Lubeck

There are several other interns who I work with at UNESCO and they are all pretty great.  This weekend we all decided to go on a day-trip together to a town called Lubeck (except the "u" has an umlaut over it).  

Countryside, as seen from the train-ride to Lubeck.

Lubeck used to be the capitol of Northern Germany and this is the gate to the city.

Other side of the gate.

There were looots of quaint streets.

Creepy horse at the puppet museum we happened upon.

And creepy puppets.

We paid a couple euro to go to the top of church that had the best views of the city.

Picture of the church when it was bombed in WWII.  Hamburg was bombed very heavily and much of the city was destroyed.

This is the only image of Christ I saw in the entire church and he was tiny and painted black.  I'm still trying to figure out what that says about the church.  

Can you find us?

Sophie and I, in particular, are a bit obsessed with out desire to get a dog.  This poor lady was walking by with these two dogs (mother & son) and we descended upon them, showing the dogs with affection.  I think she was, understandably, a bit taken aback.  But, the younger puppy was absolutely loving it.  I want a dog...

We explored a store that Ruthie and Sophie (pictured here) are familiar with from Denmark, where they go to school.

Candy shop.

Plant shop.  Many in Germany.

Loved seeing this old man ride by with flowers on the front and back of his bike.

Cherries anyone?

Fantastic dessert shop.

We stopped for lunch and decided to get a group.

Lover's locks on a bridge.

As we were on the bridge we witnessed what looked like a canoe race.  The lady at the drum was intense and everyone was yelling in unison.

Taken from the bridge.

The city was nice and quaint but not quite mind-blowing.  I enjoyed walking around and spending time with friends.  After we'd had our fill of Lubeck, we boarded the train again to head to the beach.  I didn't have too high of hopes, because going to the beach when it's in the low 60's just doesn't seem right to me.  However, there was a lot of interesting stuff going on and it ended up being really fun.

Strawberries are everywhere in Germany right now, and they are pretty good!

There were thousands of these at the beach.  You had to pay for them and pretty much none of them were being used.  Didn't seem like such a great idea, but made for a nice photo.

You can't really tell in the photos, but the water was actually pretty clear and turquoise. 

Parade on the walkway.

Sophie loved swinging but had never learned how!  We spent a good hour teaching her.  It was really fun!!  I love swinging.

To end the day we walked along the boardwalk, where there were lots of food booths, people selling their wares and street performers.

Crazy, crazy street performer.

Actually, one of my favorite parts of the day was the train home, just because we had some great conversations!  Great friends can really make all the difference.

Euro Cup 2012 - Germany vs. Greece

Well, as many Americans may not be aware, the Euro Cup 2012 is going on right now.  Basically, it's a soccer tournament that happens every 2 (?) years, where a bunch (16?) of the national teams play each other in a tournament, sort of like the NBA finals.  It is a HUGE deal here.  There are tons of stores selling merchandise and each time Germany plays there are TVs all over the place showing the game.  It seems as if most people watch.  Even if you aren't watching, you can always get an idea of how well Germany is doing because each time they score cars honk, people yell and fireworks go off.  In the first round, Germany played each of the 3 teams that were in their group.  They won all 3.  Because they did well, they made it into the semifinal round.  This is the game Tom and I went to on Friday night.  I was so glad they made it into the semifinals, because I hadn't gotten to watch ANY of the games and I'm the type who can't resist something exciting!  

We found out that there's a place called the KIA Fanfest where you can go to watch the games.  It's a big area, outside, that can hold several thousand people and that has a huge screen set up to show the game.  We'd heard it was quite a cultural experience to go.  It sure was.

The night started off with us getting off of the wrong stop.  This meant we had to walk down a long boulevard, called the Reeperbahn, which is notorious for its sex shops, etc.  Yay.  The worst part was seeing the strippers, because seeing strippers just makes me sad and depressed.  The 2nd worst part was that we got caught in a sudden downpour.  It was raining REALLY hard and I was so glad we'd brought the umbrella!  The whole street was set up for the game, with tons of outside areas with TVs and benches and food.  Unfortunately, everyone had to seek shelter under the awnings.  

Since we were still a little unsure of where we were going we decided to just follow everyone we saw wearing Germany colors, hoping they'd be going to the same place.  We got really confused, though, when all of a sudden huge hoards of people were going the opposite way!  But then we realized that because it was raining, everyone was leaving the arena.  It was quite a sight to see all these fans all decked out, but utterly drenched.

Set-up on the Reeperbahn

Fans leaving

Healthy police presence

When the game started everyone cheered.

so much trash

This game, in particular was interesting just because of who was playing.  On the one hand, Germany, Europe's financial giant.  On the other hand, Greece, Europe's financial disaster.  

lone Greek fan

Pictures of the game:

Smoke from fireworks that had gone off after a goal.

It turned out to be quite an exciting game!  Germany won 4-2, which is a pretty high score for a soccer game.  The team looked great.  The unfortunate thing is that every time they scored (and sometimes every when they hadn't just scored) people would throw beer flying through the air.  We got sprayed many times.  Drunk people are also, obviously, pretty obnoxious.  Finally, since it was standing room only it was a constant battle to try to see the screen.  Just when I had a good spot, looking between two heads, someone taller would walk in front of me and we would have to find a new spot.  But I really loved it anyway.  

We stayed for the whole thing, but slowly edged toward the exit at the end so that we wouldn't have to wait so long to leave.  There's a metro stop right outside the exit and tons of people needed to use it, so the police were there rationing a certain amount of people through each time a new train came.  They really had impressive crowd control.  

people like to stick their tongue out at me

The train driver drove in real slow and gave the crowd controller a look like, "oh goodness, this is going to be a long night."

Each time a goal was scored and from the time the game ended, until we got home, people were singing what seemed to be the theme song.  It goes like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpV8K91p4pk.  I've had it in my head all weekend.  When they sang it in the train car they started rocking it too.  Yeah, it was crazy.

Hi Tom.

Harbor, as seen from the stop when we were changing trains.

I forgot to take a picture of us so, uh, here ya go.

Also, I forgot to post about this, but never did, so a link will have to suffice: http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/06/03/218291.html .

Another post will follow shortly after this.