Bremen: been there, done that, took a picture

On Tuesday, it was still dumping rain, so I decided to go shopping. The Swedish krona is strong against the Euro, and I think I could spot a clearance rack anywhere in the world, so there were bargains to be had. I was impressed that there were so many book stores in Bremen. I'd say there were at least as many book stores as there were shoe stores, probably more if you count stores specializing in sheet music. Here in Sweden, shoe stores abound, but book stores are hard to find. I have never seen a store that sold sheet music.

Tuesday evening was the big conference dinner at the Ratskeller (the wine cellar under the town hall). The atmosphere was lovely. While the wine buffs were disappointed, I thought the food was quite good for a buffet for ~100 people. The cream of wild mushroom soup was particularly good. I found it odd to be one of only 5 women at this dinner. All of the conference participants were men, and only a few had brought their wives. It would appear that standardization is still a guy-thing.

On Wednesday, it was not raining, so I walked around taking pictures of everything I'd seen the previous days plus a couple more areas. On Wednesday evening we went out for dinner with a large group of guys. Many were tired of German food since they also got that for lunch at the hotel every day, so they chose a Tapas restaurant. Again, it was a bit disappointing.

Several of us had been looking forward to touring the Mercedes factory on Thursday, but it turned out that the only English tour was long since sold out. Thursday morning it rained again, so I went shopping again. It cleared up in the afternoon, so I expanded my walking radius in the direction of the train station. That turned out to be a pretty scary part of town, so I returned to the historical district and walked along the moat instead.

I had also been looking forward to some good workouts at the hotel gym. It turned out that the gym was tiny with only a few free weights and 4 stationary bikes. I biked for a half an hour on Monday, but after that I did not bother to go back. I much prefer an elliptical cross-trainer, a stair master, or even a treadmill. Our suite had a bathtub (we do not have a bathtub at home), so over the course of the week, I got quite good at reading a book while soaking in the tub.

Erik had a late meeting followed by dinner and drinks with the guys, so I opted to eat by myself. I had white asparagus with new potatoes and hollandaise sauce at an inexpensive cafe. Yum.

On Friday morning, I did the tour of the historic town hall. Erik and one of his friends finished up early on Friday afternoon, so we went walking and souvenir shopping. We listened for a bit to the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who was giving a big speech in the town square (undoubtedly having a lot to do with the elections on Sunday). We walked to another part of town which had been described to us as "a normal area where people live," but we ended up at a beer garden for dinner. Again I had white asparagus with new potatoes and hollandaise sauce. It was more expensive but still quite good.

When I was in Germany in 1989, I remember seeing a poster for spaghetti ice cream. I was fascinated, but didn't understand what it was or have the opportunity to try it. Since then I've seen it a few more times (but only in Germany). Bremen has an abundance of ice cream shops, and it seemed like they all had spaghetti ice cream. I can now read enough German to know that it is made of vanilla ice cream, strawberry sauce, and shaved white chocolate. Not being a fan of strawberries, I still didn't try it. On Thursday night, I discovered that the cafe had a chocolate variant of spaghetti ice cream, but I was too full to try it then. On Friday night, knowing that our dinner companion was a big fan of chocolate desserts, I suggested that we try this. The spaghetti turned out to be extruded soft ice cream which quickly lost any resemblance to spaghetti as it melted. It would have been much better with a high-quality thick fudge sauce instead of the ordinary chocolate syrup, but all in all, it wasn't bad, and my curiosity was finally satisfied.

Back at the hotel we remembered that we had coupons for free cocktails and beer at the bar. I metabolize alcohol so poorly that I rarely bother drinking, but since this was our last night to use the coupons, I figured I'd give it a try. I wanted something sweet and fruity without too much alcohol, so they made me a Cosmopolitan. It was quite good. Erik and his buddies were all drinking free beer, so I decided to try a Mojito. That was not at all as tasty, and after about 3 sips, I decided it was time for bed.

I did take a bunch of pictures in Bremen, and I'll post them when I get the chance.