June 24th

Today, Alina & I went shopping to get everything for Peter's birthday party (Geburtstagsfete) in Bochum and in Hattingen. The best shop was the "Trinkgut" (the beverage store). I got a German jersey for free because we bought so much beer for all of the neighbors.

I found out that at most shopping centers, you have to have a Euro coin in order to get the shopping cart. All of the carts are locked together, so you must put a Euro in to unlock it, and then when you lock it again, you can take your Euro back....I think we should do that here in America (with quarters, of course, and not with a Euro).

We went to Aldi. I found out that there are two Aldi brothers...one owns "Aldi-Nord" and another owns "Aldi-Süd" (Aldi-North and Aldi-South). In America, we have the southern part (orange). In this part of Germany, they only have the northern part (blue).


We watched the soccer game at the house for a little bit...Italy (the world-champion from 2006...it's only every 4 years) lost against Slovakia...so Italy is now out of the world cup.

Then, at about 6:15, Peter came home and we got ready to go for dinner. We went to a restaurant nearby called "Fabbrica Italiana". Every Thursday is Pizza Day there....so, we obviously had pizza. The restaraunt is the old train station. Everything was very delicious.

Here is the link: http://www.fabbrica-italiana.de/