So, what happens if you leave your boots out on the 6th of December in Hessen? St Nicolaus comes along and fills them up. It's kind of like a early indicator of if you're on track for a good haul of Christmas presents - if you've been good, your boots are filled up with tasty treats. If you've been bad, you get sticks. We did wonder about this, because Mads is quite fond of sticks and we thought she might prefer them. St Nicolaus was onto it though and put in some pretzel sticks in with the lollies. Oh, what a humourous guy he is.

In other thrilling news, today I had my first ever German haircut. I've been putting it off for ages, worried that I might end up with something like this but finally I decided that I had to do it, to hell with the risk. Besides, I figured if it was truly terrible I could just hide it under a hat for the next three months.

So I went to a place around the corner that a friend recommended - no appointment, 12 euros. The most alluring part was that the hair dressers there don't speak any English so I knew I wouldn't have to engage in painful small talk. The result? A twelve euro haircut. Eh. Oh well. It'll do. My favourite part was that at the end I had the option of whether I wanted the hairdresser to dry my hair or if I wanted to dry my own. Of course I went the dry my own option - partly because I always hate the way it looks after it's been 'done' by a hairdresser and also because doing it myself meant I could get the whole process over with even quicker. It didn't lower the price however, which I thought was a little unreasonable.