Located in the northern part of Germany, between Hanover and Hamburg, Bremen is a what most would expect to be a quaint German town. You may wonder why I visited this seemingly random town up North, when I could have easily gone to Munich, Frankfurt or Berlin to experience Europe's largest and most populous country. The answer — a simple (rather obvious) one — was to visit a friend from high school, Mitul, who goes to university there.
This weekend wasn't an easy one by any standard — both Mitul and I were glued to the news at any given instant, watching uneasily and anxiously as that 60-hour saga unfolded (read 'A Black Wednesday,' November 2008, for my immediate thoughts regarding that). It felt good to be with someone from Bombay during that time.
While we weren't keeping ourselves abreast of the events in Bombay, I did get a chance to visit the main town of Bremen. I was fortunate enough to witness the Christmas markets all around the Old Town, which are reminiscent of carnivals right out of the Brothers Grimm (interestingly enough, Bremen's mascots, the four musicians or Die Stadtmusikanten, are taken from a Grimm fairy tale). The Böttcherstraße and Schnoorstraße, two narrow albeit awfully touristy streets are lined with houses built any time between the the 1700s (Schnoorstraße) and the 1920s (Böttcherstraße - a blend of Art Nouveau and Gothic). Both, oddly enough, have a very similar air about them.
I also got to try some Christmas and winter specialties including feuerzangenbowle — warm spiced wine with burnt sugar; and caramelized almonds. Both were delicious.
Although the attacks back home proved to be a dampener, I thoroughly enjoyed my weekend in Germany, and hope I make it back there once again
The Weser River (l) and the Goethe Theatre (r)
3 comments:
Abhinay, those photos are gorgeous! A tad large though--when I click on them to see it up close, I see it more up close than I wanted? haha.
But seriously, it's so beautiful. I'm glad you had the opportunity to reunite with a friend from Bombay though. I'm sure it helped you a lot. *hug*
Those christmas markets seem like fun!
you haven't updated in a while -_-
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