Ich Bin Ein Berliner

Ok, so maybe I’m obsess over Kennedy’s famous speech just a little too much, and really I just wanted Obama to say it, just once, in jest, during his own speech in Berlin. For those of you who are completely clueless for whatever reason, “Ich bin ein Berliner”, literally translates to, “I am a jelly doughnut.” See below for original speech clip and a full explanation from Eddie Izzard.

But anywho, why am I talking about Presidents, candidates, and doughnuts? Because something deep inside possessed myself and my other American friend here, Jodie, to head out on July 24 to hear Barack Obama’s unprecedented speech in Berlin. Before I jump into that though I’ll give you some background of the day. Jodie and I left early on Thursday morning, along with one of Jodie’s friends from Cambridge, named David, who is an Aussie, living in England who is/was a television producer, who took time off to get an MBA. In commemoration of the epic day, I did in fact purchase us a few jelly doughnuts for the ride. Once in Berlin, we met up with a few more of Jodie’s friends, Shannon and Paul, also Americans. We had a picnic, took a boat ride, and generally just had a rather chill day in Berlin… which worked for me as I was carting along my whole bag for my weekend in Poland.

Obama-mania sort of filled the air while we were there. In fact, as we got off the train in the Hauptbanhof, (which to my irritation is not the same as it was 4 years ago… I mean literally not the same, the built a new one closer to the Reichstag).. we were walking up to the chancellor offices, when there were just masses of people standing around and large scale amounts of security. It didn’t take all that long to figure out what was going on, but opted not to sit around and wait to see a few cars drive by… so we kept walking… only have an even better view a few seconds later… enough so to get a pretty up close view of Obama as he went by. His little caravan more or less seemed to be where ever we were going, and his cars were followed by people on bikes following him around. There were supporters, and people who were just curious, and one old guy with an umbrella w/ McCain written on pieces of paper taped to it. There were lots of people… germans even, wearing Obama t-shirts and hats and things. I have to say its nothing that I would ever of imagined seeing. It just seems well, odd… even to the strongest of Obama supporters. Really… what business does a presidential candidate have in campaigning abroad, and what was the draw? And boy was it a draw….

By the time we headed over to the Victory Column, the first entrance into the area we tried to get in was closed. There was an estimated 200,000 people in the crowds… I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it. We ended up standing in the street way far in the back where we couldn’t even see. The Victory Column was chosen after a good month of rather heated debate here in Germany. Originally, Obama was to speak in front of the Brandenburg Gate… a rather historical monument, where Reagan made his own famous speech, “tear down this wall”… However, chancellor Merkel stepped in and said, no way… that’s reserved for presidents (never mind that they hold all sorts of events including fashion shows at the gate)— all sorts of conspiracy theories went around here about how Bush had asked Merkel to step in, etc. I actually think it may have had something more to do with the construction going on in front of the gate where they were putting in new piping… but that’s just me.

I’m not entirely sure what people were expecting to hear… that he’d change the world, and this is how he was going to do it? It was a bit of an awkward speech, and you could sort of tell that he felt awkward giving it. The subject matter was broad and idealistic. He said everything that a liberal international affairs oriented individual would like to hear. End war in Iraq, save the environment, stop genocide (and he did say genocide) in Darfur, end torture, stop nuclear proliferation, do something about Zimbabwe, focus on Afghanistan… etc. etc. etc. It was all very nice ideas, and well, gives you sort of the warm fuzzies to hear someone talk about it. He wants to see the world unite and walls of the world torn down. It was about at this point that one of the people in our group asked, “Yes, but how does he plan on doing any of this?” Good point. There was no logical plan put out in the speech. You could see if it were a speech given at home, the plan would be something like, “And we can do this if you elect me president”… but here, it was more like someone stating the obvious.

I might just be a bit too cynical here. After all, everything he said makes perfect and clear sense to me as to what the U.S. or indeed the world should be focused on, but then again this is what I spend my time studying and looking at. Maybe the rest of the world needed some sort of reassurance as to what the goals and priorities of a potential next president would be. Just looking back at the laundry list of things I’ve listed you can make a comparison to the current administration and sort of see that the world may really have reason to have some concern. Look at the past 8 years and Bush’s stances on Kyoto, nuclear proliferation treaties, and Gitmo. When looked at from that perspective Obama’s speech radically flies in the face of recent U.S. foreign policy. And I think these are the things that people wanted to hear. Maybe the speech was made a little bit too early, maybe it should have been saved for if he becomes president. But at the same time I think that the speech shows that Obama really does have his hand on the pulse of foreign affairs. He said what people, especially Europeans wanted to hear, more or less blowing away the concept that he’s out of touch with the international community. The real question then becomes, from a realistic perspective, could he actually pull these ideals off? And what should this all mean for the everyday American?

In an extraordinarily vague nut shell, international cooperation good and easier to achieve when everyone works for the same things… and for the more pessimistic, you can also add in more bargaining chips… Good in terms of economics, development, and of course, security.

I think if I were Obama I’d have made that last point to be more clear… Unity will improve the world economy and security. Another point he left weak was when talking about how Europe and the U.S. relied on each other… He started off strong, but ended on just talking about how Europe needed the US for security. He should have pulled it back together… while he may have been showing off U.S. feathers, at the same time some people will look at it as a one sided relationship that the U.S. doesn’t necessarily need. And it would have been good for the European audience to hear how the U.S. needs Europe.

Admittedly, it was hard to judge who exactly Obama was talking to. Was he really addressing Berlin and the international community? If he was, did they find it patronizing to get a run down history of Berlin, and how the U.S. played a role? Or was that merely to educate joe six-pack American who doesn’t realize how closely tied the U.S. has been in European development for decades? But then again, outlining what the U.S. should be doing internationally sounds a lot like shelling out more money, and taking on more international responsibilities than the U.S. already has, which doesn’t really play well with your average Americans.

So I guess from a strategic perspective, I don’t think it was the best of moves. However, from the perspective of a relatively liberal American living in Europe… it was a pretty awesome experience to go and check it out.

Ok, for now my pictures from the event aren't posted... I was going to put them up tomorrow, but turns out I'm going away. So, check back here after I post again. Also, I'll have up pictures and posts from Poland. And hopefully throw up the Sweden pictures as well, and be caught up before I go to Russia... wow time is going by fast here!

Prost!

Welcome again to the latest edition of your weekly robs update!

Ok, so clearly I may have been watching waaaaaay too much CNN, but it’s the only channel I have in English, and I just started getting it two weeks ago (I’m not counting the random reality tv shows on MTV that they don’t dub over)… And what a two weeks to get the news… especially for someone interested into international criminal and human rights law… I mean seriously exciting things going on. But hopefully, you all know this and so I don’t need to go about spouting my opinions on all the world going ons. But something you may have missed is the brewing conflict between Thailand and Cambodia over a small patch of land at the base of the Preah Vihear temple. I’ve decided on taking a rare stance in the blog and actually dedicate a blip to outside affairs. *I’m not an expert on all this and my be wrong, its mostly just opinion.--- If you arent’ interested, just skip down to the next bolded heading…

Preah Vihear has recently become a world heritage site… this means things like funding, etc. The temple itself has been in conflict for several decades. When France moved out of the region they gave the land to Thailand, but a Court decided that this was wrong and in fact belonged to Cambodia. And this more or less makes a lot of sense. The architecture of the temple along w/ the people and culture in the area most closely resembles Khmer. The temple is the same style and time as Angkor. Unfortunately, the Khmer haven’t had the money to do things like build a decent road to go up to the temple. I can’t remember whether I blogged about this last year, but it was really frustrating for me as it was one of the number one places I wanted to visit here, but due to my lack of experience on a dirt bike, the levels of mud, and rainy whether, it just wasn’t a possibility for me to go up. However, on the Thai side of the mountain there is a road that tourists can go up, but once up, you can’t cross over to the temple (I think that’s how it works). So Cambodia applied to have it labeled a World Heritage site, but some Thais think that they should also have claims to the temple and so it should have been a joint application (and joint money)… So then 3 people decided to take back the temple for Thailand… via planks of wood over the barbed wire border, they were captured, soldiers called in… and things have generally degraded from here. While last week things seemed to have settled back down again, the news today says that both sides are building up militarily, and they are prepping for conflict. Land and money… land that if I’m right is still covered in a lot of mines, so its only use is getting to and from the temple… seems rather ridiculous… especially for Cambodia, who right now has been building up their infrastructure like crazy and really should only be concerned with stabilizing conditions to promote foreign investment, something that really hasn’t happened since the last bit of fighting 11 years ago. (in other words, there’s still no McDonalds or any other major western business taking route in the country) It’s a bit ironic that the country with the most claim to the area, is also the one with the most incentive to back down. Sorry, on now to back to a more regular robin update.

The Weekend

For a change, I really did stay in Hamburg… ALL weekend… be shocked! Friday night Jodie (USA II), Lucio (Portugal II), Rafael (Brazil II) and I (USA I) had a lovely dinner at the Hofbrauhaus… let me tell ya, that brings back memories of 4 years ago… or at least fuzzy visions of where memories should be. ;-) In case you don’t know, the Hofbrauhaus in Munich is probably the most famous bier hall in the world… While the one in Hamburg wasn’t exactly the same, it was still a pretty good time… and a definite must for a German experience, even if not in Bavaria.

Saturday, unfortunately was a bit of a bust. It basically pored cats and dogs all day long, and by evening the big plans to hit up the Reeperbahn for some all night dancing had collapsed like a flan in a cupboard. But this didn’t stop us (Jodie and I) from going and still grabbing some drinks. Holy rediculousness… w/ in 2 minutes of being out of the train station I Had seen guys in fake prison uniforms with balls and chains attached, been serenaded by passing singers of drinking songs, and ran into some people that had clearly just stepped out of the matrix {movie not club version}… basically the whole street was over flowing with people in a giant party, w/ outdoor stages set up for no particular reason, a night market in the middle, and all the “specility” stores, discos and casinos in full glory. It proved to be the perfect opportunity to just sit and people watch while sipping on drinks.

Sunday was a day of culture. Again it was, Jodie, Lucio, Rafael, and myself. We first had lunch at a very very very old restaurant with a view of some of old buildings not destroyed during the war. It had some pretty incredible traditional dishes that matched the atmosphere. Afterwards we headed to the art museum to see the Mark Rothko Exhibit. Now I’m not usually the biggest fan of abstract art, but I do still try to appreciate it… but it turned out to be pretty interesting, and Jodie and I got to make all sorts of commentary which was a lot of fun.

Monday

Monday was the big summer festival here at the institute. I’ve never seen more rain… ever. But lets rewind a second. We were all supposed to make some sort of BBQ dish from home… this is really difficult living in another country. Its actually established that while I can handle staying somewhere for a few months, if I had to actually live somewhere else permanently, I would get really frustrated trying to cook regular meals. But anyways… what is really American that you can make that won’t be compared to European food? And I have no oven, so baking is out of the question. I decided upon Deviled eggs. I went to go grocery shopping on Sunday… this doesn’t work as every grocery store is closed. So I got up early on Monday morning, trekked down to the store, in the rain. But everything is in German, and they have no idea what I’m saying when I ask for ingredient X , which is ironic as I thought it was actually german [due to the nature of family secrets when it comes to recipe’s I cannot actually say what ingredient X, or any other ingredients really are]… in the end they didn’t have 3 of the ingredients I needed for deviled eggs (which actually have a total of 6 ingredients… betcha didn’t know that, eh?)… anywho, I made one substitution, and somehow managed to make pretty good eggs.

Everything kicked off with Konzil, where 3 people presented their research. Unfortunately, the first two people presented in German… I only sat in on the last part of the second speech… which even though I didn’t understand a word of what was going on, I’m glad I did mainly because he was an incredibly good speaker, probably one of the best (from what I could tell) that I’ve ever heard. The last speech was actually in English and done by my friend Guillermo (Chile). I’ve learned some basic things about myself since I’ve been here… one of the most important life lessons is how much I really just don’t care about most private law… and the area of corporations, and security law, totally goes over my head. So trying to listen to someone giving a presentation about the subject matter… basically has the same effect of me listening to someone giving a speech in German.

The party itself was a lot of fun, met tons of new people… lots of free German beer, wine, and champagne, and great food.

Tuesday

Tuesday was one of those days you aren’t really expecting… Its starts off relatively normal, though surprisingly pain-free and well rested after the long night before. Then disaster struck… I was walking to lunch and my heal got caught, tearing off the bottom. Unfortunately I had to keep walking for some time afterwards, wearing down the nail (sorry boys the dynamics of heals is probably going right over your head right now)… so it looks like they won’t be able to be fixed… I’ll need to go buy a new pair of brown heals now to match my things… oh darn.

The heal incident was almost immediately followed by my first ever bee sting (to my knowledge at least)… Those things really really hurt…But I’ve learned I’m not allergic, and its just a little pink and itchy today, not so much pain.

After work, Jodie, Georgious (Greece), and I went out for coffee downtown. Now one them for the day for Jodie and I was that everywhere we went to eat was either closed or soooo crowded we had to find somewhere else—this happened at lunch, coffee, and dinner. But we ended up taking coffee on the water, which was very nice. We then headed over to Sternchanze to meet up with Tomoko (Japan I), and a couple of other people from Japan… Professor Saurada (Japan II) is a very well known corporate professor, and was Tomoko’s professor’s professor (grand professor?)… absolutely hilarious and very nice man. Eriko (Japan III) is Tomoko’s friend from Japan who came over for two weeks to visit. And Manabu (Japan IV) is another PhD student that was just here for the week, and we were all out b/c it was his last night here. The end result was yet another very fun night of drinking. There are two drinks I must tell you about... they are called Alsterwasser and Elbewasser ( Alster water and Elbe water), as Hamburg is situated on Alster lake, and the Elbe River. Alsterwasser is beer with lemonade, and Elbewasser is beer with cola. They are surprisingly very good drinks, especially if you aren't intending to drink a lot, or if you aren't used to drinking. It reminded me a lot of the Austrian ColaWeis-- Wine and Cola, which we drank to save money and survive drinking games.

And that more or less wraps up the last week. Tomorrow I head off to Berlin where we’ll go and see Obama speak, followed by my most anticipated trip out to Poland…

Oot and Aboot

So clearly even if I say I’m not doing any traveling for a weekend, I’m still doing something… and well, last weekend was no different. I finally got around to touring around Hamburg, followed up by a day trip out to Lübeck (ok so I lied, I did travel, but not far… only about an hour).

Friday

Friday night after work Fathi (Turkey) took me and Tomoko out to “the city of Altona”… which is really just the neighborhood outside of downtown Hamburg, kind of like Oakland in Pittsburgh. But it was a new neighborhood for me and a lot of fun to wander around, and we ate some of the best döner kebab I have ever had. The area has a nice pedestrian thoroughfare with lots of little shops and things. I learned later this week with Jodie that it also has a lot of little happening bars during the middle of the week.

Saturday

Saturday was a long day with bipolar weather… It was sunny one minute, downpouring the next, both hot and cold… with just enough humidity to totally kill my hair. My day started with heading downtown for the first time. [this isn’t entirely true, my day really started with heading into the village and enjoying some breakfast and coffee at the one of the local bakeries] my first stop was the Rathaus [town hall] where, in the middle of the square was the European Beach Volleyball Championship Finals… so of course I had to go in and watch for a bit, until the rain very suddenly started hammering down on us… They passed out ponchos in an attempt to get people to stay… but really, it just wasn’t worth it (but hey, I got a free poncho). So I just started wandering around the city, which is actually just another major shopping area, full of pedestrian areas, and indoor mall like passageways (a lot like Singapore… but less so… hard to explain)… The best part was finding possibly the largest H&M I’ve ever seen directly across from a Lush store. I got all the way down to the Hauptbanhof (main train station) turned back around headed back to the Rathaus, ended up taking a tour of the interior, then headed over toward Sankt Nikolaikirche (Saint Nicolas Cathedral), which is the bombed out ruins of what is left of an old church. Its really very neat; rather than rebuild the church they have left it the way it was after the WWII bombings, and they have added an elevator to the top of the cathedral tower to see a panorama view of the city. After that I headed off to the warehouse district [Speicherstadt], which is basically an entire community of old fashioned brick warehouses and canals. While I did pass by the Hamburg dungeon and miniature wonderland, I restrained myself from going into either in hopes of bringing some people with me [I really am just a big kid]

From here I made my way to the symbol of Hamburg, Sankt Michaeliskirche, [St. Michael’s Cathedral]. Just outside the Cathedral was a little community festival with high school bands and a classic car show etc. [It really is just a fantastic fluke of fate that I got to see a volleyball championship and classic car show all on the same day]. Again, I got take another elevator trip up the steeple to see the city… I LOVE that Germans believe in elevators rather than making you walk bagillions and bagillions of steps, especially considering by that point I had been walking for about 5 hours. I ended my little jaunt by checking out a street set up for the widows of tradesmen, and seeing the main harbor Landungsbrücken… There is a relatively famous tower here, its on all the post cards, unfortunately it was under scaffolding when I got there, so I just jumped on the train and headed home.

Sunday

Sunday is the sunniest day I’ve seen since I was in France, so I seized the opportunity to head out to Lübeck… which claims to be the home of Marzipan and quite possibly the creepiest city I have ever been to… EVER. It is a world heritage site, known for its red brick buildings, and one of the only places (if not THE only place, to have an entire downtown labeled as a historical site). Unfortunately, what this means is that all the buildings are sort of shifty… as in literally shifty… the bricks are starting to break down so nothing is quite standing straight up. This is pretty neat looking until you go into your first building… apparently I get a bit queasy in slanty buildings… it didn’t help that the first slanty building was the museum, so I was trying to read the history and things… and everything was very legitimate… until the last room… which was the torture chamber… out of no where, and totally not in theme with the rest of the museum. They also have one of the largest puppet museums in the world… but not just puppets, marionettes… which I also find to be uber creepy, and decided not to go in mainly because I wasn’t sure how much time I had before things closed as it was Sunday. So I dropped into my first church… Everything is completely white washed on the inside… no pews… and a black crucifix… and 1940’s jazz playing in the background… now beside reminding me of a Torchwood episode…the whole thing was… well… I took video, you’ll get the idea. The other thing was that all of the buildings I went into had a dank musty smell to them all, which didn’t help the atmosphere at all.

At the Catholic cathedral all of the artwork was very morbid, lots of skulls (in general this was true in all the churches along with lots of clocks). But then in the back they had an art exhibit… the first thing I saw was a guy being crushed by a rock, followed by lots of bloody dark, horrific pictures. Turns out it was an exhibit on Depression.

I then just strolled around, hit up the Marzipan store, etc. The whole place was very very quiet, despite lots of people. But also very pretty. It only took me about 5 hours to see the whole city and do all the things they recommended (they actually had a tourist map with path to walk along to see everything… along with a mini history of each bit… the only hitch being that I had to pay for it, *it’s the first time in Europe I had to pay for a tourist map… and they knew w/out it you’d be more or less screwed so it cost near 3 euro – that’s like $5 right now)

Monday

Back in good old not creepy Hamburg! After work I met up w/ Tomoko and one of her friends from Japan and we went to Sankt Jacobi for an organ concert. Now this turned out to not exactly be what any of us expected. It was all music composed between the 1950’s- 1980’s… so it was kind of like old school sci-fi music, which while it works in old-school corny sci-fi movies… when put to an organ concert, its just weird. And they never introduced the songs or anything… They just started playing, paused, switched songs, and then ended… somehow the rest of the audience knew they were finished… how, I’m not so sure. It was pretty weird, but yet another event I can check off under amusing experience.

Other random things:

So basically the last week has been all about getting into Hamburg. I’ve also been doing some exploration after work w/ Jodie, and you really get to see that this whole city has more dimensions than most places I’ve ever lived. Though we’ve both agreed that it might be too “hip” for either of us.

Otherwise things are good… I’m reading a book that is soooo not up my ally that I have to finish it just to say I have, and thanks to Bryan, I’m catching up on the latest season of Dr. Who (for those of you have to watch via regular TV, I laugh at you and the suspense your must be going through each week).

"Take the Long Way Home"-- Supertramp

Soooooo…. This weekend turned out to be quite the high powered adventure through central Europe. I met up with one of my GSPIA friends, Chansonette, in Strasbourg, France… we then headed out to the country side and visited Selestat and Comar. That was followed up by a trip to Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, and from there we parted ways and I stopped off in Koln (Cologne), Germany. The reason for the post being the long way home was that I was supposed to get back into Hamburg at around 9 on Monday morning… I looked all the trains up and had it all planned out rather well… what I didn’t look up was lay-over times… turns out that if I took the overnight train I wanted to take, I would have been stuck in Cologne from midnight to 6am… so rather than blow off Luxembourg, I opted to stay the extra night, and got to see Cologne the next day… which, while being the long way home, was a great decision on my part.

Strasbourg, France

I rolled into Strabourg just after 1 in the afternoon on Friday. The train ride hadn’t been half bad, and I got a lot of much needed sleep after only 3 hours the night before. (There was another stammtisch, and I didn’t get home till about 12, and needed to be up by about 4:30 to catch my train at 6… plus pack at some point in there). Strasbourg is the capital of the Alsace region of France, and also one of the three cities that makes up the governing bodies of the European Union. You may recognize Alsace from your world war history. It’s the region between Germany and France that has been passed back and forth between the two for several hundred years.

The architecture is a mix of both German and French; this was an aspect that both Chansonette and I both noticed. For me as soon as I got there I was like, “this is sooooo French,” she on the other hand found everything to be very German. We got a full view of this mix of French/German… Old/New… atmosphere as we took a boat tour through the city. This, was an excellent idea. We saw everything, got a good dose of history and lots of random anecdotes… things like how one bridge was where they dunked people, and when they became more humane, they started using cages, and the women would come and mock the prisoners while doing needle work (because these prisoners were adulterers and prostitutes). We heard about the sauerkraut factory that was turned into a theater, and about how sauerkraut is originally from China… Or about how there was a fire in a hall with only a window as the way out and 20 people died b/c a fat monk couldn’t fit through the window and got stuck… and we saw the house where spinsters and widows were kept… There were lots and lots of these amusing tidbits during the tour… lots of them sort of caused your jaw to drop open. I would recommend the tour to anyone going to Strasbourg.

We of course did all the touristy things… cathedrals, cathedrals, more cathedrals… and ended up in a cathedral listening to a live organ concert. Followed by crepes (not just desert crepes, but the kind you can eat for dinner)… and bottles of wine of a game of cards.

Selestat and Comar

Saturday we headed away from Strasbourg down further south into wine country. The original goal was maybe to do a wine tour… Personally I liked the one that talked about riding horses through the vineyards, Chansonette had some objections to this. But it turned out wine tours were expensive so, we just grabbed a train to Comar, which at one point Chansonette was like, lets get off here, so we did… b/c you can do that when you’re on a random adventure. The area we were in had a ton of castles in the distance on top of every little hill. And the actual village of Selestat was very picturesque.. a lot like wandering around Bush Gardens w/out the rides.

From there we went to Comar… with several goals in mind. First, we wanted to get to the tourist office, second, we wanted to see Voltaire’s house, third, we wanted to see (or I should say I wanted to see) what the House of Heads was. We’re easily distracted, by things like… food. Comar was even prettier than Selestat, making for more great pictures. Voltaire’s house turned out to be a private residence… that you couldn’t go in… in fact it turned out to of just been a house that Voltaire rented two rooms from at one point… with a plaque outside. The House of Heads, turned out to just be a really old hotel… I didn’t even take a picture. By the time we got to the tourist office, it was getting late, and most things were starting to close. But we did do a wine tasting. Just a little shop, and not so much wine, as schnapps and liquors. The woman just kept asking if we wanted to try another, and then another… all for free, though I did end up buying some.

Luxembourg

Early morning Sunday, we headed out to Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. It was an appropriately grey and cold day… appropriate for two reasons really, first b/c Luxembourg has more of a medieval feel to it, and dark and dreary works for that, and second b/c I was in a skirt and tank top… it can’t be hot and sunny when I’m in a skirt and tank top…it would violate the Murphy principles. There was a marathon going on when we got into the city… but it just seemed like people were running, walking, or Nordic walking everywhere and not really in an organized manner. After dropping off our stuff we hiked our way up a giant hill (as hour hostel was in a valley) and started crossing into the town. On the way there, there were these Casemates, which is basically old underground fortifications of the city that you could climb through… with lots of random passageways, and twisty staircases (climbing through caves also falls under murphy’s law when wearing a skirt)…

After some time we wandered the city, saw the sights, opted not to pay a fortune for a city tour, found a museum that went through the whole history of Luxembourg and how it developed. Random tidbits, Luxembourg has its own language… not quite French, not quite german. They use French for business, German for media, and then Luxembourgish for everyday things. The city is protected by a fairy/siren/mermaid. The founder fell in love with her and asked her to marry him, which she did on the condition that she get one day a week where she wasn’t to be bothered. Years went by, they had kids, built the city, etc. but the king got jealous, and peeped through a key hole into his wife’s room on her off day, where he saw she had scales for legs, gasped, scared her, and the rocks came and ate her, with the key to the city in her mouth. Lesson: Give girls their space when they ask for it. I learned all this from a rather bizarre museum exhibit… but it wasn’t as strange as the exhibit about tourists… and what the characteristics of tourists are and things like that… I can’t even describe it right. It seemed very tongue in cheek, seeing as I would think mostly tourists would go to the museum… Oh and then there was a room that had mirrors on the floor and walls… also inevitable when wearing a skirt…

Later that evening we headed to a free concert in the main square, Rock um Kneudler. The first band we stayed and listened to was a African cover band… who played the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and lots and lots of Led Zeppelin. Which was great for me. Then the second band came on… now I knew I know the name, Supertramp (actually it was just the singer songwriter from supertramp, Roger Hodgson) but couldn’t for the life of me remember what they sang… He opened w/ Take the Long way home… and followed it up with other popular songs you’d recognize like: Give a little Bit [of your love to me], The Logical Song, Dreamer, Take a look at My Girlfriend, and … I love free random concerts.

Cologne

Not much here, we headed off early in the morning on Monday. We were headed in the same direction, so we took the same train until I jumped off in Cologne. While there I wanted to check out the Dom, one of the most famous Cathedrals in all of Europe… probably one of the most visited ones in the world. I had studied it back in my Medieval Art and Architecture class. Lucky for me, it was literally just outside the train station. Now we had been walking for 3 days straight now, but something possessed me to climb the 509 stairs to the top… Oy… and the way down… spiral staircase (w/people still climbing up) It built “character” or at least that’s what I told myself, and gave me a chance to grab some nice pics. I didn’t do the rest of the city, mainly b/c I didn’t know what else there was to see… judging from my guidebook, I didn’t miss much except a chocolate factory. But it had been a long trip and it was time to head back home.

Other Random Updates…

Just a few things to report. I caught a cold, but thanks to some uber strong meds was only out of it for about a day. I also now have another American here. Her name is Jodie, went to Harvard for university and Columbia for law school, where she was journal editor, and is now on the tail end of a Fulbright that she used to do research in Cambridge, England… despite the background she’s one of the nicest people I’ve met here, and to my amusement has no idea what she wants to do w/ her life… we click. I don’t have any big traveling plans for the next two weeks, if I do anything it will probably be locally (no more than an hour or 2 away)… so don’t be expecting too much in terms of posts… w/out football things have sort of slowed down around here…

Matches of the Century...

No, I haven't disappeared, I just haven't felt like writing anything up in the past week... maybe its depression over the football loss, who knows... but I do have updates and what not now... In case you haven't noticed I've added a map up above the posts and I'll be marking off my routes and things as I head through Europe. I've also finally got around to picking up a bike and made the 6 mile trek home on the hottest day Hamburg has had since i've been here (this is inevitable for me, I always bike on the hottest of days)... and I only got mildly lost, so by this time next week i should be a biking fiend and actually know how to get back and forth from home... This weekend I'm meeting up with Chansonette (one of my GSPIA friends) in Strasbourg, France, followed by Luxembourg... So thats what you get to look forward to next week... and now onto last weekend...
Last Saturday
Besides the football match, one of the main reasons i opted to stay in Hamburg this weekend was for the Jazz festival... 2 days of jazz music accompanied by bier and wurst stands in the middle of the botanical gardens (actually its called Plant und Blumen)... Upon waking up Saturday ready to go... rain... rain... more rain... and a touch of rain... even my plan for exploring before the show was offset by the weather... so 5 hours after i originally intended on getting out of the apartment, I finally went down the concert, and the first band was well... awful... it would be what would happen if i were to pick up a sax... except maybe i'd at least be able to hammer out mary had a little lamb... this was just random toots... I proceeded to find a place where i didn't have to listen to the "music", but close enough to tell when the band changed.
After a while I found a nice seat in the back, made friends with some locals, who proceeded to ask me about my interest in Terry Pratchett (I was reading in between sets)... and then finally met up with my people around 8ish... Tomoko came out along with Lucio (portugal 2-- Riu, portugal 1 has sadly gone back to portugal, along with Javier-- columbia-- who went home for 2 months... i have to make new friends... again)... but that isn't hard as Lucio brought a bunch of people he had met in a lecture... There was an Argentinian, who kept making fun of my Americanness and lack of geographical knowledge (though i still say i know more than most people... i just don't do latin american cities very well), a couple of swedes, a girl from portugal, and a guy mike, from NOVA... (northern virginia for those that don't know... and he even went to UVA...) The rest of the night was spent listening to soft jazz... mostly soft jazz covers of disco music, and a rather corney and off key

Germany v. Spain
So, Sunday was the big game... what we've all been waiting for, the big match-up between Spain and Germany. Excitement filled the air, I even headed down to the Fischmarkt again to pick up a Deutchland scarf... Then headed off to a little Spanish restaurant in the Portuguese district... To my frustration, I was the only person in our group routing for Germany... which in some ways made the great loss even more disappointing, but in other ways meant that i got pictures of all my people being happy... which is better than a lot of sulking football fans...



Robin v. Washer machine
So no matter what i do, i don't seem to be able to get my washer machine to fill up with water... Now i've been here for 3 weeks, clearly i've washed my clothes during this time... by hand.... I can get the machine to spin... and drain the non existant water... I can get it to lock and refuse to open for multiple hours at a time.... But I've begun to outsmart the machine... I hand wash things, then spin them to get rid of any extra water. My land lady is just as baffled as I am about the whole thing and just keeps turning dials... And then she finally offered to wash some of my clothes... Now despite my overwhelming dislike of other people touching my laundry, this was too good an opportunity to give up (i mean, one reason i picked the place was for the washer... and no, there are no laundry mats in my area)... and so this is one battle i've won... though the war rages on

*UPDATE* I wrote that bit up there a couple of days ago... last night the war came to a fabulous conclusion. My land lady called up the last tenant to see if she knew how to work the washer... turns out, she had turned off the water when she left... and so... I'm washing clothes like a mad women and enjoying (using the term loosely here) every minute of it.