relieved to have a friend once more.

Bremen:

Arrived: first night spitty horrible weather - I think it's following me around. Either the map or the roads are wrong, becuase i find my hostel street a lot sooner than i should have and it is a lot longer than it should've been. An odd area - expensive row houses, some nicely done up, some clearly graffitid student digs. Stay in the hostel alone for the first night - don't find it any friendlier than any of the hotels - only with shared bathrooms. However it is nice - very basic but clean, but i get paranoid about bedbugs and do some (unconstructive) internet reasearch to calm myself down resulting in a sleepless night.

Saturay Nhan arrives, weather still horrible. We wander into the centre of the city and look around in the markets (green cheese!). Have a great pea and sausage soup with soy sauce - the Bremen version of a pie floater? Go on a tour of the Beck's factory which nhan is surprisingly interested in. Try all the different kinds of Becks' (including the non-alcoholic and girly flavoured ones) as well as Haake-Beck - the local beer. Get rained on (again) on the way out - seek refuge in a Spanish cafe and end up staying for dinner. Back to the hotel and Nhan falls asleep litereally in mid conversation (i thought that only happened in enid blyton).

Sunday: sleep in. Check out, dump stuff at the train station. Go for a wander through the squares of the old town (incl the statue of the Bremen musicians). Find pastrys for breakfast - Nhan asks what something is and the lady turns to me for help translating. HA! Wander down (art deco alley) Boetcherstrasse and then through the Schnoor (cute germany/touristy alleys) and have lunch - clear veg soup and sausage for me and weird speciality for Nhan (minced meat mixed with stuff, an egg, a pickle, beetroot, herring). Rain stops starts stops starts stops, we wander to the student district and reflect that it seems like a really cool place, but unfortunately, being a sunday in europe, everthing is closed. Might have been a better choice for lunch. We have icecream - 'spring mascarpone' for me and 'grass' for Nhan. We stop for a drink (honey/milk, honey/lemon) and I help the waiter's english, and he helps my german. Everyone's happy.

Back to the train station, nhan gets more pastries & tries a mezzo mix. I get on my train with no hassles, nhan leaves for the tram.

Next stop: Hannover.