Earlier this week, leduck and I returned from a trip to Europe where we visited Vienna, Austria; Munich, Germany; and Woerden, the Netherlands. We came back with our bags bursting with ducky loot. Although I spent most of the trip either working or sick with a cold, we still had some time for duck hunting and leduck made great use of his time by walking and biking (hooray for city sponsored bikes!) around. Unfortunately the time we were in Munich most of the shops were closed most of the time so about half the ducks pictured here were from Austria with the other half mostly from the Netherlands (aka Holland). We never imagined that we would come away with this many new rubber duckies to add to our collection. This is especially surprising given that I place regular orders with JustDucks.co.uk and the badeendwinkel.nl. Viva Europa! And kudos to leduck. If there were an IronDuck triathalon for duck hunting, I have no doubt that he would come in first.
 
Also folks keep asking me if my Dutch husband speaks Danish or German.  Here is a cheat sheet:
Dutch people are from the Netherlands (which some people call Holland). They speak Dutch.
Danish people are from Denmark. Danish people speak, guess what, Danish.
German people are from Germany and they speak German, but German's call the German language Deutsch and call Germany Deutschland.  
Okay, this is the end of the public service announcement. Now you can resume your ducky activities!

Congratulations, that's a wonderful harvest   !
 
 
 
May I ask you: yellow/blue one with '8' on it's chest,  
is that a Dutch/Nederlandse/Hollandse   duck too ?

The tiger looking ducky and the yellow/blue one with '8' on it's chest both came from a pet store in Vienna called "Cats & Pets" (see www.cats-pets.at, but they don't seem to sell online). Frustratingly, the store sells 3 others, but I didn't find the store until the last day and I couldn't visit any of the other Vienna stores of the only-in-austria chain.
 

 
The purple one with hearts came from a dutch toy store chain Intertoys (three big ones and three small ones, all from same british(?) soap vendor).
 
Must-go-to-find-ducks stores in Amsterdam btw.:
 
 the chains Xenos, Intertoys, Etos, Kruidvat, Expo and Blokker all on or near the main shopping street (Kalverstraat)
 small toy/stuffed animals store (knuffelwinkel?) on Sint Antoniesbreestraat
 De Beestenwinkel on Staalstraat 26

Quote from leduck on Sep 25^th, 2009, 9:23pm:

 
What a miss! should have visited few months ago while in Vienna! lucky enough I got friends still living there so will try and bribe them sending me a set
 
Quote from leduck on Sep 25^th, 2009, 9:23pm:

 
Will leave hubby in museum and I will no doubt spend most of 5 days looking for ducks, including duck shrine  De Beestenwinkel !  

wow you've got a nice collection there!!  How many ducks do you have now??

Quote from leduck on Sep 29^th, 2009, 10:32pm:

 
Yep, that's the one, sorry
Got train details and all. Also taking a half empty suitcase so I can fill it with ducks  

Can your shop be visited "physically"

OK thanks, that's a good thing to know   !