All my life I dreamt of a white Christmas
just like any other kid out there would, and finally now that I was in Europe
for the festive holidays I had the chance to experience it. There really is a
distinct difference of one’s Christmas spirit when living in warm climatic
conditions in December when compared to those in cold climatic conditions. I
suppose a white Christmas is just a norm which has been imbedded into our heads
by the society and other influential things such as television. Without further
ado, I will let you walk down memory lane with my to Christmas holiday of 2014.
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| Traditional European advent's drink |
It was all well planned by my dear friend
András from the time we were still in Bali, we spoke about spending Christmas
in Szombathely, Hungary with his folks. This has to have been the best
excursions of my life, with my feet touching the ground in 6 European countries
in a space of 2 weeks. During the course of the trip we drove through Germany,
Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic and lastly Poland being the final
stop whereby we would commence the New Year.
On the first night of our journey we
stopped over in a small town in Germany for the night and to get into the
Christmas mood, we went to the Christmas market in the village. This was
something I had not experienced before, families wondering around outdoors
having a jolly good time, with a live orchestra staged to sing Christmas carols
and anyone was welcome to join in the carolling.
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| Christmas lights at the German market |
There were stalls selling all
kinds of antiques, decorations, and most importantly foodJ. From the famous German currywurst, to Finnish cuisine to even
Chinese noodles. Hot beverages were also on sale to keep everyone warm as it
was still a cold winter night, with the likes of hot chocolate, tea, coffee,
mulled wine and hot beer, yes! HOT BEER! That also took me by surprise, never
had I thought such a thing existed. The ambiance in this place was astounding,
from the sound of the violins and trumpets, the Christmas lights and
decorations on the olden day German architecture, the smell of all the
delicious food, children running around and the sound of families coming
together and having a splendid time.
Thereafter we headed back to the hotel to
rest and were off early in the morning as we still had a long journey ahead of
us. After a couple hours of driving we finally reached Hungary and were in András’
hometown. It truly is a nice feeling to see where your friend grew up. After
long awaited rest and seeing as Szombathely is located alongside the Austrian/Hungarian
border, we drove to Vienna the next day for some final gift shopping.
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| Ready to explore Vienna's Christmas market |
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| Sunset in Vienna |
Vienna is
a beautiful and very clean city, the architecture again was beautiful and the
shopping street with all the crème de la crème brands you can think of. There
was of course a Christmas market in Vienna as well, and this was much fancier
than the previous with very extravagant decorations and lights. It was great to
try the famous Wiener schnitzel in one of Vienna’s fine dining restaurants as
well as some Vienna sausage. It really is mind-blowing how you can grow up
eating something then finally get the chance to eat an original version of it
from the place it originates from. With that being said I was then on a quest
to try or the famous traditional meals in the places we visited, meals such as
the famous Hungarian Goulash, Polish dumplings and the likes.
After all the Christmas shopping was done,
then came Christmas itself. Nothing more heart-warming than being surrounded by
loved ones on such a special day, although I was not with my family, it really
did feel like family regardless of the DNA, A home away from home I would like
to call it. A big feast was made with wrapped Christmas presents around the
tree. Almost started to believe in Santa again. Being surrounded by people from
all different nations, Indonesia, Zimbabwe, Hungary, and Poland, this way
getting to know how one holiday can be celebrated differently in other parts of
the world. It truly was a moving experience.
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| Merry Christmas everyone! |
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| Gifts galore |
It didn’t snow on the 25th, so I
was feeling sad that I wouldn’t get to experience snow. However on the 26th
the tables turned and it began to snow. It was a dream come true, it felt like
a Christmas miracle. When we noticed it had begun to snow I quickly ran outside
with so much excitement. And all I found myself saying was WOW, WOW, and WOW!
It was absolutely sublime, I had the biggest grin on my face as it was my very
first time seeing snow. To my surprise I found myself crying tears of joy, most
definitely the best and most cherishable moment. As the other people I was with
had experienced snow before they were amused by my reaction. We then began to
play in the snow, throwing snowballs at each other, I really felt like a kid
again. This is an experience I will treasure for the rest of my life.
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| Enjoying Christmas |
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| My first snow!! |
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| Snowballing at night |
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| The Danube river |
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| The best of Hungarian spa |
In the following days we did some
sight-seeing in Budapest, walking through the royal palace, fisherman’s
bastille, crossing the Danube. We found that in Hungary most of the towns have
hot thermal water, and this is a big trend in Hungary after having 150 years of
Turkish occupation to take advantage of these thermal baths for body treatment
purposes. With that being said we visited the Szechenyi spa one of the most
famous spa’s for body treatment purposes.
After Christmas was over we continued the
journey to Poland and visited a town called Wroclaw – the city of a hundred
bridges which is a town with a lot of German influence in terms of German
architecture. Thereafter we moved on to Warsaw the capital whereby we spent our
New Years. It was of opinion that a very small portion of the old town city
survived, and the remaining being metropolitan. This making it one of most
modern European city with an enormous amount of skyscrapers. It’s been really
interesting to see that part of Europe and being able to distinguish
differences between the several European countries. This has just been an
insight of the many opportunities I have been granted by going to Stenden. The
ability to have a multicultural lifestyle, study as well as see the world. So
go ahead, embark on this journey and also begin walking through your Stenden
journey of a thousand miles.
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| Budapest by night |
Photo credit to Andras Szemes, follow him
on Instagram (@szemesa) for more beautiful pictures of our journey.
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| Downtown Warsaw |
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| A charming Polish café
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| The mandatory road trip selfie |
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