Mid-December

Well it's almost Christmas time here in Germany, and I've spent the last two weekends Christmas shopping in anticipation of my family's arrival to Germany this week. So I think it's safe to say I have fully explored the entire Stuttgart Christmas market, which has everything from Christmas ornaments to vacuum cleaner parts available.

Crowded streets at the Christmas Market

Not a petting zoo, just sheep on display

So while the streets are crowded and almost every shop sells the same Christmas ornaments, the market is still a fun thing to go to. It also marks the only time of year you can get Christmas Cider, so I plan on stocking up a bit before the stores here stop stocking it.

Of course no weekend is complete for me without a visit to the flea market, or on occasion multiple flea markets. In addition to visiting the one in Karlsplatz, in the last two weeks I went to two different ones in small towns south of Böblingen, Gärtringen and Nufringen. Both were actually inside their local gyms or schwablandhalles, though it's actually been pretty warm here recently. Of course that just means it's been above freezing everyday.

Karlsplatz

Gärtringen Schwablandhalle

The German countryside

Inside the Flohmarkt in Nufringen

I actually had a few finds over the last few weeks, such as

This small coin bank from a bank here called Sparkessen, it has a lock on the bottom and I was even able to find a key that fit. 

A few books from England, I haven't actually read these but they were cheap and I thought the covers looked interesting.

Perhaps my greatest find was this Bruce Lee coin, which now is proudly attached to my backpack.

And this small desktop barometer, in the back you can see my collection of Fanta bottle caps. I'm hoping to save up enough to buy a copy of Fallout like that one guy did.