another update!

Not TOO much has happened in the past few days.  The biggest news was Germany's defeat of Turkey in the semi-final game.  There's a pretty big Turkish population in Germany, so it was a really exciting game for everyone here, and everyone was out cheering after the game was over.  It was a pretty close game, with Germany scoring the last goal in the last couple minutes, making the score 3 - 2.

I was going to go to AudiMax, which is a huge hall at the University where I watched the other Germany game, but it was full at 7:45.  The game started at 8:45, so we (Antonia aka. Christina, Manfred aka. Tobias and I) wandered off to find somewhere to watch the game.  In Germany, EVERY little restaurant, imbiss, bar, and almost every food shop, seems to have a TV with the latest Fußball news on.  Tobias, having grown up in Lüneburg, which is a city not far from Hamburg, and being a student at Hamburg University, knew the area and found us a little restaurant / bar where we watched the game.  The Stimmung wasn't quite as good as it would have been at the AudiMax, but it was still fun.  We were sitting outside, and had to stand to get a good view of the TV.  During the game, the streets were pretty much empty, with the exception of the occasional bus.  Of course Germany won, and the crowds went wild...

I went to two Reuters seminars this week, and am doing a Reuters certification program in a week or two.  It's pretty neat that they're sending me to all of this stuff for work.

Today's laundry day again.  German washing machines always take a LONG time to wash.  As in, 2 - 3 hours.  It's ridiculous, but that's just how it is.  Some washers have a "short" mode, but mine doesn't.

Right now, we've got typical Hamburg weather.  Rain.  Apparently the past month or so that I've been here has had some really atypical weather, since it was sunny almost every day.  Today looks like it might start to clear up in a bit, which will be nice.  I might go for a bike ride.  I think it's probably too late for today, but I'm thinking about biking to the ocean (or at least close to it) next weekend.  Now that I have my bike, I can go on these adventures.  Assuming I can maintain 20 kph (12 mph), which I'm pretty sure I can even exceed, it should just be a nice day trip there and back, with a scenic view of the north German country side.  Some other possible goals are Lübeck, Kiel, or Denmark! (Denmark would probably take a whole weekend there, and then I'd have to take the train back.)

No new pictures lately, but I'll try to take some tomorrow, when I visit the Fischmarkt again.  The sun's starting to come out, and I might meet up with Jakob aka. Jake and Christina tonight for something to do.