Sunday in Bremen

Len has a blog with pictures for his class. 2 of his students also have a blog. You can access them at these locations:
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/engineering/bremen
http://deutschlandduo.blogspot.com/

Some more observations.
The sirens here sound old fashioned to me. They are a two-toned sound with each tone lasting a couple of seconds. "High-Low, High-Low, Whee-Oh, Whee-Oh". At home we have one tone that lasts less than 1 second and keeps pulsing.

Even though it is July and about 70 degrees, people everywhere wear boots. They may have them on with shorts, skirts, pants, whatever. Both men and women wear them but mostly women. Children often wear rubber boots. Today we saw a couple with a baby in a buggy. Although the mother had a bikini top on with a thin short-sleeved T-shirt over it, they put a wool cap on the baby before getting off the train. Almost everyone wears jackets and those who do not, wear sweaters, not sweatshirts. Len commented today that when we get home, he can wear whatever he wants and just say it's the latest thing in Europe since here, pretty much everything goes. You can wear 6 different shades of green together, thick tights with high heeled open-toe sandals and shorts, whatever. Also, men carry purses. We'll have to look into getting Len a man-purse!This is the students on the pedestrian bridge on the way home from church. Our apartment is in the background. It is over the left shoulder of the student on the left. It has a white strip across the top with balconies below it.
This morning we went to an Evangelical church, St. Martini. The English version of the visitor guide said it was the "Reformed Main Church in Bremen". The service was all in German so we understood very little but we did hear the word, "Michigan" so the minister must have learned we were there from the greeters. (They call them vergers.) We could also identify the Apostle's Creed and the Lord's prayer. For each song, either the organ or a brass ensemble accompanied it, alternating verses. Every time the minister read from the Bible, everyone stood up.
Also in the visitor's guide it says the following: "Every day at 09.15 a.m. 12.15 a.m. 03.15 and 06.15 p.m. you can hear the unique chimes of Bremen from the steeple of our church: The world-famous hymn "Praise to the Lord, the almighty, the king of creation" is played. It was written and composed by Joachim Neander at the time he was preacher at our church from 1679 to 1680."
This church is right across the river from our apartment and we use the clock on its steeple since the only clocks in the apartment are on our wrists. :-) If you look at the blogs that I noted above, you will see a picture of it.

Today Len and I took the train to the University so he'll know where to go tomorrow when the students are with him. We got off one stop too early but a nice young woman helped us by pointing us in the right direction. On the way home, we got off early in order to walk through the town a bit. We found a windmill with geometric gardens around it and a tree that was tied up with cables to keep it from falling in the river. We also found a Fair Trade store, an Aldi and 2 McDonalds!

While Len and I explored the route to the University, the boys went out exploring on their own. They found many street performers and Jacob was fascinated by some of them. He claims some of them were good enough to join the circus. (Which, by the way, is his latest goal in life.) He managed to get pictures of some of them even though they discourage that unless you give them money. They didn't have any money on them and really wanted pictures. Jacob had Len's camera (Both of their camera broke on this trip - How frustrating!) so he could turn the viewer and lay the camera down in his lap. From far away, he could zoom in and they wouldn't realize he was taking pictures. Maybe one of them will help me add some pictures to these letters but for now you'll just have to rely on the blog links.

Earlier this afternoon, I took out Mancala. Jacob ran and hid behind a door shouting, "NO, don't make me do it!" I convinced him to play one game with me. While we played, Michael came in and said he'd play the winner. (Which was Jacob.) They have pretty much been playing it ever since when we are in the apartment. I have gotten in a couple of games.

Well it is almost time to meet the students for our dinner together. I hope I like it better than I liked mine last night! Tonight I think I'll order either beer or a coke instead of water. Yesterday my water was only 10 cents less than the pop anyway. By the way, the glasses are very small here and there are no free refills. We had to warn the boys not to suck their drinks down before they got their meal.

Happy Sunday to you all!
Ann