Out and About in Landsberg

Today, Tiffany and I decided to go out to downtown Landsberg to do a little shopping. We woke up early to walk there, and it wasn't that cold out and it only takes about 15 minutes to get into town.
First, we stopped at the "1 euro store" which is just like our dollar store, but in a different currency. We thought maybe we could get some cheap souveneirs, but they didn't really have much there. Next, we stopped at a clothing store and saw a lot cute things, but it was all really expensive. I saw a pair of jeans for 129 euro! We asked the guy there where the ATM was because we hadn't gotten money out yet, and he didn't know what an ATM was. I described it to him and he directed us to the right place. Other stores we stopped in were filled with appliances and kitchenware. These types of things here look very modern and IKEA-esque. We were looking for ice cube trays because nobody has ice here, and luckily we found still water (water without carbonation). We went to a bakery for a snack, and the lady there didn't speak English, but she asked if I spoke Spanish. I was really excited to practice with her so I got to order in Spanish and ask her a few questions about the different pastries and drinks she had in the bakery. It was so much easier to understand her this way. There are a lot of tea houses and bakeries in town, so we stopped in those to buy candies and teas for my aunt and mom. Every shop is so cute, and it kind of reminded me of Frankenmuth, MI. For lunch, we stopped in a bakery and had sandwiches. We didn't want to stop in an authentic German restaurant because we couldn't understand the menu. The sandwiches had ham, sliced deviled egg, lettuce on sesame bread. They were really good, and you could tell they probably made the bread there that morning. We were so excited to eat something familiar to us. We went to grocery and convenient stores and they had most of the same stuff they have in America. Some of the cereals were the same, and of course they had really big jars of nutella. While we were in the grocery store, one lady just kept talking to us in German, so Tiff and I just laughed and nodded like we knew what was going on. I didn't want to interrupt her to say we couldn't speak German.
We walked home and did some dishes and we want to get a Pizza later at one of the restaurants. I think Tiff and I are going to bed early tonight even if Jess and Chris go out.

Christmas Year-Round in Frankenmueth, Michigan

My aunt, uncle, mom, sister and I went to Frankenmueth, Michigan this past weekend. It is a small town that houses the biggest Christmas store in the world, so naturally, that was our first stop. The store is called Bronner's and it has every ornament for any hobby you can imagine. It also has a kid's zone with toys, nutcrackers, precious moments and other figurines, stockings, trees, and probably more Christmas decorations that I cannot think of. The store is huge, but my little sister and I were done with it in about half an hour because right now we don't have our own houses and trees to decorate. My aunt and mom spent forever looking through everything though to decorate and give ornaments to people according to their hobby. Luckily for me and Tiffany, there were kids activities on the back of the store map, so we had a race to see who could finish the word find the quickest.
Next, we went to "downtown" Frankenmueth where all the shops are. It kind of reminded me of walking the streets of Amish country with little shops with crafts and locally made sweets. The theme of this town, besides being decorated like it was Christmas, was German. The people that worked in the shops and restaurants were dressed in traditional German clothes, things like those little overall shorts and dresses embroidered with foliage. It was a really nice day so we were able to walk up and down the street to look in all the shops. They had a lot of hand made fabrics made from sheep's wool and a lot of the pastry shops had employees making fudge right in front of us. The best thing about the shops was that a lot of them had free samples of the things they made. I got to try taffy, apple butter, different salsas, breads, and other treats.
Finally, we went to eat, and all the restaurants had German food. It was really good and they had good desserts. It seemed like such a short time there, but it was a lot of fun.