Cologne Markets

The next day we took a very long train ride into Cologne, where there were more and better Christmas Markets. Although there were bigger gaps between them, we walked all around the city of Cologne to see them. At one of the stalls, Mommy bought a ring and a bracelet made out of bent spoons. 

Colourful bangles

Trees lit up with beautiful lights

Things to stick in your hair

Hanging glass

More Camera fun....

Playing around with the camera was fun. Daddy taught me some cool tricks that helped with these photos below:

This ice skating rink was in reality filled with people skating, but the slow shutter speed meant that only the ones standing still appeared.

Markets at Night

I have to say, the markets were much more beautiful at night because of the decorative lights. Although we didn't buy anything that first day, we'd managed to get through all of the 6 markets before 7 o'clock that night. When I say we didn't buy anything, that means anything solid. That is, not including food. Which we bought quite a lot of....

Christmas lights over a river

Eating fresh herb spaetzle. Love Ashlynn's face! <3

Mommy and Daddy got gluhwein and they also got eggnog - which for some reason the Germans put alcohol in it which means that Ashlynn and I couldn't have it. 

Christmas Markets

Although we decided that we didn't want to go anywhere for all of the Christmas holidays, we did go to Dusseldorf for two nights to visit the Christmas Markets. Unlucky for us, the weather was way to warm for snow, although there had been some snow earlier on in the week. Ashlynn and I sat in the front car of the ICE train on the way in and then, after dropping our stuff off at our hotel, we took a tram into the center to see the Christmas markets. 

Dancing...

After Secret Santa we started dancing and singing along with the playlist that Nathalie had made on her iPod. Some people (like Adelina) liked slow dancing, while others liked moving around as fast as they could....and others just weren't bothered to dance at all *cough* Nora *cough* :)

Not sure if this counts as dancing, but it's funny anyway.... 

Adelina & Emilie

Fiona and Ellie

Adelina and Ziyoda

Secret Santa

The whole party began when some of us came up with the idea that we wanted to do Secret Santa, where we each had to get a present for someone else (we picked names from a bag), and they wouldn't know who was their 'Santa.' I had Zoe and I themed her present on 'Safari'

We put all of the presents in the middle of our sitting room and Ashlynn handed them out. Below are some photos of the different presents...

 

 

Christmas Party

From L-R: Mayu, Michelle, Ellie, Amelia, Ziyoda, Hannah and Ashlynn

From L-R....Top row: Adelina, Ellie, Lizzy, Michelle, Nathalie, Zoe
Middle Row: Hannah, Amelia, Ziyoda
Bottom row: Mayu, Emilie, Fiona

On the day before the last day of school, I had a Christmas party at my house. There were fourteen girls in our house that day, which is a pretty big party. There was lots of dancing and eating and more eating and a bit more eating. In other words, we ate and we danced and we did Secret Santa, but there will be another post about that. We decided that it would be a dressy party, so no jeans and t-shirts.