Letztes Jahr der Weihnachtsmarkt

Yes! It's that time of year again! The Christmas markets are starting to pop up again and my most favorite is the one in Aachen, Germany! I've invaded it every year since we first got stationed here...and it makes me very..very sad that this will be our last one. Of course, I'll invade this particular one a few more times within the next month, but still..2012 is the last year we'll be attending 'em. 

Le Sigh. 

All the stores were decked out with Christmas decor! Everything looked so pretty and magical, especially the bakeries. Then again, I think I'm rather partial to the pastries since I'm a little bit of a glutton...naahhhh....

I was actually pretty surprised that more people weren't there since today was the opening day for the market. But, the weather wasn't very favorable since it was rather chilly and raining throughout our entire visit. I'm sure most people preferred to stay all bundled up at home and snuggled up on the couch. I'm positive Eric would've preferred to do the same thing, but he was a trooper and opted to troll the market with me cause he's awesome like that. Actually, it's because he was bribed with Starbucks...

 Eric was completely smitten with the size of the long wieners that were being grilled throughout the market stalls. Nevermind the fact that we had just gorged ourselves on our favorite sushi joint, lol...he was still willing to inhale one of those bad boys!

The town hall was looking gorgeous as usual:

Eric got this crazy look in his eye and I couldn't figure out what was going on behind me...sure enough...

...one of the market vendors was selling cotton candy. All was lost. So...so very lost...

Once Eric's sugar gremlin was appeased, I went around to my favorite market vendor who sells the German glass ornaments - Inge's Christmas Heirlooms. I actually wrote out a list of the various ornaments I was looking for. Yes, seriously. Ya see, my Christmas tree is like my own little travel / life passport where I get ornaments to symbolize big things that have happened or things that are important to me. For example, I was looking for a passport ornament because of all the traveling I've done since we've been here...or a hot air balloon since we'll be moving to New Mexico. Here's some of the ornaments we were able to snag:

Since Aachen's market is our absolute favorite, it was definitely necessary to buy their official ornament:

Eric has an obsession with Chocopolis in Brussels. So much, in fact, that once we move to New Mexico and when it gets to a cooler time of the year there...he'll be ordering his favorite coffee chocolate from them and having it shipped to us. THAT, my friends, is dedication. 

Eric actually picked this one out for me. It's because I cook so much...and he loves my cooking. It's also because when he attempted to make something once and used a metal utensil in my very nice & very expensive Pampered Chef pans. I *informed* him in a rather panicked tone that you never use metal on metal...always use plastic or wood. So, I find it rather humorous that they actually have a wooden spoon glass ornament available..

The providence we live in is very known for its equestrian talents. There's always some sort of riding event going on somewhere around here , which is actually pretty cool to watch. Not only that, but the area around our house has five gorgeous horses (two of which have been born since we've been here)..and whenever we go for a walk, they run up to the fence line because they've gotten accustomed to the apples & carrots we toss their way. I'm honestly gonna miss those guys! Whenever I pull into the drive way and get out of my truck, two of 'em always rush up to the fence line and greet me with snorts & hoof stomps till I acknowledge them. 

Eric was VERY relieved that those were the only ornaments I picked up, although, none of those were on my original shopping list...so of course I'm still on the hunt for those particular items. As we walked around some more, we came across a vendor whose stall was full of gorgeous little cottages, cathedrals, little churches and all sorts of various things you'd use to make mini towns for a Christmas setting. One piece IMMEDIATELY caught my eye because it looks SO much like the church in the town we live in. After humming and haaing about it, we finally decided to snag it because knowing our luck, if we were to come back at another time to get it, it'd be gone. 

Oh, and lets not forget about Lush. During the winter time, they come out with "Snow Fairy", which I completely fell inlove with last year and have been itching to get a hold of again. Sure enough, we popped in there and they had a bunch of it on the shelf. I stocked up on a few bottles and looked a little too giddy about it...I think the staffed picked up on it cause they were giggling about how excited I was when showing Eric "LOOK! LOOK! THEY GOT IT! EEEEE!!!"

No date day is complete without Starbucks....since I was still very stuffed from the sushi, Eric opted to get himself his usual. In the process of getting his drink, he inquired about them selling their large "in house" mugs because we KNOW they used to sell 'em, but always came at a bad time, or they just didn't have enough in stock. Well, this time, they had 'em. So of course, he bought 'em and went on his merry way to meet up with me since I was off taking pictures of stuffs. I got a chance to check 'em out once we got home and I was surprised that they changed the mugs! They used to have the green siren logo on the front...and now it's just a recessed image in the mug (which shape has also been changed). Either way, I was happy with 'em!

Sounds dorky, but I thought it was pretty cool that they have a "V" on the handle to represent "Venti"..it's the little things, right? :)

So, there ya have it. That was our day...pillaging the Christmas market, did some people watching, did some shopping and ended up coming home to defrost since it was rather chilly / soggy over in beautiful Germany. On that note, off to enjoy some nice hot tea that Eric made :) 

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Lush ♥

Ohhhh my goshhhhh.... I love LUSH.. Love love love. I've blogged about it here and here.. yeah..LOVE them. 

Last week, I went over to Maastricht over in the Netherlands to check out their Lush store since I stumbled upon it a week or so earlier. If I knew they had a store there, I wouldn't have driven all the way to Aachen to get my fix!! Anyway, this amazing shower gel is currently available called "Snow Fairy"..here's some info about it from the site since they'll obviously describe it better:

It smells UH-mazing! It's as if  bubble gum & cotton candy had a secret love child and this is, in fact, their love child. I actually use it as a shampoo in addition to a body wash..it makes my hair so soft and helps keep it straight, which is AWESOME since the weather has been rather soggy (in turn, makes my hair not so straight). I believe this is the third or fourth year they've had this available ONLY for the Christmas season. So, I was pretty sad when I realized I only bought two bottles of it...how is it the stuff I always end up liking isn't something that's always available?? Pshh.... 

Over the last week or so, I've been feeling really crappy due to some health issues, so, Eric and I took advantage of the fact that he's off today (and all week) since I wasn't feeling as bad as I have been....take advantage of it, right? So, where do we go for date day? Aachen, Germany. I love date days with him because it makes me think back to when we were first dating all over again..we catch up on all kinds of various things, laugh our asses off about stupid stuff, people watch and just have an all around good time. 

At the end of date day, we ran into Lush there since he was wanting to get some body wash called " The Olive Branch" since he's needing something in terms of moisture for his skin. Right next to that was ...sigh...Snow Fairy, but in the medium sized bottles rather than the large. After staring at it longingly, we made our way over to the register since we were just gonna get Eric's stuff and hit the road. In the midst of ringing him up, I asked the gal at the counter as to when they'd be getting more of it in and she replied with "Once those bottles are gone, it's gone. No more will be coming."....epic sadness I tells you. In my head, I was thinking I'd just get home, log onto their US website and order a bunch and have it shipped here..then I remembered they don't ship to APOs. Le sigh. 

Eric piped up and said to me "Go grab some from the shelf. Love you". 

Sometimes, it really IS the little things :)

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I Heart Lush.

I'm a major, MAJOR fan of Lush. I know I've posted about 'em before ...so, here's another post..HA!

Since I've picked up several products for Eric from Lush, he's fallen in line with me when it comes to how awesome Lush really is. It's funny because he seems almost "metro" now when it comes to his hair and skin care. 

While we were plugging around London, we stopped into the Lush shop that's located at Liverpool Station (the staff there are VERY VERY nice!).  Oh my gosh...it was hilarious to watch Eric bounce around and find stuff that he wanted since, in his words "I can actually read what the products say!" verses when we're in either Germany or Belgium, hahahaa.

We ended up dropping about £50 in there between stuff that I wanted and what he found, but in all honesty, it's money well spent. Here's a list of stuff we got (and HIGHLY recommend) for anyone who has an interest in Lush:

Solid Shampoo Bars? Really? I know you're probably thinking I've lost my mind or something, but these things are AMAZING! Especially if you travel and don't wanna worry about packing bottled shampoo (even in the small travel size bottles). These things rock... when you're in the shower, just get 'em wet and rub it all over your wet hair and they'll instantly lather up! Trust me, I was really skeptical about 'em at first, but I LOVE how my hair comes out when I use 'em. The Seanik bar gives my hair a lot of volume and makes it really soft, the Ultimate Shine bar does exactly what the name says & makes my hair fluffy and shiny, while Godiva really straightens my hair out. I tend to rotate through the different bars so my hair doesn't get tired of the same thing :) Oh, and I love how they have tins that fit the bars perfectly!

Seanik Shampoo Bar

Seaweed and sea salt shampoo for body.

Soften tangled locks and add oceans of shine with this mineral rich, sea salt shampoo. Leave your hair full of body with a scent of a calm ocean. Seanik is made with softening Irish moss seaweed, Japanese nori seaweed and sea salt to give life back to flat hair.

Smells like Sakura.

We added lemon oil for extra shine, and the exotic far eastern fragrance of mimosa and jasmine to bathe you in the heady scent of tropical flora.

Sea salt and lemon

Sea salt gives body and volume to hair that's fallen flat and the lemon oil makes hair shiny

ULTIMATE SHINE Shampoo Bar

Fragrant ylang ylang oil.

Lovely smelling ylang ylang oil makes dull hair shiny; we've even added little bits of glitter to increase the dazzling effects.

Beautiful violet leaf to decongest scalp.

Floral violet leaf gets things moving on your scalp again and toning elemi oil calms nerves.

Godiva Shampoo Bar

Shea and cocoa butters moisturize dehydrated hair.

Give your hair the moisturizing boost it needs with softening, conditioning butters. Your hair will be left so beautiful no one would notice you were riding the streets naked. It's a two-in-one shampoo and conditioner that's now completely vegan. It creates a richer feel to the lather when you wash your hair. Smoothing, shine inducing camellia oil makes hair manageable.

Sexy, jasmine-scented, two-in-one Shampoo (and conditioner) Bar.

Godiva is named after the woman who famously rode through the streets of Coventry with only her long flowing locks to cover her modesty. She was protesting against the taxes which her husband was planning to introduce

This soap is "delicious"! I mean, I don't eat it or anything, but it smells so good that it makes me wanna NOM on it! It kinda reminds me of Quaker Oats Maple oatmeal..it's amazing in the shower and makes your skin feel so good! It has actual oats in the soap, so it helps exfoliate your skin in addition to moisturizing everything. I think the only down size is the oat pieces getting everywhere in the shower, but nothing but a good hose down till wash them down the drain.

Porridge Soap

Start your day with Porridge.

Start the day the Goldilocks way with a helping or three of porridge oats. Ideal for sensitive skin; irresistible to everyone else. Oats are soothing for the skin, while orange juice is refreshing. Rise and shine with some delicious porridge.

It's a nutritious breakfast bar.

Porridge is a very gentle soap that really helps to care as it cleans. When the oats mix with hot water, they create a calming milk that softens your entire body.

The following are some of the things that Eric likes and picked up for himself: 

Snake Oil Scalp Treatment Bar 

If your scalp's been shedding like a snake, you need to give it a good rub down with Snake Oil. Melt the bar into your fingertips and massage it into your scalp. Lavender, tea tree and peppermint essential oils kill offensive dandruff-causing microbes, soothe your scalp and get it on the path to health. Use regularly until you have shed yourself of dandruff.


I tried out this cleanser with Eric and it's fantastic! The funny thing is, you can actually smell the vodka in it! After I used it, my skin felt SO smooth! A little goes a long way with this stuff, so you'll be able to hold onto it for a while: 

Ocean Salt Cleanser

Lime extracted in vodka and sea salt

The antibacterial effects of lime and the trace of alcohol in the product is ideal for blocked pores, blackheads or blemishes. The minerals in sea salt soften as the salt scrubs away dirt and blockages,

sea salt scrub.

Ocean Salt comes from Rowena's love of all things scrubby. It's like taking your face on a trip to the seaside for an invigorating splash in the water, then cleansing and refreshing it with lemon, grapefruit and lime juices.

50% sea salt

Fresh avocado and coconut give hydration back to thirsty skin, while violet leaf absolute calms and nurtures.

Avocado and coconut fats

The fruit contains unsaturated oil that re-hydrates skin. Both avocado and coconut soothe the upper layers of skin and are very good for dryness.

Yet another thing I tried out with him...not that I have stinky feel or anything, but I do have rough skin. It's kinda funny because you rub the mask all over your feet, then you wrap them up with plastic wrap and let it soak in for about 10 minutes. By the 10 minute mark, it's really tingly and it's turned into a mud mask. Once you scrub it off, your feet feel fantastic!

Volcano Foot Mask

Pumice

Pumice is a powerful exfoliant; it is excellent for removing dead skin. As you wash off the mask, the pumice scours the surface skin cells and improves the condition of the feet.

Deodorizing mask for problem feet.

For feet which emit toxic gases! This thick effective mask has clays to draw out deep-down-dirt, fresh papaya and lemon for cleansing, deodorizing tomatoes, astringent herbal decoctions and anti-fungal essential oils.

Potatoes

Potatoes and their starch have been used by herbalists for various medicinal and cosmetic purposes: the plants are said to be anti-bacterial and soothing on rashes - and poultices made of cooked potatoes have been used on painful joints and to soothe skin.

Refreshes feet and keeps smells at bay.

Plaster your feet, wrap them up in saved plastic and read a book for ten minutes. Unwrap, massage the mask into your feet to scrub off dead skin cells. Rinse thoroughly for a lovely fresh feeling (and scent).

Last but not least, we got this body lotion. I use a little bit of it, but he really loves it, especially for his ashy elbows and hands! It smells like a banana smoothie and doesn't leave a greasy feeling once it's applied. 

Sympathy for the Skin Body Lotion

Fresh, organic bananas.

They are emollient and highly moisturizing, when applied topically. They soften the skin, making it flexible and pliable.

Vanilla pod infusion

Vanilla pods are made up of sugars, vanillin, fats and mineral salts. The sugars in vanilla act as humectants (moisture binding), when applied topically, and are particularly suitable for retaining moisture on hair, skin and lips.

Smells like banana custard.

Generous banana custard body cream. Eleven years old and still as popular as ever, Sympathy for the Skin is probably the only banana body cream in the universe, and almost definitely the only one with real, organic mashed bananas in it. The name comes from The Rolling Stones' track 'Sympathy for the Devil.'

The devil had his day.

We use real bananas to make skin softer, even if they're a bit of a menace to mash. Helen had wanted to use bananas in a cream for a long time, because of their moisturizing properties, and Sympathy was the perfect solution. Smooth our nutritious cream all over your body and go absolutely bananas.

So yea, there's the run down of things we purchased :) I can't speak highly enough about Lush and their products. I'm extremely sensitive to perfumes and chemicals, and I've NEVER had any sort of bad reaction to any of their products. Everything is made from fresh ingredients, and they use very very little chemicals..if ANY! I know some of their stuff might seem pricey, but, it's worth it :)

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Tapis de fleurs 2010

**** If you click on any of the photos, you can actually ZOOM in and see 'em in an unedited size (large) ****

This past weekend, Eric and I made our way over to Brussels since the famous "flower carpet" was happening. Sure, it doesn't sound all that impressive or anything, but that event happens once every two years. At least we can say we actually saw something like that, ya know?

We ended up leaving from Neerpelt around 8:30am since the train takes about two hours to get to Brussels. Luckily, some of our friends happened to be heading to the same place... So we had some entertainment for the majority of the ride.Once we reached Brussels Central, we all scattered to the winds since everyone has their own agenda. All Eric & I really wanted to do was check out the carpet, take the typical tourist pics, have lunch at a Chinese joint we found last time we were there, then roll out to Antwerp.

We made our way over to the carpet and the crowd really wasn't all thy bad. I guess I was expecting a total madhouse or something, but it seemed pretty mellow since we got there early enough.

We went over to the Grand Palace Hotel since they allowed people to use their balcony for the cost of 3€, which was pretty cheap, if you ask me. At first, the line looked insanely long, but it only took Bout 20 minutes from the back of the line to the actual balcony. Here's some pics from while we were waiting:

The statues along the building were AMAZING! I loved the detail on the womens dresses / corsets :

 Some surrounding shots of the Grace Palace courtyard..tons of cafe's, lil restraunts and chocolate shops:

Pool statue for the inner courtyard:

I was really diggin' the ironwork for the courtyard:

 Figured this would be kinda artistic looking:

LOOK! An actual picture of the current King & Queen of Belgium!

It was pretty cool since you walked past several different rooms that had to have been from the 1700's or so. Old furniture, carvings in the walls to hold light fixtures , damask tapestry for wallpaper...very elegant stuff! I wish I couldve gotten some pictures of it, but the security in the building wasn't allowing pictures (lame). So, once we got to the balcony area, I was able to find an opening and took some pictures without battling too many people. I was just getting slightly annoyed because some people were literally shoving me from behind to try to move me out of the way... I paid, you paid, we all paid to get here. Chill, people!

Here's some shots I was able to get from the balcony:

 

I went to the official site for this event (www.flowercarpet.be) and found some pretty interesting stuff this whole event. The following stuff is quoted from the site:

A Brief History

Officially, the first Floral Carpet as its present-day form was created in 1971 on the Grand-Place by the landscape architect E. Stautemans, but, in fact, it was the culmination of a whole series created in various towns in Flanders.

E. Stautemans, who was born in Zottegem, and graduated from the Ghent Horticultural College, had been experimenting since the early 50's making simple small carpets, more like rugs, mainly consisting of begonias (in Knokke, Oudenaarde, Sint-Niklaas, Lille…).

He very quickly realised that floral carpets would be an excellent vehicle for the promotion of his beloved begonias which he had always worked with, both technically, economically and aesthetically. After years of attempts and calculations, this architect, who was inventive and imaginative, and knew how to make the most of the numerous resources of begonias, became an expert in the creation of superb floral carpets with sophisticated colors and complicated designs.

His fame spread and he was asked to make carpets not only in Belgium (Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, Ypres, Courtrai, Hasselt, Tongres, Mons, Durbuy, …) but worldwide (Cologne, Hamburg, Luxemburg, Paris, London, Breda, Amsterdam, The Hague, Vienna, Valencia, and as far afield as Buenos Aires and Colombus, Ohio).

Some of these carpets were bigger than the ones created in Brussels (77 x 24 m), like the 1973 masterpiece at Sint-Pietersplein, Ghent that reached a gigantic 164 x 42 m. However, as E. Stautemas himself says, "Nowhere is the carpet more beautiful and distinguished than in the unique, ancient surroundings of the Grand-Place in Brussels".

Making a Carpet

The actual making of the Carpet is based on a plan worked out in advance, consisting of several stages. Everything starts, often a year in advance, with projects and scale models, illustrating a commissioned theme (such as the commemoration of great events, or the arms and shield of a town, and sometimes the proposals of local horticultural associations).

Once the theme has been produced in representation and symbol, the number of flowers and color combinations calculated and the outlines finally drawn on the ground, then the work starts.The skilful, dedicated work of a hundred experienced gardeners and their enthusiasm enables them to put together this giant floral jigsaw in under four hours.

The day before, the spaces between the floral patterns will already have been filled with rolled turf.  Did you know - that the flowers are packed together one by one, 300 to every square meter of the ground, (+/- 750.000 flowers!) so tightly (no soil is used at all) that they won't be blown away by the first puff of wind, and create their own microclimate? In heat waves, the turf has to be watered to prevent it from shrinking, but if the weather is too wet, the grass can grow 4 to 5 centimeters in 3 days? The wonders of nature!

 Here's some pictures of past carpets:

2008

2006

2004

2002

2000

Educational, hunh? :)

Once we were done checking out the floral carpet, we headed on over to a Chinese restraunt we found back in December when we visited Brussels for their Christmas tree display.

 We chowed down on some awesome food and made our way back over to the train station. When we first got into the courtyard where the flowers were, we spotted some local artists working on some paintings of the area. Eric ended up getting a pretty cool piece that's done in pen and I got a piece that the guy was finishing up of the actual courtyard (I had to wait a few minutes for the paint to dry before he rolled it up for me):

Eric's picture:

Mine: 

We're wanting to get them professionally framed, but since it'd be too expensive to have done here.. we'll most likely wait till we're back stateside. Most of our other pictures have been framed through Aaron Brothers in Monterey, so odds are, they'll end up doing these for us.

All in all, we had a great day between Brussels and Antwerp (all we did in Antwerp was hit up Starbucks and hit up LUSH again). Even though I'm sure some people say "It's just a ton of flowers. What's the big deal?"...well, it's actually pretty awesome to see in person. Not only that, but it's a show of artistic ability to create something like that on such a grand level. 

* Two thumbs up! *

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