Weihnachtsmarkt #1

Saturday (before it fell apart), I went to my first Christmas market of the season. I love the Christmas markets in Germany, partly because it's all the good stuff about the holiday packaged in tiny wooden huts and partly because of some poster I saw in my first German class depicting a "typical" Christmas market: jolly, bundled Germans cupping steaming mugs of mulled wine, toddling from hut to hut around a little central square lit by nothing but old-looking lamps and the light of the moon reflecting off the thick, fluffy, white snow blanketing everything. I'm sure they were buying exquisite and meaningful gifts, hand-crafted by the same friendly old grandpa selling them. There were mountains in the background, which leads me to believe the scene was set in Bavaria (if not in some L.A. travel agency warehouse), so that explains why I haven't had that experience in Berlin....
This is not to say that my Berlin Christmas market experience has been a total letdown. Among the wonders of the Christmas market is the giant Christmas tower you can see above. We used to have a little one of these when I was little, but I could never get it to work. This one is the same principle, but much older and more intricate. Also, it spins, but that's because the thing is motorized. I guess human sized candles are something of a saftey hazard, huh?
Another (to me) wonder is the food sold at these things. I love
mulled wine, and Germans do amazing things with gingerbread, and I have now eaten and sort of enjoyed roasted chestnuts, but I was definitely not prepared to see burly German women with industrial sized skillets full of liver and onions (above). Nor was I prepared for the proportionate line of burly Germans excitedly waiting to pay 4 or 5 Euros for a little cardboard plate of those liver and onions. And nothing in the world could have prepared me for seeing more than one instance of this at the market.
The other interesting industrial sized thing I saw there was the industrial sized Abelskiever skillet (the lady in pink). Not a great picture, but maybe a gift idea for Papa? This woman could make easily 60 Abelskiever at a time! And sold them, under the German name Pustelsomething, covered in cinnamon and sugar or melted chocolate, which isn't how I like mine, but still.
Another alternative career idea....