Episode 12: Giving Thanks in Europe
I don’t think I’ve ever, in my (long) history, had a Thanksgiving that didn’t involve a big group of family and/or friends. My husband was much the same with his side of the family. I’m truly thankful for that… the closeness (or willingness to travel) of so many people is a blessing. My extended family had made a plan last year to try to all travel somewhere warm to meet up for Thanksgiving this year. And while everyone was initially on board, adult life sometimes gets in the way. Some of the group couldn’t get away from work for long enough for a distant trip to make sense, so the plan started to fall apart as people decided to stay home for the holiday.
That forced a pivot, so my husband and I decided to try something neither of us had ever done before; fly somewhere random and celebrate Thanksgiving alone. Ok, not really alone, but as just the two of us and our kids. And what better place to celebrate our first non-traditional Thanksgiving than in Europe, where Thanksgiving as we know it doesn’t exist!
In truth, my desire to go to Europe in late November had very little to do with finding a suitable Thanksgiving location, and everything to do with seeing European Christmas markets (which have long been on my bucket list.) When I started researching the best Christmas markets, I realized that I’d have to whittle down my destinations list, since a lot of cities’ Christmas markets don’t actually open until December. But, two long-longed-for destinations for me (and for Michael) were going to have markets opening up on a schedule that matched our travel plans, so we locked in on Prague, Czech Republic and then to Dresden, Germany.
We booked our flights through Frankfurt, and everything started well. Then, United got very United-y. First, United shifted flight times so that our layover in Frankfurt was only an hour and 20 minutes. Then, after we had boarded our flight (on time), United decided to delay our departure by 30 minutes as they waited for some late-arriving passengers. Then, United had to take an extra 15 minutes to get all of the stored luggage put away appropriately. That cut our layover to 35 minutes, which might still be doable if we could make up some time in the air. Then, just as we were about to push away from the jetway, a storm rolled through IAH that delayed our departure by another 45 minutes. Because of that, it was assumed we would never make our connection from Frankfurt to Prague, and United automatically rebooked us on the next available flight from Frankfurt to Prague, which departed Frankfurt a full 8 hours later than our original flight. We didn’t learn this until we had landed in Frankfurt after making up an hour in the air, ran through Frankfurt airport, blazed through immigration, and breathlessly showed our boarding passes to the Lufthansa gate agent at the departure gate for our original flight, which was still sitting at the jetway. The never-smiling Lufthansa agent told us we no longer had seats on our original flight, and that she couldn’t rebook us onto it because we were United customers. After a 20 minute call with United (during which the United agent told us that our original flight had already left; and then that there were no available seats on it; and then that even though there were seats, she couldn’t book them – all of which were untrue and required pushback by us to overcome), we got our booking changed back to our original flight, and were officially the last 4 people to board the plane.
We landed in Prague at roughly 3pm, and made our way to the hotel via Uber-taxi, which was very simple, convenient, and cheap. We arrived at the incredibly beautiful apartment we had reserved in the Mala Strana neighborhood (on the west side of the Vltava River), unpacked, and then decided to grab an easy dinner. We walked to the Strahov Monastery Brewery for some dinner and drinks – potato dumplings with duck meat, goulash, and a pretzel to eat; along with drinks of amber ale and lager for us, while the boys had lemonade with mint. A quick note: in the Czech Republic, lemonade is a style of drink. The flavor is dictated by the other words in the name; so lemon lemonade is a much different animal than cranberry, apple, or mint lemonade, which each have very little resemblance to any of our youthful lemonade memories. On our walk back to our apartment from dinner, we stopped at a little stand on Nerudova St that served what we learned (after trying many others) were the best hot chocolate and chimney cakes in Prague. So, I’ll say it again, when you’re traveling overseas and you have to ask yourself, “should I try that _____?”, the answer is always “yes, it may be the best one you’ll find”.
The next morning, we woke up early and walked to the Old Town for a food tour we had booked with Prague Food Tours. Our guide was George, who was great and who filled our day with a knowledgeable, engaging, and entertaining history of the Czech Republic and of Prague; in addition to introducing us to Czech kolaches at Kolacherie (which, while being the inspiration for all kolaches in the USA have absolutely no similarities with them); delicious truffle gnocchi, duck confit, and traditional beef with dumplings at the beautiful Café Imperial; Prague ham, steak tartar, pickled cheese, and potato salad at Lokal; and finally four delicious deserts and the best eggnog (vajecny konak, or vajecnak) I’ve ever had at Mysak. After our tour (which I would certainly recommend to everyone), we raced back across the river to the Prague castle. We only had half an hour before they closed, so we went to the cathedral and then to the palace, and then climbed the 285 stairs to the top of the church bell tower. We then finished the night with another stop at our favorite roadside hot chocolate and chimney cake stand, before returning to the apartment for the night.
The next morning, we woke up to the season’s first snowfall. We walked through our beautiful (and absolutely frigid) Prague winter wonderland to Café Savoy for breakfast, where we ate delicious eggs benedict, Viennese eggs and a croissant with ham, gruyere, and horseradish. We then walked to some touristy sites (the rotating Kafka head, the Art Nouveau museum, the Powder Tower and Old Town Square, and a few shops along the way), and then stopping at Bistro Monk for an early dinner of chicken tacos and chile con carne.
The next day was our last full day in Prague. It was also the day that the Christmas markets were supposed to open up at 2pm. So, we planned a morning of walking around; first seeing the John Lennon wall and Kampa Park, and then walking to Stalin Skate Park (which had a lot of graffiti and no skaters), and to Letna Beer Garden (which had locked doors and no beer). We then walked to Republic Square for the Christmas Market, which was also closed and not actually going to open after all. So, we consoled ourselves at Aux Merveilleux Artisan Patissier, who served delicious rolls with ganache, with chocolate, and with sugar. We then went to a Mozart Dinner at the Hotel Grande Bohemia. The ballroom where the dinner was hosted was beautiful, and the performances of Mozart’s work were incredible. The meal left a lot to be desired (the kids were certain that their chicken was actually fish, and our “beef tenderloin” was a whole lot more like stewed beef), but the scenery and the show were worth it.
The next morning, we had a train from Prague to Dresden. The train ran about 80 minutes late because of significant snowfall, and we passed that time in the train station Burger King; which was about as good as it sounds in all respects. But, after arriving in Dresden we checked into our hotel, walked to Zwinger Palace and Gardens, and then caught opening night at several of the Dresden Christmas Markets. I’ll tell you, Christmas markets weren’t exactly what I thought they would be. I assumed they’d be a lot of stands of handmade Christmasy things – tree toppers and ornaments and German Christmas Pyramids. And, while those stands did exist, they were few in number compared to the stands of mulled wine and mulled beer (gluhwein and gluhbier), spiked mulled wine (feuerzangenbowle), rum with spiced black tea (jagertee), hot chocolate (heise schokolade), warm eggnog (eierpunsch), and a host of delicious german foods (bratwursts, cheese spaetzle, soups, pretzels, and more). We literally ate and drank our way through the markets, and enjoyed every second of it..
The next day (Thanksgiving Day), which was our last in Dresden, we walked to Neustadt Dresden (the new town, which was presumably all rebuilt after the destruction Dresden faced during World War II) through the Augustus Christmas Market. Neustadt is literally covered in graffiti. If we’d been in the USA, it might have felt unsafe. But, in Dresden (and honestly as is the case in most of Europe), graffiti happens everywhere and doesn’t correlate with the safety or lack-thereof of any particular place. Neustadt seems to have embraced graffiti as decoration, and it was very unique to explore. We also walked to the art neighborhood called Kunsthof Passage, and then to a famous dairy called Dresdner Molkerei Gebruder Pfund, where we had their Christmas cake and eggnog. On the walk back to our hotel we followed the Elbe River, and then walked through the medieval Christmas market (which was a lot like Houston’s Renaissance Festival on a small scale). We ended the day with our “Thanksgiving” dinner at Genuss-Atelier; a 6 course meal that included red trout, cauliflower soup with salmon tartare, duck with potato and red cabbage, and two desserts.
The next day, we took a train from Dresden to Berlin, which we were flying out of the next morning. We did a quick walk to see the remnants of the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie, saw the Brandenberg Gate, and then spent a few hours at two different Christmas markets to get our last fill of warm drinks and homey German cooking. Then, off to bed before our early morning flight back home to Houston. It was, all in all, an amazing getaway. The whole family had fun, we got to see and explore all-new places together, and the only real drawback is that Michael and I needed to buy bigger sized pants when we got home!