More about Hamburg!

First of all, some of you may notice that there are now ads on my blog.  I checked out this AdSense thing on Google, and basically if I let Google puts ads on my blog and people click on the links, they'll send me a check.  I'm not sure how much that'll be, but if you like reading my blog and you want to hear about more of the wild stuff I do (which requires money, mind you), please click on the ads for me!

On Sunday, Oli and I didn't wake up until really late.  We went to the Hauptbahnhof so I could buy my tickets to Dresden, and then we took the commuter rail out of the city to his hometown.  There we met up with his older sister, parents, and two cousins for lunch.  We went to a American-style Steakhouse for lunch (this is where they were already planning to go, I promise!)  I got an American Salad with American Dressing.  Of course I had no idea what either of those things meant, but the Salad turned out to just be regular salad with chicken, and the Dressing was Ranch.  It was pretty good, and I also got to try out this Apfelsaft-Wasser (Apple juice - Water) drink that tasted a lot like hypothetical apple soda (the water here is pretty much all Sparkling Water, to clarify.)

Then Oli and I went back to his house, and we played the European version of Dance Dance Revolution.  I was almost able to say that I played DDR in the former DDR, but we were a little too far west!  The songs were pretty much all American and not very KONAMI-style at all, but it was fun to get back on my feet again.  I haven't been able to play DDR since my high school days.  

We also watched some German TV.  Lin and I keep complaining that we can't watch any TV here in our dorms, and I've been so curious about what plays on German TV.  It seemed to be mostly reality shows and soccer, but we also watched some dubbed Family Guy and a German Comedy Sketch.  It was more slapstick comedy than dialogue, so I was able to follow along at least!  The best sketch was two guys riding to work on scooters and arguing over who got to park closer to the door (even though the scooter parking lot was only about 5 feet wide.)  Then a woman came and tossed her scooter into her spot, knocking down three other scooters next to it and then letting it roll backwards.  Oli got a big kick out of it because there's a stereotype here that women don't know how to park.  (I guess it's still nicer than our stereotype that women don't know how to drive either.)  At the International Restaurant the night before we watched a car unsuccessfully trying to park for like 5 minutes, and Oli was convinced it was a woman driver, but then when they got out we saw a man behind the wheel! lol

So after watching TV, Oli gave me a tour of his mom's landscaped garden behind the house.  It had a really pretty pond and flowers, plus a porch swing, which Oli told me is called an American-style swing here.  The squirrels here freak me out though.  They're bigger and brown and jump directly from tree to tree, not to mention they make this weird chirping noise like a bird.  On my walk back to the dorm from the Hauptbahnhof that night, I saw some sort of hare-fox crossbreed run (or hop) across the road.  No clue what it was.

Oli's mom's hobby is gardening, but his dad's is restoring old cars.  Then we went to the front of the house and they said 5 cars parked there (for a family of four.)  Oli said they have 7 cars total!  His parents said he could drive me back to Hamburg in the old convertible (I think it was 1950's but I'm not positive.)  Either way, I felt very 50's and wished I had brought a scarf and big sunglasses!  But of course we listened to techno the whole ride, so I couldn't get too much into the mood haha.  I'm not sure how old the engine was, but it used a stick shift and the car vibrated quite a bit when we were stopped.  We went pretty fast, but we didn't have time to go on the Autobahn.  He said that some other day I could try driving the convertible on the Autobahn, but there's no way I'm touching a stick shift! (Das ist was sie sagte.)  I told Oli that I'm a woman, so it really wouldn't be safe to let me behind the wheel lol.  Plus I'm pretty sure Dad would flip out if he found out I was driving on the Autobahn already.  (Dad, you can leave a comment to confirm this!)

We got back to the dorm, and then I had to grab my stuff and head off to the Hauptbahnhof.  A sad goodbye, but I think we'll be meeting up in Berlin when my class goes there in two weekends.  Otherwise I might come back during my week off.  I really liked Hamburg!  It feels much more like a city than Dresden does, although the prices are a little higher.  It was also really nice to meet a German family and see a German house and get a feel for real life away from the universities and dorms.

The train ride back was an express through Berlin, so it only took 4 hours (and only costed 41 euros, which is not bad at all!)  Oli gave me a Red Bull for the ride, so I chugged that and finished up my homework in no time at all.  I really wanted to see Berlin, but of course it was already dark by the time we got there and all I saw were the reflections in our windows. :-(  Not too long until I get an entire weekend there though!

This weekend we're having our class trip to Prague.  All seven of us Libby students are gonna stay the whole weekend in a hostel.  I'm definitely checking out the 5 story techno club I've heard so much about.  I'm hoping people there will know some German since they're right next door, but I'm gonna try to learn some key phrases just to be polite (no hypocrite here! lol)