Holidays in Bavaria

I kicked off my Holiday celebrating by attending the Krampus festival in Berchtesgaden, Germany on December 5th and 6th. So what is Krampus?? Krampus are mythical goat-like creatures who accompany Saint Nicholas. They are basically doing the dirty work of Saint Nicholas and punishing the bad children by rubbing coal on their faces, whipping the sins out of them and chasing them through the streets! They look like demons and have giant cow bells and braided whips. The festival starts at dusk as they run down a hill and then through the streets, parading behind Saint Nicholas. Then the real fun starts...basically all night you run through the streets of the Christmas Market (fueled by Gluhwein, of course!) trying to avoid getting whipped by the demonic creatures while trying to steal one of their whips!

Here we go!

 

The Parade Starts...

Me, Lindsey and Kat

They were so scary!

The sound of cow bells makes me run!

Views of the town

Day Two

Kat got coaled!

Where we stayed... the Krampus were right outside!

One of the Krampus came inside our apartment and attacked me!! It was terrifying, I tried to steal his whip though! 

It snowed all night the second night so we woke up to this!

We had a couple of holiday parties this last week. Everyone I work with at Pullman Place all cooked a big family dinner complete with deep fried turkeys!

Gotta love hanging out with chefs!

Bridget, Kacey and Drenda

Morgan and Delaney

Um...yeah

My White Elephant gift, he is an incense burner!

The group at our Assistant General Managers party

I went to Salzburg, Austria yesterday to get one more Christmas Market under my belt before the season is over! It was about a 3.5 hour train ride to get to the city from Garmisch. I feel like I am finally getting this whole train system down. It is such a convenient way to get around and take day trips! Once we got to Salzburg we toured around the city and shopped and ate at the Market. Christmas Markets are one of my new favorite things!

Such a beautiful city!

The Cathedral, Salzburger Dom

We hiked up to this fortress to get some pretty cool pictures

Salzbug is the "City of Mozart" so it has a big musical
festival in the summer that I plan on going to!

The fountain was frozen!

The ornaments were so gorgeous! I miss my tree!

They really do Christmas right in Bavaria, every little town is so cutely decorated!

Hiking up!

Salzburg's Altstadt (old town)

These star-shaped lanterns lit our way up to the fortress

Everyone I went with! 

Alexis and Kayla

Salzburg at night!

Christmas Market at night! So Magical!

So many firsts...

My last weekend I took a trip to Munich to see the Christmas market and a festival called Tollwood. 

This trip was filled with so many first time experiences for me. I rode a train for the first time, 

stayed in a hostel, took a subway (called the U-Bahn), and of course drank traditional Gluhwein! 

I feel so blessed to be able to have all of these experiences. The whole trip I just kept thinking that a year ago I would never have believed that I would be in Europe getting to do everything that I am doing. 

This is definitely the best decision I have ever made!

Walking tour in Munich

Had to stop and get my first Gluhwein!

Munich's Glockenspiel clock and the 24karat gold statue of Mary guarding the city

Going inside of the huge Catholic churches was really cool to see

The clock tower with 8 clocks on it! After other buildings were destroyed in the war they put the clocks all onto one tower!

Also after the war, they found headstones and didn't know where they belonged
so they put them on the outside walls of the churches.

 

 

The Opera House

The Inside of the yellow church is painted completely white!

My first time staying in a hostel..really wasn't that bad! Ours was called the Euro Youth Hostel.

The Christmas Market was amazing. There were so many little shops, 

tons of decorations, a choir singing German Christmas music and yummy food and drinks!

The second day we climbed to the top of the clock tower
to get amazing views of Munich and did a beer hall crawl!

The stairs going up the clock tower

 

The views were amazing! So glad it was a clear day

Eddie is who I traveled with!

Franziskaner is my favorite!

Drinks at Hofbrauhaus

Prost!

Ended the weekend at Tollwood, it is a winter fair in the area that they have Oktoberfest 

Pretty much how I felt by the end of the night!