Be Wanderlustful: Colmar, France and the Black Forest

December 12-14, 2008 Molly, Laura, and I took a little road trip in quest of Christmas Markets!!! Our destination: the Black Forest and Colmar, France. We stayed in a neat hostel in the Black Forest - it had a large "hangout room," a kitchen equipped with 2 fridges (label your food and leave it in there), a variety of spices, and a recycling system, bathrooms with modern circular showers, etc. and our 10 person dorm room was pretty nice too. The room was very spacious, had night lamps, coat hangers, and lockers. It was one of the larger, more open hostels I've stayed at. This was my first expierence staying in a larger dorm room, usually I stay in 4 person rooms or smaller. When we went to bed nobody else was in the room and we were told there was another "group" sharing our room. Well, at 6 am we "met" that other "group." A group of drunken boys/men who were just getting home from the bar at yes, 6 am! 2 hours later the girls and I woke up and we left for the Christmas Market in Colmar. What a great city! It reminded me a lot of Strasbourg, timbered houses, a little venice (part of the town was along the water), and in general, frenchness, my fave! However, we experienced one of my worst encounters with a very stereotypical French person. Long story short, he refused to speak English (maybe he was being honest when he said he didn't speak English but I doubt it) and so Molly and I practiced our french with him and I told him we only wanted drinks (Seulement Boissons) but somehow he got Poisson out of that (Fish). We thought it was kind of weird when he brought out soup spoons and sure enough, a little bit later we received 3 bowls of Fish soup (Poisson Soupe) -- Poisson vs. Boisson...but at no point did we ever say soupe...Anyway, he got angry when we attempted to tell him that we didn't order the fish soup and we didn't want it. He then brought us our bill and banged our table after we had paid, signally for us to leave...RUDE! The rest of our Christmas Market shopping was very pleasant. Yummy food, good drinks (gluhwein, of course, and hot orange juice) and cute ornaments. Colmar didn't offer as much as the other Christmas Markets I had been to but it was still nice. There were several Christmas Markets throughout the town so we checked them all out, including the kid market with animals. After touring around Colmar we returned to Freiburg to see their Christmas Market. It was pretty crowded - mostly people standing around drinking gluhwein, not pushing to see the ornaments. We ate really yummy thai food...that is after we went in to two different restaurants and were told we needed to have reservations...crazy how busy all the restaurants were! Our drive home on Sunday was beautiful! It was bright and sunny, the ground was still covered with fresh snow, and the towns and overpass was beautiful! As we were leaving the Black Forest it was beautiful because we were surrounded by large trees (maybe Evergreen) on both sides that had perfectly placed fresh snow on the branches hovering over the road! It was beautiful. As we continued driving we saw some great views including a town covered by a cloud fog with only the snow-covered roofs sticking out from the cloud and a beautiful sunset behind the mountains we were driving towards. Of course we were listening to and singing to Christmas music the whole way there and back making everything that much more wonderful! Unfortunately, everytime I pulled over onto a designated pit-stop/scenic area there were trees blocking our way so we couldn't get clear pictures....So, hopefully my description was enough to take you to the moment I experienced. more pictures