Spargel?!

We had another great day in Aachen touring around with Mark & Daniela. We took a day trip to Monschau which was a one hour bus ride from Aachen. It was a super cool, quaint little German village on a river. It was so pretty! It rained all day on us but we didn't let it stop us. We hiked on these trails high up in the forest above town and had great views of the village below. Everything was so green! It actually got pretty cold today too. We had so much fun exploring around the village so different from Aachen and just an hour away. This village is where Mark comes for the famous Christmas markets or "Weihnachtsmarkt"that are all over Germany around Christmas time.

Walking around, I found this little "Christmas House" shop that had five floors in this old house of nothing but Christmas ornaments! I collect ornaments from everywhere we travel and found some cute German ones in this store. Luckily, we have Mark to take them back to Texas for us when he goes back in June, otherwise they'd never survive 4 months squished in my backpack!

Mark found a great restaurant overlooking the river for us to eat dinner at. We were all excited because they had a Spargel menu! What's that?? Spargel is white asparagus that Germany specializes in and harvests only in the month of May. Apparently, they bury it under mounds of dirt as it's growing so it can't ever get green! It's soo yummy and tastes a little sweeter but pretty much the same as regular asparagus. We all had cream of Spargel soup and our dinner was served with Spargel and Hollandaise sauce. Yum. What a fun day! Tomorrow will be a FULL travel day as we're off to Italy!