Lincoln Christmas Market

I took the train to Lincoln a couple of days ago to see the German Christmas market. It's

apparently a big and well known thing as I discovered by how very packed the train was going there with only the odd person getting off at any of the stops between there and Nottingham. Almost everybody was going for the market. The nice thing about that was I soon realized that I didn't really need to attentively watch the stops, I could just get off when everybody else did.

I was one of the ones in the back of the train who had to stand for the journey, which was a little over an hour. Happily I had thought ahead and brought my ipod; having music always seems to help when I'm stuck in a crowded situation. It gives me the illusion of a little isolated bubble even when I'm choking on the smell of somebody who likes perfume a little too much or the handle of somebody's umbrella is pressing into my hipbone. I also bought a decent pair of headphones the other day and there's really nothing like a good pair of headphones to make one remember how amazing music is. 

I had to be careful though if I wanted to be able to listen to music for the entire journey. My ipod is rather old and the battery is starting to wind down. Charging it before a trip is no guarantee that it'll last much longer than a couple of hours before shutting itself off. So I did my best to conserve as much battery life as possible by turning off the backlighting carefully selecting music that wouldn't make me want to skip forward or back, and then oh-so-carefully select the volume level that could be more or less satisfying. One little twitch up or down and it could be a goner. Happily it did last long enough for me not to go completely stir crazy before we arrived and all spilled out onto the platform in one merry little market-going heap.

German style Christmas markets are quite a thing. Tons of stalls full of locally made items for the most part, and lots and lots of German style sausages, English hamburgers, and desserts that I can't even remember the names of but I assume were from Germany or some places near it. I didn't taste any of the bratwurst due to the fact that I have to be careful of foods that might contain wheat, but I did buy myself a cup of dry riesling, partly because it came with a free little souvenir glass. 

It was crowded. Really crowded. Really really crowded. Having a look at any stall required a real committed effort with lots of “excuse me”'s, “so sorry”'s, and a powerfully resisted urge to say “Get out of my way!” or “If you had spilled my riesling when you bumped into me so help me I would've ton something terrifying and nasty.” If you were able to fight your way to the front there was usually something very worth looking at. Hand-made jewelry with celtic and germanic designs, very strong cheeses, leather-bound books, metal rimmed wooden beer stines: all sorts of neat things that were generally pricey but fun to examine.

I'm going to have to go back to Lincoln once the market has dispersed, because from what I could see of it the town looked really nice. I even managed to break out of the larger throng for a bit and circle the cathedral and discovered that there was a medieval Christmas market section behind it. I must confess that at this point in the day though I was tired and had had enough of crowds that I couldn't fully enjoy their costumes, the straw on the ground, and all the various “thy”s and “thous”s and really just took a stroll around so that I could say I'd done it, then went and caught the train back to Nottingham. I had a seat this time and was able to relax with my music for a good half an hour before my ipod gave up somewhere before Burton Joyce. That might be symbolic of something, seeing as Burton Joyce is where my dad and his sisters grew up and where my grandparents are buried, but I don't know what.

Maybe next year I'll go to Berlin for Christmas. The Germans sure seem to know how to do Christmas.

Pictures coming soon.