Well, the last week or two (or months says J) I have been working very long hours and it’s been a bit stressful, but the good thing is that it’s almost Christmas holidays! Just one more week to get through. The weekend trip to Norway was also good and very interesting, but I’ll write about that another time.

In between all the work, here were a few of the good moments:

Hanging up our Christmas star. We have yet to decorate our Christmas tree (it’s a living one, still in a pot since last year), ice our pernicky cookies (gingerbread without ginger as my uncle calls it 😉 ) and cut out and assemble the paper Betlem (nativity scene) we bought last year in Třebechovice.

Visiting the Christmas market with some work colleagues and friends. It was crowded but it’s always nice to drink some gluhwein, eat some hot caramelized almonds and eat some German food (this time I had some flammkuchen).

Some photos of goodies picked up at various Christmas markets, except for the fudge, which despite the name was not like fudge at all, but nice try 😉 At the markets they sell caramelized nuts in the cones pictured on the right, these are delicious!

Seeing the Christmas tree at Hauptbahnhof (the main station, Berlin). I arrived in Berlin on the 1 December 2012, just in time for the Christmas season. So somehow seeing all the Christmas trees up around Berlin always reminds me of that first month where everything was new and exciting although a bit lonely. I used to look for the huge Christmas tree at Hauptbahnhof to find the right exit from the station so that i could find my way back back home.

Small pleasures in Norway. More on Norway another time, but a few of the small things that stood out for me were the space-saving bed in an alcove in our airbnb apartment, which I found so cosy, the very low sun in the sky (it popped up late, dashed in a low arc across the horizon and then back down again at about 3pm) and the beautiful frost, something we don’t see that much in Berlin.

Wishing you all a lovely week.