Cuijk.

I'm pretty dang certain it's pronounced something similar to "cook"...but make a funny little "er" sound in the middle, sort of.  

The morning ( 4 a.m.) was beastly cold.   It snowed again the night before, and even though I barely slept, and I have a very difficult time sleeping on transportation...it was nice seeing the periwinkle and coral of the sunrise reflecting in all of the empty fields on the sides of the Autobahn.  I've been here for months now and I am still impressed by the amount of hawks I see.  I stopped counting somewhere around twenty.

The rest stops in Germany are phenomenal.  They have a convenience store, a cafeteria, a fast food restaurant and the NICEST public restrooms I've ever seen.   There is a catch though, there is a 70 euro cent toll to use the toilet but you are given a 50 euro cent coupon back to use on anything at the stop...you can collect them and stack them if you want too.

For your toll you get a magic robot that sanitizes the toilet seat at your request...it also does it automatically after you use it. The bathrooms are impeccably clean nice smelling, and they even thought of putting in a nice backsplash.  Good on you Deutschland.

The market itself is as big as four football fields and it has it's own food court and live entertainment.  It has everything you could possibly imagine.   Carved oak furniture, Tiffany lamps, Pre WWII dishes, crazy leggings, lingerie, licorice, flower bulbs, a truly impressive collection of stuff.   And I was lucky enough to find some treasures for me.

This was what caught my eye first, and I instantly thought of Twin Peaks, but it's a little too Victorian to fit in with either the Great Northern or my ideas of how to make our apartment cozy.   And they were asking 175 euro.

I did find this little guy for 35 euro, it pretty much made my week.  I went with church gals...who were looking for antiques or a good price on furniture to make-over...so I stuck out pretty bad, but what's new.

That's not even the best find.   I had passed by this stall a few time and it was filled with the coolest stuff. Top hats and straight razors, old medical stuff, opera glasses old war helmets and furs, and then there in the back of the shop on a rack with binoculars was a beautiful, perfect, brass and leather spyglass.  What kid hasn't wanted one of these to go on an adventure with, and now I have it, naturally to go on adventures with.