I headed two hours southwest from Berlin to Leipzig, where I spent a day with my buddy, James, and friends and siblings. James had a very organized list/schedule for the day, so we stayed on task for the entire evening.
Although he had never cooked a turkey before, he did a brilliant job with the 15 lb. beast.
With his brother visiting from the US and his sister visiting from Denmark, we celebrated together with a large group of his German friends. It was a joyous and fun-filled evening. Sadly, we forgot to take a picture of all the food once it was prepared...I guess we were just too hungry. But at least the table looked great.
In the end, we had plenty of leftovers. James will be eating well for at least the next week.
As with the tradition at our house, we added an Asian touch to this Thanksgiving feast, when James asked me to make something Asian. So for the fourth time in the past two weeks, I made Thai Sweet Chili Chicken, 'cause it's that good and it's that easy. However, quadrupling the ingredients meant I was prepping and chopping for a good 90 minutes. My shoulder is still hurting...
The end result though was a spectacular meal, and we had a grand old time.
This morning, we slept in, had delicious omelets (courtesy of James), and then headed out into the Leipzig cold to check out the city. It had snowed last night, so everything had a thin layer of white cold stuff over it. We checked out the university, where we went into the Mensa and marveled at the underground bike parking garage. How awesome is that?
Then we checked out the Nikolaikirche, which has a large place in Leipzig's history because of its role in former East Germany. James can probably tell you more about it...or you could Wikipedia it. :) I do love visiting churches in Europe though. They seem so much grander, especially the inside.
One of our next stops was Auerbachs Keller (Auerbach's Cellar), which is famous because it appears in Goethe's Faust. In fact, you can see signs of it everywhere around it. Such as the statues. I'm such a kid in a candy shop when I see stuff like that.
After that, we wandered into a Christmas market. Now, there are Christmas markets all over Germany, and there are more being set up every day as Christmas gets closer. I took this picture, but clearly the people I got in it were not happy about it. Oops.
Traditional food and drinks at a Christmas market: Glühwein (which is a sweet red wine you drink warm) and, of course, sausages. Although I'm posing with James' Glühwein, I did eat that delicious Krakauer (which is actually Polish, ironically).
I also saw this little mailbox, which brought a nice laugh. It says "Mail for Santa Claus."
After the Christmas market, we headed to the Thomaskirche, which is actually right next to where Johann Sebastian Bach grew up. He definitely had many of his masterpieces played at this church.
In fact, we walked in on a boys' choir preparing for a concert or something. I did not realize it was a boys' choir until James mentioned it. Haha. We sat on some steps and listened for a few minutes until James casually mentioned that Bach was buried right behind me. I don't think I've been that excited to see a grave before, but I took a picture. It struck me as kind of funny that they conduct religious services with Bach's grave in the front of the church.
Our final stops brought us by the new city hall, which isn't actually new (it's just newer than the old city hall). Across the street further away was the majestic-looking courthouse. It reminds me of the city hall in Hamburg, which is one of my favorite buildings in Germany. Must be the color of the roof.
Anyway, all in all, I had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I'm now prepping for a third Thanksgiving meal tomorrow with a friend from Seattle who lives down the street from me. We may even get in a few games of American football or baseball. :) Pictures from Part Three tomorrow.
Hope you had a great Thanksgiving too!
Sam
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