first I'd like to thank everyone who sent me pms and christmas cards throughout the last four weeks. I tried hard to write as many as possible, but since my lecturer forced me to prepare my presentations earlier than said, I wasn't able to do so. Therefore I'd like to apology esp. to Lia, Simon, Ingo, Nance. I'm very sorry for not making in time.
@Hilary: I thought I had your address, but I'm afraid I was wrong. I had a great christmas time with my parents and Manni.
I wasn't able to get to Venlo, since most off the books I needed for my presentations were gone. Thus I had to go to other libraries such as Essen and Duesseldorf instead to actually get them plus to find additionally material.
Nevertheless I decided to go to the pretty new fair "Figuria" yesterday.
http://www.sammler-boersen-nrw.de/figur ... strop.html
This comic fair,which was held about twenty kilometres from my place was said to feature a lot of pvc figures incl. smurfs plus dvds and film stuff.
I was only lucky to find eight variations, one Mainzelmännchen from the Carrera series which I had sought after and two Alicia Keys photographs. I decided neither to spend anything on DVDs nor entering the special p*** and B-movies area.
Thus I was slightly disappointed when I learned that there used to be more pvc stalls last time. However since many visitors wouldn't accept them, only five signed up for this year.
Nevertheless it was interesting to find out about another fair and to find some cuties and items for decent prices (0,50 to 2 Euro a piece), even if the entry was rather pricey (5 Euro).
Ingo 
So, don't worry about the christmas cards, I think we all can understand that you didn't have much time. 
Maureen