Monschau, Germany

Kyle's summary of our day trip to a Christmas festival in Germany:

We went to a Christmas festival in Monschau, Germany, today with the American Club of Brussels. Actually, it turned out to be mostly U.S. students at American University's campus here and then a few 60-year-olds. The students were pretty wrapped up in themselves, and the older folks were in the back of the bus, so we stuck to ourselves but had a great time. It was cold, but not too bad. We did a little shopping and a lot more eating: tomato soup, bratwurst, potato cakes with applesauce (it's a lot better than it sounds), Belgian waffle, gingerbread, apple streudel. That's what we ate between us, not individually mind you. They had some sort of "hot wine" that seemed to be very popular but which neither of us could bring ourselves to drink. We stuck with hot cocoa and a Coke.

We hiked up to a castle-turned-civic center and watched a nativity re-enactment in German. Which actually was a group of actors from the town who moved around like the nativity characters with a recording or PA announcer or someone narrating between songs. All in all, it was exactly the kind of place the founders of Helen, Georgia, either saw or had in mind when they got their start -- but much more beautiful. Lots of evergreens and hills (the city was in a river valley between two fairly tall ridges) and half-timber houses and cobblestone streets.

It definitely put us in the Christmas spirit!