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!
