Eighteen

Saturday, the 18th day.

I slept in late today- till ten. Then, we had our usual breakfast of toast with jam. Right away, we started on the first day of our "Family Weekend". The first item was to drive to the other side of the Elbe. I haven't found a really great map of Hamburg yet, but Harburg and where we live are to the south of the Elbe, while the main city is to the north. We took the new Elbe Tunnel, which is quite long and interesting.

Finally, we arrived on the other side (after about 35 minutes of driving) and picked up Max's grandparents to go out to lunch. For some reason, they decided to take me to a Texas-Style steakhouse. The food was good, but not very original. I did enjoy talking to Max's grandparents.

After lunch, we proceeded to the richest part of Harmburg. It's built on a river bank cliff- the area was just really cool. We could see the Airbus factory again as we took a walk on the "beach" of the Elbe.

About an hour later, we drove back home. On the way, we stopped by their 70,000 seat stadium, but the area was packed and the stadium was closed because they were doing a sound check for the Bruce Springsteen concert later that night.

We were only home for a little while before leaving to once again cross the Elbe. Our destination was the "Krimitheatre", or a theater that only plays detective stories. It's on the Reeperbahn, the main street in the red light district. We parked and waited around a while watching "Harley Days". I've never seen so many motorcycles and "manly" motorcycle men with their moustaches and beer (of course, all speaking German).

This was a really wonderful little theater. Probably only 200 seats or less, it was really packed in tight. However, the sound was great and the atmosphere perfect. The play, called "Der Schwartze Apt" was really good. The plot was a lot like Musical Comedy Murders of 1940. Set was amazing. At first, it looked like nothing special, but then the whole back wall opened to reveal secret tunnels and the like. Really cool.

Robert