More Pros

The windows are impeccably well-engineered. You can either turn the handle so that it is positioned horizontally and swing the window open like a door, or you can turn it 180 degrees, and tilt the upper side of the window in. How cool is that?!

The trails that surround the little towns. There are a lot, too. Hopefully the weather will stay relatively mild, because I´d like to get a couple more hikes in before the weather gets cold. A full day´s hike is a great way to see so much, and to get some much needed exercise (More and more I´m starting to look a little like Plumpy from Candyland-especially when I wear that bright green jacket).

Milka chocolate. Mmmm. Hershey´s got nothing on this baby. Plus they have this one kind of candy bar that´s milk chocolate and has a little picture made out of white chocolate of a landscape and a cow (Milka´s logo) fused across half of the top of the candy bar.

Unlike in the states, you can bring your pets pretty much anywhere. I can´t imagine the problems you´d have trying to bring your dog into the mall, but here it´s no big deal. And everytime I´m like "whoa! you can bring your pet in here?!" Somebody replies with, "Why not?" My sentiments exactly.

In Thüringen right now there´s something going on called the Jazzmeile. In all the cities in the area there are tons of jazz concerts until the end of November. I´ve bookmarked a couple I´d like to try and see. The one I think would be the coolest is kind of far away so I don´t think I can make it, but it´s a group from Ghana. If you´d like to try your hand at Deutsch or if you are one of those people reading this that can actually understand it, check out this site: www.jazzmeile.org

Taking Advantage of the Good Weather

Hey all,

I decided to make the most of my Saturday, and woke up early for an all day excursion. I hiked on a couple of the little mountains around Jena and saw an old castle, the Erlkönig statue, a really old fort ruin from the 12th or 13th century, and lots of picturesque nature. Take a look for yourself!

Top Ten

I thought I´d just go through a run down of things that I´ve noticed. I´ve been keeping a list of things I like and miss in my head. It´s kind of like my version of "top ten things..."

The Good Stuff
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First, I like cobblestone and brick sidewalks and roads. I´ll admit, sometimes it makes it kind of hard to tell where the road ends and the sidewalk begins, but as long as you have cat-like speed and reflexes you can dodge those crazy drivers just fine. Same goes for old architecture. Nothing fancy, just character through age.

Mountains-plain and simple. With lots of trees on them.

A fabulous transportation system. Even though Jena feels about the same size as Bloomington, even it has 3 train stations, a tram, buses, and taxis.

Lately, some great music I´ve heard includes Guru´s Jazzmataz, Carla Bruni, and the soundtrack from this movie called Underground. Now that I think about it, I heard a lot of awesome music at Jorge´s party, too-I´m going to have to ask him to burn me some stuff.

Also hearing American music everywhere.

Speaking of America, most of you have probably heard of the site www.jibjab.com They have two really funny song parodies called "This Land" and "It´s Good To Be In DC". If you haven´t seen one or both of these, you need to do it right now. One piece of advice-don´t try and watch them if you don´t have speakers/aren´t able to hear sound-seeing as how these are SONGS, it kind of ruins it if you can´t hear them.

Food. The best things I´ve tried were the döner and bratwurst. They also have really awesome bread-think the complete antithesis of Wonder bread. It´s really heavy and all different kinds are made with every kind of seed imagineable (sunflower, pumpkin, other kinds of nuts).

Stuff That Just Isn´t The Same
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The daunting task it is just to find a jar of friggin´ peanut butter.

The Simpsons. As you all should know, this one is big. Don´t get me wrong, they do air the Simpsons in Germany, but dubbed in german it just isn´t the same. You might even dare to say it´s just not that funny. Though I have seen Ducktales, Jaws, and Beavis and Butthead in german and that was pretty funny.

My refrigerator. It is a common stereotype that Europeans buy food more often instead of just stockpiling it in pantries and jumbo-sized refrigerators. Though it is a nice concept, I still want my jumbo-sized ice box. I don´t see why we can´t do both-buy often and have unnecessarily large cooling appliances. My refrigerator is about the size of a dorm-sized one, by the way. You know, the ones where you can´t fit any size container that is bigger than a single serving?

The absence of a living room. The apartment I live in has 2 bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen. The size, variety, and number of rooms varies with the place you´re living in. That is, my friend lives in a house which is really no different than one you´d find in the states. And another friend lives in an apartment which is bigger and thus has a living room. Perhaps you can get away with no living room if you have something else to take its place like a kitchen. Our kitchen is primarily the "social" spot which is okay, but sometimes you want to relax on a sofa to hang out and talk with everyone, not sit at the kitchen table. Know what I mean?

A fun-filled day

Yesterday I finally got the chance to go on one of those hiking trails I´ve been wanting to check out for so long. It was really nice. I went on one that takes you to a really old tower known as the "fox tower". I´m not sure what it was used for way back when, but I assume it was a lookout point for enemies because even though the tower isn´t that tall by today´s standards, it´s location on the top of the little mountain lends way to a great view. I took some pictures at various points. Conny´s friends Basti and Susie came to visit from Dresden, so all five of us went on a little hiking tour.

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I also finally went and bought a winter jacket yesterday. It still is only mildy, fall-ishly chilly, but I saw one that was a great deal and couldn´t pass it up. Granted it´s bright green and yellow and making people feel like a giant moving stoplight is probably the reason it was marked down so much, but I digress...I kind of like it anyway.

Last night was also Jorjé´s birthday dinner. I had an amazing time. We ate salad(greens and an egg salad), cheese, this fried dough made with pumpkin and squash with this feta-tomato dip(there were a couple of different bowls of it with different spices that added a nice variety). And for the main course there were bread pockets that looked like giant bread pierogies or calzones. They were stuffed with meat and hard-boiled eggs and these awesome olives. Everything was really tasty. There were also some kind of yummy pastry and brownies made with coconut and cherries for dessert. I didn´t know there was coconut in the brownies, so I took a piece and took a huge bite out of it. Eeww. They were actually really tasty if you like coconut, and tolerable for me even though, as most of you know, I don´t like to touch the stuff, which was a good thing because I didn´t want to be rude and go spitting it out saying, "Oh my god! There´s coconut in this! Blacgh!" Oh, and wine...lots of wine. I slept like a baby last night, let´s just leave it at that.

After dinner, we broke out instruments-a guitar and a bunch of little hand instruments like a triangle, wooden castenets, marracas, etc. First we sang happy birthday to Jorjé in Spanish, German, and English. Yeah, sometimes my mind feels like it´s going to blow up because there will be conversations in German and Spanish happening and me thinking in English, too, and my brain just wants to say, "Dammit! Pick a language already!"

After the birthday medley we sang all kinds of different songs. We also shared songbooks that they had-both spanish and german ones. It was really interesting because every song that was sung was known by a few people here and there, so we made a little game of trying to find a universally/internationally known song. We found two: "Glory, glory Hallelujah" and "Jingle Bells". Actually, I think most people knew "Guantalamela", too. So I guess the tally comes to a total of three.

You can check out the pictures here.

15.10.04

I added some info about the Zwiebelmarkt to that post so if you´re interested in learning about the festival of onions grab some breath mints and check it out.

I went to get my visa yesterday. I love having to take the tram or train anywhere, because the mountains are so cool. I´m going to try and go on a hike or two this weekend, but word has it the weather is going to be less than desirable. Anyway, the lady was really scary. She took her job way too seriously. I´m so glad I had a native german speaker there with me, because I was afraid to even make an ´eep´. But anyhow, it´s over and taken care of. Now I have some really cool visa stickers in my passport!

I went to the ´f-haus´ last night because there was a beginning of the semester party there. Since it was sold out, there were about a billion people there-a little too many for my liking. There was a dj and a little movie screen hanging from the ceiling where there were crazy graphics morphing along to the music. Oh, and I thought this was pretty neat-one of the dj´s crew went around and took digital pictures of the audience for a little while. Then they integrated them into the graphics, so there were pictures of people from that night on the movie screen, too. Isn´t that kind of a cool idea?

Tomorrow Jorjé is having a little dinner party at his house. I´m really excited about it actually, because I want to try all the Chilean food that will be there.

Woohoo! The sun finally fought its way through the clouds! I´m going to blow this pop stand.

Weimar Zwiebelmarkt

I´ll actually write more about this market later, but for now just enjoy the sights. :)
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Okay, so here´s the scoop on Zwiebelmarkt. As you already know, it´s held in Weimar, a city very close to here(about 20 mins by train). I went there in the early afternoon on Saturday, because somebody had mentioned it to me during the week. I was interested in what it had to offer, and I wanted to check out Weimar, too.

Anyway, it is a weekend-long festival where you can buy just about anything. There are stands (food, clothes, pottery, art, knick-nacks, wreaths made out of onions and balls of garlic) set up around the entire city, oh, and several stages of varying size, too. Also, a lot of the stores are open and put stuff on the sidewalk to attract people.

Some of the sections of the city have themes-for instance there was a kids section where a magician performed and told funny stories, and a medieval section where all of the stands looked old and made out of wood and there were candles providing light at night. They also had homemade wine in old-fashioned barrels and jugs. I tried a honey wine called ´met´(I think it´s meade in english) that was served warm. It was very sweet, but good, and the fact that it was warm was even better, because once darkness fell it was COLD.

The music covered a wide range of styles, including this one band that played in the midieval section that had an instrument i had never seen before. It roughly looked like a compact guitar with some kind of slab over its strings, and it had a little hand crank coming out of the bottom.

Though I went there by myself, one guy I work with lives in Weimar and I ended up running into him and his girlfriend there. The sun was just starting to set and I wasn´t sure how late the festival went or when the last train left, so I was thinking about heading back, when out of the corner of my eye I see someone throw a piece of paper at me. When I turned to look, there was James! It was actually really great to run into them, because since they´re from there they showed me around. I don´t think I would´ve ever found the midieval section on my own.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, the streets in these towns seem like they have no rhyme or reason. There´s no sign of a grid-layout like a lot of neighborhoods in the u.s. I think it is a mix of building in the mountains and that the towns are so old. Anyway, needless to say, if you´re not familiar with a place, you can easily pass up a lot of little interesting streets-especially when there are a billion people walking around. Before I ran into them(James and his girlfriend), I felt like I had covered pretty much all there was to see, but they showed me a couple of places I didn´t even know existed(like the kids and midieval sections).

All in all, I´m very glad I went, and suggest it to anyone who happens to be in the area when it´s happening.

Pictures of Jena

Hi guys! I promised you them, so here they are-some pictures of Jena. My next task is to get some people on film to post. Hope you enjoy them and get a sense of the city.

Pictures of my apartment

Hey everyone! Y´all can look at a couple of pictures of my apartment. They aren´t that exciting, but maybe you´ll be interested. I have taken some other pictures, but I left the room for awhile and forgot to turn the camera off so when I came back it was dead. I´ll charge my camera tonight and upload them tomorrow.

7.10.2004

Since this entry is kind of a random mixture of things, I decided just to go with the very unorginal date header. I figure if I´m so clever and witty all the time, all of you will get so used to it you´ll find everything else is just a big bore. Oh, I´m only kidding.

First, the club scene. This is the way I´ve described my experience with it thus far, so a couple of you may be experiencing some deja vú:

i went to a couple of clubs -one called the ´f haus´ and one called ´ogs´. the f-haus is basically the club everyone goes to early to drink a lot because drinks are cheap. the music there was fan-flippin´-tabulous, though. the "dj"(and i use the term VERY loosely) played everything from Michael Jackson, to Madonna, to new Outkast stuff(heyy-ah), to sweet home alabama(oh yeah, for this one the "dj" turned down the volume for the chorus and a bunch of germans singing about sweet home alabama was just about the most entertaining thing i´ve seen), to that oldies song that goes "if you´re going to san...fran...cisco. be sure to wear some flowers in your hair" all laid over a techno beat. it was like an 80´s/early 90´s party or something at a club. when that one oldies song came on i said it was like some hippies opened a club and everyone came to party. hah.

ogs was a cool place, though. it has 3 floors first of all, all with a bar on them, so that was a plus. the top one just had some music coming out of mounted speakers all around, and there were a bunch of black leather couches and red-orange lighting-think like a chill room jazz club style or something of the like. the middle floor had some pretty awesome music(hip hop and stuff) mixed with some really awful dance music with english words. and the bottom floor had a mix of snoop to hip hoppy to songs like "push it", and also a mix of some terrible american-ish dance club music. i love hearing old american music all over here-it´s really funny. for instance, stop me if i´ve mentioned this before, but during dinner the other day i heard vanilla ice on the radio!

As far as interculture and IWK, both are still pretty fresh. I´ve met just about everyone in the IWK department (there is one lady that is still out of the country-I think in Costa Rica or was it Portugal. As you can probably tell, I have no friggin´ clue). I´ve already mentioned Professor Bolten and Marion Dathe. I have also met a lady named Sonya, from England, who I really like. She´s got a great english accent and the other day I wore this white blazer and she said, "my, you´re looking rather smart today. I have to go teach a class soon, can I borrow your jacket?" As I read what I just typed it doesn´t sound that great, but it was really funny when she said it. Then there are Javier and Jorjé(I´m not sure if that´s how you spell ´hor-hey´ in Spanish, but since it´s my blog I have the freedom to spell things how I want)-Javier is from Spain and Jorjé is from Chilé. That´s about everyone in IWK-it´s a pretty small department, and they kind of recruit professors as projects develop that require a person with knowledge of a certain region.

I found out today that I´ll get to particpate in the physical form of the game(Planspiel) on which I´m working for the virtual classroom. For all of you IST-ers, I´ve heard it referred to as a game or simulation interchangeably, even though it is clearly a game and ´spiel´ literally means game, but I don´t want to ruffle any tail feathers this early in the game (no pun intended). For each group that represents a different country, all participants are supposed to be natives of the land they are representing. Javier is leading the next Planspiel, and has asked if I would like to be a member of the american group. I decided to accept the offer because it is a) a pretty interesting project and b) i believe it will help me develop a better overall design for the virtual form. Being an actual participant will allow me to experience what the students go through(needs, wants, positive/negative aspects are throughout the game). If there are snags in the physical form of the game they will no doubt be amplified in the digital one, so hopefully I can identify them first-hand and flush them out. The Planspiel doesn´t happen until the middle of November, so I think I´m getting a little ahead of myself. Let´s get back to the here and now.

Mario and I have kind of been grouped together, because has been hired on as the interculture "IT guy" (even though I think he studied politics and economics) and, like is often the case, I am known as "the Informatics major", so any technological problems in IWK or interculture are thrown our way to try and figure out. I don´t think a whole IT department could know absolutely everything there is to know about technology and computers, but somehow when people hear your name used in the same context as technology and there is any sort of remotely related computer or electronic device problem, they come running to you begging for the miracle solution that you should (obviously, because "you´re an Informatics major!") have on the tip of your tongue. Anyway, back on topic-I told Mario I´d try and help tackle several of the issues interculture´s websites have, etc. I will probably have to learn a new programming language/software program or two and refresh a couple that are somewhere in the back of my mind, but it´s actually a good thing. I don´t think I have the will to pick up a programming book on my own and learn it just for the sake of it being fun, but I am grateful when I feel I have a handle on a program/language.

Really, besides helping translate some of one of the websites from German to English (which I´m hoping will vastly improve my German vocabulary), that´s about it. I have the freedom to begin any projects that "are of interest to me", and though it´s actually nice to have so much freedom it´s also a little hard because everything in the department, company, processes, etc., is so unfamiliar now. Still, I have a couple of things to work on for the time being, and as the semester progresses it will be interesting to see how my work progresses, too.

Ralf and Connie are going to Dresden this weekend, because it is Ralf´s mother´s birthday. The local aiesec committee may take a day trip to Erfurt, a city very close to here. I´m not positive I will go with them(aiesec) yet or not-there are a couple of places here I want to stop by so if I do that before Saturday, I might just start on a new city, but we shall see.

By the way, I´ve been noticing more and more that my english grammar is dissintegrating(it actually took me about a full minute to think of what that word was, and I still don´t know if it´s spelled correctly) exponentially fast the harder I work on my german. I´ll do silly things like type ´hear´ instead of ´here´ or just forget words completely. Who knew that you could flush so many years of english vocab and grammar quizzes down the toilet with just one foreign language?

Oh, and I do have a few pictures, but no, they haven´t been uploaded yet(before you start griping, I just want to say that I´ll work on it next week). I haven´t taken any pictures of any people, only the town, trees, mountains, etc. Marion told me something pretty interesting. She explained that Jena is one of the warmest(it´s all relative, though, I suppose) places in Germany, because the small mountains(more like large hills) are made of limestone and limestone retains heat very well. She said it never really snows here but I refuse to believe that, so let´s just agree on believing it occasionally snows but doesn´t stay for very long. The weather has been mostly sunny, warm, and beautiful, though it can get rather chilly in the evening, and yesterday it was a little dreary and cold enough to definitely need a jacket.

Let´s see-and some interesting thoughts about food: I wouldn´t believe it myself if I wasn´t here, but peanut butter is REALLY hard to find. In fact, I´d say just about impossible-I even looked in Walmart(though not really that hard). I suppose maybe in large cities in the west you can find it, but I´m not so sure. Instead of peanut butter, Nutella is what´s really popular. If you´re thinking about the chocolate-hazlenut stuff, you´re right on target. It´s actually really tasty, but if you ask me, it´s just on a completely different page than peanut butter. Also I´ve seen little plastic containers(like what spreadable butter/margarine comes in) of basically spreadable fat. It´s pretty much the same stuff as the drippings from frying bacon or something-I know some of you that have lived on a farm(mom) or some of the older generation will know what I mean. I knew that some people like to use it kind of like butter, that´s not so unusual; but I thought it was a little crazy that it´s sold in little containers in the grocery store. Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, yes there are vegetarian options available(both in the school cafeteria and a few places sell falafel, too). I haven´t tried searching for hummus, but I imagine if there´s falafel, hummus has to be nearby. Then again, it´s not really that hard to make either.

Here we Go

Heya,

First, congratulations Faye and Amber. Welcome to the `Motherland´(that one was for you, Corinna!)! Hopefully I´ll make it up to Berlin one of these weekends. I hear it´s not really that far of a journey.

I´ve started my first full week here at interculture.de. It´s still a little slow because the semester doesn´t start until next week, I think, so more of the people who work in the IWK department will be around more often then. I feel like the atmosphere won´t change that much, though. It´s one of those you-set-your-own-hours type of places, which is both a good and bad thing-kind of like classes!

I have been assigned one big project and have been trying to gather a bunch of information on it. It basically entails setting up a virtual-type classroom through videoconferencing and a whiteboard. In addition, I may have to translate some of the content from the main portal site of interculture from German to English so in the future, the site can be offered in both German and English. Also, James, the American master´s student in IWK has asked that if I have time, perhaps I could take a look at what he´s been working on. Everyone in the department is responsible for developing material on the particular region they are an expert in. I think most people are from the region/country they are responsible for with perhaps maybe one exception. Anyway, James, being an American, is responsible for American culture and asked if I could give him some feedback on what he has so far. Lastly, I have the freedom to develop anything else I want to. That is, I can work on other projects that I have an interest in. I emailed all of the people in IWK telling them a little bit about myself and that I if there are any projects which they need help with to email me back. Hopefully I will get to work on a non-technology related cultural education project, maybe dealing with Africa or Asia. Yeah...that would be swell.

I didn´t make it to Oktoberfest this past weekend. Most Germans I´ve talked to haven´t really been there, and based on their view of it I decided to see the city/region when there are less tourists there and it´s more in its natural state.

The leaves are starting to change color, although you wouldn´t guess it´s the beginning of Fall by how gorgeous the weather has been lately. I was told one of the most beautiful times in Jena is Fall because there are several trees that are plainly visible in the distance(because of the mountains), so in the Fall it´s supposed to be really amazing. I haven´t been to the tourist information center to get my own copy, but I´ve seen a map of all the hiking trails in and around the city. I would like to get a few hikes in before the cold starts to set in. Also, Marion said if she ever takes a weekend trip, to Bonn or someplace, that I could come along.

Other than that, I´m discovering what there is to do in the city. I spent a lot of the weekend walking around and finding different things-the few places open on Sunday here, a Sushi place(Will), and the German version of Aunt Carmella(I swear she had the same pursed-lip look and everything!). I also took some pictures, but I think it might be a little while before I post any. Oh! And this morning I saw an accident! Some biker tried to cross the street when his light was red, and took his sweet time doing it, and the car had to screech it´s breaks to a halt but couldn´t come to a full stop in time. Luckily, the car had slowed enough to wear the biker was just knocked over. I´m pretty sure neither the bike or person wear damaged, because after everyone asked their "are you okay"´s, everyone just went their separate ways. Just goes to show that if you´re going to break the law, you´d better do it damn fast!

Other than that all I have to say is that for those of you who might not have noticed, there is a place for you to post comments. They don´t have to be long or deep or anything. Perhaps if you just have a simple question like, "LB, do they have bratwurst in Thüringen?" And I´d say, "Yes, so and so, they do. As a matter of fact, the people in Thüringen claim theirs is the best bratwurst in Germany, and they are damn proud of it. At the bbq I went to, I was asked if I liked the bratwurst at least five times, and each time my answer was followed with the person telling me how Thüringen bratwurst can´t be beat." My only request is that you keep those posts clean(relatively), because I know how you guys are! Except, Sheena, you have my permission to tell poop jokes; and NO pirate jokes, Will!