Second Saturday

This morning we got up (after sleeping in) and I attempted to make pancakes. They turned out all right in spite of the fact that I didn't have any measuring cups and had to guess on the amounts. We can't find syrup here so we put strawberry jam or nutella on them. Len originally thought that perhaps we could make them for all of the students but we only had 3 left when I was done so I nixed the idea of trying to feed 10 big guys and 3 girls in addition to us. We did give the 3 left to the one girl who has been craving pancakes. :-)

After breakfast it was clean-up time. The boys were given the task of vacuuming. Michael began while Jake held the cord out of his way. Eventually they got a second vacuum and worked from opposite ends of the apartment. I (Ann) tidied up the apartment and organized things. I also plan to search for more cleaning supplies to give the bathroom a better scrubbing than it's been getting. Len took care of some organizational details for his course. At least this time, he actually accomplished some work! On Thursday, he told me he'd be grading in our room and I found him trying to do it by osmosis. (See picture.)

We have found that the food is generally less sweet here. Even the doughnuts do not give you a sugar buzz headache. The frosting on them is sweet but is a very thin layer and the actual doughnut is not very sweet. We made tomato soup last night and, it too, was not as sweet as the cans of it we have at home. When we buy cookies, they aren't overly sweet either. (Except for the "American" cookies we bought (chocolate chip), they were a little sweeter.) We have found a cookie we like a lot. Fortunately, it is one of the cheapest ones as well. It is 2 thick plain cookies with chocolate spread in between them like a sandwich. It's actually a fairly hearty cookie. At first, the lack of sweetness of the various foods (donuts especially!) takes you by surprise but it is not hard to get used to. It may be harder to get used to the sweet stuff once we get home! Yesterday I posted a picture of a donut we saw in Bremerhaven. It was called Amerikaner. One student ordered it and said it was like a pancake with frosting. :-) (Not something you usually see in America!)

We just finished having a thunderstorm. It has been raining off and on all day. Len and I and the boys ventured out into town for a bit. We bought our Christmas ornaments for this coming Christmas, and Jake bought a patch/badge to sew on the hat he hopes to find. While we were in town, we saw some bikes with rain gear and I got a picture. We also saw several people eating brats. What struck us is that the brat they purchase is about a foot long but the bun is about 4 - 6" long so the brat sticks way out the ends. If you click on the pictures of these people we don't know, the picture should get bigger and you should be able to see what I mean.

We went into a large department store that also has a grocery store in the basement. We checked out the grocery store since I hadn't been in it yet. In general the prices were higher than where I've been going but we did buy some chips at a good price. While we were in there, Jake went up a couple of floors and found a hat he wanted us to look at. We all liked it but when we held his badge up to it, the spot where it would go was a little too small. Len then discovered another hat that we all liked. The badge won't go on it but Jake decided to buy it anyway. While we were browsing that area, I found some shirts for Michael for his senior picture. I really want him to wear green since it highlights his eyes. Then Len found the clearance center of the store. Oh Boy! We all found things there and ended up buying pants for both of the boys, a USB flash drive, and an alarm clock (since Len's watch sometimes goes off and sometimes doesn't). We could've bought more but we restrained ourselves. :-) We do have to remember that this all has to be packed back into our suitcases and dragged around on trains to Berlin and Amsterdam next week.