Ow. The sun is bright in the morning, and it woke me at 6. I got up and closed the curtains, which helped considerably. I then returned to my sleep until 8.
The shower is rather confusing. At first look, it seems very like an ordinary one, save that the shower head can be hand-held or slid up and down a pole for adjusting the height. unfortunately, there seems to be insufficient friction on the pole, so the head will slide back down like one of the woodpecker toys one of my brothers has. Then there's the hot water. As far as we can tell, there is no reservoir of hot water, but it is heated directly by a machine with complicated instructions that nobody understands. The machine is not very cooperative, and it will shut off at its own discretion, leaving the user rather cold until turning off the water. (Bremen's tap water is impressively cold.) As such, we have taken to very short showers and soaping or shampooing after the hot water has left us, which may be all too soon.
We went to church as a group, attending the St. Martin's church service at 10. It promoted itself as an Evengelistic church, and it though the English brochure promotes itself as Reformed, I do believe it means "Protestant", rather than the tradition I know as Reformed. I have kept the handout containing the sermon passage and bearing the title "Gottesdienst St. Martini am 8. nach Trinitatis 2008". Yes, St. Martini. We received a special welcome as the travel group from the US, but of course, everything was in German. I understood most of the service, and I discovered the I know neither the Apostle's Creed nor the Lord's Prayer in German. This shall be remedied. Also, the church is one of the three churches readily visible from our room window, as it is literally right across the river from us. It has what I now recognize as a typical architechture and layout for a church, and its organ was duly impressive. Their hymns typically alternated between verses of organ accompaniment and brass accompaniment, which entailed trumpets, trombones, and baritones. I certainly enjoyed it, but I have the feeling that my companions would rather investigate rumors of an English service at a Baptist church, whose location is yet unknown.
As promised us yesterday, we went out for the group dinner tonight. I got Schollenfilet mit Kartoffelsalat. It was very good, and I had a Feldmann's Dunkel (dark), the house brew, to accompany it. I enjoyed the Feldmann's, and the dish was delicious. I had to act as a translator between my companions and the waitress. She complemented my on my German, which makes me very happy. After the meal, she asked me if America had restaurants or if everything was fast food. I replied with something like, "although we unfortunately have fast food, we also have restaurants", which we then clarified to include Italian food, etc. Yeah. So, if you are in Bremen, I can recommend Feldmann's.
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