Steve in Germany – Day 5

Today was a fun day! I headed into the office around 9 and got to work. Got my timelines working in a window and made some movies showing them working for the boss.

Lunch was fish fillet with peas and then was more work, printing out bus schedules and the like.

Michael dropped me off down the street for shopping. I found the bookstore and bought a map of the city and a very good translation book, organized not only as a dictionary, but by situations, such as travel, health, etc. I now know how to ask someone if they have a Vaginal infection.

There was also a carnival going on downtown, with stereotypical “Crepe Haus” kind of places, a little roller coast, a mechanical bull, a carousel with Disney characters on it and even German Country Music. Yes, I’ve had country and hard industrial in one day. I’ll try and go back tomorrow with my camera.

The McDonalds has the only public bathroom so they have a valet who charges 50 cents to hand you one (one) paper towel.

I went into Millers Dept Store which had a floor of perfume, a floor of housewares and a floor of toys and movies. Wow they have realistic looking toy guns! Winnie the Pooh, My Little Pony and Polly Pocket were all big. I saw a Da Vinci Code game I will have to look into. I know it is for 2-4 players and 10 years and older.

The cool toy was “Tips” Essentially 15 euro for a box of colored packing foam cylinders, which went wetted glue to each other. So you can make lego like sculptures, shape them with tools, etc. Oh they had some really neat medieval figurines too as well as lots of smaller plastic toy animals (farm animals) in bins you don’t really see in the States anymore.

Michael picked up food and took me to his friends Ralph and Claudia place for dinner. We had good conversation (between German and English) and nice potatoes with garlic, great steak, wine and beans.

Ralph was teasing me, asking if I wanted Ketchup on my steak (ick) so I think I’ll take pictures of every ketchup bottle I see and send them to him.

It was nice meeting all 6 of michael’s friends. Getting views of the world from outside sources is very enriching. More on that later.

Michael dropped me off around 11pm and there were oh, 15 goth hanging out on the street. There is a pretty hefty party going on next door, with a live band, lots of bottles around (I guess tossed over the fence) etc. Must be at least 50+ people there.

So tomorrow I think I am having breakfast with Martin and Jeanette again, then Sunday they are taking me to Potsdam! Plenty of pictures are coming up, I assure you!