bikes, planes, and museums

let's see. after not writing things down for awhile i can't remember everything as well as i thought i would. as i'm finishing up my third week here, life has somewhat normalized. i ride my bike to work everyday, take the tram places, bike to the store, and do other normal activities now.

weekend of the june 6 and 7 -
saturday chris and i went around bremen, walking through the altstadt and along the river. some stores of interest were an outdoors type store and a tobacco store. i think my favorite item of the day was a pipe that cost 300 euros. i think if i take up pipe smoking, which may very well happen here, i'll start with an intro level pipe.
sunday i went out for a drink with Svenja to an interesting bar/restaurant that had a huge glass roof so that you could sit outside if you wanted. when the waiter came, i ordered a beer, and she asked me in german(of course) what size i would like. i responded with one of the options that i actually understood, which in this case turned out to be a very small glass. i thought it was kind of funny when i got it.
later that afternoon i was riding my bike around listening to some hard core music on my ipod, and going no hands around a turn on a dirt path i decided to take a break from my riding. very quickly. my left shin is still sore today.

during the week i biked to the laundromat with a backpack full of dirty clothes, and then biked back home with a backpack full of clean clothes. i'm not really sure how that works, but i try not to worry about things like that. it was actually kind of interesting at the laudromat. as i was wandering around trying to read the directions to the machines in german, a very friendly older man decided to help me out with the process. speaking completely in german, and gesturing a lot, he even helped me check the pockets of my jeans as i loaded the washer. maybe he was looking for change, but he seemed nice enough.

this past weekend was pretty fun. on friday, chris and i went on a Beck's beer tour. the tour was in german, so we understood not so much, but there were often signs with english as well. then of course, at then end was the sampling. that part we understood just fine. after four beers, we got to know the Beck's brand just a little bit better.
saturday evening/night was a special time where the museums in Bremen were open till 1am and you could buy one pass that would get you into them all. there was a lot of modern art, some landscape type paintings, paintings by Lucas Cranach, who i guess is a featured artist this summer, and then there was a museum that had a lot of world experience displays. chris and i also took a boot trip up the weser river. it was scenic, and on the return trip there was a live band on the boat that was from the czech republic. and guess what? they sang in english! the guy in front of us was eating a really long hot dog with mustard which he dropped half of on the floor and then continued to eat. appetizing.
speaking of gross eating habits. at work this past tuesday we had a small breakfast in our department. on the brotchen, or small rolls, they would put this meat spread. it was raw pork and beef ground up with salt and onion, and they would just spread it on the rolls and eat it. i can't say i tried that one.

chris and i are going to hamburg this weekend. so, we'll see what we can see.