Bremen - rainy and cold

Sunday 5 17 08

I guess it is time I got this updated, no? I stayed a couple of nights in Bremen. I got to go to church there. I found the location and time on the Church website and it was right on. I was a little late due to waiting for the streetcar and then finding my way the last little ways, but I made it. It was hard to understand the speakers, but I got the gist of what they were saying. Everyone was very firendly afterwards and one guy even told me I spoke good German (he was just being nice). There were about 200 people there - about as many as in a ward at home - in a nice new little building.

On my way back to my little room I saw a religious processlon ( a lot like those you send us pictures of, Kristina) and got fined for riding the streetcar without a ticket. Funny, huh? I tried and tried and tried beforehand to find how to buy a ticket, but there are only machines on the streetcars that take prepaid cards. Most people don't even use those. The plain-clothes crew who came through (I think they only checked the tickets of two othjer people) said that there is a machine that takes coins right up at the front of the first car (these streetcars are abiut four cars long). The driver is inside a closed booth and you can't even talk to him or her. Oh well, live and learn!

I was able to find a laundry and do my wash there, too. I'm not sure why, but self-serve laundries are a rarity in Europe. When you find one you'd better use it! I had my only real sit-down real restaurant meal of my trip so far there - with fresh asparagus! Otherwise, I've been eatinmg out of grocery stores and bakeries. Otherwise, the countryside in travelling from town to town here is sure beautiful - mostly flat, but with some forests. The further north you get the more pine trees you see - it is like going higher on a mountain back home - into the pines. Sehr schon!

Oh yeah, and here is apicture of one of the old´fashioned toilet, that has the water tank mounted on the wall. And one of a place called `Wormland` - a women´s clothing store!