A Failed Trip, and the Post-Failure Shopping

One of the popular things to do over here is to take a trip to Poland to go shopping for Polish pottery. It is an extremely popular "girls trip." Polish pottery is pottery hand-crafted and hand painted/stamped. There are multiple factories in one town, and you can get high quality pottery at a fraction of the price you can find it for in our area. I have always wanted to go Polish pottery shopping, but have been putting it off. I think the big thing hindering my girls shopping trip is a lack of girl friends. There are only a few people I would be willing to make this trip with, and it has been hard to coordinate schedules. The base offers a Polish pottery shopping trip once every year in August. This trip includes the bus trip to Poland, overnight in a hotel, and usually a stop is made along the way for other sightseeing (such as Dresden). When the date was announced for the trip this year, I decided I was tired of waiting for a trip, I was content to go with the base trip by myself. And hey, maybe on this trip I would meet new people or even make a new friend.

However. My trip was cancelled a few days before it was suppose to leave due to lack of participation (only three people had signed up for it). Meh. I was somewhat disappointed as I had been looking forward to my trip. I also had, after three years, decided I was ready to invest in some nice pottery/pieces. I was bummed.

A lady I work with told me she had bought her pottery at an off-base Polish pottery shop in Ramstein, and she had been happy with the quality and service. This co-worker also pointed out that once I figured the money for gas/hotel or for the trip to Poland... the prices were about equal. She had a point. So I spent a portion of my afternoon when I should have been in Poland shopping for pottery in Germany. Not quite the same. But I still am happy with what I found for myself.

What I had wanted to find were some bigger bowls to replace the plastic/garage sale type bowls I had. What I like about these is aside from being huge, they are dishwasher safe. I am so please with my upgrade! Some people find one pattern they like and stick with just that one pattern. I personally would rather get a little bit of everything and have an eclectic mix.

I had mentioned to some co-workers about my failed trip. The silver lining - there was a flea market that weekend. So while I wasn't in Poland, I was able to go shopping at a flea market. We started out the morning early - 6:30! While that isn't early for me since I am up early for work during the week, it was an early start for a Saturday of shopping. There were hundreds of stands at this market selling everything from clothing, to antiques, china, electronics, and junk. Some of my co-workers were there looking for specific things, and really had some good luck. I was mainly there just to browse and see if there was anything I stumbled upon. I did find a few treasures. I found a few small pewter steins with hunting scenes on it. I also found an antique book about castles on the Mosel river. Each item 2 Euros.

I like this book because the castle on the cover is Cochem castle - which is near Spangdahlem, and we have been there before. Cochem castle is used on a lot of Spangdahlem decorations.

So while I didn't get to go to Poland, I did get some new treasures for myself. I also discovered an amazing flea market which occurs once a month.