Glub Wine

It seems as though many ciites are coming to realize the magical charm of a Christmas market. Quite a few people we talked to this past week had visited Christmas markets: Andy & Ali in Birmingham, Nick, who'd had his own stall at the market on Queens Stree in Leciester, Dom in Toronto.. and us. We were priviledged to be able to visit the oldest market in Germany held in the town square in Frankfurt.

We arrived late afternnon, when the sun was going down and the Christmas lights were beginning to sparkle.

There were many stalls selling Christmas decorations, and local crafts such as wood turning and lace. There were also many stalls selling street food -- candy floss; frankfurters; roasted chestnuts; fried pastries; all manner of German Christmas cookies and gingerbread, that imparted a wonderful aniseed and molasses scent in the air. But by far the bast stalls were those with steaming vats of Gluhwein.

It was cold, really cold, and we did try hard to distract ourselves by watching the children on the most amazing merry-go round I have ever seen, and by buying some of the Christmas goodies -- gingerbread for Andy and Almut and some beeswax candles, complete with beeswax bees.

We also bought some glass ornaments -- round globes that held tea-lights. Unfortunately, my packing skills are less than stellar and we have arrived home with only two out of three intact.

Despite our best attempts to keep warm by other means, we confess that we were forced to visit the Gluhwein stalls three times during the course of the eveining. Gluhwein is marvellous, it not only warms the hands, and body, but also warms through to the verycoldest parts of the soul. It is pure magic. We may have had jsut a little more than we needed, as H didn't seem to be able to read the signs after the first one. He insisted on calling it Glub-wine, claiming that it was spelled that way. Glub, glub, glub...

Courier

The meeting in Brussels took place in one of the European Commission buildings. Being rather jet lagged I managed to leave the flyers I had brought to hand out back at the hotel. A colleague loaned me her cell phone and I called the hotel and woke up HG. Stirred into action, he finally made it across the city on the metro, and hand delivered the flyers, walking stright into the meeting room. he said it was like wlking into the set of the movie Dr Strangelove. A hushed tiered lecture room with laecture benches, and headphones and microphones at every seat -- more suitable for a meeting of the United nations than a bunch of scientists.

Sad to leave Brussels

We could have spent much more time in Brussels. I hardly saw any of it, but HG walked around quite a bit on Tuesday.

He found the Grand Place -- the main square in the centre of the city. The architecture is stunning, such fine stone work, and gold leaf on the buildings. We went back in the evening, when the Christmas tree was ablaze with lights. there was a son et lumiere playing against the buildings on the other side of the square, and the biggest creche ever, since the real thing.

On PS's recommendation, we had dinner in an Inn opposite the creche -- which kindly decided to take us in. The food was good, but the most notable thing about the Inn is the taxidermied horse. I have never seens a stuffed animal that big. It was a little moth eaten, going bals in patches, but I gave it a stroke anyway. Unfortunately HG forgot the camera.

Our hotel was very close to the cathedral. But despite the huge landmark, we seemed to be incapable of finding our way home. None of the roads led to anything familiar, and we walked around in circles again, until we were rescued by a kind Belgian guy, who claimed to have lost a whole posse of Japanese business men in the 5 minute walk from the train station to the Domincan hotel. He claimed that he had had to rescue them by car. We felt better, warmed by te story, the very fast walk home, and finally getting to the hotel and out of the -5C cold.

Da Vinci

I decided that the Brussles hotel felt a bit like being in the movie the Da Vinci Code. It was stone and grey and felt old and contemporary at the same time.

There was very little light in the room, or in the corridors. And downstairs in the lobby braziers were burning at the entrance.

The atmosphere was not helped by the damp bone-numbing cold of a late November Brussels fog.