggle not to buy all of these for our tree.

Story that needs to be told: I’m just going to come right out and say that we stayed in the train station in Düsseldorf. In a hotel in the train station, but in the train station, nevertheless. This was my bright idea for affordable accommodation in a convenient location. Frankly, one cannot deny that it was both affordable AND convenient, but one could also argue that it is downright depressing to enter your hotel room without actually leaving the train station building. I felt as though I may need coins to operate the shower.

Oh, look! Even Santa stays at the train station! Photo by CharlesFred

On the flip side of our less than luxurious accommodation, Düsseldorf has certain streets that are lined with the most glamorous stores selling designer clothes, shoes, and bags. We walked down one of these fashion avenues one evening, rubbing elbows with German women who wore full length fur coats and looked sophisticated. I was wearing materials that promised to “insulate while wicking away perspiration” and I looked like…I was sleeping in the train station. The door to each glittering store was guarded by a severe looking gentleman in a dark suit. They sure didn’t have that sort of security at the train station.

I lingered over the window display at the Jil Sander store, wondering about the price of the items on the mannequin. Eventually I spotted a tiny card at the base of the mannequin, a discreet listing of the prices. I pressed my face closer and peered at the card as the guard shifted in his loafers and looked at me suspiciously. I was going to slink away, but then I felt defiant: I deserve to look at these fine clothes; who’s to say that I don’t shop here all the time?

With renewed determination, I squinted and the small text on the card came into focus. I saw the exorbitant prices. In disbelief, I blew out through my lips (as in “Pfft! A belt for 500 euros?”) and promptly spat on the window. The guard looked at me incredulously (bet he hasn’t seen that move before!) and then he gave me a look that said “You actually don’t deserve to look at these fine clothes”. Aaaaaand I had to agree with him.

“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” James Michener