Nearing the End

On Saturday, I leave for a whirlwind tour of the Czech Republic and Vienna. I will be arriving back in Magdeburg with just enough time to finish cancelling, closing and deregistering. I will also be getting rid of my internet sometime on Thursday the 29th. This means that I will not be able to communicate terribly well with anyone as of this Saturday. Just a warning to any of you who might want to communicate with me during that time.

School Update

The semester is rapidly coming to a close, meaning that I my life is now full of tests and working on presentations. Hooray! This week I had three tests. Next week I have two presentations and and two tests, with one presentation and one test the week after that. In more exciting news, that is all I have to do left in college. As the semester winds down, more and more people start to leave. Meaning that there are more and more going away parties getting in the way of me doing my homework and studying. Oh well, that is how life goes. Of the tests last week, only one of them wasn't easy. I am not entirely sure how next week's will go, but I am assuming they won't be so bad.

I recently finalized travel plans for the week after I am done with school and when I come home. I will be traveling through the Czech Republic with my fellow American and also another exchange student from the Czech Republic, which should make life pretty easy. We will also be going to Vienna. The time we will be going is fairly short, but it is better than nothing. I am not quite sure what all we are going to do in the Czech Republic outside of visit Prague. Something nature-y probably, so that should be fun.

For those of you interested, I will be flying back on the 31st of July. I am not entirely sure what the plan is after that, but it will involve driving up north to work as soon as possible, I assume, meaning that I will be once again cloistered away from the rest of the world. At least it will be easier to come visit when I am only five hours away instead of about twenty. I hope to update again before I leave, but I get distracted and forget about it. Until next time.

Hiking in the Harz

Two weekends ago (so much for me being caught up with this) I ended up going hiking and camping in the Harz mountains. It was kind of by accident, in that I was going to go visit Cologne, but my ride fell through. At what was basically the last possible moment, a friend of mine invited me to hiking with him and some other people. Definitely proof that fate sometimes works in your favor. I feel like I had a much better time than I would have had in Cologne. We will have to see until I go there to actually know for sure. Judging from the amount of pictures that I took on this trip vs. the other trips I have taken, it definitely wins. One of the problems of hiking that canoeing does not have. Your hands are always free, so you take a lot of pictures.

We started out by driving to Wernigerode to buy ourselves a map of the Hiking trails. After that, we went to Ilsenburg, planned our attack, and set off into the woods. We hiked for a while, went to the Ecker Dam and its respective lake, found a hut (they have triangular huts where you can stop and rest,) ate supper, dried off, and went to bed. Also staying within the area, were a group of students from Bielefeld. It was definitely a stroke of luck that we found other students in the area. The majority of hikers and bikers were somewhere about early middle age, the average restaurant goer was about 65 or 70 (I assume that they took the train,) and there were some other adults that has their kids along, but there was almost no one our age.

The next morning, I was the first one up, so I wondered around a little bit and took a bunch of pictures of the lake. After that we climbed The Brocken. At 3,743ft., it is the tallest point in northern Germany. For comparison, Eagle Mountain is 2,301ft. It is kind of weird to climb up it, because everything around you is fairly natural until you get up to the top. There is a train that goes up to the top of it, where there is a museum, some restaurants, a train station and a giant antenna.

It was about 43° when we were at the summit, so we grabbed some warm and expensive food at a restaurant and then continued on our journey back towards Ilsenburg and the car. After being in the city for so long, it was nice to get out to the wilderness again. Also, because Magdeburg is along a river, everything around it is flat for miles around, making it kind of boring after a while. Here are the photos, as promised.







That is the steam from the train from the beginning of our journey

Summer

It is 80° in my room right now. It has been about that warm continuously since last Thursday (the fourth.) I feel that, even though we are still ten days shy of the official start date, I am safe in referring to the weather as summer without any repercussions from the weather gods. I kind of feel as though the weather felt bad after giving us so much rain and cold in April and May, and now it is trying to make it up to us. I am fine with nice weather, but I am definitely going to welcome the coming cold and rain. To clarify what I mean by "cold," the forecast says that the high will be just above 70° tomorrow. I am excited.

To celebrate this nice weather, last weekend, I was at the local beach for a combined seven or eight hours or so. This week, I think that I have spent part of the evening in the park just north of campus every day. In short, life here is very difficult and I am barely able to put up with it all.

How am I able to spend so much time loafing around, you ask? That has a very simple explanation, and it is one that is seldom used in the United States. I am assuming that my teachers are doing about the same thing that I am doing, meaning that I have a fairly minimal amount of homework. Since we have the summers off, I can't imagine that this comes up that often at home.

For those of you I have talked to you recently, you assumed that I was going to Cologne. This is what I thought until this morning when I called the person that I was going to carpool with and he told me that he wasn't able to pick me up. So, instead of traveling, Derrick and I hung out in a café for a few hours. Across from the café was a book store. For some reason, I decided that I wanted to buy a mystery novel, so that is what I did. Rather than trying to pick out a good mystery among the shelf, I just went with an author that I already know is good, Ian Rankin. I assume that a translation of his work will be just as good as one in English. The one that I bought isn't one that I have read before, but I assume that it should be good. I have decided that, in oder to improve my language skills, I will read at least one chapter a day. I have previously promised myself that I would do a similar thing with Anne Frank. As you can imagine, her diary has been sitting under a postcard and my capo, unmoved for about 6 weeks, at the very least. However, if my previous experience with John Rebus is any indicator, I shouldn't have any problems fufilling that promise. Also, I assume that John Rebus doesn't have to deal with nazis or the holocaust, which should make slightly less depressing to read.

In other news, time has been speeding along faster than seems possible. For instance, it is now June 11th, meaning that I have only seven more weeks left. Holy cow. I doubt that there is enough time for me to do everything in Europe that I would like to before I leave, but we will see. I will be damned if I am not going to give it a good run for its money. Or my money, since that is more accurate. Things that are currently on the travel plan: Hamburg, Cologne, the Black Forest, Prague, Vienna, and Munich. I am also planning on heading up to Husum to try to find some old family graves. I haven't looked into this at all, and it seems like a pipe dream, but it couldn't hurt to try. Also, it is a stone's throw from the North Sea, so I could spend some time on the coast, even if I can't find anything familial.

disclaimer: I finally switched my computer into German yesterday. That means that I no longer have an english language spell check installed on my computer. I am fairly certain that I spelled everything correctly, but I might have missed something. I apologize for that and blame it on the fact that learning German is doing terrible things to my English. I promise I will try to learn how to speak our language again once I return to my native soil.

To fulfill my promise of always having a picture, this is the tree outside my window. The top picture is from Easter Sunday, when I first noticed it having any green on it. The bottom picture if from today.

-Marc

Berlin, again.

Yesterday, we went to Berlin again. My neighbor's friend was visiting from Denmark, so we did largely the same things, but with some slight changes.
We started off the day visiting the East Side Gallery. In 1990 artists painted things on the Wall, and they remain to this day. I assumed that it would be a fairly small piece remaining, but I would estimate that it is about a mile or so long, maybe longer.
After that, we went to the Fernsehturm (Television Tower). It is the tallest structure in Germany and is used to broadcast all kinds of signals. One can somehow get up to the ball, which slowly revolves. I didn't bother to do that because it costs €10.50 (About $13, at this point). After that, we went to the Pergamon Museum. Due to the late 19th century and early 20th century being what they were, Germany came into the possession of a lot of stuff that you would assume would be in a museum somewhere else.

For instance, this is the Ishtar Gate, once a part of ancient Babylon. The entire gate is far too large to be displayed inside of a gigantic building like the Pergamon, so the rest of it is stored in boxes somewhere. This is just the inside, smaller part of it, and it is about 50ft tall. The constraints of the building and a camera's ability to take pictures make it nearly impossible to get it in one photo. I suppose that you will just have to go there and see it yourself.
In addition to the Ishtar Gate, this museum also has the former market gate of Miletus.
and the Pergamon Altar
After that, we went down to see Checkpoint Charlie. To get there, you need to go on Unter den Linden. I seem to recall mentioning that I would take a picture of the street when the trees didn't look dead, so here it is.

I didn't notice the McDonald's in the background until I put the pictures on my computer. I feel that it is somewhat fitting for the American sector's most famous attraction to have a McDonald's at it.
Instead of being at the Brandenburg Gate at sunrise, this time we were there at sunset. I figured the time change deserved another picture. After that, we were all pretty dead, so we took a quick stop over to Potsdamer Platz and then home. I thought that I took some pictures of buildings at Potsdamer Platz, but I seem not to have done so. It is more impressive than pictures can display, so I suppose that it doesn't matter a whole lot anyway. I will just try to explain it, so that you can imagine the effect. There are a lot of really tall, new buildings in a fairly small area. We were also there after sunset, so maybe that makes it more impressive. There is also the Sony center, which is basically a circle lined with stores and restaurants and stuff and a big courtyard in the middle. There is a big fancy looking roof on top of it, on which they had bright colors displayed. After that, we took the next train home, and went to bed. 1:30 isn't a terribly pleasant time to go to sleep at when you have woken up at 5:30, but it works.

In other news, life is going pretty well. One of the bad parts of primarily having one teacher, is that you get bored of always going to class with them. One of the good parts is that, when the professor is sick, you get to miss all of your classes. As a result of that (and a holiday last week) I only had class on Thursday last week. This week, I will have basically the same schedule, but with one class tomorrow morning, since she is still sick. I feel bad for her that she is so sick that she needs to miss two weeks of school, but, at the same time, that is not stopping me from enjoying my time off. This doesn't really mean that I am doing anything important with my free time. My goal this week is to both start and finish my presentation that I will have to give on the U.S. Congress for English class. Since I don't actually present that until the middle of July, I feel that the odds of it getting finished are slim, but I am going to try. Also, I intend to continue my jogging regimen that I have started (going for about half an hour two or three times a week. Maybe I can use my free time to improve that.) Prior to beginning that, I definitely felt that I was much less active here than I have been in the past. Hopefully that will help. I don't feel that I am forgetting anything, but I probably am. Let me know if I forgot something important and I will try to change that. Gute Nacht Euch. Marc.

Lübeck

The end of our whirlwind tour last week took us to Lübeck. Lübeck is in northern Germany, very near the Baltic Sea. It is part of what is called the Hanseatic League, meaning that it was a prominent port city for merchants during the middle ages. The old city of Lübeck is on an island, with access through two very old gates. One of my favorite parts of Lübeck is that they have plaques on every building of interesting explaining what it is in German and English at the very least, often adding in Danish and Swedish, and, rarely, other European languages. Why don't more cities have things like this (in any country. Plaques are cheap and it makes sightseeing a lot more interesting than when you have no idea about the history of a building)

This is the Holstentor (Holsten is just an abbreviated form of Holstein, the area of Germany that Lübeck is in. Tor means gate.). This is the gate on the west end of the island. The church on the right is the St. Petrikirche. Pretty much everything in Lübeck is made out of bricks like this. The upside of this that all of the buildings are very impressive and different from everything I have seen before. The downside of that, is that by the end of the day, everything was starting to look the same. That being said, it was pretty sweet to see something that was drastically different than everything I have ever seen. Also, it was the first city that I have visited that was in West Germany proper. West Berlin may have been part of the BRG, but it was still in the eastern part.
The St. Petrikirche. One problem with photographing the churches in Lübeck is that they are all really tall and surrounded by trees. Also, because this part of the city is on a small island (walking from the Burgtor at the north end to the cathedral at the south end took us less than twenty minutes and we stopped several times to look at stores and stuff) Anyway, you are allowed to take an elevator to the top (I assume that there must be stairs, but we didn't see any and I assume they are only available in case of an emergency.)
The western portions around the island. The Marienkirche.
The old market and Rathaus. Because Lübeck was the main merchant city on the Baltic, there is a large tradition of craftsman and artisans. These people still exist and were in the market at the time that we were there. If one wanted to buy some jewelery or medieval weapons of a sort, then one can buy them from someone who is making them in front of you. Not the kind of thing that you see every day.
The Lübeck Cathedral.
The Rathaus from the market. Unlike other old Rathouses, this one is still in use. The building behind it is the Marienkirche.
The Marienkirche. Apparently, the Devil originally tried to convince them to build a wine cellar. They built this church instead, and, after it was nearly finished, one of the stones at the top fell off and landed next to the church. Now, they have a devil statue on a big stone next to the church. Theoretically, rubbing his horns is good luck. They had a plaque explaining the story, but not why rubbing his horns is good luck, sadly. They also didn't explain how they knew that the Devil tried to convince them to build a wine cellar. Incidentally, Lübeck has a large wine making industry, making a wine called Rotspon. The grapes are grown and fermented in France and then aged in Lübeck. Rotspon is apparently old Deutsch for red wine.
The devil statue.
The Hospital of the Holy Spirit. A hospital that dates back to 1260. It is pretty huge and has all sorts of nifty artwork.
The altar in the first room. You walk in, and there is a giant room. I am not sure what you would call it.
Stained glass window next to the altar.
I am not quite sure what to call this one either. It was all along the wall across from the door. It might have a balcony on top, but I do not remember.
An example patient's room.
The Burgtor (Castle Gate) at the north end of the island.
The Trave river on the north end of the island.
After visiting the north end of the island, we turned south. On the way south, we ran into the Willy Brandt House. He was the Chancellor of West Germany during the late sixties and early seventies. He won the Nobel peace prize for improving east/west relations. Much to my delight, the museum was free.
A piece of the Berlin Wall that was at the museum.
After that, we continued our way south to stop at the Lübeck cathedral.
Once again, there was a wedding going on, and so we were not allowed to stay for very long. I am not sure how much it costs to get married in a cathedral, but I bet it is a whole lot.
The inside of the cathedral.
After dodging the wedding party, we headed back to the train station. This is the Trave just outside of the Holstentor. Two transfers and hours later, we ended up back at home. I am not entirely certain what is next on the trave schedule. If the weather is good and I am feeling up to it, tomorrow might involve some hiking in the Harz mountains. Next weekend might involve a trip to Berlin to meet a professor from Bemidji, but I am not sure. Bis bald. -Marc.