Tag Archives: German Christmas Market

German Christmas Market

5 Dec

For the fourth year in a row I went to the German Christmas Market that is held in the downtown core. It runs for a month or so and can be a lot of fun. It is based on the large Christmas Markets that happen in Europe and is German themed. I’ve never been to one of the Christmas Markets in Europe so I couldn’t say for certain how this one compares, I’m pretty sure this one is way smaller but the gist of it is the same…I think?

There is a carousal for all ages that my friend and I meant to go on but forgot, we kind of purposefully forgot as it was pouring rain and we didn’t like the idea of sitting on a wet horse lol There is also a massive Christmas tree that every single person there tries to get a picture in front of, for real, every single person lol, we had to wait for people to clear out so we could get a picture without strangers in it lol

Me

Me

My friend

My friend

Close up!

Close up!

One of the main things about the market is the food, I’d say half or maybe a bit more than half of the booths are food. Most of them are German foods but there is one booth that is all maple flavoured foods, we are in Canada after all! lol πŸ˜‰

For dinner we each got a, hmm, a glorified hot dog I guess, mine was all beef, I think KL got the one that had beef and pork in it but I could be wrong about that. They are topped with sauerkraut and fried onions and if you want there is also ketchup and mustard.

2014-12-04 19.34.03

With your entrance ticket you get a free mug of either apple cider or mulled wine. I know from previous years I don’t like the mulled wine so apple cider it was! Lucky for me I like apple cider lol You get to keep the mug, which means I now have 4 of these mugs lol they are small so normally not a useful size, after all, if you are having a hot drink you want a normal sized mug right? I find them the perfect size if I am having juice though. πŸ™‚

We also got dessert, I got a hot apple strudel and KL got waffle on a stick, which now that I think of it is probably not a German thing since it is at every fair type thing I’ve been to for years now and one of the few booths not manned by an actual German person lol

Hot apple strudel with vanilla sauce on top

Hot apple strudel with vanilla sauce on top

Of the two desserts KL’s was the better option, her waffles on a stick were covered in a strawberry sauce and whipped Β cream and I thought it was way better than my strudel…kind of because the strudel was a bit bland and had raisins in it, ugh, raisins, blech.

There was also live entertainment, it ranged from good, to meh, to funny.

When we got there a group was performing whose name I didn’t catch, they performed a variety of songs, all Christmas themed. The lead singer had the cutest little hat on which you can’t see all that well in the picture because she kept standing directly under a light which made my camera unhappy lol

Can you see her hat? It's adorable!

Can you see her hat? It’s adorable!

There was also entertainment provided by some extremely well dressed drag queens who are way better at walking in heels than I ever will be, not even joking about that! There was a Simone Says game, and at least three separate musical performances, lemme see, there was a Celine Dion, a Taylor Swift and hmm, I’m not sure who the other person was supposed to be but she was entertaining! Basically it was a bunch of people having a great time. πŸ™‚ The Taylor Swift impersonator was wearing such a skimpy outfit I felt bad for her lol even with all her dancing she must have been freezing!

The weather was cold, not super cold but cold, shrug, it is December after all. It was raining the entire time so thank goodness for waterproof jackets and boots! lol I bent my head forward at one point to look down and had a whole bunch of water pour off the top of my head where apparently my hood had been collecting it *rolls eyes* The rain is totally manageable if you are dressed for it, which luckily both KL and I were. I’ve gone other years where I wasn’t dressed for the weather and while I had fun I was also freezing which drastically lowered my enjoyment level, this year I was prepared! πŸ™‚

This market has quickly become part of my Christmas season tradition, I really look forward to it and hope to continue going in the years to come. πŸ™‚

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Three Day Gong Show

18 Dec

You would think that in the final stretch of this challenge, when there are barely any days left to lose enough weight to be able to fit in to the pants I have hanging on my wall I would be doing everything right. You’d think I’d be exercising once a day or more, that I’d be following my eating plan so strictly that not even a little crumb of something bad for me would get near me, let alone in me. But this is me. And we should all know better than that by now. πŸ˜‰

I am surprised at just how spectacularly I have screwed up these past three days. I’m talking epic levels of screwed up! EPIC! *sigh*

I’m ashamed at how badly I have been eating these last three days. Some of it I know why it happened, some of it I don’t. I know that right now I am a combination of “what’s done is done and tomorrow is going to be even worse so get over it” and “oh my god I can’t believe how badly I am sabotaging myself! do I not want to fit in to the jeans? do I want to be fat forever? put the freakin food down already and learn to have some semblance of will power damn it!”

Since I believe in tough love and generally am not all that nice to myself I am leaning more towards the second mentality than the first. I tend to mentally yell at myself a lot lol

So let’s catch you up on just how I’ve been screwing up shall we?

Monday, there were little pieces of pumpkin pie at work…there was no one around which means no witnesses…I ate three little pieces, ugh. They tasted sooooo good! That particular screw up was a direct result of not over eating the day before at the buffet we had at work for Christmas. Confused? Lemme try to explain. I did my best to eat healthy at the buffet at work, I didn’t eat the eggs benedict, the potatoes, the buns, the stuffing…basically a bunch of food I would have loved to of eaten. I did eat a small piece of salmon, one slice of turkey I cut the skin off of, veggies, two shrimp and smoked salmon. Everything I took I took a small amount of and did my best to scrape off sauces etc. I allowed myself to have a lemon tart for dessert and some fresh fruit. I had a relatively small amount of food by the end of my meal and was left feeling a bit hungry, which I am sorta used to since I usually feel a low level vague sense of hunger at all times. I like to think resisting that hunger makes me strong lol πŸ˜› Everyone else stuffed themselves on the main foods and the desserts and loved every bite. None of them seemed to feel badly about what they ate or how much, they just enjoyed. I felt…deprived…which is stupid, but I did. People always walk away from buffets stuffed silly, especially Christmas buffets, free Christmas buffets, but not me, and it left me feeling…I dunno…like I was missing out on something. A little empty inside. Stupid, I know! As a result I ate three little pieces of pumpkin pie the next day. *rolls eyes* The three little pieces didn’t even equal one slice but it still set me up for the fall I was about to take off the meal plan wagon I had been on all this time.

My dinner was no better, I ended up screwing up there and going sooooo far over my calories for the day it is embarrassing. 😦

Tuesday I was going to get back on track, stop being a screw up and try to fix the damage I’d done Monday buuuuut that didn’t quite happen. I won’t go in to massive details and bore you but I ended up having to run around and fix something major uber important and didn’t get to eat until 3pm. By that time I was half starved and bought Thai food, specifically I ate Pad Thai. I love Pad Thai but had absolutely no idea just how bad it was for me, crap! Later that night when I was trying to find nutritional information I was pretty much screwed. The restaurant I bought it from doesn’t have nutritional information and everything I look at has such drastically different numbers for calories, fat, carbs, sodium etc that I don’t know which numbers to use. Since none of them had good numbers and I was feeling a bit sick from being so full I decided I just wouldn’t eat the rest of the day to balance out the ridiculousness that was that meal. That oh so tasty meal, Mmm. Would’ve worked but at a movie that night I ended up nibbling on a friend’s popcorn and twizzlers. It started as a joke, one of the guys an I were joking about how E is always so distracted we could probably sneak away his popcorn and he’d never know. Turns out we could snag it and once we had it how am I going to explain without looking like a diet obsessed female that “oh sorry, I can’t have a small amount of popcorn to finish off the joke cause it’s not in my eating plan”? I had a bit, and a bit turned in to a bit more, then somehow it turned in to also eating 4 twizzlers, and omg I didn’t want to stop! What the hell is wrong with me?! Movie junk food?? I don’t eat that crap! Arg! Bone head move or what? *flares nostrils* After the movie we went for drinks, I had this lychee drink that was so tasty! Lychee is one of my fave fruits. πŸ™‚ It was lychee liqueur, peach liqueur, apple juice and lychee for garnish. Mmm! I don’t even want to think about the calories in that…

Then today. *rolls eyes* I started off alright, I had oatmeal, not on my eating plan but relatively ok to eat. I went to the German Christmas Market with KL this evening and we ate dinner there. I had a schnitzel in a pita, there was also coleslaw stuffed in there. Holy crap it was good! KL had meat in a bun covered with sauerkraut, we weren’t sure what kind of meat it was but I was betting pork. Dessert was a waffle on a stick. I love how so many foods can be eaten on sticks nowadays lol Oh, and two cups of apple cider.

My schnitzel wrap

My schnitzel wrap

KL's unknown mean in a bun

KL’s unknown mean in a bun

Waffle on a stick drizzled in chocolate, Mmm!

Waffle on a stick drizzled in chocolate, Mmm!

That makes three days of epic food fails. THREE! I only have until Sunday to be able to fit in to those jeans if I want to succeed in my challenge and instead of making this final week an epic-do-everything-right-and-kick-ass-till-I-get-to-the-finish-line week I am going nuts with the food and lack of exercise and omg what the hell is wrong with me?? I’m so mad at myself! What’s worse is tomorrow is my work Christmas lunch and that won’t be anywhere near healthy!

I’m never gonna fit in to my jeans…

German Christmas Market Part 1

11 Dec

Any outing that involves hot apple cider is a good outing. Crap! I just remembered I didn’t put that in my food tracker, gimme a sec…

Ok, added, all is well lol πŸ˜›

So back to the German Christmas Market…

Don’t go thinking I flew to Germany lol it is an annual thing that is held in the downtown core. This is my third year going and I love it. It is a simple little market but something about it makes me smile. There is a carousel (which I may have kinda forgot to take a picture of, oops!), booths filled with various foods and drinks and even more booths filled with all kinds of things to buy. Almost all the items for sale (food and non food) are imported from Germany or made here but German inspired. Well…except for the booth with the maple foods, which omg yum! I love love love maple flavoured anything! πŸ˜€ They have maple toffee that is delish! I bought it last year and fully anticipated buying it again this year but alas, it does not fit in to my eating plan (plus I have no idea how to get nutritional information for it, yeah I know I can google but not like I can weigh out the toffee so I know how much I ate, sigh).

I can’t show you, or tell you, what I bought at the market cause most of the items are Christmas presents and the people receiving them may read this blog so hush! lol One thing I bought for myself was tea, yeah I know, I’m so exciting right? But remember how I am trying to expand my tea collection?

I bought Silent Night Tea which is a “winterly selection of our finest tea blends”, there are four flavours in the box, Winter Delight which is a green tea, Stars which is a black tea, Sun Of The Spirit which is a white tea and Bright Light which is a lemon balm – whatever that means! lol The only tea that doesn’t contain caffeine is the Bright Light (the lemon balm flavour) so I am still failing at expanding my non-caffeinated tea collection – I didn’t even think to read the box or ask the guy working the booth if the tea contained caffeine, arg, I suck at shopping for non-caffeinated tea! lol Later, at a tea store I found loose leaf maple tea which seems like the best idea ever! But I didn’t buy it cause it is loose leaf and I don’t have one of those metal ball thingies to put loose leaf tea in, all my tea is in tea bags lol

My Silent Night Tea

My Silent Night Tea

I wore a ridiculous amount of layers to go to the market, I get cold super duper easy and was mildly terrified of being so cold I wouldn’t be having fun soooooo I wore a tank top, then a long sleeved shirt, then a plaid button up shirt, then a hoodie, then a jacket…count that, minus the coat that is 4 layers! FOUR! All that effort to stay warm, which fyi I so did, but my feet froze, sigh. I have the worst luck when it comes to keeping my feet warm, probably because I don’t own warm shoes lol I own boots, leather and man made but none of them are designed for warmth, they are designed for looks so they are useless at keeping my feet warm. I decided to wear a pair of Keds (sneakers) thinking maybe the canvas fabric would be better at retaining heat in the foot area and also because those particular shoes fit loosley enough I can wear thicker socks with them lol. I was horrifically wrong and my toes were in that pain/numb/frozen state for quite a while, you know, that stage where it hurts to walk because you can’t put pressure on your toes, that stage. Ugh. I’ve been mildly lusting after a pair of Uggs (or a fake pair cause really? that much money on boots? lame!) for those rare times when I need warm boots. I have an old pair that are kind of like fake Uggs but nicer lol thing is they are so old they are way unattractive and the only time I wear them is when I am going to work on my early morning days and want my feet to stay cozy while I am en route to work. Obviously once I get there I switch to cute but completely not designed for winter shoes lol. In case you haven’t figured it out I am not always practical *rolls eyes*

I am actually really tempted to go shopping tomorrow during the day and buy a pair of warm boots because I am going back to the market tomorrow night with a couple friends. The market. The outdoor market. At night. In winter. On a day we are predicted to get snow. With feet in shoes not designed for warmth. I am gonna cry like a little girl. sigh. I can almost justify them because I could wear them when I go home for Christmas, back to Alberta, the land of deep snow and cold weather. My feet may not survive lol

Oh! I finally got some software so I can black out my face in pics which means I can finally post a pic of myself when I am out doing something, yay for remembering to get the software! lol So here ya go, me with a nutcracker, finally a guy taller than me! πŸ˜‰

 

The oh so handsome Nutcracker and I

The oh so handsome Nutcracker and I

Aaaaaand here is a pic of downtown from across the water, isn’t it so purdy?

the guay

My picture doesn't do the view justice

My picture doesn’t do the view justice

Part 2 of the German Market post will come tomorrow night after I have gone for the second time this year with my friends. I figure I’ll have better pics cause everything will be all lit up and pretty and my hands won’t be filled with bags because I did my shopping today lol. πŸ™‚ …although I am gonna get another apple cider, Mmm!

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