Best Christmas Ever..

..and it really was.

I had a bad feeling about the flight on the way to Bournemouth, driving early in the morning, with nobody on the roads felt like a dream. Eerie fog was everywhere, adding to my unease. But it turns out, we were as lucky as it gets: a day after I left, almost all airports, including Heathrow, were closed down because the fog was too dense.

Arriving in Germany was like returning to a beautiful home, with valleys shrouded in fog, skeletal trees, pissed off motorists on the autobahn, and of course, Marcus, I couldn't have been more happy.
It being so close to Christmas (and Germany being the land of Christmas, obviously) there were many fun things to do- visiting Christmas markets being the obvious choice. We chose the one in Koeln, which was so gorgeous, unlike anything you'd ever find in England. After drinking Gluewein, buying pretty presents for my mum, and generally being jolly, we retired to Sal and Petra's for espresso and wine- yay.

Christmas with the Marcus' was so great, it was like back when my family would have thier X-masses together, but not as scary or embarrassing. We sang songs, opened lovely presents, played monopoly, and everyone was loud and funny.

We also visited Bonn, hopefully the town of our future. From the fleetig glimpses I caught of the main city, it looked pretty impressive. But we were there to see art, and castles, so after a quick romantic walk in the park (^.^) - that's what we did. The Guggenheim collection was holding an exhibition of ancient Cambodian art, in which we picked out future home decor. Seeing Kirchner, Rauschenburg and van Gogh paintings in real life was pretty amazing too... But the castles were better.
Driving to Drachenfells, we arrived at a hill, the home of two castles, one old, one new. Apparently it's pretty important in a myth about a man who bathed himself in blood, too (?). On our ascent to said monuments, we discovered the kind of cute little place that's really the best thing about going anywhere, a reptile zoo, slightly run down and creepy looking, about 3 Euros for a student ticket- brilliant.
The 18th century castle was closed when we arrived, which was kinda dissapointing, and so, fuelled by Toffifee, we decided to take the path up to the ruins. The day wasn't so good, but even a veiw of Bonn covered by fog is impressive, and even better after a glass of the (rather strong) local wine in an inn we found in our descent.



New year. The trip was almost over, but determined to enjoy ourselves, we attended the funny party that was happening, and welcomed in our first New Year together among friendly people in a beautiful land. I know and wish this to be a wonderul one, full of laughter, fun and love, the start of many more.