6-12
So we got up late again today which was wonderful and I showered. We had some rolls and then went out to catch the ferry over to the dock area. We got on and got there and got tickets for a boat tour. We went on the boat tour and I got to see the harbor and a lot of big ships. The guide was pretty funny but it was just really cool to learn about how everything works. It was great because you could tell German was his first language by these small things he did wrong. My two favorites were 1) when he saying wery, wessel and vater instead of very, vessel and water and 2) when he said tug boats could go, “forwards, backwards and sidewards too.” I thought about how silly it was that we say sideways instead of sidewards. There are all these big container ships that come in here and everything. They also have ships come here to get repaired because they can lift ships out of the water no matter how big they are and that makes it way easier for them to fix them. I also learned from Abby that there is a tug boat ballet here and I was very sad that I was not going to get to see that. They are apparently very precise little boats and so they can do that sort of fun thing with them. I believe they have now won the award for Sara’s favorite boat. After the tour we went to this Russian submarine turned to museum and got to go inside and see that. Those things are really cramped in those! It was really cool, though. They gave us a little thing that had all this info about it: how deep they went, how hot it was in there, that kind of thing.
After that we got some lunch and I tried some currywurst. It was delicious. I thought the curry would be a lot stronger, like unbearable strong, but it wasn’t. Then we went down to by the old warehouse district and the new development, I think it’s called Hafen City maybe. That was really cool. They are building this new concert hall but it also has a hotel and apartments in the building and they had this big display thing up telling about all the research that’s gone into making this building amazing. They had it in German and English so I got appreciate it too. After walking down by the old warehouses, which are really pretty old buildings, we went over to the ferry and rode it back. I was definitely struggling to stay awake on that ride. We finally got back to the car and decided to go back home so we could all take naps. Once we got here I couldn’t fall asleep though so Abby and I got started on supper. I made some bruschetta which was a little too garlicy because the recipe I’d looked up told you how much garlic to put in by the number of cloves and all we had was powdered garlic. That mixed with the fact we burned the bread made that a little bit exciting but it tasted alright. After that we had some pasta that Ab made and it was really, really good. We were kind of just hanging out while Hendrik cleaned up—he and Abby have this arrangement where whoever doesn’t cook does the dishes—when Thomas came in. Thomas is Hendrik’s big brother. It was funny because he asked about me and all I heard was, “…schwester?” and so I had to pop out and meet him. He was nice. It is sad because they all know English but they are a little shy about speaking it with a native, which I can sympathize with because I feel the same about Spanish, it just makes it a little awkward since I don’t know any German. He was really nice and I was able to follow a lot of the conversation even though it was in German.
When Thomas headed out we went ahead and went to this fair thing. They have them all the time here and it was sort of like our county fair except with just the rides and carnies and stuff. The crowd seemed a lot shadier and I don’t know why but I was glad that I was there with Ab and Hendrik and not just there. There weren’t really a whole lot of rides either which was not what I was expecting. We got lost on the way there, well we just drove the wrong way but we made it and it was interesting to get to go out and see how theirs are different than ours. Hendrik bought tickets to play this game. In this game you get a bunch of ticket things and you unfold them to see if you get any points. So some have 1 point, 2 points, 5 points or no points and you get like 50 tickets for a set amount. So you count up your points and you can get a prize. For any of you who are from the Grand Island area and know of Skate Island, the prizes were on par with that sort of thing. So if you got a lot of tickets you could get a cool prize and if not, like us, you get a small stuffed McDonald’s-kid’s-meal-type duck. I got really sleepy on the way home from that even though we were only there for about a half hour. When we got back to the apartment we flipped on the TV and Along Came a Spider was playing in German. So I managed to stay up for that. That was about it for today.
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