I finally mailed my postcards to America! I was going to go for a run then because it's so nice out, but my knee's been hurting again so I decided to maybe just go for a walk. But then I decided that I should probably study for my midterm tomorrow and finish up my homework and art presentation. Then I just got lazy and decided I would continue to semi-procrastinate by blogging of course. :-)
Saturday was another gorgeous day. Oli and I had lunch at this delicious Italian pasta restaurant. It was kinda like a Subway for pasta, except way way better! Das hat mir gut geschmeckt! Then we walked around for a bit and shopped. I went to the American section of a grocery store, but all they had was mac & cheese, oreos, and peanut butter. The mac & cheese was 3 euros, and it was an off-brand too! Crazy expensive.
I also went to a Gummibär store that had all sorts of fancy, exotic gummi-candies. (I don't want to just say "Gummis" because that means condoms in German lol.) They had champagne gummi-candies, beer ones, sour ones, and of course in every weird shape imaginable. I got a bag of Playboy Gummimänner, which were much more anatomically correct than I expected! I brought them back for the rest of the Libby's to enjoy with me. It worked out well since we have 5 girls in the group (although Jason secretly enjoyed eating them too!) haha
Oli and I also went to the Rathaus (town hall) and saw the Stadtrundfahrt doubledecker bus tours like in Dresden. I wanted to take a ride, but it was 15 euros and I was worried I wouldn't understand that much anyways. But we talked to the conductor, and he said he could do the tour in English also. So we got in, and it was such a nice day that we got to sit on the top with the roof down (so at least I didn't get carsick like during the Dresden tour.) I found out shortly into the tour that I should have just gone with full German, because understanding half-English, half-German is quite difficult. It's not like the conductor would repeat everything either. He would say in English, "That is an important building on the left," and then explain why it was important in German lol.
It was still a great tour though. We saw a lot of old churches, the big harbor on the Elbe, Reeperbahn Straße where all the sex clubs are, an Automuseum (no surprise there!), and a lot of impressive modern architecture. Sorry Dresden, but I think Hamburg beats you on that one! The apartments on the waterfront were so schön. I want to live there when I'm rich. :-) Even though Oli grew up in a suburb of Hamburg, this was his first time having an official tour and he said he learned a lot too.
We were pretty tired after the tour, so we watched a few episodes of House Season 1 in Oli's room. I'd bought the DVD at Media Markt here in Dresden, but it was Format 2, which doesn't work on my laptop. So I gave it to Oli as a present since he likes House too, and then we were able to watch it on his computer. It came in both English and dubbed German, but dubbing really confuses me because the lips don't match up with the words, so we settled on English with German subtitles. (Besides, who really wants to hear Hugh Laurie "speak" German? That takes away half the fun of his sarcasm!)
We went to an international restaurant next door for dinner. Oli had steak and Schnapps (apparently he's become such a regular that they asked about the Schnapps right away! haha) I had some baked cheese squares (sounds weird but was actually quite delicious) and that French cream soup with baked cheese on the top. Of course we also had to have some beer with our dinner!
We did some Vorglühen and watched youtube videos. I tried to explain to him what hipsters and frat boys and bros are (as well as the Double Rainbow joke), and we watched some College Humor videos. He has a Travel USA book where he and his friends have been planning their West Coast trip, so I went through that with him and told him about the Grand Canyon and cool places on the East Coast as well (such as Boston and New York of course!)
We also spent a lot of time talking about techno and house music and the club scene here. I tried to explain what Eurodance techno is, but I realized that "euro" is probably too general considering my present location. In any case, it's pretty much any techno song with a 32 count.
At about 1 AM his two friends came over to pick us up for H1 (heins), another Disko in Hamburg. One was Russian and one was Arab, but they both spoke fluent German and talked really quickly (especially the Russian, who was already halfway through his flasche of Vodka.) I was doing fine communicating 1-on-1 in German, but when I had to keep up with a group I felt kinda left out. Either way, we didn't pregame for long before we went out. The Arab friend drove because he's Muslim and doesn't drink.
H1 was also very trendy, although not as posh as Club China. We were on the Guestlist again, and I got a nice little VIP stamp on my wrist. :-) Ballin! There was a secret bar in the back that we hung out at for awhile, but it was already past 2 and Oli and I wanted to dance. The dance floor wasn't as nice, but it wasn't as packed either. TV's on the wall were doing laser shows, and a fog machine kept going off. Unfortunately there was already spilled beer and empty bottles all over the floor, and I kept worrying about stepping on broken glass. I think they should make everyone use solo cups. Broken glass is one of my worst pet peeves!
I'm not sure when we stopped dancing, but it must have been after 4. We went back to the secret bar where his Russian friend was still drinking and talking to a girl. Absolut Vodka had set up a little private area with glowing tables that changed color surrounded by comfy couches. In the center of each table were bottles of Absolut chilling in ice. So classy! I was more fascinated with the tables though lol.
We left but the Russian guy stayed behind. Apparently he likes to stay there drinking until close. Can I say "typical Russian" without sounding too stereotypical? haha
More later...
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