[Rick Lee]

Yeah, the Weihnachtsmarkts are awesome in Germany. That's the only part of Trier I really liked when I lived there for a year in college. We bummed around Cologne yesterday with a friend (Joe knew her father) and had lunch at the Frueh Koelsch restaurant.

I'm wearing my Sinn U2 on this trip and it's been losing a few minutes a week for a while now. Turns out Sinn has a partner right down the street from where I am that has the argon capsule replacement capability and it's pretty cheap too. So I'm dropping it off today and will have to make it home tomorrow sans watch, which will be very difficult. I may have to pick up another one here, since it'd raise no eyebrows with customs with my only bringing one watch back home. And I'd get some sales tax back at the airport too.

Kevin, if you're driving, the highways in the east are SUPER now, much newer and less crowded than those in the west and south. The tiny village I always go to sort of near Halle was a good 45-60 min. worth of winding through tiny roads from the hwy. to get there. Now there's actually an exit off the new A38 for this village, called Obhausen, and it's three km. from the exit. Unreal. It felt so weird to be chugging along at 180 km/h, exit and then arrive in another five min. I can remember when those roads were all cobblestones and the only cars on them were Trabbis and Ladas. Eastern Germany was always the best and most interesting, and it's gotten better in recent years.