Day 96-101

Wow, another crazy week full of action.  During the week: pretty normal, not much to report. 

Friday: Amazing-ness!!!  Joern's sister Anke reserved a table at a very fun Biergarten for about 20 people and we watched Germany play against Greece in the Euro Cup.  This is a lot like the Super Bowl in that everyone gets into it.  Many cities in Germany create a Public Viewing Area where everyone gathers to watch the games together (upwards of 5,000 people here in Nürnberg).  Everyone gets completely decked out in their country's colors, facepaint, the works.  Joern and I had our faces painted by a guy on the tram who felt we could simply not go out without some kind of decoration.  It was a tense game at first, but then Germany found their stride and we won!  There was dancing in the streets, flags waving, horns honking and general ruckus for hours. 

Saturday: Delightful German thing: Back in the Middle Ages, not so may people had knife sharpeners.  So, one of the services a peddler or Tinker would offer was to either sharpen your knife on the spot or trade it out for a sharp one for a fee.  This morning, a guy came through the neighborhood in a van with a really loud irritating horn...to sharpen knives!  People would come out (like the Ice cream man) only waving formerly sharp things like knives and lawn mower blades (not like the ice cream man).  Apparently, this tradition is still alive here in Germany.  It was so cool to see this guy at work and think that people have been doing that for literally thousands of years, right here.  We may want to re-think the horn and get some music fo rthat guy, but overall, delightful!  Also, our friends Jens and Sabrina came over to grill.  We had burgers, pasta salad, corn, and strawberry tart.  We were so full it hurt, but in a good way. 

Sunday: Our downstairs neighbors came over for Coffee and Cake (that's totally a meal here-score!).  We now know everything about all of our other neighbors, and assume that by now they know everything about us.  Maybe we'll even talk sometime ;-)  As a side note, England was ousted in a heartbreaking penalty shoot-out with Italy.  So on Thursday, we'll be watching quite the match: Germany vs. Italy!