Filed under: food, holiday boozing, made in berlin | Tags: Alexanderplatz, Gendarmenmarkt, Glühwein, Opernpalais, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Weihnachtsmarkt
Here’s something you might not know about Berlin, if you don’t live here: around the same time as Christmas, the sun does this nasty thing where it sets around 3 pm.
If you blink…or if it happens to be Saturday and you don’t even open your eyes at all until 2 pm….you’ve already missed the precious precarious window of sonnenschein. Might as well just go back to sleep without even getting out of bed. Somebody told me that that is actually how clinically depressed ppl act. Haha! What a kooky coincidence!
How to deal? Let’s brainstorm together for a minute…suicide, a tropical vacation, scrapbooking (?),
BLERGGG i’m too depressed & cold to think of any more ideas……..
Trudge trudge trudge. Shuffle. Are we out of cooking sherry again? Dammit.
Saayyyy! What’s this lil’ ol’ place all lit up like fireworks on the fourth of july?
OMG it’s the Christmas Market! The Germans call it a Weihnachtsmarkt and it is like their version of mall santa…or something. Berlin, being big and fancy, has something like 102 to choose from.
As long as you don’t accidentally stumble into the technicolor train wreck at Alexanderplatz, these concentrated epicenters of Holiday joy and goodwill are guaranteed to fill you with warm fuzzies.
Basically, the Weihnachtsmarkt is like a big fuck you to winter. It’s cold and wet and dark, but whatever we’re going to stand around and get drunk outside! It’s a Christmas tradition bitchez!
To be specific, they have other stuff too, but since all the tchotchkes they sell there are T-R-A-S-H trash, I’m pretty sure it’s all just a flimsy front to push as much Glühwein as possible on the frozen huddled populace. So my team and I did our best to help them out with that.
We moved in on each market with a mission: we got our Glühwein, we got our second Glühwein, we assessed the situation. Did we want a third? Based on this systematic and highly scientific testing of Berlin’s finest Weinachtsmärkte, finally the one at the Opernpalais on Unter den Linden came out as sort of a hands down winner. So cozy and bright!
(Plus it ended randomly in a cocktail lounge with an all-female jazz ensemble in matching white suits, which in retrospect may have been what tipped the scales…)
Gendarmenmarkt probably takes second place, because it was actually very pretty. But it scored some major minus points, unfortch: the Maronen were sort of crunchy, the people were a little bit snobby, we had to pay 1 EUR admission for the privilege of spending our money there, o yeah and the band sucked. yeah i said it.
The great thing about the Weihnachtsmarkt, though, is that the Glühwein, true to its name, Photoshops the whole scene with a warm & tingly glow.
Back at Alexanderplatz, it is raining big, wet, icy drops. The vendors are quietly contemplating suicide. A soggy little boy is looking at you with big eyes and his hand out, but you reason that you’re too miserable and cold to take your hands out of your pockets. What’s that you say? Another Glühwein? Whyyy yes, I think I will! Whaaat a shot of rum in it? You so crazy! Ah, what the hell, it’s Christmas! Best drink it before it gets cold! O God I love this place let’s come here every day and be friends forever and ever!
Merry Christmas, Berlin! O, and Happy Hanukkah, even though I think you maybe don’t understand what that is! See you in 2010! I love you!
xo
Lis
BTW: All the lovely sparkly images in this post, besides the very first one, © Rachel Prince. Thanks RP for leaving both my hands free for Glühwein!
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