Deutchland! Deutchland!

Ok, so before I jump right into it... I just wanted to show you this first... this is a shop... a shop that sells two things... Wine and Shoes... I'm not sure what else europe can pair with wine, i mean first ice cream, now shoes? Crazy Europeans...


So, yes, the DE beat Turkey in the Semi-finals... you really couldn't ask for a bigger rivalry considering the large Turkish population actually within Germany. To get a seat in any location you needed to come about 2 hours early... while there 2 hours early, Tomoko and I were too busy trying to meet up w/ other people to actually grab seats. The street we were on is lined with little bars and restaurants, and they all put up little TVs on the outside for people to watch, and the entire street was completely packed... It was like being at a concert, except w/ out the stage. The game itself was a nail biting experience as the DE didn't play so hot for the first half leaving the game tied 1 up at half time. (please note my number 7 was the first to score for DE and actually scored twice). Much to our dismay, lightening decided to strike the satellite broadcast tower in Switzerland... and knocked out the game... to the whole entire world. This near caused rioting within the streets. But in the end, DE pulled it off and we won the game 3-2. The entire city was out on the streets, I've only ever seen anything like it when the Steelers won the super bowl... and its just semi-finals... I can't wait to see what happens on Sunday with the championship...

"To be or not to be, that is the question..." -- Hamlet

While I was trying to avoid using the most cliché of quotes for the title, nothing else quite fit... And if you're going to Denmark, how can you not quote Hamlet? But this here is the furtherest extent of any Hamlet reference, as once in Kobenhavn (Copenhagen) there really wasn't any acknowledgment of the story... nor was there any real reference to Vikings except in souvenir shops and a handful of restaurants. And now without further ado, let us begin with our opening scene…

On the train to Denmark

It is official, one of the few points in time where I irrationally lose my temper, and not in the traditional passive aggressive manners is when I am on a train and have to change seats… Now this isn’t necessarily b/c I’m irrational, its more that no one ever approaches these things in a calm manner… no one is ever like, oh, I’m sorry I have this seat reserved. No people, will stand there and stare at you, and you’ll ask if the seat is reserved b/c of course everything is written in Danish… not even German, so you don’t really know, and the one other person you’ve met is another girl traveling alone, and she’s looking to you for the German translation of things… and the closest you can guess is that anything that has the word that resembles “reservation” must be reserved. Needless to say, it was a Danish couple who didn’t speak English and then when finally pulling out their ticket only for me to see they had every seat reserved, except the one I was in, so there was no reason for them to be yelling at me in the first place, makes me disgruntled. The little old German lady behind them however, did have my seat, but was fairly sweet about it. Meanwhile, the gentleman beside us who understood everything going only, finally chimed in after us amusing everyone and did some translating.

The girl I met’s name was Macarina from Chile, and we became fast friends for our 5 hour trip to Denmark (or a single serving friend if you will). About half way through the trip, the train… the whole train… drove onto a boat and we ferried across the Baltic… which is black… a giant black ocean… and the top of Germany and all of Denmark just looks flat and green against the black ocean with giant white pinwheels lining the coasts of both countries (apparently they are big into wind energy)

Friday Night

Fresh off the train in Kobenhavn, the first thing you run into is the Tivoli Amusement Park in the center of town. After wandering around aimlessly on the streets you quickly find an ATM, then eventually head back to the train station to find a city map (the only reason you left the train station to begin with was that you were following signs to the tourist information only to find it was now an empty office)

Immediately upon getting to the hostel, I befriended Jane, the Aussie, who had just finished up teaching in London and was now backpacking and we opted to do dinner together on Stroget… the longest pedestrian thoroughfare in the world… holy shoppers heaven… 3, yes I said 3, women’s H&Ms all with different clothes and sales

Jane was pretty awesome and caught me up on some basic danish history and monarch gossip. The danish monarchy is the oldest in europe, and it has its ties to more or less every royal family (as they all tend to). However, in recent years, they have been extending outside of royalty to continue on with the line. The crown prince is married to an Aussie that he met in a bar during the Australian Olympics. His brother is married to a French woman, and previously a woman from Hong Kong... all more or less common people.

The mystery of great crack solved!

This section is really just for Dana, Amanda and Nikki... so, apparently "Great Crack" means something along the lines of "awesome" or "really cool"... a film maker from Ireland made a movie kind of about it... called "The Crack"... ok, so the mystery isn't quite solved, just kind of explained... great crack... heehee

Saturday Day

Rather than write everything let me just say go to the pictures to see everything I saw, and I’ll just go through some key points…

Denmark is the home of Hans Christian Anderson who wrote such memorable fables such as the little mermaid… the real one where she not only lost her voice when she became human it also felt as though she walked on swords, and the only way to stay human was to kill the prince, which she opted not to do, and instead died and turned into sea foam. At the far end of town there is a statue dedicated to the little mermaid, which is the first thing I went and saw. I also saw a well preserved fort (Kastellet) (with a windmill), a marble church with the 3^rd largest dome in Europe (which I was thrown out of for a wedding), One of 3 palaces, the botanical gardens, Stroget again, and back to the hostel for some regrouping.

Street Performers

Now there were all sorts of street performers out… which I love… I love everything from watching artists paint, to listening to live music, to watching magicians… and Stroget has them all. Of particular note were the Native American performers and well… the Danish monks… blonde Danish monks. But the most memorable of all was a comedic magician, who wasn’t particularly good… talked too much, drew things out a lot… kind of like odd family guy sketches… but well, he decided to single me out to be his “sexy lady assistant”… Being me, I was half mortified to have to stand in front of a less than smiling audience, and probably change a few hundred shades of red. And he kept telling me I’d have to do a “sexy” walk around, which he proceeded to demonstrate… there really aren’t the right words to describe this, but I don’t think he realized that when challenged and told to do something, despite mortification, I’ll follow through, and strut and prance… in fact, those of you that know me best probably realize that I’m very good at this kind of “acting”… and then he gave me fire… which I had to hold, in the air for about 10 minutes, and every time I brought my arm down, he’d have me bring it up again, and told me stand sexy by sticking my chest out (I’m just gonna point out, “sexy” is hard to do when you’re in an oversized sweatshirt—the sweatshirt is another story all together that isn’t nearly as entertaining)… So at the end he asked for a kiss on the cheek… and like all cheeky Europeans, he turned his head and got me on the lips… *note—how many shades of red do you really think I can change??--- and then proceeded to profess his love for me… Jane happened to be walking by at the time, she’s going to send pictures once she gets back home.

Saturday Night

Saturday night was spent at Tivoli… not riding rides… Let me tell you… Kopenhavn is super ridiculously expensive… meals… anywhere, including the hostel cost about $20, even breakfast, wanting to see things cost, even w/ student discounts… and for Tivoli, they charge for a ticket AND you have to then pay for ride tickets too! Now Tivoli has all the best rides of say Bush Gardens strategically organized to take up a minimal amount of space… with room for multiple stages shows and beer gardens… The lack of rides wasn’t all that bad however, as I got to spend 2 hours listening to big band jazz music… which was pretty awesome… most songs were Sinatra songs, or others I know all the words to, and apparently it’s a big deal for jazz/big band dancers, as the entire dance floor was full of professional level dancers, just there having fun… (all this has done is reemphasized my desire to learn jazz/swing dancing next year if anyone else is interested in joining me)… the jazz show was followed up but a pretty awesome light show…

Sunday

Sunday was a marathon day of palace touring... if there was a palace, I toured it... the only problem being that there's a lot of waiting in this process. First, nothing opens until 10... and then you find out that you can only take an actual tour... so you have to wait around for an english tour to even go in the main palace (Christ....), while at the same time trying to time things right to catch the changing of the guard (which i did catch), and making sure you make it to your train on time (which i did, w/ time to spare b/c the train schedule changed)... Oh, and it was raining... a lot, and so I learned my umbrella is rusting and in fact has a couple of holes in it... which in turn kind of defeat the purpose of having an umbrella... But it was all pretty cool... I love wandering palaces and getting dosed with history... I even got to see piles of rocks (i'm not being sarcastic here, a side effect of wanting to be an archaeologist for most of my life is that I tend to find nothing better than life than the opportunity to check out a giant pile of old rocks). It seems that the main castle had been rebuilt several times due to wars, fires, and the general need to spruce things up over the last 900 years.

The ride home was more ore less uneventful, though after lots of seat changing, I ended up sitting w/ a danish family who had two very young very loud but cute kids, who kept trying to talk to me... seeing as i'm pretty good with non verbal entertainment of children, and in order to get them to well... we'll just say quiet down a bit, i taught them how to play penny soccer... I think we played for about an hour... I was thanked later by other people on the train.

Now as for pictures... there's a video of clips of video I took during the trip, along with the regular slide show of pics...

SCORE!

Greetings to everyone on this most glorious of Friday mornings! Why glorious, you ask? Well b/c last night Germany totally kicked Portugal's ass in the quarter finals... and well... Portugal was the favored team to win the tournament.
We opted to watch the game in the Portuguese district, at a little Portuguese bar, this made it even more exciting. The only thing I can do to relate what this stuff is like, is say, think about Pittsburgh winning the Super Bowl... (for those of you who haven't experienced that atmosphere, I don't know how else to describe it)... Its definitely the most fun that I have had at a game yet... (ooo, and on a side note I tried rabbit for the first time... very good).
I now officially have some favorite players on the team... My favorite player just because he's a good player and I enjoy the fact that the first game I saw he got red carded, then had to sit out the next game, only to come back this game to score the first goal and assist in another one, and he's number 7, is Bastian Schweinsteiger (yes, that links to his player profile).Overall... good times... and look, I finally have pictures of my people... of course half of them are sad about Portugal losing... but oh well... and yes, I listed their real names and not just country (I had to cheat to do this... there's a list of people and their country at the mailboxes... I find I can remember names better when I read it

BBQ's, Beaches, Markets, and of course, More Football!

A brief rundown of the events of the past few days:

My weekend began and ended in rather the same fashion… me having issues w/ the train system Normally, the trains run rather smoothly and there’s a fork at one point and you either stay on the train your on or head over to the other side of the platform to grab the opposite train… now for whatever reason, the trains weren’t lined up time wise… so I just jumped on my transfer only to figure out I was somewhere way, way, way off from where I needed to be.

Saturday/BBQ and Beach

So the original plan for Saturday was to head out to Lubeck for the day, since it isn’t all that far away. But as I was leaving on Friday Imen (Tunisian, guest event coordinator) was like “oh, we’re having a BBQ tomorrow, you should come.” At first I went to say no, but then Cuba (yes if I don’t know names I am referring to countries) jumps in and tells me all about how I need to go. And so, I did, and I had a great time, meeting large handfuls of new people, trying to rationalize American politics and learning about how the Pittsburgh Penguins are actually known in Germany. I’ve also found my first drinking buddy, Johanas (aka German I, English translation= John)… who, of course, is sadly leaving the institute next weekend.

The BBQ ended up rather early... actually it was rather a weird ending, I was talking w/ Johanas on the deck, and we went inside and everyone was gone. So I ended up heading back to the apartment, but instead of going straight there, I opted to turn right off the train station and wander around Othmarschen. Its an incredibly beautiful neighborhood (also one of the richest in Hamburg). After about a mile you hit the waterfront, which is lined with trees and bike paths. Unfortunately the view of the Elbe river isn't all that exciting since its mostly docks and rigs, but the area around it is nice, and there is a little beach, where people hang out and swim, but only w/ wet suits, as it is freezing. In the middle of all this is a giant rock; of course the explanation for this rock is only in German, so I ended up having to ask for a translation. Turns out the rock was found in the Elbe when they were dredging, but its actually from Sweden and has been her for like 900 years. When you look at the pictures below, you too will question how a rock that size gets down to Germany from Sweden.

Sunday/Market

Sunday I did something rather unheard of from me… I rolled out of bed at the ass crack of dawn (6am)… when I didn’t actually need to… The reason for this is that on Sunday mornings down at the docks in St. Pauli, there is a fish market. Yes, the fish market has more than fish, or clearly a) I wouldn’t have gone due to my dislike of fish, and b)even if I did like fish, I don’t see me wandering down there at 7am for it. The decision to get out of bed was truly one of my better ones.

As you wander down the street from the banhof (train station) your first instinct is to hope you know where you are going… and then you start to see one or two people hauling around mounds of fresh produce… then there are flocks of them. As you get closer you start to smell the distinct odor of market fish, and well, market in general (This isn’t something I can really describe, I can just tell you every market in the world as similar base sent, that’s then accented by whatever it specializes) As you finally round the corner as far as you can see from side to side are tents ands stalls full of fresh produce and fish. There were candy stalls set up that reminded me of Fasching in Munich. Lots of hat stalls and offensive t-shirt stands… but they were in German so I wasn’t really sure what exactly they said. In one section (this was easily a mile strip of stalls) there were live animals… the first thing I saw were the bunnies, then chickens and doves… these were the fattest chickens I have ever seen, and then there were hares… I don’t think we ever give any consideration to hares… they’re huge. They were selling tons of flowers and trees… lots of bonsai that you could see college students running around with. And then in the center of it all was a giant warehouse… In this warehouse was live bands, waffles, and beer. The bands only played classic rock and 80’s music… in English. Needless to say, by 9:30 I had my waffles and beer in hand and had been completely sucked into the atmosphere. As I was leaving I bought like a 10 lb. basket of fruit for 10 euro… awesome… until I had to carry it home… not so awesome.

My entire morning was not spent just at the market, but rather, at some point in the middle of marketing I took an adventurous detour. Perhaps I should start over. Upon leaving my apartment all that was going threw my head was, “don’t forget to pick up cash”… due to a series of distractions, I ended up at the market with all of 15 euro. So, once I realized I needed more cash I started walking…

St. Pauli is an infamous neighborhood… the pleasant family oriented fish market of today, at one point years ago was the docking post of sailors and the gateway into Hamburg’s red light district… the largest red light district in all of Europe. Now a days, it still has all of its red light charm with the addition of being the central hub of European punk rock, parties, bars and discos. Its where the Beatles made their début… Wandering the street on a Sunday morning, you see “drinking parks” littered with Saturday night’s leftovers, including a few passed out bodies here and there. The overwhelming amounts of graffiti that mark Hamburg turns into some incredible wall art, and there are more bars on every block than I have ever seen in my life. But no ATMs… that is until you get to Reeperbahn. There are a lot of famously scandalous roads in the world, and well, I tend to find them… but nothing compares to the Reeperbahn. Even at around 8-9 in the morning on a Sunday, Reeperbahn has the ability to make even me blush and feel awkward. It’s a huge street, with nothing but strip joints, casinos, and sex shops, along with all of the largest night clubs and party centers. There is no wonder why its actually called the Miles of Sin. And lucky for me there were some ATMs around, so I got my cash and headed back down to the market.

Monday/Football

MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL… Woot Woot!... I mean, Olay, olay, olay, olay…. So Monday night was the big match between Austria and Germany. As per usual, I rolled back over to the MPI to watch the game, and at half-time me and Johanas were like, lets blow this joint (not a lot of people were there… too big of a game) and headed to the nearest bar… an aussie bar of all places, that handed out free shots when Germany scored a goal, and of course again when we won the game. It was good times, and I’m looking forward to the quarterfinals on Thursday as we’re playing Portugal, which is probably the best team in the league right now, but any which way it should be pretty exciting.

I learned an important lesson on the way home that night… I learned that just because you know the time for the last train you need to grab, and you make it there on time, this doesn’t actually mean you’ll make it all the way home… especially if you need to make a connection, and it turns out the connection stopped running about 10 minutes before hand. But that’s why there’s cabs… And so it ends as it began…

Sorry, Technical Difficulties on that last post...

For whatever reason, I can't go back and edit that last post to add in the rest of this stuff, so its now here:

The video of the spinning things:



And then the pictures include the view from the apartment, along with a picture of my Ikea glass... Ikea all that swedish stuff... except this one glass, which is apparently made in Russia.

Settling In, Part II

The City

So far, I can say that I really like Hamburg. Where I live and where I work is nice, and friendly and clean. The middle areas I see as I ride the city train everyday… well maybe not so nice pretty and clean… but at the same time they graffiti words like, “IKEA” on the wall… clearly that person got a “build it yourself” bookshelf with a screw missing.

One of the first things I noticed in getting here is that its always daylight. I fell asleep on my first day here, and woke up at 9:30pm and it was still all sorts of sunny outside. It doesn’t start getting dusk until about 10:30, but even at 11 you can still see light on the horizon… And then when I wake up at 5am its already blazingly sunny. Due to having one night where I just couldn't sleep, I learned sunrise is around 4:30am. This is completely opposite of Cambodia where it was dark by 6, and really just promotes staying out and about and doing things the whole day. The weather here is shifty. It was super hot when I first got here, then about 3 days later, the temperature plummeted, and its only just started to get a bit warmer.

The people here are all very nice. Apparently I blend in a bit more than I thought though, as people are always asking me for directions (I think, I can't always understand them). This actually happened my first day on the way to work, when I was completely lost and wandering around aimlessly.

The Neighborhood

I live in an area called Gross- Flottbeck, which just has huge houses, and little village areas. It is quaint to say the least, but also super expensive. There are tons of little restaurants and things like that, but they tend to be out of my price range. There are also a bunch of mom and pop stores that line my street. Lucky for my wallet, I'm never home when these things are open. When asked, I usually say that I live in Othmarshen, since that's the train station, which is only a 5 minute walk from my place. The tracks are actually the dividing line between the two areas, turn left, you head towards my place, turn right you go to Othmarschen.

The Apartment

I live at Beselerstraße 15a, 22607 Groß-Flottbek, Hamburg... you know, in case you want to send me things while I'm here.

Größere Kartenansicht

That there is the mapped route between where I live (A) and where I work (B)

The apartment is perfect. While not the mansion I had last summer, it definitely works for me. As with all places that I live, its is located on the the third floor of my building (for those that don't know this is my 4th residence in 4 years where i've lived on the 3rd floor, which is usually as high as you can go). It has a bed that folds into a box on the wall, a small telly that only shows things in German (I've been watching cartoons in German, since its the easiest to follow, but MTV has family guy, american dad, and south park that i can follow along w/ as well-- in the video, the background is south park's lord of the rings episode). And then across the street there is this house that has things on the roof that spin... you better believe that when I'm tired, I sit and watch these things go for hours (see video). The pictures below are of my view, and the video is just a quick look at the place.

What do you get when...

... an American, Brazilian, Peruvian, Hungarian, Japanese, Italian, Spaniard, and Turk walk into a German cafeteria?

Robin's lunch hour

Oh, and instead of trying to learn some German before I came over, I should have tried to learn American politics.

Institutionalized

“So how many times have you been in the institution?” While I recognize that this phrase wasn’t meant to be funny, I couldn’t help giggle, and fail miserably at explaining why, while my quasi-english speaking companions just sort of stared at me, and tried to explain to me how people usually study at MPI 4 or 5 times. I can’t help but to think of all the academics/students I know who spend a bazillion hours a day in a library and who could all benefit from it having a padded room somewhere. I realize the joke is still bad and I’ve probably already lost all but 1 or 2 readers by this point. So you should just ignore this paragraph and move on.

The point I’m really trying to make is that I’ve had a far more successful round of meeting people and making friends than on Monday, and in effect have started to become “institutionalize”. It all started last night with the Germany—Croatia match. During half time I actually met the people sitting around me… a Columbian, Peruvian, Cuban (but apparently we’re enemies) and Chilean… we’ve decided we’re the America’s faction. Throw in the Portuguese and Tunisian, we suddenly became the Spanish speaking contingent. But seeing as my Spanish isn’t all that much better than my german (though I think it amused them that I would sit and listen and suddenly say something in English as a response to what they were talking about) they ended up switching to English for most of the night. After some failed attempts at names I’ve decided to only call them by country. (A Croatian got thrown into the mix later on in the night as well). But after the game we had a Stammtish (I think it translates loosely to a gathering which was held at a bar/restaurant ) and that’s where we really got to know each other.

It is assumed that as an American I have no interest in soccer, so when they figured out not only that I had an interest, but actually enjoy the game it sort of became our basis for bonding. One of the most common questions I got was, “Do you understand the rules?”… “More or less everything except the off-sides rule.”… “Well nobody understands that.” There then proceeded to be a debate as to whether they could describe the rule in their native language let alone English. Another end result is that I’ve been banned from cheering for any team, especially Portugal because whoever I cheer for tends to loose… I have an 0-4 record right now (the losses coming to Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria… yes actually watched all those games).

More or less everyone is working at their respective universities as assistant professors and researching here for their doctoral thesis. I may have mentioned that before, but then I went and talked to people, and that really is what most people are doing. So I’m essentially hanging out with a bunch of good looking smart slightly older latin academic men… heehee… They like to try and talk American politics with me, I try to avoid their questions by talking about sports… it’s a good balance.

All in all it was a pretty good night, and it looks like I’ve made some decent friends. Other fruits of the evening include: people to ride the train with cause they live in my area, people who might travel w/ me, and an potential MPI volleyball team.

Information Overload

2957… that’s the number of purely just legal journals I have access to online through MPI. This doesn’t include their paper journals; this doesn’t include journals under any other subject heading. This is JUST law.

Sifting through mountains of books and stacks over the last three days, filling my brain with a surplus of information concerning torts, harmonization of civil and common law systems, and wallowing in the depths of my information overload, I’ve somehow or another landed on a topic of interest. As predicted, just looking at tort law is a bit overwhelming, and a bit behind in what has already developed in the EU. So I’ve been looking over the Rome II statute on non-contractual obligations and I came back to something Prof. Basedow had mentioned my first day. They (referring to EU member states) were able to agree on everything except for defamation and privacy issues.

Now one of the first things I remember from last year were the defamation issues coming up in Cambodia, where defense attorneys were being charged w/ defamation of character when they went up against judges and prosecutors. Now there isn’t quite the same issue here, but what they do have are issues concerning what nations rules should be used in defamation suits, whether such regulations would violate national freedom of the press rights, and whether it would lead to forum shopping and things of that nature. So that is going to be my project for the next 2 months… Yes there is a bit more to it than that but I’m trying to minimize the boring details, while actually answering everyone who has asked, “So what are you researching/working on/doing over there?”

Settling In, Part I

Just real quick, I want to apologize the upcoming lack of order of things. I've just kind of been writing things down as they pop in my head throughout the day resulting in sort of a haphazard collection of thoughts... so while "settling in" was supposed to be one long post, it will now be at least two, but the first part is necessary in order to move on to another post I've written, and so I can get around to taking/loading pictures for the other stuff... really it all boils down to whatever attention span I do have is spent trying to actually do work, rather than thinking through my blogging.

The Job

In a great change of events for me my job involves me sitting in a library for 11 hours a day doing research and writing a paper, something I wouldn’t have any experience in whatsoever. ;-) But before I get into the details I guess I should rewind a bit for those people that don’t know what I’m doing over here to begin with. I’m currently researching at the Max Planck Institute (hereinafter MPI) for Comparative and International Private Law (http://www.mpipriv.de/ww/en/pub/home.cfm) as a part of the Nordenberg Fellowship. The fellowship basically promotes me learning a lot about European law through the internship, classes, and lectures, etc.

The MPI is an incredibly nice library for the most part (trying to actually use the stacks [stacks= term used in reference to the normal shelves of books you find in a library] in the basement is a little scary and I’m sure at some point I will be squished between the rows). In the courtyard there is a pond with a waterfall. There’s also a silent enclosed waterfall in the lobby area. We all have assigned desks and mailboxes, and we have little key cards for getting into parts of the library other people can’t get to. No bags are allowed in, there is no food and no coffee in the main library section ( though there is a coffee area, I can’t imagine doctoral students surviving w/ out it). There’s lockers to store bags, and a self check out system that you use whenever you take a book off a shelf. You can’t take anything home, so it just stays on your desk. As with all libraries the temperature is about 20 below freezing.

The library opens at 8am and closes at 7pm. I don’t really have a set time to be here, but I think most people don’t come in till after 9 (I got here at 9 this morning and was maybe one of 3 people here)… but then they all seem to stay till 7 (which seems to fit my library habits). I don’t really have a boss or any set projects to work on, its more that I’m here to do my own research and writing… being an academic and what not.

Most people here are doctoral students working on their thesis. From the few I’ve talked to, this is the high standard for legal libraries in Europe and they tend to think its below what I’m used to… I find this amusing… considering Barco (Pitt’s law library). Unfortunately everyone speaks German, and not so many speak decent English. This is awkward b/c apparently I don’t remember very much of any of the very little German I used to speak, something I didn’t realize until I tried to actually talk to someone. And what is worse is that I don’t seem to understand what they say. Now I joked about this before I left, and had been warned about it a little before, but I don’t think I realized that it would actually be an issue. Its an accent problem… I learned German from someone who spoke Austrian German and then studied in Austria… Hamburg is about as far north as you can get… its like throwing someone who learned to speak English in Alabama into New York City. Oh well, I can still read a bit which is nice… until I’m trying to look up material and understand the Title of a book, know its exactly what I need, but can’t get through more than a sentence or so when I actually look at it.

But I digress… I met a few people on Monday night; we watched the Italy v. Netherlands football (soccer) match. I’ve decided few things are more awkward than being a jet lagged new person, on your very first day, in a group of about 15-20 people who don’t really speak English and all know each other really well. I intend to bring beer next time as my “take me as your friend; all we need to understand each other is beer and soccer” move… (Europe is in the middle of the Europe Cup 2008, Germany is doing pretty well so far… beat Poland 2-0 on Sunday, I know this as there was loud cheering in my fairly quiet neighborhood followed by fireworks before the game was even done—and I only knew it was on as I could see it through my neighbors window on his big screen tv).

And that’s all for the initial settling into my job.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Planes

Airports provide one of the best places to sit and go people watching because, well, people in airports are actually interesting. Unfortunately this trip was not fruitful in people watching entertainment… with the exception of the 10 minutes spent with about 7 20 something Irish guys. The main reason for this is because I didn’t really spend very much time in any one airport. By the time I sat down in Norfolk, the flight before mine had been postponed for about an hour, and it was looking like my flight was going to be postponed too, but rather than have us wait, those of us that got there early got to jump into the empty seats on the earlier flight. During this flight I learned that I could get sunburned from reading a book on an airplane w/ the window open. The next flight gave me just under an hour to get from one terminal to the next in the Philly airport; lucky for me there was a Philly soft pretzel stand across the way which I stocked up on and then survived on for the next 24 hours or so.

Now this next plane got delayed because it overheated, and they had to replace a vent or something like that. So when they loaded the plane we sat in 98 degree heat for an hour as the first engine wouldn’t start so they needed a new part. I feel there are some things people don’t need to know about their plane. These things include “We have engine 2 running but engine 1 won’t start and we need a new part.”… I’m also not too keen on things like, “For the first hour and half to 2 hours we’ll feel some turbulence”… but that’s just personal opinion.

The flight wasn’t half bad. I sat next to an air force kid, maybe a year or two younger than me, finally got to see Juno, and had pretty decent airplane food. The coolest part was opening the window flap and not being particularly sure if the sun was rising or setting, or maybe doing both. There was a thick yellow strip along the horizon that immediately changed to a dark blue (no subtle change in color), which then faded into space black with stars. The only true description would be to say it was looking at both night and day at the same time. A couple of hours later I flipped open the window again to see a color rich sunrise. Again the colors didn’t fade one into the other, rather they were striped along the sky, separated by thing grey clouds. On the horizon was a smoky red, then orange, then yellow, to green, to blue. I don’t know if you have ever seen a green sky before. I haven’t. I’ve heard stories about how if you watch the sunset over the ocean at the last minute on a clear day it will flash green, but this was actually a whole strip of Kelly green streaking through the sky.

Trains

When I hit the train station in Frankfurt, it was about 7:50 in the morning. Upon finding the ticket office, it was about 7:53. The woman asked if I wanted the next train, at 7:58… I’ve never seen a ticket person move so quickly… I hauled ass to the train, w/ luggage. There was a 7 minute delay.

Automobiles

We grow up our entire lives with certain basic rules in our minds. One of the most fundamental of these rules is, “Don’t get into a car with strangers.” But for whatever reason we have no qualms jumping into a taxi. And really, we do this at our most vulnerable times… like when you’ve been flying on a plane for hours w/out sleep, and your suddenly in another country, w/out a clue where you are going, or even how to tell the driver where to go. I didn’t do this once, but twice actually during my trip. The first time was between Frankfurt airport and the train station. It was during this point in time that I originally came up with this idea, as we hit the highway and I was like, this guy could totally just take me anywhere he felt like. By the time I grabbed the cab in Hamburg I really didn’t care. Which was amusing as the cabbie tried to talk American politics with me, and I was a bit out of it.

I was dropped off at Beselerstrasse 15; oddly enough it looked nothing like the picture online. It was the only run down looking place on the street with lotto and betting stores on the first floor, and no one there to let me in. Eventually, I ended up walking a bit. The house next door did in fact look far more like where I was supposed to be staying, and turned out to be 15a. We won’t discuss my feelings on having the same street number on two houses. But eventually I found my landlady and her Spanish speaking husband (he’s the only person I can understand around here, which I find amusing), and now, I’m just settling in…

Testing Testing 123

Guten Tag and Hey guys for swinging by my new blog!
As you might notice as you poke around, I've become far more blog interactive than last year... this does not necessarily mean that I will be any better about updating my blog. But since you are all here, there are a few things that need done.

First and formost, you should subscribe to my blog. What this does is sends e-mails to you whenever I update my blog so you don't have to keep comming back online and checking it yourself. To do this type in your e-mail on the box to the left, follow the directions, and respond to the conformation e-mail. Yes, I tested this out before sending it out to y'all.

Second... I haven't exactly settled on a name for the blog yet... so, you all have until the 11th to vote for the name... the first idea is "Hamburgers and Vodka" as I will be living in Hamburg and traveling to Russia... the second is "Vikings and Vodka" as I'll be treking viking area... the third is "Sprockets" based of the SNL Mike Myers skit, which shall run as a theme throughout the blog no matter what ("Would you like to touch my monkey?)... yes i'm serious, here's the only youtube link i could find on it... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-fLW-QNy4I [note the monkey to the left]. And the last option is to just e-mail me an idea you have, in which case, if it's good, I'll overide the voting, b/c I like exercising dictatorial power (Dictators and Commrades was vetoed as a blog title).

Last of all, please as usual, e-mail me your address for post cards and what not... and any requests you might have for things to bring back.

I check out of the U.S. on Saterday, so if you need me before then, call me. Things to look foward to: The plane flight/train ride, New Apartment, Time to Dance, Starting work come Monday!

Tschus!
-robs