downtown love

I'm in my third month of being a downtown girl again, and after this last weekend, I think I'm a fan. My brother was in town for the weekend, one of the best in the whole Reykjavík activity calendar. First on the program, the Reykjavík marathon, a great race that offers distances for all types of runners- 3k for the kids and purely recreational folks, 10k and half marathon for the more ambitious

the mysterious pickle

As I mentioned in my last post, Germans are extremely enthusiastic about the Christmas traditions, and many of them have migrated to America. One that I'd heard of years ago and continues to crop up regularly is that of the Christmas tree pickle. These things are readily available in stores and online in the US, described as this charming German tradition. The story goes that this glass pickle is

german holidays

Germans know how to do Christmas properly, from the gluhwein and the markets to the vast and ancient churches that host vesper services. The markets are a unique experience that no American replica I've visited has been able to reproduce faithfully. To start with, I've had the happy fortune to be able to visit one of the oldest and most famous of all the German markets, a festivity that consumes