A Lady in London

My boyfriend’s 77-year-old grandmother is quite the jet setter. With half her year spent in South Carolina and the other half spent near Dusseldorf, she thinks nothing of road tripping across America or traveling in Europe when she’s in Germany. Impressive.

It had been eight years since my boyfriend last saw his grandmother, so we figured it was time to make a trip from London to Dusseldorf to see her. On Sunday we hopped on a plane to spend a day in Dusseldorf visiting grandma and exploring some of Germany’s famous Christmas markets.

The first part of our day was spent catching up with my boyfriend’s grandmother and her cousin. She told us about her childhood in East Prussia (now Poland) and how her mother tricked her into entering a convent in Berlin in the aftermath of World War II.

After lunch at a local restaurant, grandma took us out to the Christmas markets in Bochum, a city near Dusseldorf. On the way, she pointed out old World War II bunkers and cracked jokes about how the Germans were “asking for it” whenever she showed us a bombed-out building.

The Christmas market in Bochum was full of stalls selling everything from Czech sausages to mulled wine with rum. There was a huge mobile in the middle complete with revolving statues of snowmen and nutcrackers.

After a hot mug of mulled wine, my boyfriend’s grandmother and cousin took us back home and we headed to Dusseldorf. We arrived as the sky was getting dark, which was perfect timing to see the Christmas lights at the market in the Altstadt.

Our flight home was at 7pm, so we had no time to linger in Dusseldorf. We did a quick walk-through of the market, then hopped on our flight to London to travel back to Hampstead in time for dinner.