I dropped two euros into a vat of hot sauce.

Today's pictures (just four, sorry).

First thing today, I had to go down to the Bahnhof and get a BahnCard50 (that gives me 50% off all tickets with DeutschBahn for a year, which is great). I'm pretty pleased with myself with that, because I had my first conversations beyond "Ich moechte Kuchen bitte!" There were a few irritating moments (for example, I know what gueltig means, but it completely escaped me even though I knew that I should know it - argh), but overall, I handled myself...almost competently. Oh, by the way, Mom and Dad, they're mailing the permanent card to your house since I'm not sure what my address here is, so you'll have to mail it to me. :)

Anyway, after that I went to get some breakfast at the same bakery as yesterday. I got this excellent little apple thingy. It was absolutely delightful in every way - flaky, crumbly, delicious. I watched some kind of crappy skateboarders near the Dom while eating it. There are only two in the picture, but there were more like six or seven actually there. I also sat my laptop bag down in a pile of whipped cream someone thoughtfully left on the ground, so I was grateful for the wipesy things Mom made me buy (which I now carry everywhere).

Following that, I went further into the shopping area, where there were some weird girls in top hats and external underwear trying to give everyone shots of something or other and candy, and bought a jacket and two sweaters quite easily. Sizing is all new here, so I had to figure that out. I'm apparently a 40 in tops, and a 37 or 38 in shoes, and don't know for bottoms.

Anyway, after that I went looking for an alarm clock. ARGH! There's apparently nowhere in this bloody city that sells alarm clocks. How hard can it possibly be, I thought, but I was wrong, horribly tragically wrong. So I spent three hours searching for a clock and couldn't find one and almost died in the process from my own unvented rage. Tomorrow I shall ask the guy at the front desk of the hotel if he knows some place that sells an Uhr please please please. It wasn't a complete loss, though. Lots of pretty things around, none of which I photographed because I was annoyed.

There was another adventure after that. I went into a random shop to get another doener (they're everywhere, seriously), and, first off, my German completely abandoned me. How can my German be fine yesterday and fine today through complicated train conversations but leave me when I need to order supper? Enfuriating. Anyway, the doener places are set up kind of like sub shops in the US - there's a clear glass counter thingy arching over the toppings and stuff so you can see them make it. So I got my doener, and I payed with a ten-euro note, and the guy shoves my change in coins back over the countertop. Alas, I wasn't expecting him to push it at me so fast, so one of the two-euro coins bounces off my hand, back towards him, and.....into the vat of hot sauce below. Plop. We kind of look at each other. "Um...es tut mir leid?" I say. He cracks up, gives me another coin, and orders a minion to come pour it out and find the money.

The doener was delicious, incidentally. Chicken or something (some white meat, could've been pork) instead of lamb, with shredded cucumbers and tomatoes and onions in with the lettuce and cabbage, and way more sauce... I think I liked the lamb better, but this was a better sandwich.

So, that was my day. Tomorrow I need to get a ticket for the train from Cologne to Dresden on Thursday, and I'll try to find an alarm clock again. Hopefully I can.