So, it's been a while for me here. I'm not great with this blog updating business. Anyways, we're in Steinhagen right now staying with relatives. Last week we were in Bottrop at my Aunt and Uncle's place. My dad grew up in Bottrop and therefore we spent a good while visiting many of my dad's friends from the days of old when he was young. I had some good encounters and always tried to sharpen my German language skills with every visit. If that failed, I resorted to eating cake, and then some more cake, and after that, even more cake, and when the cake was gone, bread. Okay, it wasn't quite like that. Other than visiting, we had to register our van and make sure it was running smoothly. The van is an old Red Cross van, and came with all the labels and decals. We decided to peal those off. However, we still have a large red cross and number on the roof for air traffic to single us out. We better not speed, or steal anything...they'll find us pretty fast. One of the highlights of the last week was going to a football match with my brother and Uncle. It was my first live match of such magnitude ever! Since my Uncle has season tickets, he invited Stefan and I, and we gladly accepted the invitation. Our home team (Schalke 04) played Dortmund (a huge rival team) and won. With excellent seats (6th row) in a full stadium with about 61 000 people, we cheered Schalke onto victory. So, that's about it. The girls shopped alot. They have many stores here. I bought a pair of good shoes. It wasn't easy though; the shoe store had four floors. Tomorrow we are going back to Bottrop to pick up our van that should be all fixed up (we rented two cars for the trip to Steinhagen this weekend) and then we'll hopefully be on our way south. Take care!