In the End: Christmas Markets and Allied Cemeteries

Plattsburgh, NY
December 11, 2015
Latitude 46º 69' N

In the end, it was nice to travel off season. Still, December in Europe is busy because of, well, Christmas, but it's not like summer when hordes take to the road. There were seats on trains and hotels cost less. The weather was just fine—not warm and not super cold. I've learned a lesson—when you want to really see a place, come in the winter.

In the end I fulfilled a dream and saw Saint Nicholas come into Amsterdam's harbor. I also took in Christmas markets in five different places—Lille, France, Prague, Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest. What a dream come true. I know these aren't the last!

In the end, the Allied cemeteries of Flanders moved and stilled me. There go I, but by the grace of God...had I been a young man a hundred years ago.

In the end, I added one more country to my ongoing list of attaining 100! The Czech Republic was #92!

In the end, I reconnected with two old friends—Lomme and Ina in the Netherlands and Ruxandra in Vienna. How nice to see them again!

In the end, there was pitifully little sun. But I'd not travelled to Europe in December for the weather. What I got, instead, was a nighttime that dazzled with the lights and joy of Europe's Christmas markets.

In the end, the snow I'd hoped for never materialized.  There was, for a brief moment, a small snow fall in Southern Belgium and a snow squall I attempted to walk in, but the romantic idea I had of Vienna or Prague blanketed in a thin layer of snow never happened.  

In the end, I'd come full circle with Vienna and Budapest, constantly ran into the young man who spent wonderful time there in his 30's. But it's true that you really can't go home again, nor was I trying. Still, it was nice to re trace steps and relive in memory, another, more distant, time.

In the end, I learned once again that the world is athrill with beauty and excitement, but only if one chooses to see it. Despite terrorist attacks, despite the world's myriad problems, it truly is “a beautiful world.”