The past few weeks were crazy with exams, papers, and projects all coming up. My last exam ran on Monday, December 20 and since then I've been trying to relax and work a bit on some papers. I was able to relax and also get a little bit of traveling in. I went up to Köln, hoping to catch the last day of the Christmas Market, on a very snowy Christmas Eve, however, for reasons I have yet to understand, it was closed. I was under the assumption that the Christmas Markets stay open until Christmas Day, but I feel as if I was mistaken. Either way, it was a great trip to see the amazing Cathedral and just walk around the town, even though Germany seemed to be closed for the weekend.
From here I traveled on to Kleve to see my family who lives in Nijmegen and celebrate Christmas. For Christmas eve, nearly everything was closed so we stayed in, watched a few movies, and saw the snow as it kept falling. On Saturday, for Christmas, we went to Nijmegen and celebrate Christmas Dutch style. This meant that it was much less about presents, and much more about food and family. We had a wonderful dinner with ham, deer, pork, roasted potatoes, cabbage, cooked pears and apples, and of course some waffles and ice cream for dessert. After we were fully stuffed, we hung around, talked, and watched baby Ebbe as he opened his presents.
For second Christmas (December 26) we had a German lunch in Kleve before heading to the Africa museum near Nijmegen. Unfortunately, we had Motte, my family's dog, with us, and he was not allowed in the museum (which was strange, as he'd apparently visited before) so we could not see much outside of the gift shop of the Africa museum. So instead we went over to family friend's home, talked and continued eating until it was about dinner time, when we went out for Greek food before heading back to Maastricht.
Hopefully, if the trains are running in Germany, today I will be heading to Munich. From there Switzerland, and then back to Maastricht before Barbie and I visit Paris and Brussels. Winter break is going very well.
