Sorry Hannah, all i got is: Bremen

i went to Bremen after class on Freitag. i didnt reserve a seat (it costs extra and im cheep) so i got stuck with the floor. yuck. but finally i got to Bremen, and followed the extremely easy directions to The Grand Hostel Bremen. it was 15 euros per nice and about 100x better than any i went to in Israel. of course, those were 15 shekels per night, which is probably like 8x less, so i guess it works out. for some reason, i got it in my head that i needed to get up at the crack of dawn on saturday to go to the cemetary and all that fun stuff. so i tried to have an early night. i had dinner at Casablanca (how could i pass that up?) i got a pizza which the waiter said was small but was like twice the size of me. it was HUGE and i sadly said goodbye to most of it. it was REALLY good. there were pictures from casablanca (the movie) all over the restaurant. it was nice. then i made my way back to the hostel and listened to My Sister's Keeper on my ipod (heartbreaking x 10) then some crazy guy from Dubai came and started talking to me about his life for HOURS he read my palm and said all sorts of weird things. finally i got to sleep and woke up at 7 the next morning. turns out i was about 3 blocks from the cemetery and i found it no problem. I didnt really think about the fact that it was Saturday. shabat. the cemetary was locked. so i went to the altstadt. i walked around Marketplatz, and the surrounding little streets. the shops were still closed but there on the side streets across from Marketplatz there was a pretty good farmer's market opening up. i got breakfast, and the best coffee i've had here yet i made my way along, past the beautiful old buildings (Bremen was not really hit too bad during WWII so there are some nicely preserved architecture. i made my way along to the river bank of the Weser and discovered a flee market of sorts. tons of people sell any junk they can find and people were actually LOOKING at stuff. like one man sold tons of old remotes. there was tons of ceramic and porclain stuffs, old kiddie toys, books, ugly clothes, shoes (some only had 1) all kinds of stuff. it was all junk but i couldnt seem to stop looking either, in search of a diamond in the rough. actually, i found it. for 50 cents, i got Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (Mother courage and her children) a play by Brecht, for those of you who dont know. Its in german, and im gonna try to read it. its not too long. then i walked and found St. Petri's Kirche (st. peter's church) and a pretty little garden in there too. i kept wandering around. they were auctioning off cars and stuff in the little farmer's market which was turning into a little shook of sorts. they played a bunch of music (all knock offs of american 60s and 70s bands. it was kinda weird to here vietnam songs in bremen, im not gonna lie). i decided for lack of a better idea, to head back towards the hostel where i had seen some shops and other stuff to look at, but the sun was shining and i passed a park that pulled me in. the path was lined with pansies and it led to the water and then along it. i found a little place with benches and asian art all around and a cherry tree or something that looks like a cherry tree. then i kept going and found a huge old school windmill that was turned into a restaurant. there was a huge pattern of pansies there, and grass which i passed out on for hours. i finally walked on until i ended up back at the Bahnhof (train station) and turned back to go to the hostel. i made it back there around 730 after getting only a tinsy winsy bit lost. i dropped off some stuff, and headed out again for food. i went to my first biergarten, which was a little intense for me i must say. there was a loud band playing classics that drunk people could sing along too. there was an accordion. the waiters wore liederhosen. it was loud and everyone was drunk, even the old grandmas who almost tripped on their way out. everyone was with a huge group and i was all alone, so it was a little intimidating. after that, i went to an irish pub and tried there, but i was pretty tired by this time. so i went back to the hostel and passed out. sunday (today) i went to the cemetary again. Zayde never told me it was a jewish cemetary. but it didnt surprise me that it was. no big deal. what was more of a big deal, was it was pretty much only russian. i could not for the life of me find Chaja Sara's grave. i was wandering around, even asked some old man who just shook his head. finally, a very nice old man came up to me and babbled in russian.

btw, this is the like the millionth time i have wished i spoke russian. i think its the next language i need to know. its quite a popular language in the world.

anyways, he (his name was antonov) took me into the little room that had the records and a map of the cemetary, and enlisted the help of another russian old man. together they deciphered what i had coppied down from zayde's email to me about the grave. we found chaja sarah in the records, and looked for where she would be on the map and then went to that spot. she was not there. finally, i found her. her grave was covered with mossy stuff and you could barely make out the inscription. antonov showed me how to clean the grave and we put 6 rocks on her headstone (for each of the points in the magen david) then with one of the rocks (they were white and chalky) we went over the inscriptions to make it easier to read.

after the friedhof (cemetary), i made my way down to the bahnhof and sad on the green infront of it and had some lunch before taking the trains back to berlin. this time i got a seat on both trains.