Christmas Market #1

Tonight I went to my first ever Christmas market (Weihnachtsmarkt). It was 0 degrees Celsius, and everyone was wrapped up in hats, coats, scarves and gloves, sipping glühwein (a hot red wine with sugar and spices) from little cups outside huts decorated with fairy lights. Carols in English and German were blaring from lit-up fairground rides, ranging from the tame but large ferris wheel to the rides where teens were screaming and staggering off afterwards. Game stalls were set up, where you could fish for plastic ducks, throw balls at stacked-up cans or fling darts at a board. Huge fluffy toys were displayed, but most kids got the consolation lollypop. People munched on roasted nuts, toffee apples, candyfloss and, yes, half-metre long sausages. Little kids rushed around in a frenzy of sugar-heightened excitement as parents struggled to hold them and their glühwein simultaneously.

This was on Unter den Linden and a mixture of a fairground and traditional Christmas markets. People in little huts sold candles galore, hand-made gloves, model cottages. Decorated trees were every few metres. Back out on the main street, every bare tree was filled with fairy lights all the way up to Brandenburg Gate and punctuated by the odd star.

I went on some of the traditional rides and of course ate all the food I could, but the best part was a ride that had a guy dancing on the roof, and he was dancing so well that at first I actually thought he was a robot. This ride promised “something different”, so we put on the provided psychedelic glasses and stumbled in.

What followed could only be described by people who have taken too many magic mushrooms. When you took the glasses off, each room looked like a few glow in the dark stars had been thrown around, but with the glasses on, it looked amazing. I had no idea which way to go and kept bumping into walls, getting tangled up in multicoloured plastic rods and one room was how things might look if I’d just been hit in the face. I’m making this sound horrible, but actually it was great! At the end there’s a room where there were fake spiders and webs etc, and what looked to be a model skeleton, but he was real and jumped out to scare the shit out of me. Best fairground “trip” ever.

Will upload some pics of the market tomorrow.