MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Being away from home for Christmas has most certainly been hard, but Dad was right when he told me that if I should spend it anywhere else in this world it should be Rothenburg, Germany.  This town is a perfect walled-in midevil town that is uber-Christmas!  We'll start with the train ride...

It was beautiful!  The rolling country-side and cute little towns were adorable, and because of whatever they grow in the fields it was surprisingly green!  We missed out on any castles because we were smart travelers and rode the train rather than renting a car.  That just means that next time we make it out here we have something else that we want to see!  We had to ride on 3 different trains just go get here, and with each change of trains we only had 5 minutes to RUN to the next train....down stairs, up stairs, all while hauling our luggage.  I had no idea I should have gone through rigorous training before coming to Europe!  Next our hotel....

It's beautiful!!  (do you get my drift yet?)  Since we are away from everyone for Christmas, and didn't get to open any presents : ( ...we decided to SPLURGE on a hotel!  It's not a major splurge, but a bit more than our hostels we've been staying in.  It's a charming little hotel that's hundreds of years old, it's quaint, warm, and has beautiful christmas decorations.  The staff is friendly and our room is actually spacious!  But not spacious in American terms...spacious in European terms.  It's absolutely perfect.  When we checked in they asked if we were interested in dinner for Christmas eve.  They told us it would cost 65 Euros each, so we told them we would think about it...then they said it was a 5-course meal that included champagne and as much wine as we wanted...SOLD!  It was well worth the money...we had a salad (delicious), oxtail soup (amazing), a fish entree (delicious), a meat entree (good), and desert (good)...and wine and champagne (amazing)!!!  Needless to say...we were stuffed.  But what made the meal most enjoyable is it was spent with about 75 other guests, they played music before the meal (a violinist and pianist) and the table settings were elaborate.  They lit candles and so on.  They seated us with two other American families and we had great conversations at dinner, it was a truly great experience.  Therefore, today we behaved and ate cheap! Next up the town...

Picture Perfect!  Everywhere we turn it is just like a postcard.  Little upset that there is no snow...but I can imagine!  The people here say that it is rare to not have snow at this time of year...so I guess I'll have to come back again to see the snow.  I would have no problem with that!

Last night after dinner we went to a church service...it was in a pretty cathedral but was all spoken in German, so we didn't understand a bit of it.  There was plenty of singing, so when we knew the tune we chimed in with our English lyrics.

Today is Christmas, so we slept in a bit, had a free breakfast downstairs at our hotel, then took a nap!  We then walked around for a while and found some good food and a little pastry and came back to the hotel, drank a glass of wine and read our books.  We then got ready for dinner and just had an appetizer and another (amazing) bowl of soup.  Next up, we went on the Night Watchman Tour, which lasted about an hour, and a group of us went around Rothenberg with a man dressed up as a Night Watchman and he told about the history of a town, it was actually very entertaining!!

Now we are winding down for the night.  We head to Amsterdam in the morning...it's been nice to have a relaxing break in our trip before the next leg of our adventure begins!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!  Love and Miss you all!

Jenna