4-1, Deutschland *UPDATE*

I have lots of snazzy photos from my trip to Dortmund to see Wednesday night's "friendly" Fußball (yo, that's soccer to you silly Ami's) game between the USA and German national teams, but Shutterfly is being a big, fat turd and not letting me upload anything. So, pics later, description now...

*****UPDATE!! Now with visual aids as of March 31! New text indicated in purple with asterisks because I said so! Also, a major humongous Leipzig update is on the way.*****

Pat and Laura and I spent the 2.5-hour train chatting, and we met Alana in Dortmund. I had packed for an overnight at a friend of Laura's place, but Pat and I decided on solidarity with poor Laura (who had to teach at 8 the next morning) and opted to stay up until the first "morning" train at 2:58am, so I threw my stuff in a locker at the train station. The next stop was Karstadt, a department store, to find red/white/blue wigs to match one Laura bought in Göttingen... because if we're up against the Germans on their own turf, we're darn well gonna stand out anyway! There were none similar to be had, so I improvised with a red and white mohawk with artistically placed sparkly blue scrunchies. Truly fabulous! *May it never be said that I'm one to shy away from a chance to look like a complete and utter doofus for the sake of a good time.*

We walked around town a bit. Dortmund, the 7th-largest German city you've never heard of, is in the western "industrial belt" state of Nord-Rhine-Westfalen (North Rhine-Westphalia), which means LOTS of people and a distinct lack of the old-style architecture I'm spoiled with in Göttingen. Like cows in Chicago, bears in Berlin, and super-creepy humanish figures in St. Louis, Dortmund has its own civic symbol displayed all over town in various "artistic" (read: corporately sponsored) iterations: it's a rhinoceros with wings. That is totally not a joke. *My personal favorite was definitely the shiny silver beastie with head- and tail-lights that blinked with a tug at the door handle on either side!* There were lots of folks already wearing their game colors, and although the vast majority were of course schwarz-rot-gold there were the occasional glimpses of our colors as well.

After a U-bahn hop to the stadium, we hit a concession stand for the requisite beer (Or, in my case, white wine.) There, we gravitated to a small cadre of red-white-blue, donned our wigs and got decently obnoxious, y'know, like loud Americans. We had a great view of folks entering the stadium area. My favorite were the American ex-pats with German families, usually with a kid or two in tow, half of the couple wearing, say, a USA baseball cap and the other half carrying a small German flag... the decorations were always understated, and all the kids I saw had German paraphernalia if anything. But we always got a wave or at least a nod. The couples were always holding hands.

As Pat had gotten two sets of two tickets each from Ebay, Laura and I split off from the group to go get in line. That would be "line" in the loosest sense of the word possible... the German interpretation of "queue" is much closer to "cattle-call crowded mass of bodies." We generally got smiles from those mashed up next to us, since we obviously knew a little of the language (and since the US was pretty much expected to suffer stunning defeat.) We'd hit the crunch a little late, and I definitely got more and more smooshed as game time approached. When they started announcing the players before we got through the gate things got a little more pushy-shovey but once we were through it was fine.

We navigated to our seats and gee, who'da thunk a couple of young American girls in crazy wigs in a sea of Germans would attract attention? Nothing negative, mostly photo-ops with some guys in the row in front of us ("This is going on the internet tomorrow!" only in German.)

Now, I'm not a huge fan of organized sports. The Cards were in the series while I was at college and I didn't watch a single game. When my family got discount tickets for having honor roll kids, I used to bring my chem homework to the ballpark (self-fulfilling prophecy, perhaps?) and I watch the Super Bowl primarily for the commercials. My version of "playing" soccer (aka herdball) as a kid was generally confined to mid-field spectatorship and freelance horticulture. Volleyball consisted of the occasional inadvertant ball-to-face moment... and I couldn't even serve underhand over the net until I'd been playing for a year and a half. Even with the above caveat, I'd argue that the first half was fairly uneventful. Germany scored near the end and Laura is apparently in love with their blonde ape-man goalie Oliver Kahn, so that's something I guess.

*We had a birds-eye view, and aside from a ghostly half-head the composite shot turned out pretty neat.* I did find the crowd pretty entertaining. It was certainly the most concentrated example of national pride I've seen here, ever, hands down. There's quite a bit of historical baggage associated thereto, of course, so in most contexts it's generally avoided as bad form. I find that rather refreshing compared to home, actually. By way of clarification, I do appreciate where I come from. I have veterans in my close family whom I love dearly, but I've always found out-and-out patriotism disconcerting. It may even be tied to my sports apathy... I find competition generally distasteful, and even though I know that the inherent loyalty and camraderie of shared experience can be lots of fun and even accomplish good things, I know enough history to understand that it can be manipulated and turned into something very very ugly. And I just can't stomach that. For me, it's better to deny the former than live with the fear of the latter.

But anyway, there were flags and loud music (almost always in English...) and chants (some may have even had words at some point in their existence!) and everyone in attendance was having a good time. If the first half was low-key, the second half took a turn right away into the realms of "rather embarrasing for the visiting team." Germany scored again pretty quickly, and when we finally got the ball to the correct half of the field to get a shot, Kahn came out of the goal like a steam train to meet our guy... resulting in two men on the ground and the ball blithely rolling into the corner of the net. Seriously, it wasn't even kicked. They couldn't even credit the score to our player on the jumbo-tron.

I guess it's better than a shut-out. Barely.

Folks seemed to know it was as good as over and some left early, missing two more German goals over the rest of the second half. There was a smidge of pretended teasing, but folks in our surrounding area were generally conciliatory. We got a little lost walking out to our meeting point and wound up catching a couple of the guys from before the game and acquiring some new folks, including a pair of brothers in town from Wuppertal (home of Schwebebahn, a suspended train) who were completely astounded to have run into so many actual Americans at the game. *The ride on the U-Bahn was pretty exciting with our newfound chums. Someone from our group had to be informed that smoking on the train was not allowed, but apparently glasses of beer are pretty much expected on board after a game night.*

We ended up going to into town to the Irish pub (actually run by a rather unfriendly Englishman... but apparently you can't have a city in Germany without an Irish pub, so I guess it's a niche) and hanging out until last call. *Pat and Alana, the other half of our foursome caught up with us there (photo).*

We caught our super early and/or late train back and it was a peaceful ride, pretty empty except for straggling fans and some folks heading into work already. I got home and into bed at around 6:30 am and slept until 1:30... I have until Saturday to get my sleep cycle back in order, since I have a morning train to Leipzig! I think I can do it...

The insane thing about meeting Americans over here, particular but not completely isolated to the student population, is that when you meet someone you don't exchange addresses, or even email or phone numbers anymore... The new social currency is membership in internet social networking systems. Now, Facebook existed during my time at Kenyon, and got popular there rather early. I set up an account in 2004 for all of 12 minutes until I deleted it in disgust. Seriously, with my schedule senior year I needed additional procrastination outlets? I had to literally plan in advance to make time for sleeping, eating, and using the bathroom. I glibly mocked my friends who had joined the herd and vowed never ever EVER to go over to the dark side.

Well. Welcome to the dark side. And in a freakin' big way. I'd still rather people read this blog if you want to keep track of me or say hello, but I understand the necessity of putting my name out there, gosh darn it... Ladies and gentlemen, I have been diagnosed with Internet Social Networking Disorder (ISND) and I have it bad. Pray for my eternal soul.

Pictures coming when Shutterfly stops being a humongous turd, and stay tuned for Leipzig/Dresden adventures!

Countdown! and a personality test

These make me exceedingly happy, even if certain wonderful things are still pretty darn far away:











(I can't wait to set a date just so I can make one for MY wedding!)

*****

I went through a phase in high school where I took all kinds of internet personality tests, Meyers-Briggs, Enneagram, all that jazz. Some of them are fairly decent, and others are pretty dumb. Here's a new one I like: Your Personal DNA.

My Results (hover the pointer over color stripes for more info, or click the link below):

Animated Leader

You can also take the test yourself, and if you know me pretty well, you can assess my results here. Fill it out and I can do the same for you!

*****

Okay, gotta go pack for Dortmund. I'm also thinking of zipping over to Dresden on Monday to see the Frauenkirche, since I'll be in the nieghborhood that weekend anyway. Whee!

Dumb things I've done lately:

• Cut off the tip of my index finger (even the left one) with a bread knife. (photo removed for the sake of the squeamish)
• Developed a super-itchy, rash-like allergy to friggin' bandage adhesive. Which, from experience, will torture me for at least a month... OH MY GOD IT ITCHES!!!!!! AH! AH! AH! KILL! KILL!!! YEEEAAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!
  

In all seriousness, can't I just finish the job and amputate the finger?

By way of helping my ego, dear reader, feel free to leave a comment listing the amazingly dumb things you've recently accomplished...

*****

In other news, I've been spontaneously invited to head to Dortmund tomorrow with the Gö-team to see the USA-Germany soccer match, which is going on tomorrow night.

Then this weekend I'm planning on going to Leipzig to see Jen's opera performance!

Yikes, lots of travel in a short space of time! Expect frequent updates!

Adventures ahoy...

I woke up bright and early Saturday morning for my trip to Weimar, my first solo sightseeing excursion in Germany. The morning was gray and chilly as per usual, but it was lovely nonetheless. The day got off to a great start in one way... as I headed into town in the direction of the Bahnhof (zu fuß... mein Fahhrad ist leider noch nicht ganz repariert...) I saw a guy heading in the opposite direction. Nobody I'd ever seen before here in town, but I definitely noticed him from a ways away thanks to a certain jauntiness in his step and the fact that he was whistling merrily. I must've been staring and probably grinning as well, because when we approached one another he smiled at me and tossed a happy "Morgen!" my way. I replied in kind, and three steps past him I distinctly heard a "hübsch!" directed to my general vicinity. Definitely a nice way to start the day...

I managed to get my train ticket from the Automat about 30 seconds after the regional train I wanted was scheduled to leave the station; since it was 20 minutes late that morning, however, I only had to wait about 19 for its eventual arrival. Direct, and actually cheaper and quicker than the "fast" trains with multiple connections. Very nice. I read the whole way and thumbed through my guidebook familiarising myself with useful info so as not to look like a total tourist the minute I stepped off the train. It didn't really work, and I still had to get the guide out again once I landed to orient myself to the nearest tourism office where maps and tickets were to be had, but it was a good effort.

I got a day ticket for the bus (largely unneccesary; I only used it twice and it would've been ever-so-slightly cheaper to get two one-way passes) and headed outside to catch the next ride into town. Maybe it was the light, but Weimar appeared to me at first as a giant confection. There is so much pastel in that town! Entire buildings in robin's egg blue, pale cream, and baby pink, give the vista a kind of Eastery appeal and hinted at spring around the corner.

My first stop was one of the churches that may or may not have counted relatives of mine as congregants, the Stadtkirche St. Peter und Paul. The composite here sadly marginalizes the statue on the far right in favor of cars and strangers in the foreground, but the church sits on Herderplatz, named after one Johann Herder (whom the statue memorializes: linguist, philosopher, and pastor at the turn of the 19th century.)

Inside the church is a giant altar painted by Lucus Cranach, as well as a tryptich of Martin Luther as monk, master, and "Junker Jörg," his secret identity when the whole 95-theses thing hit the fan. And for whatever reason I love organ lofts:

Pastels everywhere! Shortly after taking this picture I realized that the pictograms I had at first interpreted as "no flash photography" were actually more along the lines of "no photography of any kind," so I slunk out feeling rather felonious and without speaking to anyone... not that offices were open on weekends anyway...

From the church I headed east to the city archives and the old palace, now an art museum. I checked out the collection, mostly more Cranach and contemporaries, particularly religious art, though the top floor has an exhibit on the "Weimar school" of impressionism. I found a nice cafe/gallery/restaurant across the street for lunch... pasta with lentils and duck, very yummy.

After lunch I decided I needed to find this "Wuenscher pharmacy" that Google told me about and get a picture:

Of course it was also closed on a Saturday. I wandered through the Marktplatz and Theaterplatz, main plazas of town, and then got a little lost but eventually found my way to the Goethehaus, where the much-adored poet lived for for 50 years and hoarded (ahem, "collected") some 50,000 pieces of art and 18,000 geological samples:

I also wanted to find the Reformhaus Wünscher, the other interesting result of Googling "Weimar Wuenscher." A Reformhaus is a kind of healthy living center, often selling organic food, homeopathic remedies, vitamins, and the like. This one doesn't seem to have a food section and looked more like a Drogerie, which just goes to show that being a pharmacist really is genetic in my family.

Back on the Marktplatz, I took a photo of the statue of Goethe and his buddy Schiller:

And then went to the Bauhaus museum. Bauhaus is a school of design/architecture that originated in Weimar at the turn of the 20th century, and an early progenitor of what would later become known as "modernism." I thought of Mike when I saw the awesome lamps and end tables...

By the time I got through the Museum it was starting to get late, but I had at least one more sight on my list, and then I saw this on the way:

Anybody catching the reference?? Anyone at all? Sophomore year, Chamber Singers. The Mendelssohn. Lerche-damn-song, I remember calling it at the time...

Du nimmst mich von hier,
Ich singe mit dir,
Wir steigen durch Wolken zur Sonne!

Mmmm... techno remix! "SAY WHAT?"

And then I found the other church on my list, the Jakobskirche. It was already closed by the time I arrived, but I wandered through the Kirchhof to see if any names looked familiar. Hey, Cranach! But I don't think he's family...

I wanted one more picture, so I set out for the Schillerhaus. I think this is it:

Then I found a nice place for dinner (more pasta, but this time something a little spicy with pepper and tomato, and a glass of a locally-produced white wine) and caught a bus back to the Bahnhof to catch my train home. I thought about finding a hostel and staying the night, but after a long day of walking out in the cold (it's still hovering around freezing here) and with the realization that even more stuff is closed on Sundays than Saturdays, I really just wanted to head back to Göttingen. That's not to say I wouldn't visit again, though! I didn't get to see the inside of the Schiller house, nor much of the Park an der Ilm, the Friedhof where Goethe and Schiller are buried, the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial which is about 20 minutes outside of town by bus... Maybe we'll make time for some of this stuff when my family visits, or Mike will want to take a weekend trip when he's here (and I'm sure he'd get a kick out of Bauhaus!)

In addition to seeing more of Germany than Göttingen, the purpose of this trip was also to see if I can handle the idea of travelling alone to begin with... and I think it went pretty well. Although I think it would still be better to have a travel buddy for my explorations, I'm not as worried about making arrangements, getting lost, or generally taking care of myself after this trip... Plus, it's pretty nice not to have to plan or pace my itinerary for anyone but myself. Maybe this can become a regular thing... This coming weekend I hope to see Leipzig and Jen Porto's opera performance, though the details are still hazy. After that, who knows! I'm open to suggestions!

It's freakin' MARCH

I keep getting my hopes up on every moderately sunny day, and then the weather laughs at me. I have half a mind to stay inside and boycott, except that I have stuff to do. Like possibly buy a stolen cell phone to replace my broken one...

It's not like I went out looking for shady dealings. I tried to be on the up-and-up about this. Puppy-dog eyes, however, are no match for Vodafone sales guys. I'd have to pay for a new phone anyway, and even then they'd make me get a new number (though I could get forwarding service from the old one for calls, but not text messages... so why can't I just keep my number, dangit?)

Since I was in town I stopped by Arul's restaurant to see if he was finally back from vacation, and lo and behold, he was! (Laura and I were secretly worried he'd fallen in love in Amsterdam and abandoned us.) I mentioned my plight, and he told me to talk to the guy who runs the phone shop next door, who is a pal of his... so we mosey on over there, and before I know it I'm looking through a cardboard box of obviously used phones. Cell-guy Andy took my hesitance (inner monologue: Ah, so this is what the black market looks like!) for dissatisfaction with the wares on offer, and told me I'd be better off waiting a day or two when he'd have a wider selection. I left him my number, and got a text later in the afternoon that he has a possible "shipment" of Nokia or Motorola coming in tomorrow. Super sketchy, right? So I'm going back tomorrow afternoon. Freakin' €20 for a functional phone and he can figure out how to let me keep my number?? Right on!

But... since the guy in the Vodafone store and sketchy phone store guy both took my phone apart and reassembled it again... it doesn't seem to be doing the turning-itself-on-and-off thing anymore. And the signal seems pretty steady... Maybe, just maybe, a professional hand was all it took! I'm leaving it on tonight and listening for conspicuously broken-sounding beeping. I may not have to turn to petty crime after all!!

Should things look good tomorrow, I think I'll charge up the credit at Andy's Phone Shack anyway for his trouble.

In other news, I cut off the end of my finger with a bread knife just before dinner. It's not too serious, Ibuprofin works wonders, and even the bandage isn't interfering with my typing too badly, but I think my clutziness has hit an all-time high. Or low, as the case may be. If it had to be a pointer finger, thank goodness it's the left hand. I'll be sure to post about it if and when gangrene sets in.

Injury or not, I'm tossing around the idea of hopping on the train to Weimar on Saturday morning and checking out the supposed ancestral homeland. I'm debating catching a return that evening or staying in a hostel overnight, since the fastest trains are still a smidge over 2 1/2 hours one way... I guess I'll pack for either and wing it. My guidebook is from 2003, so wish me luck! (Note to family: You guys might want to buy a more recent guidebook before you come to visit! Just an idea...)

I'd love to eat my wintery words! (also chocolate)

Despite the fact that Gö-town has gotten snow within the past week, I'm really starting to think that this whole "spring" idea may actually stick at long last. Today was absolutely lovely... sunshine, chirping birds (just say NO to Vogelgrippe in Niedersachsen!) and temps ABOVE freezing! Maybe mid-30s Fahrenheit doesn't sound too appealing to some of the folks back home, but for me it was positively glorious. By next week we may even break 40! I'm already twitterpated in anticipation! Granted, it will be raining the whole time according to my sources...

I got the most out of today, though. Since I haven't yet gotten around to heavy-duty bike chain fixing (on the docket for tomorrow) it's still a little sticky in a couple of places and difficult to maneuver. Instead I walked into town and got some errands taken care of, updated my student ID on the first go, signed up for the second semester language placement test, randomly saw Patrick (another Göttingen grantee) at the grocery store and hung out at a café. I also popped in at the Vodafone store to see what they can do about my poor confused Handy. The cleancut young man at the desk was very helpful, and it seems that if I can rustle up my paperwork and receipt they'll kit me out nicely... ahem.

Right, the receipt... you see, this is one of the first purchases I made after arriving in Deutschland, and although I've saved most of my receipts here, that particular one wasn't making its presence known in my "big bag o'stubs and proof of purchase." I can calculate very precisely how much cheese (lots) or red and yellow bell peppers (waaaaay lots) I've consumed since the beginning of the year, but it seems like that won't do me much good tomorrow when I try to convince them to give me a new phone anyway... I do have all the paperwork in order and my name is all over every page, so maybe once just once *big puppy dog eyes* they can give me some leeway, right? *eyes again* Right??

But I'm dealing with Germans... and not just any Germans, Germans who make a living by being overdressed and selling 65-year phone contracts. I went for the pay-as-you-go plan, which means they probably already think of me as a kind of cockroach. Well, we'll see how it goes. If worse comes to worse I'll have to shell out another €45 for the phone myself (grumble grumble) but I'm sure they let me keep my number.

In other news, Hermann's last official day in lab was Monday. I went in for the weekly meeting and we tried to figure out a way for me to stay involved in the project second semester, which would be really fabulous. Although the majority of the work will be done in Erlangen, the samples we've already taken will stay in the freezers here, so there's a very good possibility that I can help out running some fill-in analyses. And then there was the next fabulous idea... when I explained the situation to some of my friends at the Berlin conference, a few people suggested I just up and move to Erlangen. Tempting as that was from the research side of things, I can't really see it as a viable option. I've got housing here, and I'm already registered and paid up with the Uni, and even though I don't know lots and lots of people here, it's better than nobody. I really can't stomach the idea of starting over again from scratch.

Hermann's suggestion, though, was that I travel there a couple of times a month to run short experiments and stay abreast of the job. Even with a Bahncard50, that could be pricey... but if it's all "grant-related travel" I may even get the Fulbright commission's help there. It's all hugely tentative, of course, but considering that I haven't heard from the other guy I was talking with (somatic disorders project) since a week before the conference... and I've seen him twice in lab, neither time with any acknowledgement on his part (!) I'm beginning to think that's falling through. Fair enough. If there aren't enough patients available between now and summer for me to finish out the study, it makes more sense to train somebody else who has the ability to stick around. Probably should send a courtesy email saying as much so he can bow out...

Gosh, that came out quite a bit more cynical-sounding than I intended. Sorry, I'm really not a cold heartless scientist, I promise!

Anywhoozits, on to other things I accomplished today: best laundry day EVER! I managed to catch two completely non-broken machines on the very first try! Thanks to the fabulous Berlin air, especially at night in the bar scene, my dress-up clothes (and everything else that was in my suitcase) had developed a carcinogenic patina that was almost visible to the naked eye. Thankfully I got to the wash before it could start attacking the innocent clean clothes in my closet, replacing molecules of shirt with stinky, stinky smoke. I was quite worried when I could still smell it in my room after tossing everything in the laundry, but then I figured out that it was coming in from outside (my window is right next to the building patio.) Reassuring, but also annoying, as I'm sure that will get worse as it warms up around here. Sigh. I swear sometimes, it's like they give people their first cigarette fresh out of the womb around here.

I'm sure if it gets bad I can just ask folks to blow the smoke the other way. Seriously, my housemates are so nice! A few went away for the semester break and came back in the last couple of days, so there's more going on around here and more people to talk to. Tonight Martin, the kind of psuedo-housemaster guy who helps me with my bike in exchange for brownies, asked me if I've been worried about something. (I keep dropping stuff in the kitchen and accidentally tossing bread across the room while attempting to butter it, and he's there all the time, so he must think I'm a nervous wreck instead of just a clumsy oaf...) Anyway, he seemed genuinely concerned, and it felt really nice. I told him about my lab stuff being up in the air, and we chatted for a bit while watching some TV program about gourmet chocolate. I mentioned my nutritional anth paper from last year on the same topic, and he asked if I had ever seen the movie Chocolat, which I haven't. He owns the film, which he brought downstairs to watch, along with a whole collection of assorted chocolates to sample during the movie! So we watched this total chick flick and ate great chocolate the whole time. Good thing I didn't give it up for Lent this year (sorry Amanda! I thought of you!)

(Also, before anyone brings it up Mom, he's got a serious girlfriend who also lives in the building. She's super nice and a fantastic cook, and she has my brownie recipe already, and I have no qualms about platonic chocolate!)

It was the perfect end to a lovely day.

So much for spring...

I got my hopes up yesterday with all the fabulous sunshine... and then it snowed all day today. Sigh.

Anyway, here is the promised composite image of the Berlin Reichstag dome from the entryway/tourist holding pen, which turned out really neat aside from missing a couple of corners: The program, which Adam in Italy told me about, is called Autostitch... and there's a free demo version, so give it a try if you, like me, take lots of pictures of large things from various perspectives and then feel silly when the individual photos come out looking like nothing much in particular.

For those of you who are into this sort of thing, here are the four images I fed into the program to build the panorama above:

Back from Berlin!

The Fulbright Academy for Science & Technology conference and the Fulbright mid-year meeting in Berlin have come and gone in an (appropriately wintery) flurry, and I'm back safely in Göttingen... which has suddenly decided that spring is at long last sprung.

What a cool experience! It was great to see Kiel folks again and catch up, not to mention the Regensburg language course crew from the Frankfurt orientation eons ago in August... and in one wholly surreal turn of events, a member of my SMMA graduating class whom I haven't seen since eighth grade, currently spending the year as a teaching assistant in Leipzig! Then there were folks currently "stationed" all over Europe, including Finland, Norway, Sweden, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, France, Spain, Italy... and those are just countries with whose representatives I personally spoke!

Hopefully some of the connections I made during the last week will prove significant... I definitely caught a bit of a travel bug hearing stories of everyone's experiences, and it would be nice to be able to see Rome and the Vatican again, for example, with a friend who speaks Italian. Speaking of which, shout out to Adam, an architectural engineer in Pavia, Italy who, in addition to being a really cool guy, is running a nice photoblog including pictures from the winter Olympics in Torino! Also Heather, who is researching international education in Hamar, Norway, and continues the trend of blogging Fulbrighters. Both of these fine folks have been added to the list on the right. (Yup, apparently the ability to distinguish right from left is not a prerequisite for this program. Thanks Steve...)

So, on to the rundown! I got up at 5am Saturday morning to catch a 7am train, which arrived in Berlin at around 9:30... too late to join any of the first day tours for the FAST conference, but I got to settle into my swanky room in the Park Inn am Alexanderplatz:

Pretty snazzy room, although it had a few interesing features, such as the glass-encased shower and the frosted glass wall between said shower and the bathroom "stall," which was the only part of the bath area that almost qualified as a "room." Maybe Americans are kind of weird about nudity compared to Europeans, but when one is sharing a hotel room for a week with a perfect stranger I don't think walls are too much to ask for. At least the provided curtain was mostly opaque...

The view out the window was pretty neat, though. Sitting at the table I could see the TV tower really well.

Saturday afternoon and evening was filled with talks and panels associated with the FAST conference, including a really awesome talk about polar ice and climate change (with some Mad Powerpoint Skillz... I was very envious) and a very interesting presentation regarding population trends.

On Sunday I definitely made time in the morning for an excursion... in fact, I pretty much skipped out on the conference and spent the day at the Berlin zoo and aquarium with Kelly, a Biology student in Regensburg whom I first met in Frankfurt. It was totally worth it.

Look, it's my boar-friend! Har har har... Okay, I guess you had to be there. Seriously, we got sort of half lost a couple of times and kept finding this guy again, so he was a very helpful pig, and deserved plenty of affection.

This next guy just reminded me so much of my geriatrics somehow. Maybe it's the bald head and the hunched posture... We could actually see the poor stork shivering! Sooo cute!

We also caught the polar bears at feeding time, which was exciting, especially when the big one stood on its hind legs and caught a chunk of meat in midair.

And here, of course is the Berlin zoo's treasured Panda Bear. He was asleep in this position both when we first saw him and 30 minutes later when we came out of the big cats house. Not exactly the most engaging zoo denizen, your average panda bear...


The primate house, on the other hand, was full of interesting behaviors and residents who seemed just as interesed in spectators as we were in them. This young Orang had a security blanket/cape that looked like it was made of an old sweater.


The aquarium, of course, also contained the herp/bug house so I was in heaven. Here is Kelly getting up close to take a picture of the ginormous amazonian Arrowhana fish. These guys were a solid 4-plus feet, and even though I've seen bigger specimens (last year at Shedd Aquarium during the Midwest Psychological Association conference) they're still impressive!


The building itself was amazingly decorated. In one of the stairways we saw this fabulous stained-glass window. I literally felt like I had just walked into the First United Church of Marine Natural History.


But of course I had to get back to business eventually... the last item on docket for the FAST conference was the poster presentations. Here I am with my pretty contribution. The audience here was technically more "science"-oriented than at the regular Fulbright conference, so I was surprised to get questions like "What is a peptide?" and found myself rather struggling to control the jargon and find a way to explain myself in plain English. It was a good exercise, though, and a timely reminder that no matter how familiar this stuff is to me, to a regular audience it's still pretty obscure. Keeps me humble, I guess.

The mid-year meeting officially kicked off with a dinner that evening, but I had Monday morning free, so I took a little side trip to Checkpoint Charlie and the still-standing section of the Wall (pictured) at the "Topography of Terror" open-air museum.

My research panel presentation was Monday afternoon. Although I had initially worried that I was putting too much on my plate when I signed up for a poster and a presentation, it worked out really well. I had to ditch my prepared spiel after realizing that it was absolutely too technical, but I had worked out a clearer and more concise explanation at the poster session which served me in good stead. The only question I got from the audience was a hum-dinger, though. If chickens don't get Alzheimers, why don't we just give people chicken genes? (My response: chicken memory possibly isn't that good to begin with... hey, at least I got a laugh!)

Tuesday started off with an interesting panel on "elite" universities in Germany, which is kind of a new concept. There's quite a bit of reform going on to the completely public German higher education system, between introducing actual tuition for the first time, fitting programs to the European standards laid out in the Bologna process, and trying to (in some ways, artificially) up the competitiveness of certain schools by naming so-called "Universities of Excellence." Some folks are optimistic about the changes, and some think it's total hogwash. I guess we'll see in a few years...

Later in the morning, I finally got to go into the Reichstag, or German parliament building. The dome is really nifty, although snow and general winter haziness obstructed the view from the top. I'm going to fiddle around with the composite-building program Adam used on his blog and I'll try to post something later this weekend. Otherwise, there are a whole bunch more photos on the Shutterfly page.

In the afternoon, I was supposed to take a tour of the Museuminsel, but instead I left the Reichstag and tagged along with a group to the Brandenburg gate, new Holocaust memorial (technically dedicated to "the murdered Jews of Europe,") and the Sony center, followed by a short excursion to the Pergamon museum. The last history class I've taken was Miss Mason's Western Civ at Rosati, and the Pergamon's amazing displays reminded me of that class and of course my senior trip to Italy and Greece... It was the first time in my life that I ever felt truly fascinated by history, in some kind of mystical combination of Mary Jo's wry storytelling abilities and the unequivocable proximity of Very Old Things. It was nice to explore that feeling again. If you're ever in Berlin, you must see the Pergamon altar (pictured) and the Ishtar gate!

I think the Berliner Dom is soooo pretty in a gray twilight... most of the snow in Berlin melted pretty soon after it came down, but it could've been worse. While we were at the conference southern Germany got a solid couple of feet and had to declare a state of emergency!

Dinner on Tuesday night was very interesting... it was essentially held in a nightclub in the Kulturbrauerei, complete with light shows, loud thumping music, and a rather unfortunately small number of tables that made the half-hour wait in the buffet line almost not worth it... I suppose I just didn't expect that style of venue, especially with a crowd that also included lots of professorial types and families with small children. Dancing after dinner was fun, though, and I made sure to finally get a couple of pictures with people! The first is Kelly, my zoo-buddy.

Then of course we have the GÖ-TEAM! Well, Laura and I decided that it was the perfect name for the three Göttingen grantees, so I guess Pat will just have to go along with it... Aren't we ever an attractive crew, though, if I do say so myself? Yeah! Gö-team!!

Wednesday morning involved a trip to the Rotes Rathaus for a panel on other (non-German) European Fulbright experiences, followed by a speech from the Mayor of Berlin. After lunch I went on a tour of Mitte that ran from the hotel all the way back to the Sony Center and Potsdamer Platz... mostly stuff I had seen already, but it was nice to hear more about the history of things we passed. That evening, however, was the event I had been waiting for... the Music Gala. With two of the performers from the Kiel group I knew it would be really really good, but it turned out to be the high point of my entire week.

There were performers from all over the place, and the program was varied but still flowed cohesively from one thing to the next... We heard Mozart's Sonata in E minor KV 304 for piano and violin with a British violinist and a pianist studying in Budhapest, followed by my Kiel buddy Jen Porto's stunningly vibrant perfomance of Georg Göhler's Fünf Sesenheimer Lieder Goethes, then a very experimental tuba solo by Krzysztof Penderecki called Capriccio that at times made me think that Berlin grantee Owen Molloy was actually beatboxing into the tuba. Paul Sánchez, who went to Laura's high school and is currently studying piano in Spain, played Isaac Albéniz' El Corpus Christi en Sevilla from Iberia, Cauderno I. The first half concluded with a couple of professors playing Debussy's Sonate pour Violoncelle et Piano, Opus L 135.

After the intermission we heard a Harp student in France play Sonate pour Harpe by Germaine Tailleferre. I found it hard to believe that Megan only had ten fingers! Next, Hubert Ho, a composition student working in Prague, accompanied the world premiere of a piece entitled A Dangerous Game of Hide and Seek with an oboeist and trumpet studying in Germany (another Kiel friend, Amanda Pepping, on trumpet) and a percussionist working in Stockholm, Sweden. There was a little bit of acting involved, and it was lots of fun to watch! Then we heard Two Fantasy Pieces, Op. 2, for oboe and piano, by Carl Nielsen, followed by Amanda playing her own arrangements of Cyril Scott's Lotus Land and Ernesto Lecuona's Maleguena. Swoon worthy! Go to her website and buy her CD right now! I mean it!! Then we heard an electronic piece called ...and, believing in... by a performance artist studying in Berlin. Finally, we heard Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23. Whew! The whole evening was a tour de force, and the music was really and truly world-class.

Here's a photo of some of the above-mentioned amazing musicians. Left to right (and I double checked my directions this time!): Jen Porto (Soprano and wonder woman!), James Smith (Oboe), Hubert Ho (piano and composer), Amanda Pepping (Trumpet and superdiva!), and N. Cameron Britt (percussion).

Lots of people were trying to organize social events after the conference, but I was kind of tired by the time we got back to the hotel. A small group of us started walking to find a nearby cafe or bar and got a little turned around, so I ended up going home and sleeping. Thursday morning Gö-team reunited for our train ride home, and then I went shopping since I ate all my food before I left. Today I checked in at lab, and I'm meeting with Hermann and Dr. Hüther on Monday morning to work through logistics of the project and decide if there's a way I can be involved next semester. I would like that. Otherwise, I need to check out courses in the next month before the second semester starts, get my new ID (sigh... hopefully it won't be so complicated this time!), possibly negotiate with a second lab, and write my mid-year report to Fulbright before the end of the month. It would be nice if I had an idea of what the semester is likely to bring before it actually starts...

Wow, that was a huge post! Thanks for reading!

New toy

Since my clothes are clean, I'm as far as I can get with conference prep at the moment, and it's a veritable winter wonderland outside, I spent some time yesterday and today uploading all the pictures on my hard drive to my brand-spankin'-new online collection.

I've taken the liberty of adding a link on the left (in the similarly new "Nifty Things" section) so that anybody reading this can poke around and see what I've got anytime... plus, if you have a (free) Shutterfly account of your own you can add comments, nab photos as JPEG files for your own purposes, or even order actual prints and other snazzy stuff. C'mon, you know you want a Gänseliesel mousepad!

Anyhoo, if you have lots of pictures on your computer and want a) a backup storage location in case your hd bites the dust or b) your own collection website to share, go for it. You can download a little Java doodad and upload entire file folders of pictures at once, and if your internet connection is DSL or faster it isn't too horrifically slow. I haven't tried the free software they've got yet, but that might speed things up even more.

Wow. I sound like an infomercial. Anyway, I have all my pictures from Kenyon up as well as Kiel photos that may interest the rest of the langauge course crew, so have at it!