First Weekend together

Good Morning dear friends!

Thank you all for your wonderful emails and greetings. It is so nice to hear from your corner(s) of the world. In order to keep you in the loop of your adventures and new experiences, here the second entry into our Munich diary....


After Carlo's whirlwind trip to Torino, Italy and office Christmas party (with mechanical bull (!) yes, you will have to ask him for details on that...) we managed to finally get organized in our place. With only two closets and no drawers, it still is a bit awkward to sort and place all socks, T-shirts and sweaters. The biggest dilemma: where to store all the big winter coats! The hallway allows for two jackets and a few scarfs to be comfortably stored, not much more. Two of our medium sized suitcases will serve as temporary dressers. Saturday afternoon, after a well deserved late morning, Carlo and I planned on visiting the famous Christmas market on Marienplatz. Hopefully open this time. It was!
The entire inner city was filled with holiday shoppers, stores brightly lit and the marktplatz, oh-so- wonderfully filled with typical arts and crafts booths, food booths selling "Gluehwein" (a spicy red wine served hot only during christmas time). We drifted aimlessly through the crowds uuuhhing and ahhhing at the beautiful craftsmanship of the local woodsmiths, craftsmen and women. Every now and then we would stop at a booth and try another typical local food. Some questions arose... which the locals were very eager and happy to help answer.. "What is the difference between a Nurnberger sausage and a regular Scweinwurstel?" Apparently they are both pig sausage but only the ones made in the city of Nurnberg can be called "Nurnberger". They must have thought we were from outer space!!! It took some explaining that I lived in the US for the past 14 years and that Carlo is not American, but Italian. Many thought that he was american! Once told that he was Italian, many of them asked even more questions! :-) How did you end up here? How did you meet?
Everyone was so very friendly and after several purchases of Gluehwein, arts and crafts for Carlo's parents, and a very special little " Raeuchermaennchen" (A little figurine which is hollow on the inside and once fitted with a little incense packet inside looks like it is smoking a pipe and spreading holiday fragrance of needles and myhrre...or any kind you like) ... we headed for home.

Despite all the eats and treats, at 10PM we decided that the TV programs were not that exciting and decided to call the restaurant in the hotel. We were told the kitchen closed at 11PM and the bar is open until 1AM! YES!!! Oh how we love Europe and it's late dinners. The restaurant is an Italian place called "Amadeo" and Carlo soon made friends with all the wait staff. He ordered in Italian and I received real mozarella cheese on my pizza instead of the Emmentaler they usually put. (A perk dating an Italian, hahah!) We couldn't decide on a dessert, when the waiter suggested a platter of little typical italian desserts. :-) We were wowed by a sampler plate with Tiramisu, panna cotta, strawberries and cream & two different sorts of ice cream. Oh how we have to start a diet sooon!!! Looking like two Penguins, we stumbled back to our room and loved the fact that we didn't have to get into a car or have a long walk home. (Even though we could have used one) :-)