A trend that is not so good. This past weekend, which happened to be June fifteenth, we had our local fair here in Germany. We had some new rides and some old ones set up on one side of the fairgrounds. The fair takes place in what you would call a large green area. Part of it is a place where campers can park, while the other section is simply an open area where people can walk, play sports, or do whatever they like. It's not officially a sports area; it's mainly a walking area with lots of green grass and paved paths. During the fair, however, the whole place fills up. All of the campers that would typically be there for vacationers are gone, and once a year the area is transformed with rides, food stands, and tents where people sell a variety of goods. This year, however, my landlord tried to sell his product at the fair. I'm not going to disclose what it was, but it was a type of drink. He decided to take a chance and see if he could make a profit from the event. A few different times I asked him how sales were going. At that point, the fair was only about one-third of the way through its run. He did not seem too optimistic, but he certainly wasn't ready to give up. Today was the last day of the fair, and he was taking down his tent along with the people who were working with him. I walked up and quietly asked, "How did it go?" He was very disappointed. He wasn't disappointed with the sales. Not at all. He was disappointed by how much it cost to have the tent at that location and by the cost of the electricity that was required. The price was outrageous. He said they did make a profit, but not enough to make it worthwhile. If the price of electricity does not go down by next year, or if the cost of renting the space does not decrease, then he will not attempt it again. The theme behind this is that electricity, gas, and oil prices in Germany seem to be stuck in a strange loop. They go up, come down a little, go up even further, come down slightly again, and then climb even higher. It's getting to the point where people are having a hard time deciding what they want to do for entertainment. They're starting to restrict themselves. I'm not saying that people can't afford entertainment. I'm simply saying that there is a slight retraction in how much they're willing to spend. An analogy would be that instead of spending two hundred a month on entertainment, they're now spending one hundred and fifty, or even just one hundred a month. This is affecting businesses as well. And now that I have a firsthand account of how a large entertainment event such as a fair can affect people's bottom line, I'd say we have a problem here in Germany.