First November Weekend

Well it's been another week in Germany, so time for an update on what I've been doing. Work at Bosch's been going good, but as I've said before, I'm not really allowed to talk about what I do there since it's a research facility. Though I can say that I came down with a cold this week. But after going through my usual remedy, downing a bunch of pseudoephedrine, it was down to just a sore throat by Saturday. So, on to the weekend.

The weather this weekend was actually really nice, and pretty warm to boot. I think it got to about 60 degrees on both Saturday and Sunday. So that was a nice change from my previous weekends that were cloudy almost the whole time. My first destination on Saturday was this shop I found out about that sells a pretty wide variety of vintage items.

Exterior of the shop

Located on Mozart street, Such & Find sells vintage books, model trains and cars, records, cd's, legos, and pretty much anything regarding vintage toys.

Packed to the ceiling with stuff.

It was an interesting place to go, just to see how much stuff someone can fit into two rooms. I even got an ELO single while I was there.

So after that it was off to the flea market for my weekly visit. You really do not know what you're going to find, and I always have fun just looking through everything. That was especially true this weekend as the warm weather seemed to have made the place busier than ever, with booths all the way up to the statue in the middle of the square.

At the flea market again

My searching did pay off though as I found something I liked, these two volumes on the 1936 Berlin Olympics from 1936.

1936 Olympic books

Inside cover of the first volume

I don't know what it is about me and the Olympics, I've just find the old memorabilia so interesting. I think it probably started when I bought a 16mm print of Tokyo Olympiad, so the natural progression is just to acquire more vintage Olympic items. Anyway, back to the books, they detail both the 1936 Winter and Summer games and have lots of really nice pictures. Something I noticed while I was considering buying them was that almost all of the pictures prints that have been glued onto the pages.

Picture is glued onto the page rather than printed

From what I can find online, these books are part of a series of "cigarette" books. Basically people would send in coupons from cigarette packs and receive a packet of pictures in exchange. Then the cigarette companies would release books like this to put the pictures in. Pretty interesting and someone must have put a lot of time into this book since it's not missing any pictures.

Pull out map in the first volume of the Berlin games

So after acquiring the books I looked around a bit more, then had a lunch consisting mostly of sausage. I walked towards the schlossplatz to see if anything was going on over there. Turns out there was quite a lot going on! I noticed there were a lot of demonstrators set up, like these Tibetans.

Tibetan demonstrators

Then I saw that the Christmas market is still being set up.

Christmas Market booths

Ice skating rink, complete with mini zamboni

Then I'm still not sure what this was for, I think it was some anniversary of the transit system, but I ended up walking in on some kind of Star Wars dance routine set to "I Need a Hero"

Star Wars dancing for some reason

So there was that. Also saw one of the most determined buskers I've ever seen.

So after that I went home since I had intended to go and see the new James Bond movie that night. Though when I got back I looked online and saw that it was sold out the entire weekend. So oh well, try again next week. I made up for it though by catching up on Fargo tv show.

Sunday I headed out for the Staatsgalerie, the main art museum in the city. It was originally a royal museum, the facade even has the old name, but eventually it switched over as monarchies lost power. It was pretty much leveled during the war, but was rebuilt immediately after.

Statue of Wilhelm I

It was a great museum with plenty of art from all over Europe. I didn't take any pictures inside, but some of the most impressive things to me were the massive altar pieces they had on display.

After getting some lunch near the museum I headed back to Böblingen where there was yet another flea market going on. It was pretty nice weather to be walking around in so I looked around the booths.

Train ride at the flea market

I didn't buy anything, but I was given a roll of 35mm negatives by one of the booths that saw my Hasselblad. As far as I can tell it's from the 50's-60's, so that was interesting. 

Mystery roll of negatives