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!