Germany - Love the Shopping

As most of you know we just pcsed. I am living in a sea of boxes, paper and an awful lot of stuff that I am looking at wondering why I bought it and why I keep it. Two duty stations ago we were in Germany. I specifically remember going to Poland for the first time to shop for Polish Pottery. I leaned over to my husband and said "Don't worry hon, this really isn't my thing, I am just going to buy a bowl or a casserole dish." I spent hundreds of zlotys, the exchange rate was pretty good at the time. You got a better rate if you paid with your credit card. It was like spending monopoly money because the totals weren't actually what it would cost, you had to divide it by four. I remember laughing at the huge stack of boxes that we had in the back of the van. The wrap your pottery in paper and then put them in boxes. I think my husband was feeling guilty because he was deploying to Iraq leaving me with a newborn, so there was no preset husband spending limit. On the way home we got stuck in our first Stau. A Stau is a German traffic jam on the Autobahn. It is nothing like our traffic jams. When you study for your driving test it advises that you keep water and snacks in the car because you can be stopped on the highway for hours.
There are so many shopping opportunities there, crystal in Germany, crystal in the Czech Republic. I would actually like you to comment on this post if you also bought the crystal kitty cat salt and pepper shakers. Sadly the pepper jumped off of the microwave and now I have this sad single kitty. He is pictured above sitting next to one of my Polish Pottery bowls. Honestly though when you shop over there you become this voracious deal monger. Part of it though is the idea that if you don't buy, you are passing up an insane deal, don't be foolish, buy the blue glass pitcher and matching glasses, because you can put lemonade in them. Oh and you have to buy the five euro crystal pitcher and the 6 euro crystal bowl. I have yet to use either, but I just now that I scored a major point in battle "get a deal."
The other thing about shopping in Europe is the limited amount of things at the px and commissary. I have yet to break myself of buying 10 or 20 of something because it may not be there next week. We call this the Vilseck effect, Vilseck is where we were stationed. When Diet Coke was on the shelf I would buy 4 cases just for me. I would also stake out the px the morning of the new sales flyer. As soon as the doors opened people would fly in and grab as much as humanly possible. I am not kidding, when the new back to school flier came out there were some plastic bins that I wanted for kid's toys. There was an all out feeding frenzy over crayons and notebooks, but my sites were set on the three drawer bins. My husband agreed to meet me at the px after pt so that he could help me with the plastic bins. He was late, and I was sitting in front of my bins. I didn't get a cart, because that was his job. I had the baby and my job was to secure the bins. He finally showed up but not before I had to fight people off.
I also got in the habit of driving to any and every px within three or four hours. The best thing about it is that you get in the habit of shopping at the commissary and px and you start realizing how good a deal things are. Obviously you have to know your prices, but if you shop smart you can get amazing deals. For instance, our commissary has 8oz blocks of Kraft cheese for $1.00. Yesterday I bought 2% and pepper jack, great deal!!!
I could write volumes on the traveling you can do, but that is another post for another time. Oh, and I am still using baby wipes that I bought when we were over there. I bought several cases, only 50 cents a pack!!!