Tourist for a Day in NYC

Even though I grew up a mere 1.5 hours north of NYC, I never spent much time there. I would occasionally go down with a school trip or with my mom to see a broadway play but we'd only take the train down, go to the play, maybe have lunch somewhere near times square, and then get back on the train to go back home. So I feel like I've missed a lot of what there is to see in NYC. I saw Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty with the Girl Scouts so those are already checked off of my list. But I haven't seen the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, or the 9/11 Memorial. Among other things! I also enjoy just walking around the city and soaking in all the different cultures so I'm always game to just go down and wander around and eat.

Anyway, first stop for this trip was the tree at Rockefeller Center! We headed over there with about 1 million other people. Everybody was friendly and having a good time so it wasn't so bad. We took a few pictures and got out of there quickly though.





Next up, St Patrick's cathedral. Really pretty on the outside - completely under construction on the inside. I think it'll look amazing once they're all done with it.



Street crossing.



Next up we walked along the Highline, which is an old railroad track that runs along the west side of Manhattan from 34th street down to 12th street. It will be expanded more over time as well. It was a really nice walking path (though crowded) with a lot of benches and tables and lounges and viewing platforms and the occasional view of the river. It was a gorgeous day, very warm in the sun, so I can't blame everybody else for being out walking with us.



Lots of neat views of the different streets from the Highline. You could sit and watch the cars go by underneath you at most crossings.



Next we continued our trek down the island of Manhattan with tapas and wine at Boqueria in Soho. I'd recommend it if you're in the mood for some tapas and wine. They also had a brunch menu but we wanted tapas.



And, finally, we went to a Blue Man Group show. Those guys are very entertaining. After the show we headed back up to Rhinebeck. We still have a lot of things to see in NYC so this story is to be continued next year sometime ...

Cologne and Aachen Christmas Markets

I met one of my friends from college (actually from a summer program I did at the National Severe Storms Lab) in Cologne and Aachen this past weekend to tour the Christmas markets there. We started in Cologne, where there are 8 separate markets. We went to 5 of them while I was there but my friend, Alison, had gotten to the rest earlier in the day before I arrived. Below are some pictures of 3 of the 5 that we went to (the last 2 we didn't spend much time in as we'd both been to them already). Another 3 markets can be seen in my post from several years ago about the Cologne Christmas markets.

Our first stop was Nikolausdorf. A very small but atmospheric market.



The next stop was the gay and lesbian market (yes there is a specific gay and lesbian market in Cologne, I'm not sure what it means though - if all the booths are run by gay people or if the market is sponsored by some GLBT association or what). They play fun dance music there instead of Christmas music, all the booths are covered with brightly colored foil, and they serve something called verpoorten punch instead of Glühwein. I do NOT recommend drinking it! It's orange vodka mixed with cream and spices and maybe some chocolate. It was disgusting.



Our third market was the Engelmarkt, which is the oldest Christmas market in Cologne. I apologize but every photo I took of this gorgeous market came out blurry! It was also pouring rain while we were there (see the radar pic below). It was a really pretty market with all the stars in the trees and the white lights on all the buildings. And, bigger than the previous two markets which was also nice.



We had to take refuge in a wine bar to wait out the rain. :) We each had a nice glass of Tempranillo and a goat cheese and apple tart wrapped in phyllo dough, which was amazing.

We wandered by the market at the Dom so I snapped a picture of the Dom at night, lit up by the market at its base. The Cologne Dom is one of the most striking churches from the outside because it's almost black from years of coal trains driving right by it.



My haul for the night - 4 new mugs!



On Saturday morning, we got up and took a train to Aachen (about 50 minutes away). We had several goals in Aachen: 1. to see the Dom, 2. to eat Printen cookies, and 3. to see the Christmas markets. We succeeded on all three counts. Pictures of the Dom, cookies, markets, and crowds are below. The inside of the Dom was gorgeous. It's not easy to see from the pictures but the inside was all mosaics, on every floor and ceiling, and there was beautiful stained glass in the whole front of the church.



It was freezing cold and raining in Aachen, so we stopped a lot for tea and cookies. We basically ate Printen cookies all day long between our tea stops and all the free samples that they gave out in the stores and market stalls. And, every store window looked like this:



Alison wore her awesome Christmas squirrel sweater:



In the markets (I think it's all one market, but it curls around the Dom and Rathaus so it's rather spread out and in several sections) we ordered Feuerzangenbowle, which is like Glühwein but a rum-soaked sugarcone is set on fire above the wine and it drips into it. However the stalls in Aachen took the lazy way out and just lit a sugar cube with a sip of rum on it on fire and sat it on a spoon over the mug! It takes a lot of fun out of it when there's no huge sugar cone on fire for you to watch.



Some pics of the market and the stalls. It was so crowded that we quit early even though we hadn't seen the whole market yet. There was only so much rain, cold and crowd that we could take!



While this doesn't look like much, it was a delicious apple pancake. The best apple pancake, ever. FYI.

Poland: Krakow

After our tours of the Auschwitz camps we only had a few hours to tour Krakow before we had to catch our train back to Warsaw. We also had to find dinner during this time so all we did was walk around the main square and through the Christmas market. We managed to eat dinner at a little restaurant just off the main square and then we went to an Italian wine bar for some wine and a meat and cheese platter afterwards. We had priorities!

As our tour guide had promised us earlier in the day (not our Auschwitz tour guide but the tour guide that drove us from the Krakow train station to Auschwitz and then back to Krakow), Krakow is completely different from Warsaw. Krakow was not destroyed during WWII and so has retained much of its old world charm and character. It was not destroyed during WWII because the Germans intended to make it a German city and keep it for themselves. Also, it was an important stopping point on the way to Auschwitz and so the Germans needed it.

I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but we barely scratched the surface of things to see and do in Krakow. There is a castle there, Wawel Castle, where the kings of Poland lived for many centuries. There are also tons of churches in Krakow - our tour guide said Krakow is known as "altera Roma" (the other Rome). There are museums, some salt mines you can visit, and mountains just to the south that are apparently very beautiful.

Fun facts:

1. Pope John Paul II was originally the archbishop of Krakow, until he became Pope in 1978. There is a shrine to him in the church on the main square.

2. Krakow old town is a UNESCO heritage site.

3. The main square is the largest medieval market square in Europe, at about 200 meters wide.

4. Krakow is very often foggy because it is situated in a valley. The airport frequently closes because the fog is so thick. Just an FYI, watch the weather if you plan to fly in or out of Krakow and be prepared to have some extra time there if fog rolls in.

Here are some pictures of the streets and the main square.



The inside of this church was beautiful, and very similar to the church we visited in Budapest with a dark blue ceiling with golden stars. There were no pictures allowed so you'll have to go and see it for yourself.



Pierogi at the Christmas market. We didn't have any because we didn't want to spoil our dinner.



Our dinner was, of course, Pierogi. :) We split one plate of the classic potato-cheese-onion pierogi and one plate of duck-filled pierogi in a "classic Polish sauce". Both were delicious.



A few more interesting buildings...



Finally, a cute reindeer made out of pine branches at the little Christmas market just outside the Krakow train station.