The German Grocery Store, McDonalds and Another Christmas Celebration

I finally went to my first local grocery store, I was way more excited about it than I probably should have been but oh well, they have so much more available than the grocery store on post! A wide variety of meats, fresh produce, funny gifts and best of all alcohol. They had a huge section of beer and what you do is "rent" a plastic carton full of bottled beer and then you bring back all of the bottles and the carton and just pay to refill the bottles. Simply genius, I have no idea why this concept has not caught on in the US.

Carton after carton of beer

Justin's favorite beer, it has a slight lemonade taste 

So I woke up the other day feeling just a tad bit homesick and craving something "American" to eat, so naturally Justin took me to the McDonalds in town. Boy was I in for a surprise. I was expecting the typical American McDonalds, trashy, dirty and full of obese kids and angry obese parents. This was nothing like what I was expecting. It was clean, modern decorations, a refrigerator full of beer and even  a nice bakery section with fresh pastries. No obnoxious children, everyone was very friendly and best of all I learned that most of the meat is provided locally so it actually tasted really good! Apparently in the town about 15 minutes away they have a two story McDonalds that has karaoke on the weekends. Now that is something I must see...

Later on that night we had a tree lighting on post. Santa came on a fire truck escorted by the military police and the school children all sang carols and made christmas decorations. We stayed about 20 minutes before I decided the event was mainly geared toward the kids... 

Love ya'll!