I just returned from the Polarbadet, the worlds northernmost aquatics center. The whole turkish-steam-bath-meets-nice-tile-and-a-water-slide thing works for me, it really does; I swam laps for a good hour before having lunch and playing with the two cousins I brought. I came home, ate half a watermelon, and now I am yours, dearest reader.

One of the things that perturbs me about this foreign world is the toilets. I kid you not: European toilets are cracked out. My grandparents have two bathrooms; one is a small half bath with a semi-regular toilet with a button on the top that you push down to flush and go about your business, and the other is a full bath with the weirdest aquatic contraption I've ever encountered. I've never used it, naturally; I'm not about to go pissing in something that could very well be a minimalist allotment of decor that's there to water the potted plants. It's resembles a toilet, I suppose, but it has a faucet on one end, is unbearably shallow, and is 1 1/2 times longer than it need be. The shape of the mysterious commodity tells me it must be the main lavatory attraction, it must be. There's nothing else it could be, but there's no toilet paper to be seen. Nowhere. It must be a designer fountain and the bathroom is, therefore, toiletless. Ergo my shower routine is somewhat a hassle, a frenzy of bustling from one bathroom to the other, a spell of impatience and simple but thorough confusion. One day I'll build up the nerve to approach my grandparents, take a deep breath, and ask 'why on earth would you pay money for that demented horizontal urinal?'.

Right now the fotbal game is on: Germany vs. Agrentina. I've really become involved in the game, and I'm becoming quite a fotbal junkie. I watched the Mexico-Brazil game the other day, and it was absolutely amazing. I'm going to go watch it, I'll write some more when I return.