So, while Nikki is off enjoying the highlands of Austria, I shot west by southwest to the city of Bremen to see what the sleepy town has to offer. It is about an hour away from Teresa's house by train, so not too bad of a jaunt, and I arrived in Bremen a little before 11am and was back at Teresa's a little after 10pm. The heart of the city is its historic downtown, which is just a short walk from the train station. I spent most of the day taking in its variety of architecture, and opening and closing my umbrella as it was yet another drippy dreary day in rainy Northern Germany. This city, as much as any other I have seen so far, blends its building styles from various time periods together in such a way that all you have to do is stand in the main courtyard of the old downtown to see gothic, renaissance, art deco, and modern structures all mashed together and contrasting each other. But it works. There were several impressive buildings all within a few blocks of each other that piqued my interest, along with a substantial upscale shopping district that I had next to no interest in. I did however find amongst all the shoes and umbrella's for sale a place that was willing to make me a small pizza to order, so I happily devoured it. I also spent a fair part of the day in the Neues Museum Weserburg, a contemporary art museum that was certainly worth the modest price of admission and extra bit of walking to find it. I didn't hit the rest of the museums, as they didn't really trip my trigger, an impression based entirely upon the english translations of their titles. I also noticed an inordinate number of McD's and Subway restaurants per square km, three of each just in the downtown area. I actually entered one of the McD's to use a McToilet, but found it to be of the annoying pay for type that seems to be common in Germany. I am accustomed to toilettus gratis but I paid the toll anyway out of desperation. So as if this were not strange enough, the background music playing at the time went something like "it's raining men, blah blah blah and so on it's raining men" so that at this point I am not only annoyed at my circumstances but I was downright disturbed by them. Perhaps most disturbing is the difficulty since then I have had in driving the tune from my mind. I am now concerned that I have accidentally created an unconscious association in my psyche between that disturbing ditty and the sensation of urine evacuation. Should this prove the case I may require years of counseling and massive doses of powerful psychological drugs. Let us hope for the best. -Max