Christmas Markets
Dec. 24th, 2025 02:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lupestripeI have been back in Germany just over a week and thought I should take in a few Christmas markets before they close to the public. Most of them did this yesterday, although there are a few that go on into the new year. I ended up going to three markets, two of which with social connections, and it has been a nice distraction from all of the work, admin and bureaucracy I've had to catch up on. Indeed, since Al arrived in Berlin in September, I have been more social than I have ever been here. It highlights how sometimes you just need one person to be a catalyst for things to happen. Sometimes he invites me places, sometimes I invite him, and things have snowballed from there.
The first market was last Thursday, which coincided with the Fureigners Meet-Up. They gathered at Kulturbrauerei at 6:30pm, but that was always going to be too early for me. I rocked up shortly before 8pm and spent the next half hour struggling to find everybody. I did avail myself of my very first boulette - basically a hamburger patty in some crispy bread - and felt this could have been more uniformly cooked. The Bratwurst I picked up was of the usual quality and I very much enjoyed it. After this, I did manage to find people and ended up speaking with Al Song and an Italian fur for most of the evening. We were gathered next to one of the fires, which blew a pleasant aroma of smoke and wood over us. We ended up staying at the market until it closed at 10pm before popping over to a nearby Boba Tee place called Boba Cuppa. Sadly, they had run out of tapioca balls, meaning about one third of their menu was no longer available. I ended up just having brown sugar in milk, which gave it a burnt caramelised flavour. It was rather pleasant, but the poor lady was clearly overwhelmed by the 15 furs who had descended on the store, not least because she already had a group of eight to serve. Most people headed off after this, but Notefox had swung by late as they had had an accordion practice. We therefore decided to head to Manifest for a brief beer before we needed to head back home before the trains stopped running.
On Saturday, Wolfie was feeling well enough to try and get out to the Spandau Christmas Market. We think this is one of the best markets in the city and so it proved again. I think Wolfie has started to feel somewhat stir-crazy being trapped indoors, while his leg has definitely been better recently. I wish he had seen the doctor long before now, but at least he has an appointment booked in for the new year. We had a pleasant walk around the market, enjoying some of the live music and picking up a sausage en route. We also called in at our favourite empanada stand, where I had a brief chat with the lady in Spanish. We were also delighted to discover a stall offering Georgian food for the first time. One of these things was a katchapuri pasty, with flaky pastry not dissimilar to those you get in Greggs. I thought €8 was a mite spendy, but then I didn't see the sheer size of these things once they had been plucked out of the fryer. They drooped over a big paper plate and we had to carry them back home delicately. The flavour was spot on - very much like the katchapuri we had tried in Georgia - while I had a nice time chatting with the Georgian owners of the business. They offered us some pretty rancid cha-cha which I struggled to drink, but all in all, it was a welcome addition to the Christmas Market.
We also headed out on Tuesday and Wolfie was able to join us again. Our main objective was to go to the Cheese and More store at Kurfstendamm. We had checked out this place on the night of my birthday meal, but didn't want to buy anything as I was going to SE Asia two days afterwards. We had always intended to pick up something for Christmas, so we thought we might as well make a night of it as the Christmas Market at Zoologischer Garten is literally over the road. With the likes of Fierce (Fiasco), Al Song and Notefox all wanting to socialise more during the Festive Period, I thought it would make sense to have a bit of a gathering. Al met us in the cheese shop while we were sampling their wares, with four separate members of staff asking if we needed assistance. One said that instead of buying the full truckles, we should just get wedges cut as they would be far cheaper. This was useful advice and we picked up three cheeses at reasonable prices, while Al also grabbed some lavender-infused cheese.
We then walked around the Christmas Market, sampling little blocks of cheese from a plastic tub, noting how disappointing it was relative to the Spandau one. As we did, we showed Al the sights including the church, the memorial to those who lost their lives in the 2016 Christmas Market terrorist attack, and the green water clock in the Europa Center. We also grabbed some food, in our case a decent sausage and an incredibly delicious Handbrot. We picked up the latter after Fierce had joined us, looking all dapper in his hat and pink scarf, and we soaked up the atmosphere while wandering around.
The market was due to shut at 9pm, meaning we had to make plans for after. Drinking was always on the cards - I feel a little bad for always dragging teetotaler Al to bars but he seems to enjoy the company - and when we discovered that Fierce had never been to Biererei, we opted to take the U1 from Kurfurstendamm over there. As we did, we munched on chestnuts that Al shared with us, with me not realising I had to peel them from their shells before eating. This made for quite an unpleasant crunchiness in my mouth. Once we had gotten to Kottbusser Tor, I prepped Al for the general grittiness of the area, but he seemed unperturbed and indeed wanted ice cream when he noticed a place we were passing had ube flavour. He let me sample this plum/apricot flavour while I opted for White Snickers which sounded incredible. Indeed it was - think mix of Snickers and vanilla ice cream - and even though it was odd to eat ice cream in the freezing cold two days before Christmas, I am glad we bought it.
We got to Biererei shortly afterwards and had to finish our ice creams outside. Once inside, we sampled seven different beers, including two incredible Barrel Aged stouts. This place is spendy, probably the most expensive bar in the city, but alongside Muted Horn and Manifest, there is no better bar in Berlin. The barman here is very knowledgeable too and even brought us over some water as we were sampling those two high percentage dark beers. Fierce and Al headed off around 11:30pm, an hour later than Notefox had joined us. They were incredibly delighted to see Wolfie - Note has been asking me for so long where he was - and so we opted to stay a little longer, particularly once we found out that the U-Bahn had switched to its 24-hour Christmas service that night. So, in the end, we chilled until near 1am before getting our trains home. I would have happily stayed later, but I had some work to do today, while I didn't want too much of a hangover either.
This should now be it for Christmas. Work is done until Friday, the weather is looking sunny, and we have a load of food and drink in. I'm hoping I can put all of my worries to one side, at least for a few days, as the weekend was dominated by a painful headache which I think may be stress-related. As I say, there's still loads to do and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed, so hopefully a nice mid-week break will help me relax.
The first market was last Thursday, which coincided with the Fureigners Meet-Up. They gathered at Kulturbrauerei at 6:30pm, but that was always going to be too early for me. I rocked up shortly before 8pm and spent the next half hour struggling to find everybody. I did avail myself of my very first boulette - basically a hamburger patty in some crispy bread - and felt this could have been more uniformly cooked. The Bratwurst I picked up was of the usual quality and I very much enjoyed it. After this, I did manage to find people and ended up speaking with Al Song and an Italian fur for most of the evening. We were gathered next to one of the fires, which blew a pleasant aroma of smoke and wood over us. We ended up staying at the market until it closed at 10pm before popping over to a nearby Boba Tee place called Boba Cuppa. Sadly, they had run out of tapioca balls, meaning about one third of their menu was no longer available. I ended up just having brown sugar in milk, which gave it a burnt caramelised flavour. It was rather pleasant, but the poor lady was clearly overwhelmed by the 15 furs who had descended on the store, not least because she already had a group of eight to serve. Most people headed off after this, but Notefox had swung by late as they had had an accordion practice. We therefore decided to head to Manifest for a brief beer before we needed to head back home before the trains stopped running.
On Saturday, Wolfie was feeling well enough to try and get out to the Spandau Christmas Market. We think this is one of the best markets in the city and so it proved again. I think Wolfie has started to feel somewhat stir-crazy being trapped indoors, while his leg has definitely been better recently. I wish he had seen the doctor long before now, but at least he has an appointment booked in for the new year. We had a pleasant walk around the market, enjoying some of the live music and picking up a sausage en route. We also called in at our favourite empanada stand, where I had a brief chat with the lady in Spanish. We were also delighted to discover a stall offering Georgian food for the first time. One of these things was a katchapuri pasty, with flaky pastry not dissimilar to those you get in Greggs. I thought €8 was a mite spendy, but then I didn't see the sheer size of these things once they had been plucked out of the fryer. They drooped over a big paper plate and we had to carry them back home delicately. The flavour was spot on - very much like the katchapuri we had tried in Georgia - while I had a nice time chatting with the Georgian owners of the business. They offered us some pretty rancid cha-cha which I struggled to drink, but all in all, it was a welcome addition to the Christmas Market.
We also headed out on Tuesday and Wolfie was able to join us again. Our main objective was to go to the Cheese and More store at Kurfstendamm. We had checked out this place on the night of my birthday meal, but didn't want to buy anything as I was going to SE Asia two days afterwards. We had always intended to pick up something for Christmas, so we thought we might as well make a night of it as the Christmas Market at Zoologischer Garten is literally over the road. With the likes of Fierce (Fiasco), Al Song and Notefox all wanting to socialise more during the Festive Period, I thought it would make sense to have a bit of a gathering. Al met us in the cheese shop while we were sampling their wares, with four separate members of staff asking if we needed assistance. One said that instead of buying the full truckles, we should just get wedges cut as they would be far cheaper. This was useful advice and we picked up three cheeses at reasonable prices, while Al also grabbed some lavender-infused cheese.
We then walked around the Christmas Market, sampling little blocks of cheese from a plastic tub, noting how disappointing it was relative to the Spandau one. As we did, we showed Al the sights including the church, the memorial to those who lost their lives in the 2016 Christmas Market terrorist attack, and the green water clock in the Europa Center. We also grabbed some food, in our case a decent sausage and an incredibly delicious Handbrot. We picked up the latter after Fierce had joined us, looking all dapper in his hat and pink scarf, and we soaked up the atmosphere while wandering around.
The market was due to shut at 9pm, meaning we had to make plans for after. Drinking was always on the cards - I feel a little bad for always dragging teetotaler Al to bars but he seems to enjoy the company - and when we discovered that Fierce had never been to Biererei, we opted to take the U1 from Kurfurstendamm over there. As we did, we munched on chestnuts that Al shared with us, with me not realising I had to peel them from their shells before eating. This made for quite an unpleasant crunchiness in my mouth. Once we had gotten to Kottbusser Tor, I prepped Al for the general grittiness of the area, but he seemed unperturbed and indeed wanted ice cream when he noticed a place we were passing had ube flavour. He let me sample this plum/apricot flavour while I opted for White Snickers which sounded incredible. Indeed it was - think mix of Snickers and vanilla ice cream - and even though it was odd to eat ice cream in the freezing cold two days before Christmas, I am glad we bought it.
We got to Biererei shortly afterwards and had to finish our ice creams outside. Once inside, we sampled seven different beers, including two incredible Barrel Aged stouts. This place is spendy, probably the most expensive bar in the city, but alongside Muted Horn and Manifest, there is no better bar in Berlin. The barman here is very knowledgeable too and even brought us over some water as we were sampling those two high percentage dark beers. Fierce and Al headed off around 11:30pm, an hour later than Notefox had joined us. They were incredibly delighted to see Wolfie - Note has been asking me for so long where he was - and so we opted to stay a little longer, particularly once we found out that the U-Bahn had switched to its 24-hour Christmas service that night. So, in the end, we chilled until near 1am before getting our trains home. I would have happily stayed later, but I had some work to do today, while I didn't want too much of a hangover either.
This should now be it for Christmas. Work is done until Friday, the weather is looking sunny, and we have a load of food and drink in. I'm hoping I can put all of my worries to one side, at least for a few days, as the weekend was dominated by a painful headache which I think may be stress-related. As I say, there's still loads to do and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed, so hopefully a nice mid-week break will help me relax.
