Uni-Konstanz

recap of a life unterwegs

2008-08-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

As promised, my fifteen favorite photos I haven't posted yet and:

a map of all the places I went (excluding the US). In dark green are the countries I went to over the semester, in red are the specific cities, and in brown are the countries I've been to before.

Constance, March
gravestone of a Jewish soldier from WWI who died fürs Vaterland (for the fatherland)
ironic, seeing as what would happen a few years later

Berlin, April
Jewish memorial

Berlin, April
Berlin Wall, East Side Gallery

Moscow, April
That disgusting statue of Peter the Great towers over Christ the Savior, one of the most beautiful churches ever.

Cairo, May
An odd statue stands in front of skyscrapers. No one knows what the statue means anymore, tho, as the lettering at its base was rubbed off.

Cairo, May
Red sails on the Nile stand out in the smoggy evening.

Luxor, May
statue of a pharaoh towards sunset

Radolfzell, May
Birds fly over the Naturschutzgebiet on Lake Constance.

Augsburg, June
sea green and yellow light

Augsburg, June
near the entrance to an art museum

Montreux (Switzerland), June
A cruise boat crosses Lake Geneva in front of the Alps.

Zurich, June
The captains of Europe's EM 2008 teams dwarf visitors in the Hauptbahnhof.

Oslo, June
Vigeland

Dubrovnik (Croatia), July
Where's the Cheshire cat?

Constance, July
I pose for the first and only time with those weird blue statues in front of the university.

So in closing, thank you for reading, thank you for all of your comments, and I hope you enjoyed. I know I did ;)

sich verabschieden

2008-07-28T19:59:00.001-07:00

The tropical night clung to my skin in beads of sweat and condensation. Their spears pierced me on all sides, and I laid bloodied and exhausted in the dark. They spun, drummed, and screamed their mad dance around me. They built mounds of flesh as monuments to their savage lust. I prayed for an end to the brutality, but there came not a hint of remission. And as the red sun rose past my sleepless, shuddering eyelids, I knew this was the end. Smack! I left another blood-stain on the wall. God knows I will not miss the mosquitoes.

Well everyone, that's the end of my trip. I leave tomorrow morning from Zurich and get in directly to Rochester. This, however, will not be my last post. Once I'm home I promise you one final entry with my 15 favorite photos from my time abroad that I for various reasons wasn't able to post earlier.

also bis bald!

I like words with no vowels in them,

2008-07-27T11:21:00.000-07:00

like Srđ, or words with way too few vowels, like Srpskohrvatski - ha! But seriously, I could read a decent amount of the Croatian (and even understand some of it spoken) and ended up buying a book; I'm already about half-way through ;)

But on a more serious note, I just got back from Dubrovnik! Here is a summary of Cody and my travels:

To get from Split to Dubrovnik we had to take a bus. It was so slow that it took over 6 hours! And it was bumpy as heck since we were going through mountains the entire time.

We stopped for a break in Bosnia. It looked basically like Croatia.

Our second day in Dubrovnik (the first we just wandered the neighborhoods around our hostel) we went to the old city (Stari grad, cf. Russian Stary gorod or Старый город). It was really beautiful, but also hot (90s)!

Dubrovnik harbor

We climbed the city walls and walked around all of the entire Stari grad.

view of Dubrovnik from the city walls

Inside the city walls we went to an aquarium that had flying fish! That's the first time I've seen live flying fish up-close (at the distance I saw them in the everglades, it doesn't count).

This tortoise apparently lived in our hostel's courtyard.

The next day we went back to the old city, saw a museum of Balkan icons, several churches and stuck our feet in the Mediterranean (freezing!).

We went into this really pretty monastery inside the city walls. It was really pretty and had this shockingly modern chapel.

In the evening we went to this place called Heidi Fast Food and got cheeseburgers that were literally the size of frying pans. And they were good! Those and burek (I had more than several of these) are officially my favorite Croatian dishes.

And now I'm back in Constance. We flew TUIfly, which made me nervous, because I thought it was going to be one of those awful cheap airlines, but it was actually completely decent. Croatia was fun, adventurous and new. It was quite Western, but not quite first-world (a lot of things I've grown to expect I think shocked Cody - "accommodations gypsies", a rooster that lived next door to our hostel, naked and near-naked people on the beach - some peeing). It wasn't as cheap as I'd hoped, but I still had a great time and experienced a lot!

Split, Hrvatska

2008-07-23T09:02:00.000-07:00

Cody and I are in Split, Croatia! It was one giant adventure getting here, and has continued to be a little otherworldly at times, but mainly in a good (or at least humorous) way.

We flew into Dubrovnik and then took a 4-hour bus ride up the coast and through the mountains to Split. On the way, our bus driver (who spoke with me in German - which seems to be more accessible here than English) handed out to all of us what I assumed were hard candies, but turned out to be menthols.

Split

After some searching we found the hostel building on Sonjska Ulica (yes, that's a j in the middle of that word) and lugged our bags up three flights of stairs only to be dragged about fifteen minutes to another area of town in which our actual room is. It turns out we're living in a room in this young woman's apartment. Barbie, as we've affectionately come to call her, speaks about ten words in English to add to her zero words in German and Russian. This is the first time in years I've been in a country where I speak nothing of the language, and that kind of sucks.

After dumping our stuff, we wandered to the seafront and had pizza.

Today we wandered around. It turns out we're living inside Roman emperor Diocletian's Palace (Dioklecijanova palača), which is really cool. We're also only a few minutes from the Adriatic Sea. The area is really pretty posh.

the seafront in the day

the marina

more of Diocletian's Palace

Tomorrow we head back to Dubrovnik, where we'll spend the next four days!

Cody und ich fahren nach Augsburg

2008-07-21T13:46:00.000-07:00

This will be a quick post, but here are some photos from Cody and my last two days. Yesterday we rode to Augsburg to spend a few days with my amazing relatives one last time before I have to go back to the States.

Last night we went to the Kirchweih beer tent in Augsburg. Cody and I finished our Masses with smiles.

Then today we went on a tour of Augsburg led by Rolf and Hermann. Here we are posing with a gorgeous lady-gnome.

This is a Holbein (one of four) in the Augsburg Cathedral.

Annakirche

more Annakirche

the Goldener Saal in the Rathaus (City Hall) - Why doesn't Byron's new million dollar capital building look like this?

And the last thing we saw on our tour was the Fuggerei, which was the very first "social settlement" in the world. It was built by Jakob Fugger the Rich in the early 1500s to help out the poor. It runs on the same principals today: If you're a Catholic Augsburger who's suddenly fallen into poverty (by no fault of your own), you could live here for €1 per year!

Afterwards we went to visit Sir Walter at his home. He turns 90 at the end of August! It was very nice to see him again.

Tomorrow Cody and I fly to Croatia at 11:30am! I'm very excited, but it's also sad to have to leave the Egenbergers. They have been (as always) spectacular hosts :)

PS - Und Max Haase, falls du dies noch liest, bitte schicke mir eine Mail (CMEHalverson@gmail.com), damit wir uns wieder in Verbindung setzen können!

mein letztes Mal auf Mainau und Codys Ankunft

2008-07-19T15:44:00.001-07:00

First off, very exciting new out of St. Louis: my cousin Nicole had her first child: Connor Patrick! So congratulations to Nicole and the whole Halverson family!

A few days ago, several of us used another coupon to take the ferry to Mainau. That was probably my last time there :(

Here's Constance's infamous Imperia statue. She was a prostitute in Constance way back in the day. Among her greatest achievements were sleeping with a king and a pope (the two little people she's holding in her hands). She's huge and rotates 360° every minute. I love Constance.

Lake Constance from the ferry

auf Wiedersehen, Mainau :(

While we were on Mainau we stopped in the chapel there. They have these pseudo-mannerist angels all over the place that I think are probably the ugliest things I've seen here.

The chapel is where a bunch of my German friends and I saw Hamlet performed.

We got another glimpse of a peacock.

sunset over Lake Constance

Then yesterday I went to Zurich to pick up my friend Cody from the airport. We spent most of the day touring the city.

We climbed to the top of Grossmünster and got quite the view.

Cody claims the reason he's not smiling in this photo is because the guy who took it didn't count down, but really I know it's because he already hates Europe so much ;)
(That's Grossmünster in the background.)

Teri, any idea what these are?

Zurich was actually way cooler than I'd expected.

On our way back, we were given bad directions and wound up in the middle of nowhere (i.e., the Swiss equivalent of Byron, called Rafz). This added another hour or so to the return trip.

In evening I ditched Cody (already, I know), because I had an End of the Semester party at my Arabic professor's house in Reichenau, an area of Constance that is also a World Heritage Site. It was a lot of fun: tons of delicious Arabic food, good conversations with friends from class and new acquaintances, and lots of presents! Our class gave my prof a bonsai tree and cards, but he and his wife gave us left-overs (I got four bags full), posters (he's also a pretty famous musician), and I even got a CD and DVD of his latest album, for which I did the English translations.

just a nice snapshot I got of a fountain in Reichenau

While I was in Reichenau, Cody, Kirsten and Chrissy went out to the beer garden on the harbor. I'm pretty sure we both had a blast. And today we're off to Augsburg!

(PS - Also check out Cody's blog.)

ein Ende für die Klausurzeit, Gott sei Dank

2008-07-16T03:42:00.000-07:00

Hello Leute! I haven't done much the last week other than write papers and study for exams. Luckily, however, the weather up until yesterday was also has been kind of dreary. Most of last week it rained and was in the low 70s, so I didn't have to look out the window and say to myself, "Why aren't I at the beach?"

rainy day in the natural lands

Over the weekend I went to a play on Friday (which was really bad) and to this music festival thing in Neuwerk with a bunch of German friends on Saturday. On Sunday I literally worked on a paper all day.

Then today I got my first grade back. I got a 2.3 in Russian, which is probably equivalent to a B+, but it was actually the highest grade in the class, so I'm thinking I did really well anyway. Plus that class was insanely hard, and I was one of the few (about 40% of the class) who didn't speak Russian at home with their family (most of my fellow students have Russian parents, you know).

Well, that's truthfully about all I have to say. Hope everyone's having fun at the family reunion, and for those of you who aren't at the reunion (like me), I hope you're having fun, too.

Oh, and Cody's coming in less than 3 days!

Schiffsausflug u.s.w.

2008-07-11T04:05:00.001-07:00

Well, I've had my first three finals (Klausuren) - in German, Arabic and Russian - and they all went fairly well, tho I don't have the grades yet. As a break from the cramming (Pauken), we international students were invited to go out on one last excursion: a boat cruise on Lake Constance.

The weather was perfect, and the view was really nice.

Each country got its own table or section of a table. The USA tied with the Czech Republic for most participants, so we helped fill out Canada's table, too.

the Alps

more of Lake Constance (I like the distance in this photo.)

Well, that's basically all I've done recently, other than study and write papers (I have two due next week), but I thought I'd fill out this post with a little more on German culture.

So this is my yogurt I bought a few days ago. It's delicious. German yogurt is so much better than American yogurt. But that's not why I posted a picture of it. How much of it can you read? Probably about 70% without any knowledge of German. That's because they love to use English. Here you can see, for example, "collect" instead of sammeln and "family" instead of Familie (even though they share the same Latin root).

Other "Anglizismen" (Anglicisms) that I've heard include der Deal (the deal), Late-Comers, gecheckt (past participle of checken, to check), sorry (nearly everyone says this instead of the cumbersome Entschuldigung, which itself is often shortened to 'Tschuldigung), and call mich an (call me up, although they pronounce call like "coal").

And two pieces of good news from Sonnenbühl Ost: No, I don't have internet (I'm in the library again), but the shower has gotten significantly better! First off, we have a new curtain. It's not hanging on by one clip, and it has no mold! Secondly, someone (not I) came up with the brilliant idea to use a spook to correct the shower head's range of spray. Now I can shower like a normal person. (A funny side note is that the Vietnamese guy in my house uses a chopstick instead of the spoon - I swear to God!)

Well, I should get back to writing that Hausarbeit. To all of my maternal relatives: have a great time at the lake! Wish I could be there, but I've got school stuff, you know ;)

Fourth of July and Intestine City

2008-07-07T02:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't written in a while - my internet's been especially worthless recently. (I haven't had any connection for about the last four days now in Sonnenbühl Ost.)

A few days ago Chrissy, Denis and I used another coupon of ours to eat at a restaurant on the Rhine. We sat outside, and this was our view.

Then we took a walk along the Rhine and Lake Constance.

palm trees on Seestraße

Then for the Fourth most of us Americans (as well as Canadians, Brits, Azerbaijanis, etc.) met at Europahaus to have a "Grillfest" (the German term for a barbecue).

Yes, that's a Target bag - Kirsten brought it from the US!

friends from around the world

Then yesterday Chrissy, Kirsten and I went to Darmstadt, which is near Frankfurt. I chose the city for two reasons: for its interesting architecture and for its museum of world-famous specimens from the Messel Pit, a fossil bed nearby that is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The first thing we did was go to the Hessische Landesmuseum (well, actually, first we grabbed some crepes). Unfortunately the museum is closed until 2011. To imagine what I wanted to see there, you can check out these videos on YouTube of what life in Messel would have looked like (here, here, here).

After that disappointment we went to the Künstlerkolonie (Artists' colony), which was really cool. It's known for its unique architecture.

This is the Wedding Tower (Hochzeitsturm).

We took an elevator to the top, and we got this view. In the bottom right corner you can see the Russian Orthodox chapel that was given to the city by Tsar Nicholas II in honor of his wife, Alexandra, who was from Darmstadt.

Next up, we went to the Hundertwasserhaus (or Waldspirale), which is one of the oddest looking buildings ever. It is currently an appartment complex. It was built in 2000 by hippy/architect Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser ("Kingdom-of-Peace Rainy-Day Dark-and-Colorful Hundred-Waters") and was supposedly partly inspired by Russian Orthodox architecture (look at the onion domes).

At the Hundertwasserhaus we met this really nice man who drove us to the museum that supposedly had the displays from the Hessische Landesmuseum while that building was being redone.

It didn't. But it did have tons and tons of these old printing presses and stuff.

So that's a very brief update on my life until now. Last week I had my first final (German), this week I have my next two (Arabic and Russian), and then next week I have two papers due and my final in linguistics. Hopefully I'll have internet again soon so I'll be able to do research at home instead of here in the library - and so I'll be able to post to my blog more frequently!

ha det bra, Norge :(...

2008-06-30T01:38:00.000-07:00

So, as promised here's the last post about Norway. (Side note: I'm back in Constance, and the trip here was fine. I would have liked to have posted yesterday evening, but I had no internet - surprise!)

The Stokkelands have done some remodeling since the last time I was there.

Their house is gorgeous. And it's seriously hard to believe the view they have from it.

We went the Munch Museum, where they have "The Scream" (above) and "Madonna". Both of these paintings were stolen by very stupid thieves who nearly ruined them because they didn't know how to take care of the works. I lucked out, however, to have come during the brief stretch of time that the two pieces are back up on display before being taken down again in order to be further restored. I struggled to decide which photo from this museum to put up (I really like Munch); I ended up choosing "The Scream" simply because even if the name Edvard Munch didn't ring a bell, the image of the second most recognizable painting in the world (BNET) would.

We had a picnic in the Botanisk Hage in Oslo. (Look at Mira!)

Then we waltzed to the Viking Ship Museum ;)

This is the Oseberg Ship. It was buried in the ground around 800 CE and discovered near Tønsberg (Norway) in 1904. Imagine burying that massive thing. That was someone's funeral!

The Viking Ship Museum inspired Magnus to become a gansta.

Oslo harbor - I like the mixture of eras here: You have the fortress from around 1300 CE, some very modern looking ship (I own that one) in the foreground, and what looks like a pirate ship (but probably fishes for shrimp) to the right of that.

And, though I'm sure most of you didn't, we obviously watched the last soccer game in the EM 2008. Only one goal was scored, but it was by Spain, so unfortunately Germany's chant "So seh'n Siegler aus" doesn't end in "Deutschland!" this time.

But this does remind me of something I'd been wanting to post for a while now. Lukas Podolski plays for the German national team (although he was born in Poland). He's quite the player. For example, he scored both goals in Germany's first game - against Poland! (I think the Poles might think of him as a traitor.) Well anyway, I'm not writing about him because of his sweet Fußball skills. No, I'm writing about him because he has some amazing quotes.

Soccer is like chess, only without the dice. (Fußball ist wie Schach, nur ohne Würfel.)

There's only one possibility: victory, defeat, or draw. (Es gibt nur eine Möglichkeit: Sieg, Niederlage oder Unentschieden.)

(Spiegel article in English)

So Germany's game against Spain?

sorry, Podolski…

But seriously, thank you, Stokkelands, for the wonderful five days in Norway!

tilbake i Norge!

2008-06-28T15:56:00.000-07:00

I'm in Norway! I got here at about 11:00 am on Thursday and am staying with my relatives, the Stokkelands. They used to live in Rochester way back in the day, so I (and the rest of my family - and Grandma) know them quite well.

They live in a town near Oslo. This is the view from their house - gorgeous, right?

Today we went into Oslo to do a bit of touring. Our first stop was the castle.

Norway elected its most recent dynasty. That's right, elected. They apparently have quite a bit of popular support, even tho the prince and princess are kind of … unique. (Princess Märtha Louise has founded an engelskole, where people learn to talk to angels as a form of medicine; and Prince Haakon married a single mother with possible drug history.)

Here's the group of us. Eline isn't in the picture, because she just got home this evening from a rock festival.

Mira, who's five and still insanely rambunctious, also likes ice cream ;)

We went to Vigeland Park, which is known for sculptor Gustav Vigeland's numerous nude statues of people expressing the gamut of emotion at various stages in life.

more Vigeland

Magnus was more mature about it than I was, I think.

It is very pretty, huh? We had brunch here (lefse!).

Then we went to the new opera house, which was coincidentally built by the same architecture firm (Snøhetta) as the library in Alexandria. It is likewise one of my favorite buildings ever.

The walls of it are covered in braille. (photo with Ingvild and Magnus)

the family :)

Magnus the Magnificent did some spectacular magic tricks with his bottle of water.

more opera house

And I'm here until Monday around 5:00 pm, so expect at least one more post about Norway!

weitere Infos über den Alltag

2008-06-23T05:04:00.000-07:00

You know those entomologists who go into the Amazon to catch insects? That’s me every day. Each morning I trek into the steaming lavatory (or WC, as they call it here) to shower, and each morning I discover a new species of bug previously not known to live in our “bungalow.” Today I was especially lucky to find not only mosquitoes, flies and spiders, but also three very large moths.

One of them (which looked like a bird dropping) was unfortunately no longer there by the time I’d gotten my camera.

Speaking of bugs, in order to protect myself from being covered by mosquito bites during the night, I recently purchased this lovely silver net (Fliegengitter) to cover my window. (Apparently Sonnenbühl Ost doesn’t believe in window screens.) Well, it cost me €5,50 (or like a trillion US) and it sucks. It came with “tape” (Klebebände) to put it up, but it’s only one sided, and the other side is covered with these brail-like bumps that you’re supposed to press the mesh onto. Nonetheless the Gitter falls down more often than it stays up. So I duct-taped it to the sill, but it still falls down. Plus it looks like one of those metallic sheets they put up when the bad guys quarantined ET. That was a good purchase.

But anyway, to keep with the “daily life” theme of this post, let me tell you about the every-night excitement of the EM (European Soccer Championship, or Fußballeuropameisterschaft – yes, that’s one word). So there are one or two games a night, and most Europeans go crazy over them. People drive around honking and screaming and celebrating until 3 or 4 am basically every day. It’s awesome! The last game that Germany won, fans ran into the street and were draping passing cars in the German tricolor, sometimes not letting them pass until they’d called out every one of the German players’ names.

So apart from watching soccer, what have I been doing recently? Well, this Saturday a few of us went to Meersburg again.

We took the ferry there.

It’s much prettier in the summer.

Then yesterday a bunch of us Ostians went to the beach, laid out and swam.

And this Thursday I’m off to Oslo to see the Stokkelands and will head back to Constance on Monday.

Lac de Genéve/Genfer See/Lago di Ginevra=Heaven

2008-06-19T07:25:00.000-07:00

For the last leg of our trip, my lovely family and I went to Lake Geneva.

International Red Cross and Red Crescent (Croissant-Rouge - ha!) in Geneva

Geneva has one of the world's largest fountains (le Jet d'eau - that spout on the left side of the photo). They also have a giant soccer ball balloon flying over it in honor of Euro 2008.

Geneva was okay, but Montreux (a small city also on Lake Geneva) was spectacular. It's even prettier than Constance, and that comment's coming from someone with a massive bias toward the latter.

family minus Dad in Montreux

Montreux (it was in the 80s)

While in Montreux we took a boat to Château de Chillon, the castle about which Byron wrote his poem about François de Bonivard.

De Bonivard was imprisoned in the castle with this view to taunt him every day. He was the real life Tantalus.

another shot of Chillon Castle

and another, with Lake Geneva and the Alps as backdrop

Swans are all over this lake. At one place in Geneva (the space of about 6m²) I counted a dozen.

They're also friendly. (They thought my sister had food.)

Dad in front of Chillon Castle

Then we rode first class around the lake for 2 hrs. It was an extremely nice end to an extremely nice trip.

It was wonderful to see the family, and (at least I think) we had a wonderful time traveling this little slice of Europe together.

Deutschland mit der Familie

2008-06-16T15:18:00.001-07:00

I'm writing from Geneva! We spent the last few days with the Egenbergers in Augsburg, but first family photos from Constance, as promised:

To our left would have been the Alps if it hadn't been so cloudy…

After checking out my "sweet pad" as I call it, we decided to see something of a different kind of beauty: Insel Mainau.

my mom and my sister on the bridge to Mainau

on Mainau

My mom kept saying how much Teri would love Insel Mainau.

We went to Mainau in the evening, which turned out to be a stroke luck - there was hardly anyone on the island. And in the butterfly house, which is normally jam-packed, we were literally the only visitors.

Another cool thing about going in the evening was that a lot of animals were out and about. (I assume the normal crowds tend to scare them away.)

So sorry for that anachronistic tangent, but I promised photos. For recap: first off was Constance, then Colmar, and then Augsburg to visit the relatives. The second day we were in Augsburg, Hermann, Anita and Rolf gave us an amazing tour of the city.

cathedral

more Augsburg: Sts. Ulrich and Afra

Jesus vs Whore of Babylon at 10pm only on FOX!

near the city wall

Egenberger reunion! (Though not in the photo, we also visited Walter, who will be 90 in August!)

In summary, the visit in Augsburg was amazing! Anita, Hermann and Rolf are wonderful people and spectacular hosts - thank you so much yet again for the great time!

à Colmar avec ma famille

2008-06-13T13:39:00.000-07:00

My family came to visit me! (Because I visited them, right? Except it's a little more fun to vacation in Europe than in Byron…) They arrived Wednesday evening. Thursday we went to Mainau and walked around town, but unfortunately my camera battery was dead, so I have no photos (I may put some up later after I steal them from my visitors). Then today we went to Colmar, a small city in the Alsace région of France (near Strasbourg).

We went to the Unterlinden Museum, which is in what used to be a convent. It has lots of paintings that my mom really likes. Some of them I also liked a lot (e.g., the Issenheim Altarpiece and Schuler's "La char de la mort" - sorry, I couldn't find a good image of that one), but mainly I took pictures of the ones I thought were ugly (see below).

That's what baby Jesus really looked like: Mr. Potato Head on meth.

Then we wandered.

There are more German half-timbered houses in Colmar than all of Germany put together, I'm pretty sure - and it's in France! Madness, I tell ya.

This cathedral is one of many buildings that had these unique, green-tiled roofs.

And here's Colmar's Petite Venise (Little Venice). This city's beautiful.

After checking out the Musée d'Histoire naturelle et d'Ethnographie (they let us in as a family for €4 total, instead of what we were supposed to pay - €14!), we were ambushed by young women in weird clothes. The one in the purple tutu was apparently about to get married, but before she did so, she and her girlfriends had to go thru town and measure 500 meters worth of men (like, e.g., my dad and me). After measuring us, she kissed us and gave us candy.

And this is Alsace on the way back to Constance.

So I realize I didn't actually put any pictures of us as a family up, but I promise to do that in my next post. So far all I have are a bunch of photos of my sister being a goof (shock, right?). More to come - soon!

Glückspilz/kostenloses Wochenende!

2008-06-08T15:09:00.000-07:00

So I really lucked out this weekend: I paid for just about nothing and still did tons of stuff!

My weekend started on Thursday (I don't have any real class on Friday - just tandem team). That night my March language course group got together at a beer garden on the harbor.

Here's my half of the table. (The guy next to me is Denis, my tandem partner.)

Our professor came, too. She is great. I gave her this drawing I did of her as a gift, and she loved it and kissed me on the cheek and kept thanking me. That was sweet. (I purposefully did it on notebook paper, because she always teased me about my doodling during class. She said once that she wanted me to make a booklet of all of my best doodles from class.)

On Saturday we Oles went to Sea Life Center (yes, that's its German name), which is an aquarium mainly for little kids – screaming little kids with microscopic attention spans. We got in for free with a coupon from the booklet that we got when we became residents.

What's a blog post without a photo of Chrissy doing something weird?

There was a cool tank with baby sharks and rays and the real mermaid's purses from which they "hatch."

And they had one of those tunnels you walk through with sharks and sea turtles and eels on all sides. I'm a sucker for those tunnels.

At the end there was this wall where kids stuck post-its answering the posed question "What do you wish for the future of the lake?" Here's my favorite response:

DAS GANS FILE DELFi NE GiBT. [sic]
(dass [es] ganz viele Delfine gibt. that [there] are lots of dolphins.)

After that we went to a free museum above Sea Life with taxidermied animals, which was also cool.

I love Constance.

Then we split up, and Kirsten and I went to Osiander Café to use another coupon (Gutschein) for free hot chocolate (heiße Schocki), which was perfect on a somewhat chilly day. (Don't worry, parents, it's already back to beautiful today!)

After that the two of us went to the Archäologisches Museum, which is free Saturdays. It has artifacts from all over Baden-Württemberg from the prehistoric up through about the 14th century.

Here are some trepanned skulls.

And here's a Carnival (Faschnacht) mask and part of a window from an old Gothic church.

Then yesterday six of us (one German and five foreigners) went to Kreuzlingen, our Swiss neighbor city, to watch Germany wallop Poland in the European Football Championships. While we were standing in line, some extremely nice woman offered us her tickets for free (they had cost her 11 franks, or about $11, a piece)! We lucked out so much! Plus she said there were only four tickets, but it turned out there were six (perfect)!

Deutschland schalala!

Tonight I'm going Shamrocks for their Monday special: delicious half-price hamburgers and €1 off a pitcher of beer! And better yet, my family is coming from the US to visit on Wednesday!

Vokuhila, or The Mullets of Europe

2008-06-05T07:54:00.000-07:00

That's right, I'm dedicating this entire post to the mullet. I went into town today to get my hair cut, and in the period of just under three hours, I saw two things I'd never seen before in one day: an old man mullet and a small child mullet. For some reason it's come back to Europe. You may remember the mullet from back in the 80s, but in America it has become associated with the White Trash movement. "But why?" you ask. My response: Get your eyes checked before operating heavy machinery or taking that goofy kid up on their offer to grab dinner and a movie.

The German word for mullet is Vokuhila, which is a surprisingly Soviet-esque contraction of Vorne kurz, hinten lang (front short, back long), which led me to believe that the mullet may have originated in the Motherland.

So I looked it up, and indeed, the mullet "sprang fully-formed from the head of Rus" (Nestor, 1290).

altogether an attractive look

A Lady-Mullet is a rare speciment, but I'm vigilant.

You might not be able to tell, but this man has his mullet in a pony-tail.

Too young to be able to fight off his evil parents, this American child is forced to wear his hair like a savage European. Oh wait, that's me!

Alright, so maybe there'll be a serious post in the near future, or maybe it'll just be more junk from the mullet paparazzi. There's only one way to find out!

Side note - The German newspaper Die Bild recently ran a hilarious article making fun of a British guy for suing his travel agency due to there being "too many Germans" on his trip. For those of you who can read German, I'd highly recommend it. (Click here.)

Überraschung! (My sister graduated.)

2008-06-02T07:11:00.000-07:00

"Why hasn't there been a blog post in the last week?!" I'll tell you why: I surprised my sister by flying home to good ol' Byron, Minnesota, (very very briefly) for her graduation!

My parents and I plotted surreptitiously for months. The effect was awesome.

graduation ceremony

my sister and I

the whole family
My lovely grandma Mary was at our house while I was home, but she's not in this photo.

My sister's graduation party was a blast. I saw loads of friends (including Cody, in this picture, who's coming to visit me at the end of July).

Ain't she purty?

And this is Cody's mom. She's a gangsta ;)

Even tho it was really brief, it was a blast, so thanks again everyone who came over, went out, etc. I'll see some of you sooner than others, but I'll be back in August to see the rest!

meine Freizeit

2008-05-27T13:35:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you're all wondering "What do you do with all of your spare time, Colin?" Well, hopefully I can answer this pressing question (j/k all, of course).

1) Read - Thank you, massive, labyrinthine UoK library, for having an enormous English-language section! I found The Third Policeman at the U's library with ease (well, relative ease - it took me about an hour to find the physical book, but I found its listing in the catalog in mere seconds). I also checked out ("lieh aus") The Road by Cormac McCarthy, which looks interesting as well. I'm already about finished with Policeman.

2) Doodle - I brought crayons, pencils, markers and paints with to Germany. It's therapeutic, so my insurance should cover the airline's mulct for my luggage's weighing too much, right?

Still Life

Mater Dolorosa

*I forgot to mention, three paintings I submitted to St. Olaf's other magazine, The Quarry, were accepted for this year's edition (Sadko, Mona Lisa, and The Sudan).

3) Experiment with this foreign concept of "cooking" (in the sense that "cooking" is equivalent with "heating things that I also unwrap") - The waffles and whipped cream were a very wise purchase.

yum!

4) Hike - I think you might have already figured this one out from my last couple of posts ;)

near Mainau

5) And naturally schoolwork/homework/studying… NOT! But seriously, though, I do have a decent number of lecture hours a week.

So that's it, just a brief post.
And Anna, enjoy your grad party! Wish I could be there; they're loads of fun! Con-gradu-lations again :P

Ciao amici!

um den Bodensee wandern, oder letzer Tag mit dem Eurailpass

2008-05-24T23:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my last day with the Eurail Pass. Technically I could still use it today, but I'm too tired from my adventure yesterday! So I took the train from Constance to Radolfzell, another small town on Lake Constance (der Bodensee in German). The trip took about a half and hour, and marked the beginning of another massive hike.

I started off mucking thru the forest along the Bodensee and wound up on the outskirts of Radolfzell when I finally managed to get out. I decided to just continue in that direction, having no clue where I was going, but I had the entire day free until 8 pm, so…

There's Radolfzell in the distance.

Following Lake Constance brought me to the even smaller town of Moos, which is really quaint - a close second to Egg for prettiest tiny German town.

Next I wandered thru Iznang, another small town, and continued along the way towards Horn.

Somewhere before Horn I got this photo. This plant is a so-called "living fossil" (I learned way more about plants in my Organismic Biology class than I did about animals). It's called a horsetail (Equisetum sp.), and split off from other plants before the evolution of seeds. In the Carboniferous period the Constance region was home to horsetails that grew as tall as trees (nearly 100 feet tall!), though now only one genus of horsetails survives.

Then I walked along a nature reserve (Naturschutzgebiet) on my way back to Radolfzell, where I bought waffles and whip cream - brunch today! - and took the train back to Constance.

Before I close, I want to ask a question: Yesterday I read about a book called The Third Policeman, and I was wondering whether any of you readers had heard of (or better yet, read) it? Anyone?

Feiertag! Warum? Einfach so :D

2008-05-22T14:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a holiday. No one knows why, but it makes sense, because we hadn't had one yet this week ;) So I had the day off, and decided to go hiking. But what was going to be a few hour stroll quickly turned into a full-blown, day-long adventure!

I made a map of the area (above) to give you a better idea of the area. I started out wandering thru the natural lands between Sonnenbühl Ost and the university, and then ended up going to Egg, to Mainau, and then finally to Litzelstetten, a little town about two hours by foot north of my dorm.

My trek took me along beautiful Lake Constance…

thru fields,

and the Black Forest…

to little Litzelstetten.
Of course, once I got to Litzelstetten, nothing was open, because it was a holiday. While in town, however, I did hear this amazing quote from a little girl (about 2 years old): She was pointing out people to her mom and telling her whether they were men or women. She pointed to me and said "Da ist ein junger Mann" - one point for her! Then a group of four people walked by. Her mom asked her, "And what about them?" And her response: "Da kommen zwei Männer und zwei Mauer!" apparently conflating the words for men (Männer) and women (Fraue) to produce the word for wall (Mauer) - ie, "Here come two men and two wall!" I got a bang out of that, and the mom had a hand over her face, cracking up, too!

I sat on a bench here and ate my lunch.

In the background of this one, you can see Insel Mainau.

So that was my adventure - very quiet, very pretty. I felt like I needed something like that after Egypt.

zurück durch Zürich - في ألمانيا ثانيةً

2008-05-18T23:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I left Egypt :( But on the bright side, the internet is working in Ost (knock on wood)!

After the massive train ride back from Luxor, we had the whole day free in Cairo, so we went to the big souk/market (Khan el-Khalili) in town. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos, but it was enormous. And Brady, Sara and I picked you up a hookah (and it survived the flight)!

After that we had a dinner cruise on the Nile.

A friend (Akhmed) of one of the young guys from the hostel (also Akhmed) accompanied us on the ship. I had a lot of fun, even tho parts of it were really weird.

Entertainment included not only an S&M belly-dancer (complete with cane and black lingerie), but also this whirling dwarf/small person/midget/insert correct PC-term here.

Dinner was buffet style, and it rocked. Over dinner we talked with Akhmed, but his English wasn't good, so for the first and only time the entire trip in Egypt MY ARABIC CAME IN HANDY! Now if that isn't incentive enough to learn what the US Dep't of Defense ranks as one of the most difficult languages in the world!

After dinner Akhmed was supposed to drive us back to the hostel, but we decided instead to say we were "taking photos of the Nile," and Akhmed cruised us around downtown Cairo while blasting a mixture of American and Egyptian music, including the original Aicha (or watch my favorite verison)! - this made my night!

The next day (yesterday) all we had time to do was wander a bit more around our part of Cairo. Then we said our good-byes (Alex and Vera get to stay in Egypt for a while longer), and Sara and I headed to the airport. Three hours and fifty minutes after boarding our plane, we were in Zurich, where the two of us separated, and the quartet was down to one.

Back in Constance I was immediately confronted by the stark contrasts: It had apparently just rained, and everything was shiny, cool and fresh, compared to Cairo's dry, hot and dusty It was absolutely silent on my walk home except for the random chirping frog or songbird, the exact opposite of the insane level of noise near our hostel (honking, yelling, muezzins' calling to prayer).

snail on the sidewalk in Constance - Another difference is the pace of life ;)

While Egypt was quite possibly my favorite trip ever, it is good to be "home" …for now!

last leg in Luxor - معبد الأقص ومعبد الكرنك

2008-05-16T09:34:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna jump right into photos:

Our first stop today was the Temple of Karnak. It was another one of my favorite things in Egypt. It towers like a Gothic church. (Each of these pillars is thicker than a tree!)

the first peace treaty in the world, between Egypt (Ramses II) and the Hittite Empire (Hatusili III)
(hieroglyphics in the Temple of Karnak)

that forest of pillars again, with Vera, Alex, Sara and the best tour guide ever - Doaa!

goats outside of Karnak

Vera is skeptical as our evil driver hands us what is apparently a train ticket to Cairo for three people. It is indecipherable even for native Egyptians and is written with pen on torn blue paper. That's what I call "official."

Next up was the Temple of Luxor. It wasn't as cool as Karnak, but it was still pretty sweet.

Roman-era painting of (possibly) the Last Supper
Notice how the newer, Christian stuff has mainly worn away, while the thousands-of-years-older Egyptian stuff has remained. This supports my theory that people are so fascinated by the ancient Egyptians because they have come closer to permanence than anyone else.

Alexander the Great, depicted as a pharaoh and remembered by the Egyptians as a liberator, being given the key of life (Ankh) by the sun god Ra

We asked some man and his wife to take a photo of us. While we were positioning ourselves, the wife walks in front of us, ready to be photographed (by my camera?!). Then he snaps this award-worthy portrait. After that she walks right up to him so her face covers the entire shot.
(Notice I'm not even ready for the photo, because he gave us absolutely no warning.)

And we just got back into Cairo. The overnight train again took 12 hrs, partially because we were stopped next to some green, lit-up minaret for literally an hour and a half! Bleh. I hate the trains in Egypt.

Oh, and before I close, I want to address two comments/questions on my last post:
1) Shockingly, Luxor manages to defy natural law and maintain an extremely hot temperature right through midnight.
2) And as to the "Welcome to Alaska" thing: We actually got three more "Welcome to Alaska"s in Luxor, so we decided to start asking around. But no one knows for certain. A friend of Sara's says it's because of the ironic temperature difference between the two places. The wonderful Doaa suggested that they just don't know what they're saying. Our tour guide from the day before (Menan) said she thought Alaska was a well-known city, and that the Egyptians just assume most Americans come from there.

SO COOL! but SO HOT! - في الأقصر

2008-05-15T08:28:00.000-07:00

First off, happy belated 50th, Mrs. Toft!

"So, just how hot is it in Luxor these days?" you ask. Well, today it was 110°F - painful. Tomorrow it's only supposed to be 97°, tho. Being basically in the middle of the desert if you step more than five feet away from the Nile, it's also pretty ungodly dry.

And now, PHOTOS! (way too many, just to warn you)

Breakfast at the Nubian Oasis Hotel is included in the approximately $3 I spend a night staying here! This is about the best breakfast I've had in weeks. The hotel, however, isn't air conditioned, which kind of sucks.

Today we saw some of the coolest things so far, which is saying a lot! First we went to the Valley of the Kings.

It's a good way into the mountainous desert (in order to prevent grave robbing, tho it didn't do a very good job), so we had to take these little carts to the different tombs.

We saw the tombs of Ramses I, III and IV, but couldn't take photos inside. They were amazing! This is the stuff you see in movies and on archeology TV shows (what? you don't watch archeology TV shows?!). It was covered in hieroglyphics and paintings of the gods.

Next we went to Hatshepsut's Mortuary Temple. It was really cool. And here you are allowed to take photos. (For those of you who were wondering, Hatshepsut is the pharaoh who married her half-brother, dressed up like a man, and sort of usurped the throne from her son.)

hieroglyphics in Hatshepsut's Temple

sphinxes around Hatshepsut's Temple

Next up we went to the Valley of the Queens. Here we also went into a few tombs, but they weren't as cool as the King's tombs. And again, no photos allowed.

doorway to one of the Queens' tombs

Next we drove to the Colossi of Memnon. They were huge. But I was so hot in the car, that I'd taken off my shoes (thinking we were done with the trip already). So when we had to jump out of the car, I had to skip across the burning tar to the comparatively cool sand in order to get a good view.

the Nile at Luxor

This was my lunch. It cost less than $2 and was delicious. (tomato soup with lemon and falafel - delicious!)

Luxor seems like it's a lot poorer than Cairo to me, but it might just be that we're living in a low-income area. For example, there is a flock of goats that lives near us and wanders the streets.

the unending train ride - أو ذهبنا إلى الأقصر

2008-05-14T12:30:00.000-07:00

I'm typing this in Luxor! Plus (more good news) a friend of mine back in Constance just let me know that the internet is finally working in our dorms!

Last night we walked down to the Nile and decided to take a felucca ride.

This was our view for an hour and $2/person! It was awesome. (Oh, PS, a felucca is an Egyptian sailboat, in case you didn't know.) We also grabbed some shawarma and had a little picnic on the boat.

Then today we took the train to Luxor. I was told it would take about 6 hours, but it turned out to be closer to 12! We spent our entire day on the train, but at least we were in first class (it cost $2 more than second).

And it's Vera's birthday today, so we bought her this delicious, massive tray of goodies in Cairo.

The ride was very pretty, but God knows I would rather have done something else.

And our "lunch" was terrible. We grabbed pretzel sticks, which were soggy and had chunks of pepper in them. Left from the "pretzels" you can see our Chipseys, which tasted more like tomato juice than chips, and left of that our very decent pack of cheese.

Anyway, Luxor is way different than what I'd expected, but keep in mind I've seen just about nothing so far. It's also ungodly hot here. I just took a shower 20 minutes ago, and I still feel like I could use another right now. And our hostel is right next to one of the places where they blast the prayers on load-speakers - about every half an hour. But I'm very excited to be here, and tomorrow we're going to some very famous sites, so be sure to stop by again!

An imam, a rabbi and a priest walk into Old Cairo…

2008-05-13T04:07:00.000-07:00

So yesterday after the pyramids I saw what was probably my favorite thing in Egypt so far: the 2005 horror film Boo (rated R), which was just released here April 30th of this year. Brilliant can't even begin to describe it. An example of the masterpiece is the following quote, powerfully delivered by the thespian Dig Wayne:

You shoot me in the face, I'll kick your ass!

Okay, so it wasn't actually any good. In fact, it was near par with such spectacles as Fear Dot Com and The Carrot Monster from Mars (alright, so I don't actually remember the name of that last one, but it was on the Sci Fi Channel at around midnight, so you get the gist).

But it was quite the experience to go to a movie in Egypt. Someone brought her baby to the movie, and it cried and screamed a lot of the time; several people answered their cell phones and held conversations during the movie; and there was even a 5-minute intermission (right in the middle of a high-tension scene)! Tickets were $3, so it was still worth it. In fact, parts of it were so funny/awful that I was crying.

Alright, so onward to the photos and the more serious stuff:

We had dinner last night at Gad, a restaurant just a few blocks away from our hostel. This was our dessert (Egyptian pancakes with honey, nuts and whipped cream). My entire meal cost under $3.

Then today we went first to the Saladin Citadel, where there is the above building: the Mosque of Muhammad Ali.

Vera and Alex had to wear green robes in the mosque because their arms weren't covered.

inside the Mosque

Two men get a panoramic view from the citadel looking out over Cairo.

the citadel walls

Then we went to Coptic Cairo, part of the Old City. Here we visited a Coptic Christian church and a synagogue. This area was really cool and extremely old!

The streets in Coptic Cairo were loaded with shops containing (presumably) antiques.

Alex and Vera then went to the Egyptian Museum, but Sara and I just mulled around the streets. I bought 1001 Nights and Sindbad at a book shop. We went to Felfela, an Egyptian fast-food place recommended to me by Chris Hanley (who studied here first semester), and grabbed lunch - a shawarma sandwich (like a gyro sub) and a taamiya (like a pita-pocket with a falafel inside). It was extremely good and also very cheap - around $2.

And again following Chris's recommendations, we went next door to a juice shop. I had a mixed fruit and ice cream drink, which was very nice after a day in the sun!

Then tomorrow we're off to Luxor!

Memphis, Saqqara, and Giza - الأهرام وأبو الهول

2008-05-12T06:49:00.000-07:00

So today was about the best day ever! First, Alex and Vera joined up with us in Cairo (they both just got done with their semesters abroad in Namibia). Then we went to Memphis, Saqqara, and Giza - spectacular! And our guide was extremely knowledgeable and funny.

First we drove out to Memphis and saw this giant statue of Ramses II (the one who didn't get along with Moses, in case you forgot).

Then we went to a school where they learn how to make carpets.

And then we started with the amazing PYRAMIDS! This is the step pyramid at Saqqara, which was designed by Imhotep, whom you've probably heard of. This pyramid is also the first one ever built.

It was so ungodly hot, tho! Ahh! And there were these giant bursts of wind that chucked sand in your face every once in a while.

the Pyramids at Giza (and a tractor)
This photo cracks me up.

Then I went to take a photo of a camel (the first camel I've seen in Egypt), and this Egyptian guy started pushing me towards it, and he even wrapped his turban-deal around my head while I was trying to get on. In this photo I'm almost falling off and dying as the camel stands up.

Pyramids and the Sphinx
We went inside the pyramid on the right. It was extremely muggy, and we had to bend in half to squeeze down the tiny shaft to the burial chamber - BUT WE WERE INSIDE A PYRAMID!

and another photo of the pyramids
I took about 80 photos…

So today I saw the only remaining wonder of the world, and yesterday I saw the place where another wonder (the Lighthouse of Alexandria) used to be. I love my life.

Alex w/o Alex - ألكس بدون ألكس

2008-05-11T06:43:00.000-07:00

So today we went to Alexandria, about a three-hour drive from Cairo, and right on the Mediterranean!

Alexandria

the Mediterranean

some fishers
It was here that we got applauded by a group of young boys, apparently for being from the same country as Batista, for whom they loudly proclaimed their love.

Sara and I waded into the Mediterranean - for a photo-op, not in order to escape the heat: Alexandria (or Alex, as it is called by the locals, I think) was only high 70s for the whole day. Right after this photo was taken, a little boy came up and shook my hand… and then asked for a dollar.

This is the Mosque of El-Mursi Abul Abbas. Sara had to go in a different building, because she's a girl, and they're not allowed in here (boys' club!). I also had to tip the guy I gave my shoes to. I'm pretty sure this is actually the first mosque I've ever been in.

And my favorite part was the LIBRARY (Bibliotheca Alexandrina)!!
It's amazing. The original was destroyed by the Romans in the last century BCE (we took a tour). The library we went into was built in 2003, was designed by the Norwegian architect Snøhette, and is amazing. Above is a statue of Ptolemy II (who built the original), and the facade of the modern building, which is engraved with words in over one hundred languages.

interesting sculpture inside the Bibliotheca

And this is the inside of the library proper.

And before I close: Happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers!

My adventure in Cairo - مغامرتي في القاهرة

2008-05-10T11:37:00.000-07:00

Hello from Cairo! First, I wanna tell you all about Sara and my exciting adventure today. So you've all probably heard the phrase "walk like an Egyptian," but we've come to understand it in a completely different way: Mainly there are no traffic lights, but where there are, it doesn't matter whether they're red or green; the cars speed by no matter. But the natives just waltz right across like Frogger. Sara and I are quickly adapting.

So after dodging our way across several massive streets, we made it across the Nile. It apparently isn't the nicest area of Cairo. Sara even walked over a shriveled-up dead dog! And then as we were walking to dinner, some guy starting shouting at Sara, "Hello pretty lady!" When she didn't respond, he threw a stick at her! And then for lunch, we paid for our food at a take-out place, but left, forgetting our sandwiches in the restaurant!

But yeah, the day was definitely wonderful overall, and the adventures were exciting! The people here are really friendly. Everyone was telling us "Welcome to Cairo," the police came up and greeted us, and the hostel staff is very helpful.

And now, photos! !صوري

This is the view from my room.

The first thing Sara and I did today was go to the Egyptian Museum. It was awesome! We saw Tutankhamen's funerary mask among many other awesome things, including mummified crocodiles, statues of the pharaohs, and sphinxes!

Cairo cityscape

And then we went to the Nile. We were intending on taking a boat ride, but decided to save it for later (we had had more than enough haggling for the day).

Oh, and a lot of you were wondering about weather. It's actually not bad. It's mid-80s for the highs and with the breeze along the river, it's probably closer to high-70s. Nonetheless, it's dry, and we need constant refreshments.

a photo of me on the Nile

Why wouldn't there be goats on the street?

Tomorrow we're going to Alexandria for the day! Expect a post then!

Welcome to Alaska!

2008-05-09T12:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, the title is odd. You'll have to wait until further on to find out what it means. (Suspense draws the reader in…)

So Sara and I took the train from Constance to Zurich today. Here's what the view from the train was like:

Switzerland: not a bad place

It was only a little over a three hour flight, and I sat next to this nice Dutch woman who thought I was German until told her the bad news. She was shocked that I, as an American, had somehow managed to learn another language.

And then we were in Egypt! As soon as the airplane started to descend, I started to have this problem: I was so excited that I couldn't keep from smiling like a moron - hah!

This is my amazing room in Cairo at the King Tut Hostel on Tahrir Square. And yes, that's a private bathroom. And I have a queen-sized bed. It costs €12/night and comes with breakfast.

After we got settled (around 3:00 pm), we just wandered around Cairo.

near our hostel

This is already one of the coolest, most different things I've ever done. We are such a minority: I, especially, stick out like a sore thumb as about the palest thing around. But I love it (remember, I've only been here for half a day).

Another funny thing is the number of cat-calls Sara has already gotten. About every block some one whistled at her, or (in the case of a six-year-old Egyptian boy) called out, "I love you. I love you!" People also have constantly been shouting at us (even from across the street) "Welcome to Egypt! Welcome to Cairo!" One young man, for whom I would assume English is a second or third language, even welcomed us to Alaska.

Cairo at dusk

And in closing, I would like to propose the following: Since my awesome hostel has free wireless, I was considering posting about every day or every two days, but only if people would be able to keep up. So it remains up to you: Would you read one post a day?

studieren?! manchmal.

2008-05-05T01:46:00.000-07:00

Ok, so apparently you're all wondering about my classes. While I'd like to say I don't have any, I do - not that I'm here that often to attend them ;) - but seriously, here's my schedule (you'll have to click on it; I don't know how to make a table on blogger):

The only one that seems difficult so far is Russian, and that's mainly because I have to learn a foreign language in a foreign language. And here's what a tandem team is, by the way: I teach him my native language half of the time, he teaches me his the other half.

And finally, because I don't have any photos with which to amuse you, I figured I'd write you all a poem about Sonnenbühl Ost:

Ode to a Showerhead

Oh Soviet showerhead, how matchless you are!
For some reason in the States, they stopped making showers like you
Before they started.
But why? Do Americans truly despise the adventure you offer?
Now you scald me, now you give me hypothermia;
Now welts form where you pummel my skin,
Now I have to shake you, just for the water to drizzle out.
Have none so loved you as I?
Have none been so awed by your undomesticable might?
The way you refuse to be restrained by your measly “curtain?”
The way, in spite of your one moldy, tearing drape,
You build lakes and rivers throughout the bathroom?
The way your hose flails wildly, and I must dodge its burning touch?
But your crowning achievement, oh Soviet showerhead,
Is surely the way you will only point directly at the wall,
So that I must smash my body up against the cold tiles
In order to wash my hair.
Yours is a rare ability
To make common chores into marvelous feats.
Oh Soviet showerhead, how matchless you are!

Peace! And next time you hear from me, I'll be in EGYPT!

dans la région de mes ancêtres

2008-05-04T07:48:00.000-07:00

Kind of spur of the moment, Kirsten and I decided to go to Strasbourg in France on Saturday. It was just a random decision, but how many times in your life do you have the opportunity to just up and go to France for the day? Not too many, so off we went!

It took us under three hours by train, and the ride cut through the gorgeous German country side and for a while through the Black Forest.

Strasbourg is in the Alsace région (state) of France, where my mom's mom's family comes from. It's actually a fascinating area (not to mention beautiful), because Alsace has been traded back and forth between the French and the Germans for centuries. So you can see the influence of both cultures all over the city (cf. the half-timbered houses in the above photo).

Many streets also have both French and German names. ("Little Rooster Alley")

We went to the cathedral. (rose window)

And climbed up the tower. Here you can see the market.

the cathedral

Strasbourg is very pretty.

For lunch we had delicious French food from a pâtisserie. Then we went to the Musée zoologique, which was very cool - and cheap (€1,50)! Plus the woman at the counter thought we were German when she heard me struggling with French, so she spoke to us auf Deutsch!

The museum consisted of tons of taxidermied animals. Most of them weren't dressed up like something from Narnia, but I couldn't resist this photo op. It was actually extremely interesting and well done over all. They even had two mounted coelocanths.

We also went to the European Parliament, where the EU's legislature meets.

Then I bought an oddly shaped French baguette to take back to Constance with me. (It has horns on the ends!)

And today I walked back to Insel Mainau with two friends. We could see the Alps as we crossed the bridge! I love studying abroad!

die Insel Mainau und mehr schönes Wetter!

2008-05-02T04:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a holiday in Germany (Labor Day, or Tag der Arbeit), so we had no class. Chrissy and I decided to grab the opportunity and go to Insel Mainau, an island about 45 minutes by foot from our dorm.

Our route to Mainau took us through Egg. We saw two little boys working what is apparently the German version of a lemonade stand. We each bought a cup of Apfelschorle, which is something like sparkling apple juice.

Later on we passed this stand. Its owner just left everything on the table, even tho the sign said no one was going to be back to man the “shop” until Sunday!

Well anyway, we obviously made it to Mainau, which is known for its floral gardens.

These are “Star Wars Magnolia hybrids,” according to their sign. They’re definitely pretty, but mainly the name just cracked me up.

one of several flower sculptures

Mainau also has a famous butterfly house (Schmetterlingshaus) with a little waterfall, turtles, and fish. It was ridiculously crowded in there. It was difficult to get photos of the butterflies as they zipped by, but there were hundreds of them.

There is also this big greenhouse of orchids with a really expensive restaurant in the middle.

Chrissy posing as best she can

This is what most of the island looks like.

And I’d feel negligent if I didn’t put up one of my millions of photos of the Alps. This one I took from the U. That gross, lighter-colored building is part of Sonnenbühl Ost.

So my life really isn’t too shabby. And a week from today I’m off to CAIRO!

dem Heim ähnlich

2008-04-29T04:46:00.000-07:00

Hallo Leute!
So before I upload my pictures of beautiful Constance, I just wanted to inform you of my three pieces of quality news:
1) I had my first Arabic class today. I went to the intro course, and the professor told me I should be in the second highest level of Arabic! Then I visited this course, and I'm at least as good as everyone else (if not a little better than average).
2) I got elected to an executive position in Alpha Phi Omega again for next year.
3) One of my paintings ("Annaliese") was chosen to be on this year's cover of St. Olaf's The Reed magazine!
Alright, now the boring stuff is out of the way.

the strangest looking university ever

see above

view from my room in Sonnenbühl Ost
It's actually pretty, but I still have no internet.

Lake Constance and the Alps in the background

Everything's blooming here. This is Sonnenbühl Ost again.

Now this is funny. First off rauchfrei means "no smoking," so no one smokes inside the buildings, just right outside every exit. Then the massive German word Studiengebührenboykott means they're boycotting tuition. Thus far higher education here in Constance is free, but now they're thinking about making it €500/semester. Okay, so €500 sounds like a pittance compared to the leviathan cost of American college, but I agree: Boycott the increase before it gets out of hand like it has for us!

Have I mentioned this university is obscene?

The walk to the U from Sonnenbühl Ost takes about 20 minutes and cuts through these gorgeous natural lands. There are loads of birds, butterflies, people walking their dogs, etc. It's a very nice way to start the day.

Всё хорошо, что хорошо кончается.

2008-04-27T07:19:00.000-07:00

So I made it back safely to Constance!
“Yeah, whatever,” you say, "Just tell me about the exciting adventures from your last few days in Moscow!”
Very well, I’ll indulge you:

the U of M!
but seriously, the Moscow State University
It’s certainly not pretty in the traditional sense, but it is … hm …looming? intimidating? massive? Also, notice the woman in the bottom left of the photo. I love it.

One of the things I love the most about Moscow is that it has loads and loads of cheap and decent kiosks all over. Here is a caravan of kiosks, with all of the best. From the left: stardogs (not very good, actually, but it’s an anomaly), Kartoshka (potatoes from 40 rubles!), pirozhki (stuffed pastries), Grill XXI (I’m not actually sure what this is), Russian Chill (ice cream – Russians love their ice cream, even in the middle of the winter when it’s subzero), and finally my favorite: Blini!

On Friday we went to Novodevichy, a beautiful Russian monastery.

again

Walking into the monastery was like walking into the eye of a storm. Suddenly everything was calm; no one was yelling at us; the sun was shining; everything was still and gorgeous. I even saw Russians smiling!

Then we went to the zoo. Thank God it was free for students.

I have absolutely no idea.

This is exactly what the zoo looks like. Most of the cages or pens are empty, everything is cement, and it’s in the heart of Moscow (notice the lovely cityscape). Also, there were signs everywhere saying it’s forbidden to feed the animals, but left and right I saw Russians chucking greasy carnival food at the drooling animals.

Then in the evening Khatia (a friend I met last interim in Moscow) met up with us. We went out to eat at an amazing tapas place right near our hostel. Although it wasn't the cheapest place I've eaten at, it was definitely one of the best since coming abroad! Then we went to Red Square in order to see it lit up.

photo of Khatia and me

So if you decide ever to come to Moscow, here are some things to keep in mind:

* Almost certainly someone in your group needs to speak Russian. Muscovites either are unable or refuse to speak English. At the very least, you should be able to read the Russian alphabet.

* Be prepared for the Russians to be insanely rude to you. Kelly says they make the French seem wonderful.

* It's basically a sin not to try some chocolate blini.

* Use the metro. It's beautiful and extremely reliable.

So that’s it. Moscow was a blast – much better in the Spring! – and now I’m back to class. I’ll post photos of Constance in a couple of days.

Хорошая погода - в Москве?!

2008-04-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

So we've actually had spectacular weather throughout the week! And (knock on wood) it's only supposed to continue to get better! Kelly tells me that the typically day in Moscow at this time of the year only gets around 4 hrs of sunlight. For the last two days, however, it has been cloudless from morning till night!

Yesterday we went to Red Square again. We went into St. Basil's and heard some gorgeous live choral music.

Then we went into the Kremlin and walked around, looking at all of the beautiful churches inside.

Here's a shot from the so-called "Secret Garden." We decided it's called the "Secret Garden," because it's almost impossible to get to. Basically every way you turn, there's a Russian rent-a-cop blowing his whistle at you and telling you "Nyet! Nyet!" It took us ages to find a path on which we were allowed to walk.

Crockpot (aka the Cyrillic D): just for you, Lindsay!

Moscow in the sun
(Christ the Savior in the center and the Kremlin on the right)

Then today we went to the Tretyakov. Unfortunately you can't take photos in there, but Kelly says this museum was in itself worth the trip to Moscow. I love it.

After that we went to Gorky Park - just for you, Dad!

Surprise! It's somewhat unattractive. My guess: It'll clean up in the summer.

Many St. Olaf students travel abroad in "less developed" countries and then flaunt pictures of themselves with "the natives" in order to seem culturally diverse and philanthropic. ("Oh facebook stalkers, look at me befriending this little African child! I'm the least racist white tourist ever!") Luckily Gorky Park threw me up this opportunity for my very own "ethnic baby" photo:

Russians, like the Germans, reject everything PC.

Gorky Park: Birthplace of Romance.

But truthfully, we thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Gorky Park. Like I said, I'm sure it's nicer in the summer, and I bought ice cream. Plus, the woman who sold me the ice cream was uncommonly friendly: When I tried to look for exact change, instead of yelling at me, she told me, "Take your time." (!!!)

Christ the Savior near sunset

Did I mention I went to the Caribbean?

Oh, and I almost forgot: We met this very strange French guy in our hostel, who apparently found his Russian girlfriend on the internet and is now very surprised that she's only interested in him for his money. He says she's very demanding and sometimes cruelly blunt. One time she gave him back a present he bought her and told him "This is really awful." That really cracks me up. So word to the wise: The WWW might not be the best place to find true love.

Жить в бизнес-классе!

2008-04-21T04:05:00.001-07:00

I'm in Moscow!

It was a long journey to get here, but I got to ride first class with KLM, which was awesome! I even got a little tub of Ben and Jerry's ice cream with my meal! Quality living!

I'm staying in Godzillas Hostel again, and it's been completely renovated! We have a private room, sheets and blankets, and even unlimited wireless internet for 1700 rubles/night (or about €22 per person).

Kelly and I toured around Moscow today. We saw Red Square, grabbed some delicious chocolate blini (kind of the Russian crepe) in front of Christ the Savior, and walked down New Arbot. Now I'm exhausted, but before I go to sleep: МОИ ФОТОГРАФИИ!

Red Square was empty! That was a big change from last year.

outside Red Square
Authentic Russian souvenirs now include rolls of toilet paper with American currency printed on them. To quote the Russian newspaper The Exile (which is an entertaining read, by the way):

The dollar is so worthless here that fanning out stacks of Benjamins has become Russia's newest ironic photograph pose, joining the likes of the lesbian kiss and the kukla-mukla lip pucker.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, outside the Kremlin

On the bridge to Christ the Savior, there are hundreds of these padlocks. It turns out newly-weds traditionally sign their names on the locks, clip them to the bridge and then throw the key into the river below.

statue of Peter the Great on the Moskva river
This statue was built in 1997 and is over 300 feet tall, making it the sixth tallest statue in the world. It has become quite famous since its construction due to its being insanely gaudy, obstructive and just plain ironic - remember how Peter hated Moscow so much that he built St. Petersburg? One critic calls the monument a "big toy soldier stuck atop a bunch of broken model ships."

Here's where we had some delicious, steaming, chocolate blini.

Near the Lenin Library is this statue of Dostoevsky. He seems so sad, looking out over the omnipresent giant advertisements (which I'm pretty sure the city puts up simply in order to hide the nasty Soviet architecture).

On our way home, Kelly found this sign lying in a stack of debris. Something for the French House next year ;)

Beobachtungen zum Leben in Deutschland

2008-04-17T11:23:00.000-07:00

I don't really have much news and, sorry guys, no photos this time, but I do have some (hopefully) interesting observations about life in Germany that I thought I'd share. But first I want to make sure you all know I am actually finally taking classes at the university. Classes in German are tough, but I'm sure I’ll get used to it.

So what makes Germany Germany?

#1. Lots of English (Tandem Team, Locker deposit, Research Center). Normally it's shockingly good English, but bad English is funnier. For example, the following quote I took from a sign hanging in my house's bathroom:

To this badly drawn boy who never flushes the toilet after he used it:
Please get used to it, that in Germany it's a well habbit flushing the toilet after using it no matter you used it for peeing or something else:
Always flushing the toilet after using!! [sic omnis]

#2. Bureaucracy. Labyrinthine bureaucracy. In order to get anything official done, you have to go to about seven different places that are spread out over the city. Each office is only open one or two hours a day (four days a week, if you're lucky), and most of them are open only during the same hour.

#3. An irrational fear of spice. I feel like I'm pretty well known for having a very dull palette, but I can eat even the hottest German food. Curry, for example, tastes basically the same as ketchup. For the most part, "seasoning" is construed as either "salt" or "more salt."

#4. You never cross the street on red. Even if no cars are coming, and it's the middle of the night. Germans will wait for hours until the little green man shows his face.

#5. Business hours. Everything closes around 8pm and basically nothing is open ever on Sundays. The same goes for holidays.

#6. You don't wear bright colors. In fact, it is preferable to wear only black. Kirsten and Amelia have neon green coats. They get glares. Other popular fashion includes maroon hair for middle-aged women, large horizontal stripes, tight jeans with bright white words and designs, and the mullet (as I mentioned in a previous post).

#7. Everyone bikes, even middle-aged people. And bikers are dangerous. Walking to the U each morning is a bit of an adventure, because every five seconds a biker zips past, within inches of taking off your head.

#8. You "klopf" after class, which means you knock with your knuckles on the table as a sign of appreciation for the lecture.

#9. Germans love to sort trash. Depending on what type of garbage you’re throwing away, you use one of about a dozen trashcans. Glass gets divided into three bins based on color. Plastics, cardboard, paper, etc. also get separate canisters. Foodstuff gets thrown into a lidless bin, apparently to rot until someone gets stuck with “Mülldienst” (trash duty) and has to throw it into the dumpster.

#10. Germans are more interested in American politics than Americans are. The first question every German will ask you after the obligatory incredulous "You're American? But you speak German!" is "Who will be the next American president?"

So those are some of the many nuanced differences between America and Germany. Life here is overall very similar, but as I mentioned, there are certainly some differences. I definitely don’t mean any of the above to sound harsh (except the bureaucracy comment – that really irks me). Germany is hands down my favorite country outside of the US at this point, and the people here are basically all unbelievably nice, friendly and helpful.

But guess where I'm going to be all of next week? So I'm kind of skipping out on class - ah, probably not the best idea, since it's just the second week, but oh well, I already have the tickets…
-MOSCOW!
Now if you're the stereotypical American, you're probably sitting there, eating your 10lbs McCheeseburger after a long day of plowing your cornfield, and thinking to yourself, "Moscow's the capital of London." Well no, that’s wrong. Moscow's actually in Russia. You can learn loads about Russia from my blog from last year, or you can simply wait for sweet updates throughout the upcoming week!

Viel Spaß und bis dann!

Paris, je t'aime!

2008-04-15T01:41:00.001-07:00

After Dresden we took an overnight train to Paris. We rode in a couchette, which is (according to Webster) a train car with, and I quote, "sleeping berths." I slept like a rock, even though I didn't really fit into my "sleeping berth." I even slept through the two hours we were stalled on the tracks. We had to transfer in Mannheim, but we were scheduled to have just over two hours there, so we made our next train with minutes to spare.

So, after around four hours of sleep, we were in Paris! Amelia and Chrissy wanted to do a walking tour of the city, and I wanted to visit the Institut du Monde Arabe.

The Institut
It was around €4 for students, which is I found very typical for Paris. It was awesome. I even bought Al-'Amîr Aṣ-ṣaghîr (engl. The Little Prince - how much more French/Arab can you get?) in the book store there. ****

Then I went to the Galerie de paléontologie et d'anatomie comparée in the Jardin des plantes. Entrance again was €4 - and definitely worth it! ****

Rue Morgue or Planet of the Apes? No one knows.
(entrance hall to the Galerie)

me in the hall of comparative anatomy
Behind me is a whale's baleen-filled mouth - enormous!

I enjoy this shot.

The paleontology exhibit was not as good as the comparative anatomy one, but it was still cool.

Then I met up in front of Notre Dame with Erik, my roommate from Olaf, and we went to his friend's apartment on the Place d'Italie. His apartment is awesome - he has a kitchen, a bathroom with a nice shower, a bedroom, a living room, a hallway and a guest room! That's where Erik and I stayed. Plus the guy, Mark, was really cool. It was definitely quality housing.

Erik and I spent a significant portion of the next few days eating our way through the Parisian boulangeries and pâtisseries. French food is definitely the greatest thing ever. For example, one night I stopped at a boulangerie near Mark's place, and I grabbed dinner consisting of a tuna and cheese crepe, a massive chocolate brownie/cake thing and an Orangina. (NB: Orangina in Paris has one of the strangest ad campaigns I have ever seen. Check it out!) I'm giving French food - regardless of expense - a perfect *****.

massive dog

Notre Dame is beautiful.

Then one day Amelia had this brilliant idea: picnic in the Tuileries gardens! Pictured: French baguette, French wine, French strawberry (from a farmer's market that morning). Not pictured: French rotisserie chicken, French cheese, French plastic silverware.

My lovely friend Kelly Hamren, who is spending the year studying in France, came up to visit for the day.

After our picnic, we went to the Louvre (it is apparently free on Fridays for anyone under 26). At first I didn't want to go; I though, "I've already been to the Louvre, and it's just a mass of paintings by stuffy old white men". Stupid, jaded ass. The Louvre is spectacular. Even if you've been there a thousand times, I'm sure you'd still love it. I'm not positive how much entry usually is, but even if it were €20, it'd still be well worth it. Also, if you are an art history student or have a fake art-history-student ID like Mark, you get in free every day of the week. *****

Plus while we were there, they had live music playing in many of the rooms. AMAZING!

"Winged Victory"

And then of course we had to go to the Eiffel Tower.

The next day Erik and I went to the Grande galerie de l'évolution, also in the Jardin des plantes. This was slightly more expensive (€6 or €6,50, I'm not sure), but it was also awesome. ****

The first floor consisted of exhibits on marine wildlife, and it had an actual, plasticized giant squid.

The second floor was full of terrestrial animals (here as seen from the third).

The third floor was called "The Evolution of Man." This name, however, is more than a bit misleading. Instead of following the descent of humans from apes, it detailed the destructive impact humans have had on the natural world.

One hall on this floor was dedicated to the species that have gone or are going extinct because of humans. Above is a preserved specimen of the (in)famous Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine. This part was kind of depressing, but it was cool to see an actually Tasmanian tiger. They also had a dodo on display.

On a more positive note, we're bringin' haute-y back!
Erik bought this bottle of slightly alcoholic cider, and we drank in the Tuileries on our way to…

L'Orangerie! I think it was €5,50 entrance, but it was awesome! ***** A definite must-see. Monet's massive paintings of ponds stretch around the circular rooms upstairs. In the center of each room there's a bench, so it's just like you're sitting in the middle of the paintings. Extreme quality.

And downstairs there's a very decent collection of other Impressionist art.

a Modigliani for Dad

In conclusion, Paris was spectacular!

Well, I have class now, so I gotta run. Look soon for a post about life back in Constance and the beginning of the regular semester.

Leipzig und Dresden (Ostdeutschland, ehemalige DDR)

2008-04-14T04:30:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, so the problem was that I hadn't downloaded the most recent security update. Everything's taken care of. PLUS I have internet on campus now! No more stupid trips to McDonald's!

But on to the more interesting stuff.

After Berlin we traveled to Leipzig. This was possibly my favorite city. It's hard to say, tho, because Germany in general is so freaking awesome.

First thing we did when we got there was to buy a day pass for the buses. It cost €11. IDIOT idea. Leipzig is so small that you just walk everywhere. Plus it's so pretty that you should even if it were big.

Next up was the Nikolai Kirche (above). It was where the East Germans first started plotting their democratic rebellion. Entrance was free. ***

Then we went to the cathedral where Bach used to play and is buried. Above is a photo of his organ! (free entrance, again) ***

just kind of a cool shot (of Leipzig)

After that we walked to the Stasi Museum. The museum was pretty sweet. It was an outpost that was kept basically the same as it was during the GDR period. ***

then my favorite part! THE ZOO
The Leipzig Zoo is amazing. It cost, I think, €7 for entrance (I'm not positive), but it rocked hard core. Some of the animals (for example, the above monkey) were freilaufend, meaning they could wander around wherever they wanted. This monkey walked right by us.

And the best part of the zoo was the great ape exhibits. This was unlike anything I'd ever seen. We actually went to the zoo for this reason, because I was reading this book called The First Word, on the origin of language, and it mentioned several times the linguistic research on apes done at the Leipzig Zoo. *****

The apes have free roam between an outside area (pictured above) and an inside enclosure (below).

Here's a bonobo using a tool (a twig to dig out insects)! And just a few decades ago no one thought animals could use tools!

Nota bene, it's not just apes and monkeys at the zoo, tho. They're just what particularly interested me.

next up: Dresden

me being stupid (surprise) at our hostel in Dresden
We stayed at another A+O. This time it was a lot nicer of a room, but the roommate was crappy. He snored like no other. It was like an earthquake. Plus he went to bed at 8:30 and got up (loudly) at 7. Other than that, it was pretty nice, we had our own bathroom, and it cost only €13/bed. ****

We walked around the city. Again, you have no need for the bus.

Dreden is beautiful.

This is where I ate lunch.

Then we went to the botanical gardens at the university there. Apparently they're famous. They're really cool. Chrissy thought it might rain when we went into the Tropenhaus, but it didn't.

I have no idea what this is, but I thought it looked cool.

Oh yeah, botanical gardens=cool and free. ****

And what better proof that Dresden is sweet than the fact that it has an IBIS!

Tomorrow I'll post about Paris. Bis bald, alle!

Paris

2008-04-12T10:59:00.000-07:00

I'm in Paris, and it's not letting me look at my blog. This is just a test.

Berlin, Hauptstadt Deutschlands

2008-04-08T12:17:00.000-07:00

Right now I'm sitting in my hostel in Dresden, but before I get to that: BERLIN!

So the best thing about Berlin was that I got to meet up with about a thousand friends of mine. We Constancers stayed in A+O Hostel with Sara Thatcher and Erik Davis (my roomie from way back in the USA). The hostel was, mmm, the worst so far, but still decent. It was €13/bed and right next to one of the train stations, but it was filled with screaming high schoolers, who woke up at sunrise every morning and made animal noises. The shower doors were transparent and were across from sinks with mirrors, so it was like you were part of a (naked) art exhibit every morning. Plus breakfast was overpriced (€6), so we didn't get it. Location=very good, rooms=okay, living conditions=poor. I'd give it **.

But anyway, on to way too many photos:

Another one of my friends we met in Berlin was Katie Henly. She was a tour guide last summer in Berlin, so she offered to take all of us around the city. She was insanely enthusiastic. I give her tour *****, 5 stars!
Also, tho, if you don't have a friend who professionally gives tours of Berlin, you can check out Katie's previous employer, Sandeman's. Tours are free, and you see lots of the city!

on the tour, Gendarmenplatz, with a statue of Schiller in the foreground

Oh! And you might remember from my Russian blog that the mullet has hit the Russian scene. Well fear no more! Germany has also joined the fashion revolution. Teenage boys all over the country are screaming "Business in the front, party in the back!"

The next day (we spent three nights in Berlin) we went to the Jewish Museum. It was bizarre. I wasn't a big fan. It was €2,50 to get in, plus we paid an extra €1 to see the special exhibit. Some of it was artsy and fun, but a lot of it was just eclectic. One room seriously had a bunch of mounted fish. No one knows why. I give it **, just to be nice.

But don't worry; we went to several other Jewish/Holocaust things in Berlin. There's a very cool Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which is free, and just out along the street (****).

And just below this monument is a museum to the Jewish Holocaust victims. This is also cool and free. It supposedly follows the stories of 6 Jewish people or Jewish families or something thru the Nazi period, but I haven't the foggiest idea how. Nonetheless, it was quality (esp. for the price), so ***.

We also went to the Topography of Terror, an exhibit near the Berlin Wall. It was free and outside. It probably would not have been very cool (it's just a bunch of posters with about an entire novel written on each one), but it was raining, which made it all the worse. I give it **, just because it was near the Wall, which is interesting to see in person.

This is the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, which was just down the street from our hostel. It is really cool looking. It was bombed out during WWII, and they decided to leave it like that as a monument. I don't think you can get inside it, but it is definitely worth the walk to see it (even if you live on the other side of Berlin, not just on the other side of the street!).

Then the next day, we went to watch Katie run in a marathon. We watched and watched, but didn't see her (tho we actually must have, since we saw everyone run past). So then Sara and I climbed the Victory Tower (Siegessäule) to get a high-up view of the city. It cost €1,50, and there was a museum on the bottom floor. The view was mediocre. I've had enough skyscraper views of big cities for a lifetime, I'm pretty sure. Plus the museum was crap. *.

Then I went to Museum Island and went to the museums (by myself! No one else wanted to go!). A day pass to all of the museums on the island cost €14 I think. It's pretty expensive, but you can see a lot. First I went to the Pergamon.

I saw the Ishtar Gate!
The Pergamon was very cool. I give it ****.

Then I went to the Egyptian Museum. Here I saw the bust of Nefertiti. Beyond that it wasn't that great (and actually, the bust wasn't that great either). Better deal: Go to the University of Chicago. The Egyptian Museum gets **.

And finally I went to the Museum of Antiquities. This museum was better than the Egyptian in my opinion, but it didn't really have anything substantial in it. Plus I kind of had my fill of museums for the day. I give it ***.

Okay, so maybe when you think Berlin, you think of the Wall, the Jewish memorial, the Brandenburg Gate. Well that's idiotic. What you should really think of are these two things: The Berliner Ampelmann (the odd looking East German man on the stop lights) and Knut the polar bear (more info on Knut below).

This is what Berlin actually looks like. It's kind of gross, dirty, full of prostitutes (seriously), and gross (I'm repeating myself here for emphasis).

Finally to end the day, we went to the East Side Gallery, which is an intact section of the Wall that was covered by some pretty sweet graffiti.

East Side Gallery

That evening we went to the Weinerei (wine bar). It was only €2,00 for the glass, and then you could fill it up as many times and with as many different kinds of wine (or juice) as you wanted. An obvious *****.

Erik and Sara looking classy

group of us

Okay, so the last day in Berlin I got my hair cut and went to the zoo. Entrance to the aquarium and the zoo proper was €7. It was overall a very nice zoo, but I just went to the zoo in Leipzig today, and that is one of the best in the world, so I feel a little jaded while writing this. But that's a story for tomorrow. I'm giving the Berlin Zoo ***.

AND I SAW KNUT! Knut is famous all over Germany. He's the star attraction of the Berlin zoo. I'm not really sure why. When he came here, he was just a baby and was apparently very cute, but now he's a grown-up and kind of ferocious. But anyway, they even have a movie about him out in theaters (check out the wicked rad trailer!).

So thanks for sticking with me for this massive post, but Berlin is kind of a massive city.
Tomorrow I'll post about Leipzig and Dresden - and my blog will finally catch up with me in real life again!

Hamburg und Kiel

2008-04-07T10:31:00.000-07:00

Hello again! How are you keeping up with all of this rapid-fire posting?

So we were in Bacharach for two nights, then on the third day we took a really dumpy train to Hamburg (through Koblenz). I figured maybe y'all aren't super humans with your German geography (Landeskunde), so I made this map with all of my stops:

So anyway, after Bacharach we ended up in Hamburg. Here we stayed with a friend and fellow Ole, Lennart Brombas, and his family. Lennart met us at the train station and showed us the town. The next day was a more serious tour of the town.

Hamburg

It was pretty chilly. We wandered around most of the city. It was very pretty. We even took a boat out on the river Elbe.

land near Lennart's house

Then the third day (again, we spent two nights in Hamburg), Lennart drove us up to Kiel on the Baltic Sea for the afternoon. The Baltic Sea is spectacular. Pristine. Gorgeous.

perfect

marina

So I don't really have anything to rank, because we didn't spend money on anything. Free housing (not to mention extremely nice hosts!) and free tours always get five stars. For those of you who don't have a Hamburger friend (ha, Hamburger), you can take a guided bus tour of the city for €10. Or you could just grab one of their maps of the tour's stops and walk it yourself.

Right now I'm in Berlin (I've been here for a couple of days now), but tomorrow we're off to Leipzig and Dresden. There I will also have internet, so you can look forward to another post, this time with photos from BERLIN!

Frankfurt und Bacharach

2008-04-06T16:05:00.000-07:00

as promised!
So I realize most people probably don't read my blog once a day, but this is the best way I could think of to play catch-up with my trip. So as I mentioned in my last blog, each stint of the "Reise" will get one post. Today I'm posting about my trip thru Frankfurt and Bacharach.

We were only in Stuttgart for one day, unfortunately. We spent the next afternoon in Frankfurt. We stored our luggage in some lockers at the train station for €4,00.

We went up this tower to get a view of the city. It cost about €3,50. Frankfurt isn't very pretty. Although it was kind of cool and surreal to be up so high, it certainly wasn't worth the money. I give it *.

For my schweester! HA!

Then we went to the Goethehaus, where Goethe apparently was born. There's even a "so-called birth room". This is Amelia at a so-called desk. She's being inspired thru osmosis. I can't wait to read her next Goethe-esque novel. Entrance cost a bit over €4.

I took a seminar on Goethe's Faust, and last semester I read The Sorrows of a Young Werther, so I was pretty excited to see this so-called plaque!

Then we went to Bacharach. This city is undoubtedly my favorite stop so far. It's small and basically unknown, but it's beautiful! It's near Cologne (or if you're really good with German topography, only about a half hour train ride from Koblenz).

We stayed in a castle up way on top of this mountain/hill! It was a 20-minute walk up steps with my massive amount of luggage!

gorgeous church/memorial to the Jews on the way up to the castle

The next day Amelia and I hiked up to the top of another mountain. This is on the way up. I like the lines, but you can also see a butterfly on one of the logs. Oh, also the weather was spectacular! Probably about high 70s, but windy enough that it was never hot.

me and my view
That's the Rhine down there, and that itty-bitty town is Bacharach.
We would never have known about Bacharach except that Chrissy had stayed here with a class trip in high school. Three cheers for Chrissy!

blossoms, because it's Spring here!

artsy-fartsy

After sitting up on top of the mountain for hours, Amelia and I decided we had to go down, otherwise we'd explode from exposure to too much beauty.

It was a steep hike down, with not too many steps or handrails. It was also thru a mass of vineyards. (Bacharach gets its name from Bacchus, Roman god of wine.)

And since the region is so well known for its wine, we decided it would be remiss not to partake in a local wine-tasting. It was around €4/person and well worth it. I love wine. I give it a ****: not quite a fiver, because most of the wine was white.

On the hike back up to the castle, we passed a goat farm. (That's Chrissy on the left, not a blond goat.)

view from our castle/hostel the day we left

So as I mentioned about a hundred times, yes we stayed in a castle. It was awesome (except for the heinous trekk up the mountain). It was also really cheap, at about €18-19 a night. It also came with a free all-you-can-eat breakfast. You could also purchase an all-you-can-eat dinner for €6. And on the way down we took a cab. It cost €8. If you can split that up several ways like we could, it is definitely worth it! I give the hostel (Hostel Stahleck) ***** - that's right, five stars!

So what do you have to look forward to in my next post? My travels around Germany continue as I visit the northern cities of Hamburg and Kiel!

um Deutschland reisen

2008-04-05T14:11:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blog-readers of mine!
So I've been traveling around Germany for my Spring Break. I thought I'd have more internet access than I've had, but I'm surviving anyway!
Here's my plan for the next several blogs. Each single blog I'm going to discuss one leg of the trip. Assuming (hoping) that some of you readers will visit Germany and want to do some of the things I have done, I'm also going to rank the activities (out of 5 asterisks, *****) and give the approximate price.

And we're off:
Our first stop was Stuttgart, but first we had to get to Singen, a town near Constance, in order to transfer to a different train. However, the railroad in Constance was under construction, so we had to go to a different station near by (we took a bus) and then board the train. Our connecting train in Singen was delayed an hour, so we grabbed coffee.

I'm an idiot. Whatever.
(in Singen)

Then we got to Stuttgart. Oh, and we're using the Eurrail Pass, which so far has been very easy. It cost me about $440, but it's unlimited travel for any 11 days in two months, so not a bad deal at all. We had to get it stamped before we got on our first train, and then we have to fill out the date in these little boxes each day before we travel. I give the Eurrail Pass ****, just because 5 stars is way too much for the first time I rate anything.

Anyway, Stuttgart was surprisingly gorgeous! (Quite possibly largely because the weather was spectacular.) We just wandered around and sat on the lawn near Schlossplatz (right near the two castles). People in Stuttgart were all very well dressed and very attractive. They were also predominantly Mediterraneans-looking, which surprised me.

inside the Evangelical church
very modern, very chic

street musicians, Louis Vuitton, 17th century church

Schlossplatz

Stuttgart=second love of my life, after Constance

In Stuttgart we stayed at Alex 30. It was clean, the staff spoke English (even tho we didn't need it), and decently priced (€22/bed/night, I'm pretty sure). No breakfast, tho, and it's a decent distance from the train station. You can, however, take the street car (€1/trip) directly from the train station to the block where the hostel is located. I give it ***.

So that's all for this post. Expect another tomorrow with photos from Frankfurt and Bacharach!

Ende des Sprachkurses

2008-03-29T08:10:00.000-07:00

So yesterday (Friday) we had our last day of class. Now I'm on vacation until April 14, when my semester at the university finally begins.

For our last day of class, we took another tour of Constance. This time we only hit up historical sites, including the Bismarck Tower and old French military housing from the days when Constance was part of the French Zone.

another historical site, The Bus

This is where we eat lunch.

And here I am with my wonderful (ex-)professor, Hilde.

Last night four of us (two Americans, a Turk and a Russian) took the bus to Switzerland. We got coupon books with our residency permits and wanted to use one to get into the planetarium in Kreuzlingen. But here's the deal: We finally get there, and so far everyone's been really nice (especially the bus driver, who even pointed out exactly how to get to the planetarium). Then we arrive at the actual planetarium, and the guy working the counter there is … hmm, what's a nice word for it… it starts with an "as" and ends in a "shole." Anyway, unhelpful Herr Ihateyouall tells us that we have two choices. Either we don't use the coupon, and we pay the student price (€5,00) or we use the coupon and take off €2 off of the adult price (€8,50 - therefore we'd pay €6,50). So our "coupon" would actually cost us an extra €1,50! Unbelievable.
Obviously we didn't go. Instead we wandered around Kreuzlingen and walked back across the border into Germany, where we bought gelato and then shared a bottle of wine in one of our dorms.

Then today I had a massive hassle with reserving the train back from Paris to Constance. My teller was from Korea, didn't speak especially good Germany, and was truthfully one of the least helpful people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. I spent an hour with him. It ended with his drawing a picture of a train full of people. This was supposed to explain to me what I would have understood with the word "ausverkauft" (sold out). He also smiled condescendingly the entire time - as if my German wasn't better than his. Anyway, then I spent an hour on the internet in McDonald's (remember how I don't have internet in my room), and then went back. I got a different teller who said he spoke English, but didn't really. We spoke German again. He was very confused by the whole mess, but in the end was very helpful and nice. The trip back won't be ideal (four transfers and a total of about 12 hrs of transit), but it'll take place, and that's all that matters at this point.

And tomorrow I'm off!

Saras Besuch und die Schweiz

2008-03-26T11:27:00.000-07:00

This will be a short post since I just updated the blog a couple of days ago.

Sara Thatcher, a friend from college, came to visit me. She stayed in my room and made use of my snazzy extra mattress. The first day she was here, we walked across the border into Switzerland! Check off another country from your list, Sara!

We actually spent a good amount of time in the neighboring town of Kreuzlingen. I hadn’t been there before (unless you count just driving through), and it’s actually quite pretty. It’s also right on lake Constance, ergo a similarly attractive landscape.

In this little bay area there were about fifty billion birds: ducks, gulls, cormorants, and lots of other birds I don’t know the English names of.

Look at how sea green the lake is! I love it.

Say cheese[y photo op]!
Sara poses with wild swans near a petting zoo.

I believe this building is Hotel Seeburg.

crossing back into Germany

and a couple post-scripts:
I am now officially a resident of Germany! I’m also officially (finally) a registered student at the University of Constance.
And lastly, I leave on my trip around Germany on the 30th (i.e., this coming Sunday). Sara’s been traveling around Europe now for a couple weeks (she’s on Spring break), and she told me most hostels will have free wireless, so I just might finally be able to get on Skype. My Skype address is colinhalverson, so add me and ring me up if you see me come online!

meine liebe deutsche Familie!

2008-03-24T09:07:00.001-07:00

So I spent my Easter break with my amazing German relatives. It was very nice to be with family for the holiday – especially with such wonderful family! Rolf, a distant uncle or what-have-you on my mother’s father’s side of the family (Egenberger), picked me up in Constance, and thus began yet another string of adventures!

We crossed the border into Switzerland and drove to the Rheinfall, a huge waterfall in the city of Schaffhausen.

me, in case you couldn’t tell

This is why I love this region.

We drove up and down between high- and lowlands. As soon as we passed a certain point, everything was green, and then when we reached a higher altitude, everything was blanketed in fresh snow.

We stopped briefly at a Roman Empire-era farmstead. There wasn’t much left, just the stone bases of various building, but the landscape was gorgeous! We were in the flatlands between dead volcanoes, so you could see for miles and miles.

While we were walking back to the car, Rolf and I saw this larger bird chasing the smaller one. They zipped around us for a few minutes before flying off.

Then we drove to Singen to see this famous castle called Hohentwiel. It’s way up there on top of the mountain. It was a long hike! I made Rolf climb all over the place, and although he insists he’s no sportsman, I’m pretty sure he’s an Olympic contender ready to head off to Beijing!

Here we are on top of the world!

Hohentwiel ruins

another view from Hohentwiel
The lake in the background is Lake Constance: home, sweet home!
Oh, and on the left side you can even see the Alps (not well, I warn you, but they’re definitely there)!

Then toward evening we drove to Constance, grabbed some food, and headed off to Augsburg, where those lovely Egenbergers live!

Hermann and Anita, the relatives at whose house I stayed, recently built this Wintergarten. This is where we had breakfast each day.

In Augsburg they were having a big festival called Volksfest (said in the local accent with loads of “sh” sounds). We got there at 10:30 am and had ourselves some Hasenbräu beer. Oh, this is Easter day now, by the way!

Then we went back to the house to have Easter dinner/lunch/brunch/so much food that I don’t think I’ll need a full meal again for a week! From left to right: Walter, Hannah (I’m not sure I spelled her name right), Anita and Hermann. All absolutely gracious, wonderful people!

As I’m typing this, I’m riding back to Constance on the train, and I’m reading this hilarious article Hermann gave me by Mark Twain. It’s called The Awful German Language. Here’s a sample that you Germanophiles will get a bang out of:

“An average sentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity; it occupies a quarter of a column; […] it treats of fourteen or fifteen different subjects […] after which comes the VERB, and you can find out for the first time what the man has been talking about; and after the verb – merely by way of ornament, as far as I can make out – the writer shovels in ‘haben sind gewesen gehabt geworden sein,’ or words to that effect, and the monument is finished. […] German books are easy enough to read when you hold them before the looking-glass or stand on your head.”

They say if you laugh once a day you gain a year in longevity or something like that, so if you have the time, check it out and live an extra decade or two!

In closing, the following transgression: I searched “Easter” in my iPhoto, and found the following picture. It cracked me up so much, that I decided I needed to share it for humanity’s sake.

above: another Easter spent with another lovely set of relatives
Even though I’m off living the good life, traveling the world, I’m still thinking of all of my family and friends on the other side of the globe. Hope all is going well!

Exkursion Meersburg

2008-03-20T12:29:00.000-07:00

I've got more photos!

I've had free time recently to doodle a little!

This one you might recognize from somewhere. Anyone? I've also painted a little, but no photos yet. Here's a shameless plug: If you haven't checked out my website yet, click here to see more of my loverly art!

On Wednesday we went to Meersburg, a small touristy town only a 15 minute ride by ferry (Autofähre) from Constance.

This photo is of Kirsten and me on the Autofähre. It was chilly on the ride. It was probably only 40°F that day. It's not a very good photo, but I know you all like seeing my smiling/grimacing face.

Here's a photo of Burg Meersburg, a somewhat redundant name. In English it would be "Castle Castle on the Sea." Here is where our tour of the ridiculous structure began. This time the German tour was led by this hilarious man. It was a blast. He teaches one of the sections of the language course. The tour itself was much better, but the subject of the tour (mainly these two castles in Meersburg) was really trashy.

So this is what I mean by "ridiculous" and "trashy." This young man was dressed up in what is apparently supposed to be garb from the Middle Ages. He was also wearing jeans, and that sword is definitely plastic.

These are skulls of very, very small deer. The Burg had skulls and animal heads all over, but they were very poorly kept up. There was also this moose head whose hide was almost completely decayed off. It was sort of disgusting.

Then there were these bizarre putti-babies with antlers for legs. (It's a chandelier, too!)

Here I am in a room with just suits of armor. And yes, that is the infamous Sir Pumpkinhead on my right.

Did I mention Meersburg is actually really pretty, tho?

This is the shoreline on the way back to the ferry. Five seconds after I took this photo, two swans swam up. Swans are all over Lake Constance.

And this one is for Teri. Not only is the region warm enough for magnolias, but also for palms. But yeah, I concede, it wasn't very warm at all during our tour of Meersburg.

And here's a photo of Germany giving the finger to political correctness.

Well, happy Easter all (or Frohe Ostern, as they say in my country)! Rolf Egenberger is coming down from Augsburg to spend the day with me in Constance this Saturday, and then I'm probably going back with him for an Egenberger family Easter celebration! He told me they're having something like a "small Oktoberfest" in Augsburg for the holiday.

So my language course is almost finished - only one week left! Next up is my tour of Germany, and then back to "real" life: The semester begins April 19! Expect another post after Easter holiday is over, and things open up again (ie, so I can use wireless).

Exkursion Freiburg

2008-03-16T03:34:00.000-07:00

So yesterday (Saturday for me), a bunch of us from the language course went to Freiburg in the Black Forest. The weather was perfect; the town was pretty. Here are about a thousand pictures from the trip.

Freiburger Münster (Cathedral of Freiburg)

I went on the German language tour (there was also an English one). The tour guide was nice, but very bad. She always talked insanely quietly, so no one could hear her. Then after she was done talking she would yell at us to catch up with her. Then when we actually got somewhere, we'd have to wait like a year and a half for her to start whispering again.

While we were in the Münster, they were having Youth Days or something, so there were a bunch of teenagers singing and leading service. The singing was terrifyingly bad.

So it was really loud in the cathedral, but our tour guide still wouldn't speak up. She did complain a bunch about how the children were ruining the Münster atmosphere.

This is inside a different church. It's Franciscan. I took this photo for you, mom - check out the icons.

We ate lunch at the Mensa in the University of Freiburg. It was a huge meal. This university, by the way, was founded before Columbus landed in America!

magnolias, apparently

They were having the weekly farmers' market on the Münsterplatz. That was a lot of fun. We got to wander around. I had gelato (€0,70!).

Rathaus (town hall), farmers' market (you can see an umbrella), fountain, and Münster

street musicians (I like this photo a lot. The guy with the head scarf or whatever reminds me of a Dürer painting. Or maybe a Vermeer.)

graffiti

photo of Erika and me

This is what the sidewalk in Freiburg looks like. Seriously, all over!

Do any of you remember the movie Miss Potter?

advertisements on the Münster
Three of us went back to see if the Münster had cleared out a bit.

It hadn't. Now they were having mass. Bad English cracks me up (and reminds me of my German).

last one - me in front of the Münster
This is number 6 in a series of about a dozen failed photos.

Rothaus Brauerei

2008-03-13T10:48:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I went down to Egg (pronounced kind of like "Ache"), a small neighborhood in Constance. It's really quaint and exactly how you'd picture a small German town. It's also right on the lake, so I got to walk along one of the beaches.

Here are some of my pictures from the brief trip:

mailbox

A bunch of the houses in this region of Germany have these huge rain shelters full of firewood.

Lake Constance as seen from Egg - Unfortunately, this is not one of the angles from which you can see the Alps.

more of Lake Constance
Although you can't see the Alps, you can see basically everything else! You can see the entire way across the lake into Switzerland!

Alright, since there seems to be an enormous amount of interest in my living quarters, below are photos of The Room. I swear I didn't clean before I took the photos; it's actually stayed that clean! (And if you don't believe that, how about "I only cleaned a little bit"?)

before shot
I took this my first night (March 3rd). This isn't the worst view (eg. you can't see the spiders!).

after shot
I did a fair amount of cleaning, buying and decorating.

view of my sink and a chair I sniped off the side of the road - It's actually pretty comfortable.

last shot - I'm sure you've seen enough photos of my room now.

Yesterday on our way to class it rained a little. The result: a full (180°) rainbow looks like it's arching out of the town. Ever ask yourself what's at the end of the rainbow? Now you know: Constance.

After class yesterday we went to the Rothaus Brewery in the Black Forest. It smelled gross everywhere. Even outdoors, which is actually quite the accomplishment. The first thing we did when we got there was watch this heinous movie that was supposedly about the "history of the brewery." Think Clockwork Orange style propaganda. "Rothaus is the best in the land!" It was really cheesy, too.

Then we toured the factory. It's was almost interesting, but you couldn't really hear the tour guide because of all of the machinery noise. Plus she was speaking German.

shot of the inner workings - They make thousands of bottles an hour. I forget the exact amount. I'm thinking 90,000 or 60,000.

This is me next to some huge copper things that I'm pretty sure are used in the fermenting process. (What else would they be used for?)

Overall, tho, I'd have to say I LOVED the trip to the brewery. Want to know why? It was free! Everything. And at the end as a part of this free trip (kostenlose Reise), we got a huge meal with as much beer as we could drink! And the beer was all really good and chilled. Plus I got lots of bread rolls and sausage. Mmm! How much more German can you get? Beer, sausage and pretzels in the Black Forest?

Oh, and PS ANNALIESE - HOLY COW HAVE A GREAT TIME IN JAPAN! I wanna see photos and an email with stories from your trip!

historische Stadt

2008-03-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

So as I mentioned, on Saturday a bunch of us from the Sprachkurs (language course) went on an historical tour of Constance. Here are some of the photos.
(PS - I went to the bridge that connects the two halves of Constance today, and it wasn't foggy, so you could see the Alps! I love Constance!)

Just kidding, this isn't from the tour, but it is my new phone. Pretty sweet, right? Plus I misspoke/mistyped: it only cost €50.

This is a monument to Count Zeppelin. I don't remember exactly (maybe because the entire tour was auf Deutsch), but maybe he was born here in Constance.

This is the Inselhotel. It's really pretty amazing for a hotel! It's an historical site. Inside there are all of these really old paintings that recount the history of the island all the way from the 100s when Constance was originally inhabited by the Alamanni (hence Fr. allemande, Sp. alemán) tribe (see below).

Our tour guide told us the Alamanni probably didn't live this well.

There was this one room that was entirely filled with images of martyrs being killed. I'm not sure what the room used to be used for back in the day, but now it's a dining hall. Guten Appetit!

riverside in Constance

Konstanzer Münster (Cathedral of Constance)
It was built in three separate stints in three separate eras (Romanesque, Gothic and something else… sorry, mom). It's one of many different churches here in Constance, but so far it's the only one I've visited. Chrissy went here last Sunday for mass.

inside the Münster

building near Münsterplatz

These things crack me up! In German they're called Seehasen, which would translate to something like "Sea Hare," except that already refers to something else in English (it's related to sea slugs). There are a bunch of things around town named Seehase this and Seehase that.

Well that's it for today. Bis bald!

das Wochenende

2008-03-09T07:20:00.000-07:00

Alright, so no pictures, because I'm just illegally using the library computers again, but brief summary of recent happenings:
Yesterday we went on an historical tour of the city. It's gorgeous (I think I might have mentioned that before...?), but I'll post pictures and more info tomorrow. (We're going to the Irish pub again tomorrow for half price burgers and an 8 euro pitcher of beer.)
After the tour, a friend called me on my brand-spanking new phone and the two of us decided to go on an "adventure" - we got on the very first bus we'd never been on before and rode it to a stop we'd never gotten off at before. Then we just explored. I bought some more very cheap stuff to make my room look less dismal, and we ran into a girl who's been helping us foreigners adjust. She's from some Central Asian republic and speaks Russian. She asked me to do a tandem partnership with her, with me teaching her English and her teaching me Russian. Sounds like a good deal to me! Plus she says I can get credit for it, which would be sweet.
After wandering around, we found a little restaurant called "Anna Maria Pizza Bar." The woman who works there speaks very little German and even less English. (She's from Italy.) She was very nice. She showed us pictures of Venice and told us stories in a mix of English, German and Italian. She told us how her brother's a gondolier and after 9/11 he bought American flags to hang around his gondola (she showed us pictures of that, too). We had gnocchi (€6,50) and gelato (€0,50!!!).
While we ate, I started a conversation with this old German man who was just sitting and drinking. He was also really nice and told us stories (in good Hochdeutsch) about his travels around the world.
After a while a bunch of people starting pouring in. And they all only spoke Italian! We realized we were in Constance's Little Italy (Kleinitalien). I spoke in Italian a bit, and then we headed out.
After that we met Chrissy, Kirsten and two German guys we'd met before near the train station (Bahnhof). We went to a pub called Heimat ("Homeland") and had some Raddler (a Bavarian specialty). After that we went back to their flat in Paradies - much nicer than Sonnenbühl Ost! - and just chilled for a while. We'd missed the last bus, so we had to call a taxi, which took forever to get in.
So that was the first "adventure" of the trip!

Oh, and one more thing before I close: I know I said it was chilly, but I didn't mean it comparatively. It's been in the 40s here all week, and today it's in the 50s. What temp is it back in MN? Yeah, Constance sounds pretty good right now, doesn't it?

nette Leute!

2008-03-07T08:24:00.000-08:00

I don't really have much to say, but I do have some photos. I bought a new phone today! It was €60, but I call free anywhere in Germany for the first three months. What else? Class is fine, a little boring, but fine. I've met tons of really nice people. Germans are overall extremely nice, helpful and friendly. Right now I'm in this really fancy cafe using their Internet, because I still have none in my room. But any way, the fun part: Fotos!
PS - Anna have a blast in Japan!

sculpture in Sonnenbühl Ost

on the way to the city center (Stadtzentrum), just down the street from our dorms

that's right, Sauerkraut Juice!

another sculpture outside of the university (Spools?)

Lake Constance! This is the view from the main cafeteria (Mensa) in the University. My life is good.

quick post

2008-03-06T06:11:00.001-08:00

Alright, so I got my placement results back - I got into the highest level possible (out of like seven)! I also still have no internet, so I am typing at the university library using a password someone gave me illegally (Im not supposed to be able to log in until Im enrolled at the college, but that wont be until March 26!). I also cant find the apostraphe key. Thats my only news. Were going to a small pub near our dorms tonight since the buses arent running.
Better posts soon, I promise!
Oh, and thanks tons for all of the comments on my last post; its great to hear from all of you!

Märchenstadt

2008-03-05T09:50:00.000-08:00

I'm in Germany!
So here's my first actual post. It's amazing. Truthfully, I think this is about my favorite city I've ever been to except for Eidfjord. It's beautiful and quaint and a college town with plenty of stuff to do all at once.
So quick recap with photos (Fotos):

My parents came to the airport to see me off. I love my parents :)

This is me on the "red carpet" which United rolled out for Chrissy and me. Seriously, they called it the "red carpet." My flights were basically uneventful. A little delayed, but nothing serious.

One thing that was interesting was when I was on the long flight from Chicago to Copenhagen, I sat next to this really large, drunk man from near Iceland. He talked a long time (occasionally incoherent, but unfortunately in English, so I couldn't pretend not to understand). One of his many inappropriate stories was about the prostitute he bought in New Orleans for $300. He also said that he has 6 children, none of whom look like him. Hmm.

Here's Amelia and me in the Zurich train station. Also included are Chrissy's bags. We got stares. Total, I'm pretty sure our luggage weighed a ton and a half.

We went shopping at the Supermarkt. I found the exact same chocolate rabbits that Mom gave me. I also got a good bottle of wine for 1 euro 49 cents! I haven't tried it yet, tho, so we'll see.

Uni-Konstanz! My university is enormous and ridiculous-looking. The cafeteria (Mensa) is actually decent and pretty cheap. I had orientation today.

bizarre sculpture(?) near the university

Lake Constance (in German "Bodensee") and a statue of Imperia. I have no idea who Imperia is, but she's a big deal here. Maybe you can see the Alps in the background. Constance is really pretty.

We went on a tour of the city today after our orientation period and language placement exam. It was chilly, but the city is really nice. Buses run every fifteen minutes to everywhere, and actually nothing is really that expensive. While we were walking around I met a bunch of other foreign students who'll be taking language classes this month, too. One of the young women I met (from Italy) called Constance a fairytale city ("Märchenstadt", our common language is German).

buildings in Constance

another building

Hanfuniversum - I'm not really sure what they sell here, because I'm pretty sure pot is still illegal here. They do have hookahs in the window, tho.

shot of our tour group - Our tour was actually a scavenger hunt, so one of our tasks was to take a photo of ourselves in this courtyard.

Here I am in Constance. It's a little chilly, but still better than Minnesota!

*So I don't have internet in my room yet, but I will hopefully very soon, so expect better posts in the near future.

A little about my room: It's decent; it was really nasty, but I cleaned for hours, and now it looks fine. Plus I found an extra mattress, so I have a place for visitors to sleep (for free)! It's also really close the university, so it's only a walk. And tomorrow the bus drivers are striking, so for the people living in nice dorms - hah! - they have like a half hour walk. One point for Sonnenbühl Ost. (My address, by the way, is Zr. Nr. 160, Haus E, Sonnenbühl Ost, Jacob-Burckhardt-Str. 35, 78464 Konstanz).

There's my first post. There will be more in a few days.

international studies office, or whom it may concern

2008-02-04T18:14:00.000-08:00

Thank you International Studies Office for your complete incompetence. No, seriously, I'm sure you're lovely people, but wow. I'm truly impressed by the abandon with which you conduct yourselves.

What? Oh, I gave ISO my housing application in December (like the 2nd, specifically), and they didn't fax it in to my university in Germany until January 12 or something. That's cool, right, though, because technically it was still (hours) before the due date. Except it means that I didn't get into the dorm I wanted. Now I'm scheduled to live in Sonnenbühl Ost (photo from an advertisement), which has been dubbed by previous occupants "Soviet Apartment Block" (lars3). Mmm, because I know just what to look forward to with Soviet-style living (J-Term in Russia)!
So in closing, obviously not that interesting of a post, but nice to bitch to the world about ISO.

If you're bored already, STOP READING. If you're an Ole, however, and want to compare the pros and cons of setting up your own study-abroad and traveling with a different school, read on!

Okay, so I'm really not going to write much more, but here are the other problems with our ISO program at St. Olaf:
• $1000 to ISO for what? They give you a packet that says "Don't have sex with dirty prostitutes" and "Don't pet the bears." You go to a seven-hour presentation during which you write poetry on what getting out of this country means to you and and see a guy who recommends camera equipment that costs as much as tuition.
• Then you also have to turn everything in to ISO and pray that they actually hand it in. They were late with both my housing app and my pre-semester language course app. Nice. All they had to do was fax it in. I could have done that, AND done it on time.
• Finally, they act as though they'd told you all of the opportunities for scholarship, etc, but they haven't. Originally I assumed that ISO was competent, but then heard other horror stories and started to search for stipend availability last September. But it was too late! It took me about 10 minutes and I found three scholarship opportunities (adding up to around €3000 easily), but I was too late. I told ISO to add these scholarships to their lists so that future students could apply for them, but they never did.
So those are, off the top of my head, the top three reasons to do this on your own/with another college.

I promise my next posts will be of much greater interest and will probably be from while I'm abroad, not while I'm sitting here in Byron.