Frohe Weihnachten! (Christmas Update #1)

flickr photo link: <Braunschweig, Germany, Dec 2006>
23 Dec 06 EI DUB/DUS 1340/1930
30 Dec 06 FR SXF/DUB 1105/1220
Haven't had any updates just recently, so it's time for 3 quick ones in a row. Happy New Year everyone... We hope you all had a good one, wherever you were. We spent the night in Dundalk, watching the local Polish kids burning themselves with fireworks in the park over the road, but more about that later. We're feeling thoroughly "reunified" after our Christmas week in Germany. We learnt a few things... about the superb "Weihnachtsmarkt" (Christmas Markets) of Braunschweig, the organisation of the Germans at Autostadt (Car Disneyland), the immense history of reunified Berlin AND the value of the Euro in Germany (compared to Ireland!)
We flew with Aer Lingus from Dublin to Dusseldorf on 23 December. We got to Dublin Airport around 5am to the busiest airport I've ever seen in my life. No kidding. Even the worst days in Australia never rivalled this. A bit like what you see on tv when Heathrow is in the fog, but no white tents on the roadways! But there was no fog this morning, this was just Christmas. Dubs can be bad at the best of times, but I guess we should have known that flying at Christmas is a no-no. We used the self service check-in terminals, which everyone does, then spent an hour in the "bag drop" queues. Then into the security line (more like a conga line!) which snaked round and round the terminal like something out of Disneyland. That took another hour, and we made it to the gate with 15 minutes to spare - phew. Dusseldorf Airport seemed pretty quiet after Dubs, but they continued the Christmas joy by taking about 1 hour to get the luggage onto the conveyer belt! Met our good friends Gerald & Sandra to have a quick tour of this sophisticated city on the Rhein. Nice Italian lunch at Vapiano, then down the autobahns for 3 hours to Braunschweig (reached 180 km/h). Met Gerald's parents, Sylvia & Peter, then off to the Weihnachtsmarkt for some delicious bratwurst, strawberries dipped in white chocolate & glühwein (Clare says it's an acquired taste)... Gerald & Sandra bumped into loads of old friends, it seemed like the place for old friends to come home and meet up at the end of the year. We all had a great night, and another experience is ticked off our list!
24 December started with a traditional German breakfast - breads, meats & cheeses. Then up out of the fog into the blue sky of the Harz Mountains to walk off some of the food - alas no snow but pretty cold. Back to Braunschweig for coffee & cake (a real German tradition), then later our Christmas dinner of duck legs, red cabbage, potato dumplings and real cranberries. Gerald's 94 year old Grandmother was there and had some amazing tales, born in England in 1912, emigrating to Germany in 1922 and staying for the WWII while her brothers & sisters went back to England. So we had a nice day, but so much food, too much food...
On Christmas Day when you'd think everything would be closed, a lot of things in Germany are open, including the impressive Autostadt in Wolfsburg, the futuristic showpiece of the Volkswagen Group in an ultra-modern concrete landscape dominated by the huge 'Pink Floyd like' smokestacks of the VW Factory. Did you know the VW Group includes Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Seat & Skoda as well as all the V Dubs? (but not many Combi's in sight)... As well as bucket loads of interative displays & cars, they have 2 huge glass car "towers" that lead to an underground VW delivery centre, and yes, some customers were even picking up their cars on Christmas Day. Anyway, we called it 'Car Disneyland' and it's well worth a visit if you're in northern Germany. On the way back, we stopped at the disused East/West Germany checkpoint at Marienborn-Helmstedt on the highway from Hannover to Berlin. More than 1000 GDR soldiers inspected everything moving between west & east until finally abandoned on 30 June 1990 after the wall came down. A great museum and such amazing recent history...
We spent another day walking in the countryside and checking out downtown Braunschweig before going for more coffee & cakes with Geralds' sisters family. A good chance to practice a little German, mmm... The next day (very cold & foggy), we took the ICE train to Berlin for part 2 of our little trip...

All of our pictures from Braunschweig are posted here. Please take a look if you like.

... Continued in Part 2 (Berlin)...