It turned out that the cookout to which I was invited on Sunday evening was an all-Czech affair. I think most everyone there spoke English, and would do so when addressing me, but the rest of the time, it was definitely like watching a movie without subtitles. Maybe I should try to learn Czech next, since it seems like that’s that language that’s spoken most often around my residence, even in excess of German.
One of the people at the party was a guy who was working on his Ph.D. in medieval Bohemian history between the 14th and 15th centuries, and when he heard that I was from Michigan, he asked if I had been to Kalamazoo College, since there’s a big medieval history conference there every year. Sadly, I have never been to Kalamazoo, but I do remember my cousin, Alex, telling me several years ago about what a great medieval history program they have there. This guy is the first person since I’ve met since then who had also heard of the program. I was kind of amused when he said, “I think there are probably about 150 people in the world working on the same area of history as me. I think I know about three quarters of them personally.” I’m wondering if the definition of his field of study is not merely “14th and 15th century Bohemian history,” but something more like, “History and correlations of grain production with beer and soap consumption in the western villages of the northern provinces of Bohemia during the 14th and 15th centuries, as they may or may not relate to the early philosophies of Jean Sartre.”
Apparently Jĭrkĭ and his girlfriend, Anna, had heard me playing guitar earlier in the day, so they asked me to go get it and play for everyone. Regrettably, I know only a few songs to which you can sing, none of with the Czech people knew. Everyone kept requesting Beatles songs, but since most Beatles songs are too high for me to sing, I never bothered learning them. After I went through the few sing-along songs I knew (though no one knew the words, and therefore abstained from the singing), I passed the guitar over to the history guy I had been talking to, and he started playing some traditional Czech songs, to which there was immediately a 20 person vocal accompaniment. Someone asked me why I knew so few songs you could sing along to, and I said it was because none of my friends ever want to sing (I’m looking at you, Andy Baum, Kaitlyn, Alexa…). She looked very puzzled at my answer, apparently unable to fathom how I managed to befriend such party poopers. Now that I actually know people who are willing to sing, it looks like I’ll be learning a lot of Beatles song (much to the chagrin of Andy’s mother I’m sure).
Despite my inability to understand anything not specifically directed toward me, it was a great time. People kept forcing me to eat more bratwurst, steak, and little mushroom looking things filled with tuna, though I put up little resistance. I think Anna was a little concerned that perhaps I was ill or something when she said, “You have only two beers all night?! Are you sure you okay?” I was extremely flattered by the kindness of these people who I’d hardly ever talked to before, but randomly decided to invite me to join their gathering and to feed me till I was ready to burst.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Sunday, April 22, 2007
I forgot that stores aren’t open on Sundays here. I have two bananas, five slices of bread, ½ cup of basmati rice, a 75ml can of tomato paste, ¼ of a wheel of Camembert cheese, a jar of chicken bullion, and for some reason, lots of butter. Fortunately, the people on my floor are having a cookout on the balcony, to which Jĭrkĭ has invited me. I have absolutely no idea how to pronounce his name, but that doesn’t stop him from being my favorite person today. He’s also the guy who signed for my Eurail pass when it came via FedEx, so he already had pretty favorable status as far as I was concerned.
Yesterday I ended up having that picnic with Maria, Claudia, and German student from the Fachhochshule, Phillip. I was going to invite some of the other Kettering folks as well, but I think I was the only one who was in Konstanz that day. I met Phillip a week or two ago through Kurt at a party thrown at one of the dormitories near the FH. When I discovered he owned a guitar, he became my insta-friend. I don’t want to sound like I’m only friends with Philip because he has a guitar – he’s really a cool guy anyway – but how can I not appreciate a guitar player? He told me to give him a call sometime if I wanted to come by and use his guitar, so I called him up yesterday and told him he should join us for lunch by the river and bring the guitar with him.
We arrived at the river, armed with sandwich material and some tasty chocolate and cookie morsels Maria picked up from Kaufland, and found Phillip with guitar and blanket in hand. Oh, how I’ve missed my guitar! I was so excited to get to play again. Phillip and I swapped off playing songs until both of us had exhausted our repertoires, at which point Maria and Claudia, perhaps a little begrudgingly, entertained us with a few Romanian songs. After each of us had partially recovered from our food comas, we broke camp and headed home, but with me in possession of the guitar. Phillip doesn’t play it that well and only practices it occasionally, so he said I could borrow it for a while, and when he gets the fancy to play it, he’ll just call me up and ask for it back. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!
When I hang around with Maria and Claudia, I usually end up talking mostly to Claudia, since she speaks very good English, while Maria speaks very good French, but only a little English, German and Spanish. When Maria and I do talk, it’s usually in a combination of the latter three languages, but I think we both find it difficult to get our point across. Anyway, Friday evening I wrote a little letter to both of them in German, inviting them to have lunch the next day. Though I can hardly speak at all in German, I can write well enough to get my point across, since I have time to think and to look up words when I’m writing. Anyway, Maria happened to be home when I dropped the note off, so she read it while I waited and said she’d be happy to go. Later in the evening after we’d come back from the picnic, I found a note tucked into the jamb of my door. Apparently Maria had been so delighted that I’d written that letter in German for her benefit, she returned the favor with a note in Spanish, apologizing that she doesn’t talk very much, since she doesn’t speak English, Spanish or German very well (though I think she probably speaks the latter two better that I do), but thanking me for the picnic and the entertainment on the guitar. It was an incredibly sweet gesture – not to mention her handwriting looks like a work of art.
Yesterday I ended up having that picnic with Maria, Claudia, and German student from the Fachhochshule, Phillip. I was going to invite some of the other Kettering folks as well, but I think I was the only one who was in Konstanz that day. I met Phillip a week or two ago through Kurt at a party thrown at one of the dormitories near the FH. When I discovered he owned a guitar, he became my insta-friend. I don’t want to sound like I’m only friends with Philip because he has a guitar – he’s really a cool guy anyway – but how can I not appreciate a guitar player? He told me to give him a call sometime if I wanted to come by and use his guitar, so I called him up yesterday and told him he should join us for lunch by the river and bring the guitar with him.
We arrived at the river, armed with sandwich material and some tasty chocolate and cookie morsels Maria picked up from Kaufland, and found Phillip with guitar and blanket in hand. Oh, how I’ve missed my guitar! I was so excited to get to play again. Phillip and I swapped off playing songs until both of us had exhausted our repertoires, at which point Maria and Claudia, perhaps a little begrudgingly, entertained us with a few Romanian songs. After each of us had partially recovered from our food comas, we broke camp and headed home, but with me in possession of the guitar. Phillip doesn’t play it that well and only practices it occasionally, so he said I could borrow it for a while, and when he gets the fancy to play it, he’ll just call me up and ask for it back. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!
When I hang around with Maria and Claudia, I usually end up talking mostly to Claudia, since she speaks very good English, while Maria speaks very good French, but only a little English, German and Spanish. When Maria and I do talk, it’s usually in a combination of the latter three languages, but I think we both find it difficult to get our point across. Anyway, Friday evening I wrote a little letter to both of them in German, inviting them to have lunch the next day. Though I can hardly speak at all in German, I can write well enough to get my point across, since I have time to think and to look up words when I’m writing. Anyway, Maria happened to be home when I dropped the note off, so she read it while I waited and said she’d be happy to go. Later in the evening after we’d come back from the picnic, I found a note tucked into the jamb of my door. Apparently Maria had been so delighted that I’d written that letter in German for her benefit, she returned the favor with a note in Spanish, apologizing that she doesn’t talk very much, since she doesn’t speak English, Spanish or German very well (though I think she probably speaks the latter two better that I do), but thanking me for the picnic and the entertainment on the guitar. It was an incredibly sweet gesture – not to mention her handwriting looks like a work of art.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
This post is adapted from a note I started writing while in Salzburg, thus my sitting on the bank of a river during the writing.
I’m in the midst of my second expedition outside of Konstanz, this time in Salzburg, Austria. I arrived here yesterday with Chaz, a B-section guy I hadn’t met until getting to Germany. Classes were cancelled this Wednesday, and we were the only two people from the Kettering group who didn’t have class on Thursdays, so we decided to make the most of our extended weekend. It was only by the skin of our teeth that we made our train yesterday morning. The train left the station in Konstanz at 5:26 in the morning, meaning we had to walk most (if not all) of the way to the train station because of the limited bus service at that hour. We had planned to meet outside the main residence building at 4:30am in order to have ample time to walk the entire distance. Unfortunately, Chaz decided he was going to get extremely drunk the prior evening, and didn’t get out of bed until I came into his room around 4:55 and threw cold water on his face.
By the time we finally got on the road, we only had 20 minutes to cover about 2.5 miles. I didn’t think we had any chance, since we were lugging backpacks and I could tell Chaz was still quite intoxicated, but never the less, we started running as fast as we could. I think I stopped three or four times to give a couple dry heaves (if I had eaten breakfast, it certainly would have been on the sidewalk). When we got to Zähringer Platz, the main shopping and bus transfer station north of the river, I saw a bus on the other side of the large intersection getting ready to pull out. Much to the displeasure of my stomach and bowels, I sprinted for it and managed to hit the door button just as the bus was beginning its forward motion. Fortunately, the doors opened and the bust waited for us. I was again glad that I hadn’t eaten, since that last burst of effort would have made me vomit on the woman sitting in front of me. The pain ended up being worth it though, since we did successfully catch our train.
Six hours and some change later, after a couple train changes and about an hour layover in Ulm (which, by the way, has a ginormous cathedral, the history of which I should research (along with pre-1066 British history, and the history of the fortress in Salzburg), we finally arrived in Salzburg. [After my return to Konstanz, I found, via Wikipedia, that that cathedral actually has the tallest church spire in the world, standing 570ft high.]
The first stop, after checking into our hostel, was Mozart’s birth house. Hmm… what to say about it? Well, it’s a house, and Mozart was born there. They had some interesting artifacts there, but the collection was sparse, and many of the paintings and documents in the house (if not most) were reproductions. Who wants to pay to see a photocopy of a score written by Mozart? I think we got taken by this tourist trap.
Next up was a climb to the top of the hill on which the city fortress is located. After fighting our way through what seemed to be an Italian middle school fieldtrip group, we were able to pay our admission and enter the fort. It was a fairly interesting structure, but had disappointingly few informative markers. All the buildings had plaques inscribed with the name of the building and the year it was built, but if you wanted to know more than that, you had to drop 1€ into an information machine to get any sort of real description. Chaz and I split the cost of one of these (since there are two telephone receiver looking earpieces for people to listen to), but we decided it probably wasn’t worth the 7€ it would cost for the full tour of the place. On our way out, we also discovered that that admission we had paid was for the museum that must have closed just as we entered the fort, since we never found said museum (probably behind some large, closed metal door), and also saw a sign on our way out that said admission was free after the museum closed. Lame.
We then had dinner at some little restaurant/carry out place, where I had an overpriced chicken schnitzel (which I found out is actually just a fried chicken patty), and then returned to the hostel and watched The Sound of Music (shown every night at 8pm!). I think if I lived or worked in this town, I’d get tired of hearing about Mozart and The Sound of Music pretty quick. I guess they’re good for the local economy though.
Today mostly consisted of hiking up another hill, touring a couple churches, and hanging out on the riverside, which is where I am currently. At the top of the hill, there was some old looking building that, according to some sign, used to be an artillery emplacement, but I said to Chaz that it was probably some overpriced restaurant. Lo and behold, I was exactly right, though not terribly surprised, due to the presence of two restaurants in the fort we toured the day before.
After being chastised by the lone waiter for lounging about the patio and not ordering anything, we got some overpriced cheese and bread, and ended up talking to an English couple, who remarked that they had ordered drinks because they too had been scolded. I asked them what cities to see if I went to England, and I think their general recommendations were Devon and Cornwall, and Oxford if I had time.
When we returned to the hostel in search of some cheap dinner at the cafeteria, we found a Korean looking guy had joined our room, but I was quite surprised when he introduced himself as “John from Australia.” I’m used to Asian people having American and British accents, but Australia is a new one for me. Anyhow, Chaz and I talked to him for a while, and we all decided to go down the Irish pub later that evening to check out the live music there. (Since there seems to be an Irish pub in just about every city I’ve ever been to, I would be exceedingly delighted if in Dublin there were a German pub.)
John, it turned out, was from Perth, and was living in London on a “working holiday” visa, meaning he worked for six months, then would take that money and spend the next six months traveling. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me. He had stopped off in Salzburg on his way to some ski resort in the Austrian Alps that was owned by a friend of his, and after deciding that Chaz and I were pretty much the coolest Americans he’d ever met (I’d venture a guess that he hasn’t met many Americans), he invited us to come along with him, since he could probably get us a discount on lift passes. I had already decided I was going to head back to Konstanz, since I had come down with a bit of a cold, and figured I should take the rest of the weekend to recuperate, and Chaz also declined, since he didn’t bring any clothes suitable for skiing and had already made plans to meet some other Kettering guys in Vienna. After a few more hours of talking and Chaz and I both mentioning that we’d like to visit Australia someday, we also found ourselves the recipients of a standing invitation for free rooms at John’s place in Perth if we ever found our way out there. I’ll have to remember that, since I’m sure I’d take him up on it if I had the opportunity.
The next day around noon, Chaz and I got to the train station, with him headed to Vienna, and me going back to Konstanz, by way of Radofzell, by way of Ulm. To be honest, for a six and a half hour trip, it’s really not bad at all. Time seems to go by much faster on the train, certainly compared with being on an airplane. This can probably be attributed to 2nd class trains actually having a tolerable amount of legroom, as well as changing trains giving you a chance to really walk around and stretch a bit.
Upon returning to Konstanz around six in the evening, I was under the impression that I would head straight home and take a nap, preferably one lasting until the next morning, but instead, I ended up taking a long walk from the mouth of the Rhine along the edge of Lake Konstanz, around the cape, and through another of the several forests in the area, back to Jacob-Burckhardt. There are two Romanian girls, Maria and Claudia, who I’ve become friends with, and I suggested to them last week that we have a picnic this weekend, so I figured I should scout the place for suitable picnic locations. Sadly, for as many natural wonders as Konstanz contains, beaches – at least the real kind, with sand – it has not. All the beaches here consist of big rocks that look terribly unpleasant to walk or sit upon. Oh well. Discovering this other forest still made it a worthwhile venture, not to mention that the walking is good for keeping me from getting fat, since I’ve discovered that the 0.60€ ice cream that is sold everywhere in this city is extremely yummy and a good way to rid my pockets of unwanted change.
Okay, that’s all for now.
I’m in the midst of my second expedition outside of Konstanz, this time in Salzburg, Austria. I arrived here yesterday with Chaz, a B-section guy I hadn’t met until getting to Germany. Classes were cancelled this Wednesday, and we were the only two people from the Kettering group who didn’t have class on Thursdays, so we decided to make the most of our extended weekend. It was only by the skin of our teeth that we made our train yesterday morning. The train left the station in Konstanz at 5:26 in the morning, meaning we had to walk most (if not all) of the way to the train station because of the limited bus service at that hour. We had planned to meet outside the main residence building at 4:30am in order to have ample time to walk the entire distance. Unfortunately, Chaz decided he was going to get extremely drunk the prior evening, and didn’t get out of bed until I came into his room around 4:55 and threw cold water on his face.
By the time we finally got on the road, we only had 20 minutes to cover about 2.5 miles. I didn’t think we had any chance, since we were lugging backpacks and I could tell Chaz was still quite intoxicated, but never the less, we started running as fast as we could. I think I stopped three or four times to give a couple dry heaves (if I had eaten breakfast, it certainly would have been on the sidewalk). When we got to Zähringer Platz, the main shopping and bus transfer station north of the river, I saw a bus on the other side of the large intersection getting ready to pull out. Much to the displeasure of my stomach and bowels, I sprinted for it and managed to hit the door button just as the bus was beginning its forward motion. Fortunately, the doors opened and the bust waited for us. I was again glad that I hadn’t eaten, since that last burst of effort would have made me vomit on the woman sitting in front of me. The pain ended up being worth it though, since we did successfully catch our train.
Six hours and some change later, after a couple train changes and about an hour layover in Ulm (which, by the way, has a ginormous cathedral, the history of which I should research (along with pre-1066 British history, and the history of the fortress in Salzburg), we finally arrived in Salzburg. [After my return to Konstanz, I found, via Wikipedia, that that cathedral actually has the tallest church spire in the world, standing 570ft high.]
The first stop, after checking into our hostel, was Mozart’s birth house. Hmm… what to say about it? Well, it’s a house, and Mozart was born there. They had some interesting artifacts there, but the collection was sparse, and many of the paintings and documents in the house (if not most) were reproductions. Who wants to pay to see a photocopy of a score written by Mozart? I think we got taken by this tourist trap.
Next up was a climb to the top of the hill on which the city fortress is located. After fighting our way through what seemed to be an Italian middle school fieldtrip group, we were able to pay our admission and enter the fort. It was a fairly interesting structure, but had disappointingly few informative markers. All the buildings had plaques inscribed with the name of the building and the year it was built, but if you wanted to know more than that, you had to drop 1€ into an information machine to get any sort of real description. Chaz and I split the cost of one of these (since there are two telephone receiver looking earpieces for people to listen to), but we decided it probably wasn’t worth the 7€ it would cost for the full tour of the place. On our way out, we also discovered that that admission we had paid was for the museum that must have closed just as we entered the fort, since we never found said museum (probably behind some large, closed metal door), and also saw a sign on our way out that said admission was free after the museum closed. Lame.
We then had dinner at some little restaurant/carry out place, where I had an overpriced chicken schnitzel (which I found out is actually just a fried chicken patty), and then returned to the hostel and watched The Sound of Music (shown every night at 8pm!). I think if I lived or worked in this town, I’d get tired of hearing about Mozart and The Sound of Music pretty quick. I guess they’re good for the local economy though.
Today mostly consisted of hiking up another hill, touring a couple churches, and hanging out on the riverside, which is where I am currently. At the top of the hill, there was some old looking building that, according to some sign, used to be an artillery emplacement, but I said to Chaz that it was probably some overpriced restaurant. Lo and behold, I was exactly right, though not terribly surprised, due to the presence of two restaurants in the fort we toured the day before.
After being chastised by the lone waiter for lounging about the patio and not ordering anything, we got some overpriced cheese and bread, and ended up talking to an English couple, who remarked that they had ordered drinks because they too had been scolded. I asked them what cities to see if I went to England, and I think their general recommendations were Devon and Cornwall, and Oxford if I had time.
When we returned to the hostel in search of some cheap dinner at the cafeteria, we found a Korean looking guy had joined our room, but I was quite surprised when he introduced himself as “John from Australia.” I’m used to Asian people having American and British accents, but Australia is a new one for me. Anyhow, Chaz and I talked to him for a while, and we all decided to go down the Irish pub later that evening to check out the live music there. (Since there seems to be an Irish pub in just about every city I’ve ever been to, I would be exceedingly delighted if in Dublin there were a German pub.)
John, it turned out, was from Perth, and was living in London on a “working holiday” visa, meaning he worked for six months, then would take that money and spend the next six months traveling. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me. He had stopped off in Salzburg on his way to some ski resort in the Austrian Alps that was owned by a friend of his, and after deciding that Chaz and I were pretty much the coolest Americans he’d ever met (I’d venture a guess that he hasn’t met many Americans), he invited us to come along with him, since he could probably get us a discount on lift passes. I had already decided I was going to head back to Konstanz, since I had come down with a bit of a cold, and figured I should take the rest of the weekend to recuperate, and Chaz also declined, since he didn’t bring any clothes suitable for skiing and had already made plans to meet some other Kettering guys in Vienna. After a few more hours of talking and Chaz and I both mentioning that we’d like to visit Australia someday, we also found ourselves the recipients of a standing invitation for free rooms at John’s place in Perth if we ever found our way out there. I’ll have to remember that, since I’m sure I’d take him up on it if I had the opportunity.
The next day around noon, Chaz and I got to the train station, with him headed to Vienna, and me going back to Konstanz, by way of Radofzell, by way of Ulm. To be honest, for a six and a half hour trip, it’s really not bad at all. Time seems to go by much faster on the train, certainly compared with being on an airplane. This can probably be attributed to 2nd class trains actually having a tolerable amount of legroom, as well as changing trains giving you a chance to really walk around and stretch a bit.
Upon returning to Konstanz around six in the evening, I was under the impression that I would head straight home and take a nap, preferably one lasting until the next morning, but instead, I ended up taking a long walk from the mouth of the Rhine along the edge of Lake Konstanz, around the cape, and through another of the several forests in the area, back to Jacob-Burckhardt. There are two Romanian girls, Maria and Claudia, who I’ve become friends with, and I suggested to them last week that we have a picnic this weekend, so I figured I should scout the place for suitable picnic locations. Sadly, for as many natural wonders as Konstanz contains, beaches – at least the real kind, with sand – it has not. All the beaches here consist of big rocks that look terribly unpleasant to walk or sit upon. Oh well. Discovering this other forest still made it a worthwhile venture, not to mention that the walking is good for keeping me from getting fat, since I’ve discovered that the 0.60€ ice cream that is sold everywhere in this city is extremely yummy and a good way to rid my pockets of unwanted change.
Okay, that’s all for now.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Last week, my Eurail pass finally arrived, so I was able to start my traveling this past weekend. (Quick side note: on German keyboards, the Y and the Z keys are swapped, so now that I’ve gotten used to that, I’m having a hard time hitting the right keys on an American keyboard.) Rafal, Steven (aka Loud Harold) and I went to Geneva this Saturday, and on Sunday, Steven went back to Konstanz, while Rafal and I made our side trip to Montreux (of Smoke on the Water and jazz festival fame). While Geneva was pretty nice, Montreux is what made the trip worth it – but I’ll cover things in sequence here.
After arriving in Geneva, our first difficulty involved finding the hostel at which we were to be staying. I had looked it up via satellite image, courtesy of Google maps, and decided that we would need to walk south from the train station to reach our goal, but apparently I haven’t received quite enough training in satellite image analysis, since that turned out to not be true in the slightest. Because of my mistake, we ended up getting rather lost, and had to ask several different people where rue Rothschild was. Unfortunately, the street name is not pronounced anywhere near what it looks like, at least to an English speaker. I believe the proper pronunciation was something like “rue Rot-chill,” so the first few people we asked were very puzzled as to what this “rue Roths-child” were kept mentioning was. Finally, one of them, a bellhop at an expensive looking hotel (which I imagine probably describes most hotels in Geneva), told us that if we kept walking in the direction we were already headed, it would be two streets up and to the right. Perfect directions – that is if by two streets, he meant fifteen. Nonetheless, we eventually made it, booked the beds, and then set out for the European UN headquarters.
Unfortunately, the UN headquarters was a lot less exciting than I had hoped, probably stemming from the fact that the closest you could get to the building was about 200m away, behind multiple beefy looking gates. But then again, I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything else. As a consolation though, there was a monstrous chair with one broken leg located in the plaza in front of the compound. I didn’t really get it, but I guess it was probably some sort of modern artwork. The giant lawn chair at Swarthmore is cool; this chair was just kind of confusing. There were also fountains built into the ground of the plaza that squirted water into the air, so I suppose if you overworked yourself thinking why anyone would put a giant broken chair in front of the UN, you could go cool off in the water sprays, and then later regret it by having to go around the rest of the day in wet clothes that chafe when you walk.
From there, we walked around the block and found a museum of Swiss ceramics and porcelain. I don’t know… maybe I’m just not a porcelain kind of guy, but there’s only so many pretty vases I can look at until they all start looking the same. The one notable item in that collection though was a bust of the Virgin Mary (I think) wearing a veil. It was incredible how realistic the rendering of the cloth draped over the face was. I can’t even draw a round circle, so I’m really able to appreciate the skill that must have been required to create such an accurate three-dimensional rendering.
Right across the street from the ceramics museum was the Red Cross museum, which had some very powerful depictions of the destruction and suffering of war, and why organizations like the Red Cross need to exist. One section of the museum consisted of all the index-sized cards listing information concerning World War I POWs, which filled many, many rows of seven-foot high shelves.
Insert one-week pause. I’ll see what I can remember now, since I’ve put off finishing this post for so long.
The next thing that comes to mind was in the evening, we walked along the lakeside and saw two street performers, one girl playing accordion and another doing some sort of dance/baton twirling, but with a baton that was lit on both ends. Unfortunately, they weren’t particularly good, and the girl spinning the fire stick burned herself a couple times, once setting her knee-high socks on fire. Fortunately for her, she must have been taught “stop, drop and roll” in school. I think that was the only time I’ve ever seen any actually use that famous technique.
The next morning, we went searching for the world’s highest water jet, but upon finding out it was not running this particular day, Rafal and I decided to catch the next train to Montreux, while Steven went straight back to Konstanz, apparently because all this traveling was just too much for him.
I’m so glad we decided to go to Montreux, even if only for a few hours, simply because it was such an amazingly beautiful city. Situated at the foot of Mont-Blanc, also on the edge of Lake Geneva, pretty much any view in the city is postcard material. I also witnessed my first mime performance since Ethan Milner’s birthday party about 15 years ago. From a distance, I honestly thought he was a statue because his makeup was so good, but as I got closer, someone tossed a coin into his collection box and he came to life in an exceedingly amusing fashion, pulling off a perfect imitation of some wonderful mechanical toy.
Rafal had suggested stopping by Montreux because of the Castle of Chillon, which sits on a cliff next to the lake, about a 30-minute walk south of the train station, so after watching the mime for a while, we headed that way. Though the place was filled with tourists, it didn’t feel particularly touristy (compare to the following post concerning Salzburg). I think this was accomplished by providing information pamphlets that had lots of in depth information concerning the former uses and renovations of the rooms, which made me feel like the people running the place felt that effectively communicating the history of the place was a priority, rather than (or in addition to) just operating a tourist trap.
That’s all the readily comes to mind, but I think that should be sufficient, as the photos should fill in any descriptive gaps.
Photos are far too difficult to manipulate within blogger, especially when using a laptop with no mouse and a finicky wireless connection, so I'll get to those later.
After arriving in Geneva, our first difficulty involved finding the hostel at which we were to be staying. I had looked it up via satellite image, courtesy of Google maps, and decided that we would need to walk south from the train station to reach our goal, but apparently I haven’t received quite enough training in satellite image analysis, since that turned out to not be true in the slightest. Because of my mistake, we ended up getting rather lost, and had to ask several different people where rue Rothschild was. Unfortunately, the street name is not pronounced anywhere near what it looks like, at least to an English speaker. I believe the proper pronunciation was something like “rue Rot-chill,” so the first few people we asked were very puzzled as to what this “rue Roths-child” were kept mentioning was. Finally, one of them, a bellhop at an expensive looking hotel (which I imagine probably describes most hotels in Geneva), told us that if we kept walking in the direction we were already headed, it would be two streets up and to the right. Perfect directions – that is if by two streets, he meant fifteen. Nonetheless, we eventually made it, booked the beds, and then set out for the European UN headquarters.
Unfortunately, the UN headquarters was a lot less exciting than I had hoped, probably stemming from the fact that the closest you could get to the building was about 200m away, behind multiple beefy looking gates. But then again, I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything else. As a consolation though, there was a monstrous chair with one broken leg located in the plaza in front of the compound. I didn’t really get it, but I guess it was probably some sort of modern artwork. The giant lawn chair at Swarthmore is cool; this chair was just kind of confusing. There were also fountains built into the ground of the plaza that squirted water into the air, so I suppose if you overworked yourself thinking why anyone would put a giant broken chair in front of the UN, you could go cool off in the water sprays, and then later regret it by having to go around the rest of the day in wet clothes that chafe when you walk.
From there, we walked around the block and found a museum of Swiss ceramics and porcelain. I don’t know… maybe I’m just not a porcelain kind of guy, but there’s only so many pretty vases I can look at until they all start looking the same. The one notable item in that collection though was a bust of the Virgin Mary (I think) wearing a veil. It was incredible how realistic the rendering of the cloth draped over the face was. I can’t even draw a round circle, so I’m really able to appreciate the skill that must have been required to create such an accurate three-dimensional rendering.
Right across the street from the ceramics museum was the Red Cross museum, which had some very powerful depictions of the destruction and suffering of war, and why organizations like the Red Cross need to exist. One section of the museum consisted of all the index-sized cards listing information concerning World War I POWs, which filled many, many rows of seven-foot high shelves.
Insert one-week pause. I’ll see what I can remember now, since I’ve put off finishing this post for so long.
The next thing that comes to mind was in the evening, we walked along the lakeside and saw two street performers, one girl playing accordion and another doing some sort of dance/baton twirling, but with a baton that was lit on both ends. Unfortunately, they weren’t particularly good, and the girl spinning the fire stick burned herself a couple times, once setting her knee-high socks on fire. Fortunately for her, she must have been taught “stop, drop and roll” in school. I think that was the only time I’ve ever seen any actually use that famous technique.
The next morning, we went searching for the world’s highest water jet, but upon finding out it was not running this particular day, Rafal and I decided to catch the next train to Montreux, while Steven went straight back to Konstanz, apparently because all this traveling was just too much for him.
I’m so glad we decided to go to Montreux, even if only for a few hours, simply because it was such an amazingly beautiful city. Situated at the foot of Mont-Blanc, also on the edge of Lake Geneva, pretty much any view in the city is postcard material. I also witnessed my first mime performance since Ethan Milner’s birthday party about 15 years ago. From a distance, I honestly thought he was a statue because his makeup was so good, but as I got closer, someone tossed a coin into his collection box and he came to life in an exceedingly amusing fashion, pulling off a perfect imitation of some wonderful mechanical toy.
Rafal had suggested stopping by Montreux because of the Castle of Chillon, which sits on a cliff next to the lake, about a 30-minute walk south of the train station, so after watching the mime for a while, we headed that way. Though the place was filled with tourists, it didn’t feel particularly touristy (compare to the following post concerning Salzburg). I think this was accomplished by providing information pamphlets that had lots of in depth information concerning the former uses and renovations of the rooms, which made me feel like the people running the place felt that effectively communicating the history of the place was a priority, rather than (or in addition to) just operating a tourist trap.
That’s all the readily comes to mind, but I think that should be sufficient, as the photos should fill in any descriptive gaps.
Photos are far too difficult to manipulate within blogger, especially when using a laptop with no mouse and a finicky wireless connection, so I'll get to those later.
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Due to an unfortunate lack of internet, I haven't been able to update in a while, so this is the first of quite a few back issues here.
Well, it was my birthday the other day. I went with Kurt and Jared to a party over at the university (not my school, the Fachhochshule) for international students. The whole thing kind of reminded me of an early 90s high school dance (not that I’ve been to any, but it’s what I imagine they were like), but with beer. For some reason, the DJ also seemed to think selections such as “We Will Rock You” and “Eye of the Tiger” made for good dancing. Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t bad songs (if a bit over played), but what they really did was make me want to go punch a side of beef and drink a raw egg energy smoothie. I think the Romanian girls the three of us Kettering guys were dancing with ditched us multiple times, although we were never quite sure whether they just wanted to hangout with their other Romanian friends, or if our dancing was really that bad. After the Romanian contingent, which constituted about half the party goers, quit the establishment, the party began to wind down very quickly, until it consisted of one very oblivious Indian student still grooving to the tunes out on the dance floor.
After walking back to the residence, which is made up of one large main building – in which I live – and about 16 smaller houses of 12 rooms each, we went back to Kurt’s house and socialized with the other residents there in the kitchen/living room. I think I’m going to have to hang out there more often because the people living there are way more entertaining than anyone on my floor of the main building. I believe I mentioned before how everyone who lives on my floor seems to be terribly withdrawn and anti-social, but I’m glad to see this is not the status quo for everywhere in the complex. The core set of people I’ve met at Kurt’s house is made up of a French guy who understands English, but will only speak in German, a girl whose nationality I’m unsure of, but who seems to think that just about every thing is funny (I’ve never heard anyone laugh so much, but I’d much rather have that than a sour puss), an Estonian guy who seems kind of socially awkward but isn’t really, and a Romanian guy named Mikhail, the only one whose name I can remember, who was rather entertaining, and who I believe said something to the effect of, “English isn’t a foreign language. It’s just English.” I think Kurt had asked him something about how he felt having to speak to us in English, if it was a burden to have to converse in a foreign language. I don’t really remember the question, but I remember the answer.
Oh, I just remembered that I found out the other day that in some cases, beer is indeed cheaper than water. Kurt decided he wanted to buy some of whatever the cheapest beer here is, and when we got to the store, we discovered it was 0.25€ (roughly $0.33) per bottle. This means it would cost 0.75€ for 1.5 liters of beer, versus about 1.00€ for 1.5 liters of water. Overjoyed at the find, Kurt decided he would buy an entire case. Shortly thereafter, he was relieved that we were able to catch the last bus back to Jacob-Burckhardt Straße, our street, since he had quickly realized that even with two of us, the crate may have been heavy enough that he’d have to dump some ballast. Knowing Kurt wouldn’t want to waste it, I think he may have ended up excessively intoxicated and would have been little help in carrying what was leftover.
I just went and made myself some dinner, and I was reminded of the Romanian girls we met at the party the other night. We ended up going to the thing in the first place because Loud Harold and found us at some point and told us that he’d met some Romanian girls who thought he was very interesting because he was American, and had told him to bring his American friends to the party at the university that night. Now that I think about this in retrospect, I’m guessing they were only talking to him because he probably wouldn’t stop talking to them. I’m also guessing that the part about them wanting him to bring his American friends probably went something like this:
LH: “Hey, I’ll come to the party tonight and bring some of my American friends.”
Romanian Girls: “Uh, okay.”
This would probably explain why they weren’t particularly interested when we got there and ended up (I think) trying to lose us. Now, this wouldn’t be so bad if things had gone as I had expected and never seen them again. But no… They live in the same complex as me. And what’s worse? In the same building. On the same floor. But even better, at least one of them lives in the room directly across the hall from me! I knew they looked familiar, but I guess I didn’t put two and two together. It was a horrifying experience walking into the communal kitchen the day after the party, only to realize that Romanians at the table were indeed the same ones who had witnessed my disco moves just the night before. I think I’m over it now, but it was an… unexpected surprise. I guess I couldn’t have traumatized them too badly though, since later that day, they offered me and Kurt some tasty little Romanian edibles made of rice and cheese (?) wrapped in grape leaves. I think if anything, I can rest safely in the fact that at least I’m held in higher regard than Loud Harold, who was seriously shut down just a few minutes ago when I was cooking my dinner. I wasn’t following the conversation closely, but I think he kept asking them (and it’s always “them”; I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of the Romanians without at least three others) to go somewhere or do something with him, and finally one of them said, “Actually, we’re really busy.” Ooh, ouch. From the way it was said, I think that could have been more accurately heard as, “Actually, we’ll always be busy.” But I think he should have seen it coming.
Because my Eurail pass is still in transit (getting here on Tuesday, according to Sanjay!), I wasn’t able to travel anywhere this weekend – not without paying for another ticket, so today and yesterday, I spent most of my time walking around Konstanz and exploring the city center. It’s a very nifty town, although some of its quirks (which are only so to outsiders I’m sure) take a little getting used to. Konstanz is a very bike friendly city, and has bike lanes designated on the street or on parts of the sidewalk virtually everywhere except for the residential side streets and smaller alleys with too little traffic to matter. This means though that you’d better stay out of the bike path unless you intend on getting run over. The first day we were out and about on our own, Tuesday I think, Rafal kept walking in the bike path out of absent mindedness, and came close to being maimed several times. One thing that is very noticeable about the traffic flow here is the strict adherence to right-of-way. Although in the US, theoretically pedestrians take precedence, followed by bicycles, and lastly cars, I challenge any of you to walk out into traffic and test your right-of-way. Here, cars will stop in mid-turn if they see someone standing on the corner waiting to cross, and will wait at a green light if it looks like someone on the sidewalk was about to cross the street. The same goes for bikers, one of whom had a baby chariot thing attached to the bike, making it rather oversized, and kept a bus crawling at around 7mph until the biker reached the part of the bike path that was on the sidewalk, allowing the bus to pass. I’m also glad to say that it seems that Germans, or at least those from Konstanz actually know how to parallel park. In Paris, I had a hard time finding a car without dents in its bumpers from the “tap” method of parking. Here, every car I’ve seen is quite unmarred.
I have yet to figure out though what the prevailing opinion of jaywalking is. Occasionally I’ll see someone cross the street when it’s clear that there’s nothing coming their way, while at other times, I’ll see a whole group of people standing patiently at a crosswalk, waiting for the signal, even though no car has passed in the last half a minute, nor does it seem that one will in the next. I do make an effort to cross at designated crossing areas though, since except on the small residential streets, I’ve never seen anyone cross where they aren’t supposed to. In the downtown area though, there are streets that seem to technically be open to traffic, but are usually flooded with people walking around at a leisurely pace, in no hurry to get out of the way of a car.
I’ve been sleeping in till about noon the past few days, since I’ve been quite unable to find any justification for getting up any earlier than that, other than because I ought to. I’m justifying it by the argument that when I sleep that late, I only eat two meals during the day, and thereby save money. The first thing I’ve been doing upon getting up halfway through the day has been going through my German grammar book and looking up lots and lots of words and conjugations and making lists for myself to memorize. After about two hours, I usually get tired of it, set it aside, and go make lunch. Really, I usually quit more out of frustration than anything else really, since I still can’t say a lot of what I want to, but I guess I should be more patient, since I think I’ve probably learned a lot more in the past few days than I give myself credit for. Perhaps my German still isn’t at the point where I can really use it particularly effectively, but I’m pretty sure it’s better than it was. I suppose I have only been here for about five days, so if I can maintain my rate of improvement, hopefully it will show at the end of three months. At least I don’t feel as helpless as I did in France. That really makes me happy.
I think I’m going to stop here, since I feel like this is turning into more of a show of quantity than quality, so I’ll pick up next time with something more interesting, meaning lots of pictures.
Well, it was my birthday the other day. I went with Kurt and Jared to a party over at the university (not my school, the Fachhochshule) for international students. The whole thing kind of reminded me of an early 90s high school dance (not that I’ve been to any, but it’s what I imagine they were like), but with beer. For some reason, the DJ also seemed to think selections such as “We Will Rock You” and “Eye of the Tiger” made for good dancing. Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t bad songs (if a bit over played), but what they really did was make me want to go punch a side of beef and drink a raw egg energy smoothie. I think the Romanian girls the three of us Kettering guys were dancing with ditched us multiple times, although we were never quite sure whether they just wanted to hangout with their other Romanian friends, or if our dancing was really that bad. After the Romanian contingent, which constituted about half the party goers, quit the establishment, the party began to wind down very quickly, until it consisted of one very oblivious Indian student still grooving to the tunes out on the dance floor.
After walking back to the residence, which is made up of one large main building – in which I live – and about 16 smaller houses of 12 rooms each, we went back to Kurt’s house and socialized with the other residents there in the kitchen/living room. I think I’m going to have to hang out there more often because the people living there are way more entertaining than anyone on my floor of the main building. I believe I mentioned before how everyone who lives on my floor seems to be terribly withdrawn and anti-social, but I’m glad to see this is not the status quo for everywhere in the complex. The core set of people I’ve met at Kurt’s house is made up of a French guy who understands English, but will only speak in German, a girl whose nationality I’m unsure of, but who seems to think that just about every thing is funny (I’ve never heard anyone laugh so much, but I’d much rather have that than a sour puss), an Estonian guy who seems kind of socially awkward but isn’t really, and a Romanian guy named Mikhail, the only one whose name I can remember, who was rather entertaining, and who I believe said something to the effect of, “English isn’t a foreign language. It’s just English.” I think Kurt had asked him something about how he felt having to speak to us in English, if it was a burden to have to converse in a foreign language. I don’t really remember the question, but I remember the answer.
Oh, I just remembered that I found out the other day that in some cases, beer is indeed cheaper than water. Kurt decided he wanted to buy some of whatever the cheapest beer here is, and when we got to the store, we discovered it was 0.25€ (roughly $0.33) per bottle. This means it would cost 0.75€ for 1.5 liters of beer, versus about 1.00€ for 1.5 liters of water. Overjoyed at the find, Kurt decided he would buy an entire case. Shortly thereafter, he was relieved that we were able to catch the last bus back to Jacob-Burckhardt Straße, our street, since he had quickly realized that even with two of us, the crate may have been heavy enough that he’d have to dump some ballast. Knowing Kurt wouldn’t want to waste it, I think he may have ended up excessively intoxicated and would have been little help in carrying what was leftover.
I just went and made myself some dinner, and I was reminded of the Romanian girls we met at the party the other night. We ended up going to the thing in the first place because Loud Harold and found us at some point and told us that he’d met some Romanian girls who thought he was very interesting because he was American, and had told him to bring his American friends to the party at the university that night. Now that I think about this in retrospect, I’m guessing they were only talking to him because he probably wouldn’t stop talking to them. I’m also guessing that the part about them wanting him to bring his American friends probably went something like this:
LH: “Hey, I’ll come to the party tonight and bring some of my American friends.”
Romanian Girls: “Uh, okay.”
This would probably explain why they weren’t particularly interested when we got there and ended up (I think) trying to lose us. Now, this wouldn’t be so bad if things had gone as I had expected and never seen them again. But no… They live in the same complex as me. And what’s worse? In the same building. On the same floor. But even better, at least one of them lives in the room directly across the hall from me! I knew they looked familiar, but I guess I didn’t put two and two together. It was a horrifying experience walking into the communal kitchen the day after the party, only to realize that Romanians at the table were indeed the same ones who had witnessed my disco moves just the night before. I think I’m over it now, but it was an… unexpected surprise. I guess I couldn’t have traumatized them too badly though, since later that day, they offered me and Kurt some tasty little Romanian edibles made of rice and cheese (?) wrapped in grape leaves. I think if anything, I can rest safely in the fact that at least I’m held in higher regard than Loud Harold, who was seriously shut down just a few minutes ago when I was cooking my dinner. I wasn’t following the conversation closely, but I think he kept asking them (and it’s always “them”; I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of the Romanians without at least three others) to go somewhere or do something with him, and finally one of them said, “Actually, we’re really busy.” Ooh, ouch. From the way it was said, I think that could have been more accurately heard as, “Actually, we’ll always be busy.” But I think he should have seen it coming.
Because my Eurail pass is still in transit (getting here on Tuesday, according to Sanjay!), I wasn’t able to travel anywhere this weekend – not without paying for another ticket, so today and yesterday, I spent most of my time walking around Konstanz and exploring the city center. It’s a very nifty town, although some of its quirks (which are only so to outsiders I’m sure) take a little getting used to. Konstanz is a very bike friendly city, and has bike lanes designated on the street or on parts of the sidewalk virtually everywhere except for the residential side streets and smaller alleys with too little traffic to matter. This means though that you’d better stay out of the bike path unless you intend on getting run over. The first day we were out and about on our own, Tuesday I think, Rafal kept walking in the bike path out of absent mindedness, and came close to being maimed several times. One thing that is very noticeable about the traffic flow here is the strict adherence to right-of-way. Although in the US, theoretically pedestrians take precedence, followed by bicycles, and lastly cars, I challenge any of you to walk out into traffic and test your right-of-way. Here, cars will stop in mid-turn if they see someone standing on the corner waiting to cross, and will wait at a green light if it looks like someone on the sidewalk was about to cross the street. The same goes for bikers, one of whom had a baby chariot thing attached to the bike, making it rather oversized, and kept a bus crawling at around 7mph until the biker reached the part of the bike path that was on the sidewalk, allowing the bus to pass. I’m also glad to say that it seems that Germans, or at least those from Konstanz actually know how to parallel park. In Paris, I had a hard time finding a car without dents in its bumpers from the “tap” method of parking. Here, every car I’ve seen is quite unmarred.
I have yet to figure out though what the prevailing opinion of jaywalking is. Occasionally I’ll see someone cross the street when it’s clear that there’s nothing coming their way, while at other times, I’ll see a whole group of people standing patiently at a crosswalk, waiting for the signal, even though no car has passed in the last half a minute, nor does it seem that one will in the next. I do make an effort to cross at designated crossing areas though, since except on the small residential streets, I’ve never seen anyone cross where they aren’t supposed to. In the downtown area though, there are streets that seem to technically be open to traffic, but are usually flooded with people walking around at a leisurely pace, in no hurry to get out of the way of a car.
I’ve been sleeping in till about noon the past few days, since I’ve been quite unable to find any justification for getting up any earlier than that, other than because I ought to. I’m justifying it by the argument that when I sleep that late, I only eat two meals during the day, and thereby save money. The first thing I’ve been doing upon getting up halfway through the day has been going through my German grammar book and looking up lots and lots of words and conjugations and making lists for myself to memorize. After about two hours, I usually get tired of it, set it aside, and go make lunch. Really, I usually quit more out of frustration than anything else really, since I still can’t say a lot of what I want to, but I guess I should be more patient, since I think I’ve probably learned a lot more in the past few days than I give myself credit for. Perhaps my German still isn’t at the point where I can really use it particularly effectively, but I’m pretty sure it’s better than it was. I suppose I have only been here for about five days, so if I can maintain my rate of improvement, hopefully it will show at the end of three months. At least I don’t feel as helpless as I did in France. That really makes me happy.
I think I’m going to stop here, since I feel like this is turning into more of a show of quantity than quality, so I’ll pick up next time with something more interesting, meaning lots of pictures.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Pictures!
Ah, finally the long awaited pictures. After going through what I took in Paris, I'm said to say that I really only snagged a scant few good images, but I'll give you what I've got. Most these are from the picnic I had with Sanjay and Jean-Michel on my last day there.
Apparently this is what passes for a "typical" Frenchman, according to Sanjay. Oh, if only every Parisian I met was as hilariously slapstick as Jean-Michel, I think that city would be far more entertaining than it currently is . I suppose the somewhat indecorous mood might detract from the romantic image of the place, but really, what's romantic about everyone wearing a sour face all the time?
That said, we'll throw in this photo as a counterpoint. The amusing thing was that these people were sitting less than ten feet away from us, while playing guitar and badly singing Neil Young and CCR songs.
I just had to throw this one in because it reminded me so much of Flint. It really made me feel at home. I'm very disappointed that I neglected to bring my camera on the day I walked from one end of the city to the other along the Seine, since there were a lot of very familiar feeling industrial areas with a smidgen of urban decay on the East side of town I would have liked to document.
Yes, I know it's cliché, but what image taken within the city limits of Paris isn't? This just happened to be an angle of Notre-Dame I haven't seen in many photographs before, and I particularly liked the composition of this particular picture. Now we'll move on to the essentials from Konstanz.
The above four photos are really more for my parents than for anyone else, since I figure most people probably don't care terribly much about the specifics of my living arrangements, so Mom and Dad, here's my pad and the view out the window. I think it's definitely worth mentioning the sharp contrast between my view here and that from my room in Flint. In this last photo, in the upper left corner, you can seen the edge of a rather decently sized forest, and if you look to the right and really squint, there are some very pretty rolling hills far off in the distance. In Flint, the view usually consists of discarded tires, beer bottles, and the occasional drug deal.
Here is my new institution of higher learning. I think the overall area of the campus is actually smaller than Kettering's, but they're to be able to pack an awful lot of buildings into what seems to be such a small space. The buildings are arranged along the perimeter of one very large block, forming a large courtyard in the center that is quite populated at most times during the school day, and, along with the cafeteria, which is located at an optimal position on the inside of edge of the perimeter, does a good job of creating a social center for students at the school. At Kettering, the areas of possible social congregation are too large, too many, and too far from classrooms. This results in there being very few people in each of the gathering areas at any one given time, which in turn does not build a very strong sense of community. If you have class at the far end of the academic building, then have an hour break, and then have to come back to the same area, it's almost not even worth your time to walk all the way to the Great Court or BJs Lounge. Here, virtually every class room has an exit to the courtyard located no more than 50-75m away.
By turning 90 degrees to the left from the last photo, you are greeted with this scene. Boy, this ain't no Flint river. Not only is there not garbage floating down the river, the water is incredibly clean and clear, as illustrated in the following images.
Near the shore, you can see directly to the floor of the river, and father out, the water becomes an amazing sapphire blue.
The bridge seen in the first picture of the river is a pedestrian and bicycle only bridge, which brings me to the next point about Konstanz that I think is terribly niffty. This city takes their bicycling very seriously, which on one hand, means the cheapest bike you can get is a used junker for about 130€, ranging up to (and possibly beyond) some I've seen in shop windows for around 3,000€, and on the other, that the city is the most bicycle and pedestrian friendly place I've seen in my life. You can go literally anywhere in the city by bike or on foot.
In addition to having large sidewalks and bicycle lanes every where, there are designated walking lanes on the sidewalks as well (notice the sign on the right), I suppose to keep people from getting over by the more enthusiastic bicyclists.
Having spent a large part of my weekend walking around the city, I was extremely delighted to find there was nowhere I couldn't go by hoofing it. This trend extended even to the forest north of my residence, which had many trails criss-crossing it, and made for a very delightful hike.
Konstanz, incidentally, is the birthplace of Ferdinand von Zeppelin, and has a rather spiffy looking hotel named after him. Just after taking this picture, in honor of Brandon, I turned around, and saw this:
I'm going to assume it's a blimp, unless someone tells me otherwise, but at first glance, it seemed to have a much greater length to diameter ratio than most blimps I've seen. Perhaps there are still some zeppelins operating in the area? I don't really know, so I'll let Brandon have the final call, since he's the self-appointed expert around here.
Another niffty feature of the city is its proximity to Switzerland. I was walking aimlessly around the shopping district when I accidentally found the border. The security seems rather kind of lax, at least compared to what I'm used to with the Canadian border (then again, I suppose there probably aren't thousands of people and billions of dollars of goods crossing this checkpoint every day either). It looked to me like several cars didn't even slow down when crossing, and I believe I also saw a guy on a bicycle go across, but not having my passport on me at the time, I figured I would leave the foot crossing for another day.
I had a few more photos to post here, but for some reason I'm not being allowed to upload them, so I think I'll stop for now. The only really good one you're missing out on is a sculpture of a hideously fat woman that is part of a fountain located near the city administrative office. When I first saw it, I wondered if perhaps it was a sculpture of the German stereotype of Americans. I actually kind of feel compelled to find out what the point of it was, just because the whole thing was so grotesque. I'll post that picture next time, and maybe some more info about the sculpture if I can come up with anything.
So long for now!
Apparently this is what passes for a "typical" Frenchman, according to Sanjay. Oh, if only every Parisian I met was as hilariously slapstick as Jean-Michel, I think that city would be far more entertaining than it currently is . I suppose the somewhat indecorous mood might detract from the romantic image of the place, but really, what's romantic about everyone wearing a sour face all the time?
That said, we'll throw in this photo as a counterpoint. The amusing thing was that these people were sitting less than ten feet away from us, while playing guitar and badly singing Neil Young and CCR songs.
I just had to throw this one in because it reminded me so much of Flint. It really made me feel at home. I'm very disappointed that I neglected to bring my camera on the day I walked from one end of the city to the other along the Seine, since there were a lot of very familiar feeling industrial areas with a smidgen of urban decay on the East side of town I would have liked to document.
Yes, I know it's cliché, but what image taken within the city limits of Paris isn't? This just happened to be an angle of Notre-Dame I haven't seen in many photographs before, and I particularly liked the composition of this particular picture. Now we'll move on to the essentials from Konstanz.
The above four photos are really more for my parents than for anyone else, since I figure most people probably don't care terribly much about the specifics of my living arrangements, so Mom and Dad, here's my pad and the view out the window. I think it's definitely worth mentioning the sharp contrast between my view here and that from my room in Flint. In this last photo, in the upper left corner, you can seen the edge of a rather decently sized forest, and if you look to the right and really squint, there are some very pretty rolling hills far off in the distance. In Flint, the view usually consists of discarded tires, beer bottles, and the occasional drug deal.
Here is my new institution of higher learning. I think the overall area of the campus is actually smaller than Kettering's, but they're to be able to pack an awful lot of buildings into what seems to be such a small space. The buildings are arranged along the perimeter of one very large block, forming a large courtyard in the center that is quite populated at most times during the school day, and, along with the cafeteria, which is located at an optimal position on the inside of edge of the perimeter, does a good job of creating a social center for students at the school. At Kettering, the areas of possible social congregation are too large, too many, and too far from classrooms. This results in there being very few people in each of the gathering areas at any one given time, which in turn does not build a very strong sense of community. If you have class at the far end of the academic building, then have an hour break, and then have to come back to the same area, it's almost not even worth your time to walk all the way to the Great Court or BJs Lounge. Here, virtually every class room has an exit to the courtyard located no more than 50-75m away.
By turning 90 degrees to the left from the last photo, you are greeted with this scene. Boy, this ain't no Flint river. Not only is there not garbage floating down the river, the water is incredibly clean and clear, as illustrated in the following images.
Near the shore, you can see directly to the floor of the river, and father out, the water becomes an amazing sapphire blue.
The bridge seen in the first picture of the river is a pedestrian and bicycle only bridge, which brings me to the next point about Konstanz that I think is terribly niffty. This city takes their bicycling very seriously, which on one hand, means the cheapest bike you can get is a used junker for about 130€, ranging up to (and possibly beyond) some I've seen in shop windows for around 3,000€, and on the other, that the city is the most bicycle and pedestrian friendly place I've seen in my life. You can go literally anywhere in the city by bike or on foot.
In addition to having large sidewalks and bicycle lanes every where, there are designated walking lanes on the sidewalks as well (notice the sign on the right), I suppose to keep people from getting over by the more enthusiastic bicyclists.
Having spent a large part of my weekend walking around the city, I was extremely delighted to find there was nowhere I couldn't go by hoofing it. This trend extended even to the forest north of my residence, which had many trails criss-crossing it, and made for a very delightful hike.
Konstanz, incidentally, is the birthplace of Ferdinand von Zeppelin, and has a rather spiffy looking hotel named after him. Just after taking this picture, in honor of Brandon, I turned around, and saw this:
I'm going to assume it's a blimp, unless someone tells me otherwise, but at first glance, it seemed to have a much greater length to diameter ratio than most blimps I've seen. Perhaps there are still some zeppelins operating in the area? I don't really know, so I'll let Brandon have the final call, since he's the self-appointed expert around here.
Another niffty feature of the city is its proximity to Switzerland. I was walking aimlessly around the shopping district when I accidentally found the border. The security seems rather kind of lax, at least compared to what I'm used to with the Canadian border (then again, I suppose there probably aren't thousands of people and billions of dollars of goods crossing this checkpoint every day either). It looked to me like several cars didn't even slow down when crossing, and I believe I also saw a guy on a bicycle go across, but not having my passport on me at the time, I figured I would leave the foot crossing for another day.I had a few more photos to post here, but for some reason I'm not being allowed to upload them, so I think I'll stop for now. The only really good one you're missing out on is a sculpture of a hideously fat woman that is part of a fountain located near the city administrative office. When I first saw it, I wondered if perhaps it was a sculpture of the German stereotype of Americans. I actually kind of feel compelled to find out what the point of it was, just because the whole thing was so grotesque. I'll post that picture next time, and maybe some more info about the sculpture if I can come up with anything.
So long for now!
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Today was my first day of classes, and also my earliest day of the week, with my first class starting at 11:30am. On Mondays and Tuesdays, my first class is at 2pm. Today was three hours of Heat Transfer, and an hour and a half of Machine Design, both taught by Professor Echempati, one of the professors from
Well, I’m 21 now, at least in this time zone. If we’re working on an absolute gauge, I guess I’ve got about five hours to go, but it’s April 5th here. I mentioned at lunch in the cafeteria that today, Thursday was going to be my birthday, and the Mexican girls asked me if I was going to have a party, and when I said no, they said I absolutely had to, and that they should call all their Mexican compatriots and organize a fiesta for me. I don’t think this is going to happen, since I won’t see either of them again until next Monday, but it was a nice gesture, since if I actually had a way of getting a hold of them before then, I have the feeling that they actually do it. Did I mention how much I like the Mexican students here?
For a long time, I’d been aware of the stereotype of Americans abroad as being loud, overbearing and pushy, but I’d never actually known anyone who fulfilled this image… until now. There’s a guy from the
I’m going to go to bed now and sleep in for my birthday. Talk to you all later!
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
I now have two possible plans of attack. Either I can figure out the German postal system and send Sanjay a piece of paper with my signature on it and we can resume plan A, or I can resort to plan B, which consists of calling Sanjay and telling him or Jean-Michel to just forge my signature, since the FedEx people have nothing to check it against anyway. The problems now are that I don’t have a phone or easy access to the internet, and I’ve got no idea how long it would take something to get to
On Saturday, I met with Olga again and we decided walk the entire length of the
On Sunday during the day, before my last minute dash to the train, Sanjay, Jean-Michel and I had a little picnic on one of the little islands on the
Yesterday, after taking a night train from
When I first spoke with the international coordinator, she was extremely surprised to see me, since apparently there was a student who was supposed to pick me up from the train station. I was unaware that anyone was doing such a thing, so I just assumed that I’d have to get to the FH on my own, which is what I did. She then called the guy who was supposed to pick me up, Werner, and he drove back to the international office so he could drive me to the residence where I’d be living. When I met Werner, I was surprised at how good his English was, and more so when I discovered that he’d never been to an English speaking country before. He explained to me that of the younger people in
I found out that Werner is part of a program here called Helping Hand, the purpose of which is to help international students get oriented with the school, the town, their residences, and to help them fill out all the administrative documents that prove we exist, prove that we have health insurance, prove that we indeed live in Konstanz (so as to garner additional public funds for the city), and to open bank accounts for those students who needed them for one reason or another. My roommate from
Besides Werner, there is another guy named Sebastian and two girls, both named Katherina, who have been helping us get settled here, all of whom are extremely friendly, did a very good job of making all the administrative stuff go as quickly as possible, and also helped us (or at least me) to really feel a lot less lost than I think we would have otherwise. Every Monday, there is a weekly gathering of international students at a pub called the Heimat, so most of the Kettering contingent ended up going (though I got there a bit late, since I decided to walk from our residence, which takes 30 minutes to get to town to begin with, but ended up taking an additional 45 minutes by the time I found the place). All the Helping Hand students were there and were genuinely interested in interacting with us, which was great, since I thought perhaps the
In the residence I’m staying in, the other students don’t seem quite as friendly, or at least don’t seem to be terribly inclined to go out of their way to talk with any Rafal or I, the two American students on the floor. That is with the exception of one German girl, Brigit, who, while I was eating my dinner in the common kitchen/living room, asked me how I’d enjoyed my first two days here and seemed interested to find out more about me. After I’d finished eating, she also helped me make sense of a German television program and told me to not worry about my poor German, that I would probably pick it up quickly while I’m here. I’m quite glad that there’s at least one person here at the residence who isn’t from our
Friday, March 30, 2007
I finally met Sanjay’s good friend, Jean-Michel, who was described to me as being typically French, but as jovial and slapstick as he seemed to be, he struck me as being anything but typically French. Apparently it was his taste for cheese and wine that defined his Frenchness, as far as Sanjay was concerned, but I haven’t met anyone else here who smiles or laughs as much as he does. He is, however a walking example of why I’m not jumping on the motorcycle/scooter bandwagon anytime soon; he has a cast on his leg because he tore two ligaments in his knee when he crashed his scooter. Yet somehow, he still manages to ride it, even with his leg plastered completely straight.
Jean-Michel is also typically European with regard to his linguistic ability, being fluent in French, English, Spanish and German. Fortunately though, he did a very good job of not making me feel so bad about my mono-lingualism; I do a good enough job of doing that myself! (Actually, I speak 1.23 languages: English – 100%; Spanish – 20%; German – 3%). A slightly more embarrassing encounter happened earlier today though, when I finally met up with Sam Imberman. I believe it was the first time I’ve seen him in about seven or eight years, so it was nice to catch up a bit. I ended up having lunch with him, three Italian and one British friend of his, which went passably well, since clearly the Sam and the British fellow, Pete, spoke English, and because the Italians spoke a very little English, but were eager to give it a shot (not to mention they also understood Spanish fairly well, because of its extreme similarity). After lunch, Sam and I had a nice conversation about urban planning, mass transit systems and modern architecture over some tea at what seemed to be some sort of Arabian café, and then met up with several Spanish friends of his. The languages of choice were French and Spanish, and although theoretically I should have been able to understand what was going on about 50% of the time, I’m still can’t keep up with high speed (i.e., normally paced) Spanish conversation, especially with a thick Spanish (versus Mexican) accent thrown on top of it. I’m terribly out of practice and it shows, with embarrassing results.
Speaking of embarrassing things, I managed to pull a doozey. Before I left
On a slightly more enjoyable note, on Wednesday evening, I had dinner with a pen-pal of mine who lives in
Okay, time to watch some French television. No, I'm not violating my principles here; it's not for entertainment, it's for language exposure!
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