There and Back Again

Wurzburg

2011-07-19T18:39:00.000-04:00

Pretend in your heads that there's an umlaut (the two little dots) over the first u in Wurzburg. And pronounce it like it's a v not a w. Ok we're good.

Since Becky had class more or less all day today I took the train to Wurzburg which is only an hour away to see the Residenz there. This was a long day, but a good day.

Adventure #1 was finding the palace. I knew sort of that there was more than one castle/schloss thing, but I wasn't totally sure where either was. Luckily the town of Wurzburg is happy to send you on a walking tour (using the free map, and you know how I love a free map) to show you everything that is mildly worth seeing. Much of it was not worth seeing, but both castles were included so I wandered all over looking at random things of little to no interest. But the first castle was awesome. It's definitely more of a fortress-castle than a palace-castle. Basically the Prince-Bishop of Wurzburg (once it's own country) used to live in town, until his wealthy citizens started threatening to kick him out, and then he built a fortress on top of the hill to protect himself. It's also sort of a trek up said hill. Unfortunately I took the long way up, which I found out on the way down. Oops. It was...scenic. The views from the top were worth it though. Definitely worth it.

The may pole

The Marienburg fortress

Inside the trench

The Residenz

The back of the Residenz with some of the gardens

Upon re-entering the town below, I got myself some ice cream and walked over to the Residenz, which the Prince Bishop built after Versailles. Because that's what you do. When someone builds a super awesome palace to show how super awesome they are, you must emulate them to show how super awesome you are too. I liked the Residenz a lot...it combined a lot of my favorite things about the various versailles-wanna-be palaces. And it was a nice size, and had very nice gardens. I wouldn't mind living there at all. Definitely on the approved list.

Dinner was in a nice little cafe by the Dom. I had this awesome "home made Franconian potato soup with bacon". Delicious. I love cafes. The US needs more of them. The people watching is fantastic.

Bumming in Bamberg with Becky

2011-07-19T18:24:00.000-04:00

I've been waiting to use that title for like 3 months. It just makes me giggle :)

So Friday was my last day in Paderborn...which was really weird. It's hard to say good-bye to people who you've been friends with for a mere two months, compounded by the fact that you're probably never going to see them again. I'll miss everybody in Paderborn, but the whole time I had a strong urge to say, well have a nice life. Maybe I'm just desensitized to goodbyes, I don't know.

The upside to this was getting to see Becky again. Becky and I were roommates sophomore year, and then she decided she was going to spend spring semester in Germany so we weren't roommates last year. Next year we'll be roommates again though. Anyway, I spending a few days with her in Bamberg where she's been studying. Saturday she showed me around town a bit. We went to the Altenburg (the old castle) and the Dom, and the Rose garden. Bamberg is apparently a UNESCO World Heritage site, which means that they have really crappy roads. I like cobblestones but walking around on them all day makes your feet hurt. We also met up with some of her friends here (fellow exchange students) at a beer garden. Which is where I found the one beer-drink I can have without making a face: the Radler, half-beer half-lemonade. The girly drink of Germany.

The Altenburg, as we walked up the hill

The Dom

The door for important people

Sunday it was rainy/cloudy/not terribly nice, so after church (which I did not get much out of but which was very interesting) we hung around her room. That night though I met up with some of Becky's friends from the night before to watch the USA/Japan game (women's soccer world cup). We lost. But it was an interesting experience. Becky had to work on a paper so she did not join us. Monday I did some wandering around. Schloss Seehof (which was not much better than Schloss Neuhaus in Paderborn), a church I had not yet seen, and the park. I got rather turned around in the park, so I was really tired when I got home.

Schloss Seehof

The river. I don't know what it's name is.

The botanical garden

Schloss Augustusburg and Falkenlust

2011-07-11T08:14:00.000-04:00

Saturday I went over to Schloss Augustusburg near Koln. It's one of the dozens of palaces that popped up all over Europe after the building of Versailles. As much as the German rulers may have disliked Louis XIV, they had to admit he had style. As soon as Versailles went up, the lovely turreted castles that are featured in so many fairy tales became passé and terribly old-fashioned. If you want to be one of the "in" rulers (be you duke, prince-bishop, elector, or imperial knight) you had to ditch the gargoyles and princess towers in favor of the rectangular mansion with a fab staircase. Which as it so happens is what Schloss Augustusburg is.

Clemens Augustus was one of those people who through a certain amount of luck and a well-connected family ended up living a life of luxury. He was the fourth son of a Bavarian Elector (the Wittelsbach family we have come to know so well), which meant that he grew up in a cushy sort of life, but his career options were limited to the church. Luckily for him, he wasn't terribly stupid, and after having finished studying in Rome got elected Bishop of Munster and Paderborn. Then he ended up Archbishop of Cologne after his uncle died, which made him one of the Electors of the empire, and Grand master of the Teutonic Order. He also got to personally crown his brother Emperor. All this meant that he got to live an even cushier lifestyle. With several homes and hunting lodges and all the rest of it.

Schloss Augustusburg

Augustusburg was mainly a summer home, although he occasionally visited it out of season. It's quite obvious when you come in that he was a great patron of the arts because there are paintings everywhere. And frescos. So many frescos. All with way too much symbolism involving his brother and the Greek gods on mount olympus. And various women representing a variety of virtues kicking the vices off their cloud. It's always the same old thing in these ceiling frescos. Anyway, he did happen to have one decorative choice that was a bit of a novelty to me: gilded leather walls. Fabricate covered walls are fairly common, but leather was a new choice. And not any old west leather walls either. Silvered leather accented with gold leaf. Definitely a new one. Much of the palace was more or less like many others I've seen, but the grand staircase is special. I managed to sneak this picture:

The Grand Staircase

You can't really tell in this picture, but it's actually really colorful. They used a marble-look-alike stucco and the walls are all really saturated turquoise and pink and red and blue and green. They really stand out against the white sculptural work and black wrought iron balustrade. This castle largely survived the world wars (mostly because Bruhl is just not worth bombing) so even in the 20th century the German President would use this palace for state dinners and such. The German tour members were very impressed to see the spot where the president would stand on the half-landing and greet his guests. I perhaps was less impressed, but I can appreciate a bunch of people in black tie going up a beautiful staircase to a state dinner.

One funny thing in the castle: most of the frescos are meant to be sort of viewed from the center of the room so that you get the full force of the "it looks so real" effect. And generally speaking it does work. If you stand in the center of the room and look straight up, the flat ceilings do come alive and look round and covered in architectural craziness. Except this one room. One of the rooms on the upper floor has this fresco and no matter where you stand it just doesn't work. It's kind of funny in a way because it's such a disaster. It's a nice painting as far as that goes but the visual special effects just don't line up right. It still looks flat. Oops.

The palace also has some nice Baroque French gardens that are sort of nice to wander around, except they're not very big.

Swirly Baroque French gardens

Love the colors

A short (ok fifteen minute) walk away is Falkenlust, Clemens' hunting lodge. And by lodge he means mini-palace. It's small, but beautiful. My problem was that they make you put on these grey felt slippers over your shoes (so you don't hurt the floors), which meant I went slipping and sliding all over the place. I almost fell almost a dozen times. I think the curator breathed a sigh of relief when I left. If they're worried about my flip flops touching the floor, I can't imagine how'd they feel about me falling on it. They also offer you the opportunity to peer through dirty windows to see the rococo/grotto chapel. You're not allowed in there, even with slippers.

Falkenlust

It was a very nice day and I did lots of walking through the "English" sections of the garden. Apparently, a garden is "English" if you leave most of the trees and just have some paths and green lawn space. How the English lay any claim to inventing this is beyond me. The train ride home was mostly pleasant except for the short period where it was so crowded I had to stand and the woman next to me was feeding her baby the most disgusting looking food. That baby had some seriously chubby cheeks too.

The funny part of the train ride was after the train emptied out a bit (allowing everybody to grab a seat), the train conductor came through and forced this Italian family out of first class. The mother was outraged. From what I could gather, she felt that she was entitled to sit wherever on the train she pleased since she had paid for the tickets and there wasn't any room in second class. The conductor took a slightly different (but also outraged) point of view, that if you pay for second class seats, you aren't allowed to sit in first class, regardless of the number of empty seats available in second class. The mother argued back about there aren't any seats, and the conductor dragged her (ok not literally) down the aisle pointing out each and every empty seat in the car. The mother was still outraged in that there was still no way for her and the 7 other members of her family to sit together. Ok I'm sorry but there are so many things wrong with this woman's thinking. First, no matter what, if you don't have a first class ticket, you don't sit in first class. Second, what on earth would make you think that 8 people would be able to sit together on a busy train at 6 pm on a Saturday? Third, you don't argue with a train conductor. Fourth, your children are at least 10. They're not going to be traumatized by not sitting next to you. In fact, they might prefer to not sit next to you. Oh man. It was pretty funny. They ended up going to the next car over in search of more seats but I doubt she found many.

* Note: I know in the American world of transportation it makes zero sense for there to not be enough seats on the train, but they work more like buses here. A lot of people buy a ticket for just that train, but there are also a lot of people who have passes (like my day pass) who can just hop on any train that day provided they stay in the area. So for a lot of local/regional trains you're not really guaranteed a seat; you're just guaranteed they won't kick you off the train. The bigger trains for longer distances have seat reservations, but you could still end up standing part of the way.

Lab and stuff

2011-07-06T06:36:00.000-04:00

Mario!

The workers on the old chem building have a strange resemblance to certain video game characters...
The long-promised pictures of the group mates:

The two Christians

Anne

Danielle

Simon, Steffi, and Dr. Tiemann

I tried to get everybody before group meeting started, but I only partially succeeded. Not pictured are Dominik, Thorston, and Sabrina. And possibly someone I'm forgetting. Anyway I got just about everybody. There you go. Daily life in the lab in all its glory.

My Vocab List

2011-07-04T07:35:00.001-04:00

I have been picking up bits of German. Very small bits. And I can't say that my german class was a complete and utter waste. I can read signs and get the gist of posters, and I can more or less get across what I want, usually with a lot of pointing. But that class did really not teach me any of the german I really needed to know. For example, I can tell you about my family and my hobbies (Ich habe ein hund und er schlaft gern), but I can't ask for directions. I can tell the time and name the days of the weeks, but we never got to colors. Really I'm not sure who comes up with the curriculum for intro language classes, but they are clearly not aimed at practicality. So here is a list of the german vocab I have picked up, so that in case any of you are in a position to write an Intro to German class, you will know what to include:

gleis: platform
hauptbahnhof: train station
bahn: train
nachste halte: next stop
wagon: train car
zeit: time
spat: late
ankunft: arrivals
abfahrt: departure
karte: ticket
essen: food
mittagsessen: lunch
schwein: pig/pork
schnitzel: country fried meat
gemuse: vegetable
wasser: water
still: not carbonated
stimmt: right
schloss: castle/palace/mansion
museum: museum
briefe: mail
briefemarken: postage
waschmunchen: laundry tokens

Clearly my vocabulary is mainly picked up in train stations and cafeterias.

Munich Weekend Part 3b

2011-06-29T10:33:00.001-04:00

In which I spend my Saturday afternoon very enjoyably and in a much less depressing manner than my Saturday morning.

So needless to say I was in need of a good cheering up after Dachau. I headed towards Schloss Nymphenburg. I had to switch from the S bahn to the tram at the railway station anyway so I stopped there for some lunch. Oh my gosh. I had this sausage wrapped in bacon with some melted cheese, on a roll. Oh my gosh. I can not begin to describe the level of deliciousness involved here. Juicy, crispy, fatty, greasy, cheesy meaty heaven. Ahhhh. If I get a choice about my last meal, that is what I want.

Schloss Nymphenburg is a nice quiet little pick me up. I was rather tired to go gallivanting all over the grounds as I perhaps would have under normal circumstances, but I did do the main castle. It was sort of interesting, as it was just a summer home for the Bavarian rulers. I mean, what better way to relieve the stress of living in an ornate palace in the city than by slipping off to a slightly smaller ornate palace on the outskirts of town? Anyway, it did have one rather unique feature: the Gallery of Beauties. King Ludwig I had the court painter do a collection of 36 portraits of beautiful young women, from a variety of social classes. All the way from a shoemaker's daughter to his own daughter. (Also included are his two mistresses). He wanted them painted in such a way that you could not tell of what social class they were. So you couldn't be distracted either by their rags or their riches. All you were to see was how beautiful they are. People came from all over Europe to see his Gallery.*Side note: this must have been like getting a fashion shoot. If a girl got picked, she came to the palace, got completely glam-ed up, and when they were done she got to keep the dress as a gift. People thought he was great for glorifying virtuous female beauty, but I bet his wife had a different view.

When I got done here, I took the metro to the Konigsplatz stop. It's supposed to have some really awesome Grecian looking museums and a nice little green space in the middle. I wouldn't know; the whole thing was blocked off for some event. Don't these people know better than to inconvenience me? Well, I then went over to the Englisch Garden. I don't know what's particularly english about it; a more accurate name might be "Large Park of No Distinguishable Nationality", but that probably wouldn't attract as many people. I walked around a lot. It's a very pleasant park, despite its lack of nationality. There's a chinese pagoda that you sort of have to see while you're there and it happens to have a nice out door cafe-type set up next to it. And there happened to be a traditional band in lederhosen playing on the pagoda, so I happened to decide to have dinner there. It was fun. I had knodel, which I pronounce "kuh-noodle", even though I know that's not remotely close to right, and a ginormous pretzel. Huge. And delicious. A very good meal, with good music. After dinner I walked some more and then headed back to the train station.

The ride home was pleasantly uneventful. The people in my compartment were very nice and no one snored. We arrived back about 45 minutes late, so I missed the direct from Koln to Paderborn and had to take one switching in Hamm. So I got back a bit later Sunday morning than planned, but it was all good. It's not like I had anything planned. Besides sleeping of course.

Munich Weekend Part 3a

2011-06-29T09:20:00.001-04:00

Dachau

Saturday morning I got up and went to Dachau. The Dachau concentration camp is located about 30 minutes outside the city center. You can get a Munich XXL ticket which will cover you for any and all U bahn and S bahn for the day, as well as buses and trams. Once you're there it's free to get in, 50 cents for a map/brochure.
It's not an overly crowded sort of place, although there are plenty of tour groups (which you know annoy the daylights out of me because they're so difficult to get around and they're always standing in front of some sign you want to read).

Dachau was one of the earliest concentration camps and one of only a handful to run throughout all 12 years. It was also the model for many other concentration camps, not only in set up, but also in "management style". SS soldiers were trained there and then sent to other concentration camps to teach the other SS soldiers the "Dachau spirit" or how to properly brutalize, humiliate, and torture the prisoners. This wasn't an "extermination camp" per se, but that's not to say people didn't die here or that there weren't murders. Dachau was more a hub for sending prisoners to other camps, especially in the later years. Those who were fit to work were sent on to be slave labor; those who were not were either retained in Dachau or sent to an extermination camp. Dachau did have a gas chamber built but it was never used. Capital punishment in Dachau was usually in the form of shooting or hanging. The hanging took place in the crematorium, right in front of the incinerators. Originally there was just one incinerator for burning the bodies of those who were murdered, committed suicide, or died of illness, malnutrition, or sheer exhaustion. The number dying grew to the point that they built a larger crematorium just outside the walls of the camp with five incinerators and two large rooms for holding the bodies. A shortage of coal forced them to switch to mass graves towards the end of the war. This was also one of the first places were medical experiments were performed on prisoners.

Contrary to pop culture, the concentration camp prisoners were not just Jewish. Dachau was only one third Jewish, with the rest being anyone from political opponents, royalty, gays, physically/mentally disabled people, Italians, Polish people, east europian minority groups, and even clergy. At one point there were over 2000 members of the clergy imprisoned there. Anyone who spoke out against the Nazis or the SS would also have been part of the group.

I have to admit, I cried. I cried through the museum, I cried in the bunk house, and I cried at the crematorium. At one point I had to sit down on a bench and just cry for a bit. It's terrible. Knowing the depravity that went on here. The torture these people were subjected to. The blind brutality. The total utter lack of humanity. When the American soldiers came to liberate the camp, they couldn't believe it. They were in shock that this could ever happen. The prisoners were out there cheering and the Americans just stood there staring because they didn't know what to do or to say. They thought it was just a camp for prisoners of war; they didn't know how bad it was. People have done some really cruel things to each other of the course of history. The hells we have created are shocking, but this has got to go near the top.

How could this happen? The German people were in a hell of their own following the first world war. They were angry, humiliated, scared, frustrated, and jealous, and these are strong emotions. Throw in a devastating economic depression, a shaky new government, a demeaning military defeat, and a widespread fear of the modern world and you've got a recipe for disaster. Fear is probably the key here. Fear destroys people, and they were afraid. Afraid that the world they knew was never coming back. Afraid of people who didn't want that world back. Afraid of changes that wouldn't put them at the top of the ladder anymore. Afraid of a world where people have different beliefs, lifestyles, and goals, that don't necessarily coincide with their own. So when someone stood up and pointed a finger at a culprit, at a scapegoat, people were ready and willing to follow.

Don't think this couldn't happen here too. The US walked down that road too. After Pearl Harbor the US government started forcing Japanese Americans, many of them US citizens, to come to internment camps to prevent them from spying. Although far fewer people were affected, the conditions were not nearly as depraved, and there were no mass murders, we walked that same road. We imprisoned perfectly innocent people without trial and held them responsible for a tragedy they had no part of. Luckily we stopped before things got any worse.

What if today the US government announced a new plan for dealing with illegal immigration? What if they proposed to gather up illegal immigrants and instead of deporting them, sent them to "Fair Deal Facilities" where they could work off their tax debt and work towards becoming a legal American citizen? What if political opponents to the idea suddenly disappeared, supposedly to work on a special project in a secret location? What if after the illegal immigrants, the government started clearing out the ghettos of major cities, saying that they were altering the welfare program to include skill training in the Facilities? What if news reporters got to tour the new immaculately clean Facilities, and you could see what good conditions there were, and how happy the people seemed? What if the newspapers had interviews with former drug dealers saying how they were better off there than at home? What if well-known scientists published studies on the effectiveness of such programs at imbuing a sense of responsibility and good work ethic? Would anyone really try to stop it? How many Americans would really find fault with such a program? After all, it's not like they're taking "good" people. It's just the lazy freeloaders and bums who are lucky to not be in jail. It's not like they're being treated badly. Look, that room's clean as a whistle. This is good for them. We'll be a better country for it.

Have caution, because we could do it too. We are just as capable as they. Let's hope that the memorial sites like Dachau have made us a little wiser. "Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth" ~FDR, 1939

Munich Weekend Part 2

2011-06-29T07:46:00.000-04:00

In which I go to Linderhof

I spent a good 80% of Friday at Linderhof and traveling to and from it. It's a healthy 2 and a half hours from Munich, but I really wanted to go. I was not disappointed. My favorite Bavarian king Ludwig II built it as a sort of mountain retreat. A royal hunting lodge was already here when Ludwig started making plans to expand it. He wanted to build his Versailles here, but the grounds are too hilly for the type of gardens he wanted and the space just wasn't big enough. Hence the relocation of that project to Herrenchiemsee. This castle (along with accompanying buidings) is the smallest, the most quickly built, and the only one he finished. He spent most of the last 8 years of his life here. It was a very special place for him and he never had visitors there. He did have rooms designed for Sophie's use for when they got married, but as you know that didn't really work out.

It's a stunning palace. Gold everything, tapestries everywhere...luxurious is the key word for every inch of the place. One tapestry of the Bavarian coat of arms uses a special technique with hundreds of stitches woven per square centimeter. It took a craftsman 4 years to hand stitch/weave/make the whole thing. Ludwig was also apparently so shy in his later years even around his servants that he had a "magic table" installed in his dining room. It could be lowered by means of a hand-cranked elevator to the servants' area below where the table would be set and loaded with food before being raised back up. Magic!

The grounds are especially worth a going-over. There's the "grotto": an artificial cave with a swan boat floating in a man-made "underground lake", with an awesome lighting system. Then there's the Moorish and Moroccan houses, which are small cottages done up in the respective styles. He has a hunting lodge that I'm pretty sure was decorated by Gaston, and a rustic little lakeside chapel. My favorite thing about this castle is how personal it felt. Ludwig (and his servants) was the only one to ever live here, or come here even. This wasn't for show or impressing visiting royalty or even hosting operas; it was just for him.

After getting back to Munich I did a little more sightseeing. I had dinner at the Hofbrauhaus. It's certainly an experience, but I didn't like it. I suppose that's not surprising. A person who doesn't like beer is probably not likely to enjoy a beer hall. It was loud, overcrowded, and the service was awful. My kaes spaetzle (German mac n cheese) was good though. I went and saw the Olympic Park which I loved. I'm a big fan of the Olympics, and a life goal of mine is to go someday. I also got off the subway to take a picture of their soccer arena, but it wasn't very exciting.

And that was the end of day 2.

Munich Weekend Part 1

2011-06-29T07:23:00.000-04:00

In which I take a night train, see a palace, and get rather wet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This post as well as the subsequent posts marked "Munich Weekend" record my adventures during the Corpus Christi weekend. Corpus Christi is another June Catholic holiday which falls on a Thursday resulting in a four day weekend. (For real, we could have so many more days off if we weren't such sticklers about the separation of church and state). For those who don't know, Corpus Christi is a celebration of the sacrament of communion, started because a woman (now sainted) had visions of Christ telling her this needed to be a holiday. She thought she was crazy at first so she didn't tell anybody until about forty years later. Her priest told his bishop who told the pope, who was like OMG, why didn't I know about this, this is hereby a holiday. And now it's a holiday. It's sort of a "super-communion". At any rate, I got the day off so I went to Munich (or Munchen, depending on your level of German-ness) for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Due to the sheer length of these posts and the sloth-like procedure of photo uploading no pictures will be included. Alright, off we go.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had such a miserable time last time I traveled by night, what with all the switches and waiting and not sleeping, that this time I decided to fork over the extra dough for the sleeper train. You have many options when it comes to sleeper trains ranging from a seat with a footrest to a private cabin. I went with the reasonably priced "couchette" model, which basically means you and five other stingy people are in bunk beds in the world's smallest compartment. The bed was perfectly "Jackie-size"; that is to say, I could stretch out and be comfortable, but most people would not fit. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of falling asleep on a train and waking up in a new city.

Upon arriving in Munich, I wandered around the station for a while looking for the right street to my hostel. The hostel by the way is very nice. Quite possibly the nicest so far. Easy Palace City Hostel. Best part? Literally 100 ft from a metro station (which if I had known from the beginning would have made it easier to locate the hostel).

I then set off for my day. My groupmates had told me that I needed to see the Deutsches Museum. At first I was thinking, Germany history? yawn, but it's actually a science and technology museum. Think Smithsonian, but more sciencey and minus all that life sciences nonsense (jk). It was nerdy heaven. Boats, airplanes, and astronautics, plus physics, lasers, and old scientific equipment. I've now seen one of the world's first vacuum chambers! (I know you don't care but stay with me). I was also the only in the room who knew what it was. This little british boy who couldn't have been more than 6 was like, "Daddy, what's that do?" and his father was like "I haven't got the foggiest idea" and I piped up with "It's a vacuum chamber; it sucks out all the air out of that glass part. If you put a marshmallow in there it'll shrivel up" (don't ask why I felt it necessary to include the information on the marshmallow). They were duly impressed and looked at me like "American weirdo". Anyway, the museum was great and it's so big you could easily spend several days there. My only disappointment was that the scientific chemistry section was closed for renovation. Phooey.

Next stop: Marienplatz. Famous Rathaus: check. Signature cathedral: check. Various important looking statues and buildings: check and check. I was starting to get rained on so I went in search of my favorite indoor activity: a giant palace. Munich just so happens to have one: the Munich Residenz. Be warned: this will take you hours. It is huge, and unlike a lot of royal abodes, you can see most of it. Travelers Tip: go in the afternoon. According to my audio guide, more rooms are open then for no apparent reason. I just lucked out. Due to intense damage in WWII (whoopsie) much of the palace is no longer completely original, but they've saved a lot of it and restored the rest to its former glory.

Bit of history for you. This is where the Bavarian royal court spent most of its time. The first King Maximillian did most of the expanding and building on to the palace, and it became known throughout Europe as a model of how the royal lived. Later King Ludwig I did more expanding. Our builder King Ludwig II probably spent a good bit of time here as well. Probably my favorite room was the banquet hall. Paintings all over the ceiling and the walls are lined with Roman/Grecian busts. The weirdest room (in any place I have ever visited to date) was the relics collection. Holy moly that is sooooo creepy. Normally, you go in a cathedral, there's a large sculpture/painting and an ornately decorated box with a sign saying shrine and relics of St. Someone Who Died. Oh no. These are sheltered versions of the old school relics. Ornate gold and glass and all that jazz is still there, but with these reliquaries you can see the relic. I'm talking femurs held in gold stands, mummified hands in glass boxes, a miniature glass chasse containing a mummified toddler and the bones of others (supposedly the victims of King Herod), and the skulls of John the Baptist (allegedly) and other saints sitting on velvet cushions. Creepy creepy creepy.

Several hours and almost a hundred decadent rooms later, I left the Residenz museum in a state of near nirvana. And promptly went over the moon when I walked into the Treasury. So Sparkly! My cup runneth over. My final stop in the Residenz complex was the Royal Theater/Opera house. It was pretty nice, but not as cool as the Palais Garnier in Paris. Thus really only a five minute stop for pictures.

By this point it was close to 4:30 and I was what you might call STARVING. I tried to find with no success before I hurried back to the Rathaus for the Glockenspiele (German for clock chiming). I had missed the earlier ones so I wanted to be super sure to be there for one at 5. I and some 50 other people stood in the rain staring up at figurines dancing on the Rathaus tower high above us while the bells chimed some nice folksy sounding music. I kept thinking I recognized the tune but was never able to put my finger on it. During the first song there's a wedding scene (Duke Wilhelm V according to wikipedia) with a joust and the second song has some people dancing (the internet says that some dudes went dancing through the streets of Munich so everybody would know the plague was over). Anyway the whole thing is pretty famous so naturally I had to see it and it was pretty entertaining. For dinner I had Bavarian white sausage. Not bad at all, but rather difficult to eat.

My last adventure of the day was going to the top of the St. Peter's church tower. Now there are several towers in the downtown Munich area willing to charge you a small fee to avail yourself of their city views. I chose this one because a) it was the cheapest and b) it was across the street from where I ate dinner. There is a catch: this one does not have an elevator. Just 306 steps to the top. Or so they tell me. I didn't count. It was worth the effort though. During my time up there, the church decided it was time to chime for evening mass. Being at the top of a bell tower while the bells gong somewhere beneath your feet is an exceptional feeling. I can't describe it except to say that your whole body is vibrating in tune with that bell tone. Eventually I'd had enough so I headed down and I was glad I started to leave before the bells stopped. On the stairway there were 3 little windows I had not noticed on the way up that looked into the bell room. This giant bell the size of an SUV (and weighing probably three times as much) was swinging back and forth as graceful as you please. I'll never forget how big it was or the ease with which it moved. Sometimes it's the unexpected little things that have the most profound effect.

Go Gamecocks!

2011-06-20T17:50:00.000-04:00

I desperately wish I could be in both Omaha and Germany at the same time, but alas, that is a machine science has not yet invented. Somebody start working on that. At any rate, I was wearing one of my many Carolina shirts today, specifically the pink basketball pep band one. This caused Dominik to inquire as to my ability to play basketball (which is sadly lacking) and thus launched us into a conversation about Carolina sports, marching band, basketball pep band, and how awesome our baseball team is. This is probably the most I have ever talked at lunch, and I've never had a more fascinated audience. He was thoroughly impressed by our 80,000 person stadium and our 300 person marching band. The conversation meandered to the football players and scholarships and how often they practice. I don't really know for a fact, but I'm pretty sure they practice almost everyday in the fall. And then he asks, "But when do they study?"

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Koln

2011-06-20T10:58:00.000-04:00

This weekend being a normal weekend, I spent Saturday in Koln (if you speak German) or Cologne (if you speak English or French), which is about 2 and half hours from Paderborn. Via train, of course.

Walking out of the train station, if you can't find the cathedral, you are either blind or stupid, because it's right there. And it's huge. According to the brochure, it's the third largest cathedral in the world. I tried to figure out online which were the first two, but apparently it depends a great deal. First you have to be looking at only 'Cathedrals' and not 'Basilicas', and you have to decide whether height, area, or total volume is most important to you, and then you have to decide whether or not to count the one in NYC that is still unfinished. No matter which way you look at it, it's a really really really really big church.

Kolner Dom or Cologne Cathedral

And very pretty. It's what I've come to consider as remarkably damage-free, although it's clear not all of the stained glass windows have survived the marches of time. Most of the non-original windows have been replaced with traditional tile patters, but not all:

Historic stained glass

Not-so-historic stained glass

Super awesome floors too.

After the cathedral I went over by the river and walked up to the bridge to see if I could get a nice view. I did not get a nice view (it was rather a rainy day) but I did see these.

Thousands of love locks

Along the whole length of the bridge there were thousands of these "love locks". The basic principle is you and your beloved write your names on your padlock of choice, hook it to the fence, and throw the key into the river, thus sealing your love forever. It's apparently quite popular, considering this bridge is only about 5 years old. I momentarily felt sorry for the fishies getting bonked on the head with undesired lock keys, but one look at the river told me that any fish living in that river had worse things to worry about than discard bits of metal.

If you follow said river, you will eventually come to the Chocolate Museum. It was much, much larger than the one I visited in Brussels (although funnily enough they were the same price) although it did not come with as many free samples. I learned all sorts of useless information about the growing of cocoa beans, the transportation of said beans, the process of making chocolate, the evolution of chocolate, etc, etc. Highlights: a "rainforest" room with a live cocoa tree, and a small-scale chocolate factory. The rainforest room was so hot and humid most of the Germans walked through at as quickly as possible, but I remained for a few minutes enjoying the home-like conditions. Frankly, Georgia is definitely humid enough for cocoa trees, but I think they'd find it too hot.

A real live cocoa tree with fruit!

Eat your heart out:

Yummy. After this I found some lunch and then considered what to do with my afternoon. Decision? The zoo. The Tourist Info place seemed to think it was great, so I decided what the heck. Why not go to the zoo. Upon reflection, I'm pretty sure it has been at least 5 years since I have been to a zoo and possibly even more than that. I think when I get home I will see if I can drag anyone to ZooAtlanta with me. It was definitely nap time when I was there because a lot of the animals were asleep or not home at the moment. My favorites though were conveniently visible.

Yay for the Tiger!

It was a nice zoo overall, and I was definitely glad of the rainy weather. All the parents and their wailing two year olds had stayed home. I only got rained on a bit once, and I successfully waited it out by ducking inside the reptile house. Finally, back in town, I walked down the main shopping street until I came across the Cologne Fragrance Museum. Apparently, this is the original. I actually believe their claim, because the town hall has a statue of the guy who started his perfume shop here. It was very interesting, but I left with a headache. Too much fragrance in the air. On the plus side, I got a free sample and some free headphones leftover from the audio tour. Those headphones were much needed by the way. My poor old apple earbuds are falling apart and only one earbud currently works. So now I have new ones of fairly equivalent value. Yay!

The Farina Haus, original makers of Eau de Cologne

Weekend in Brussels

2011-06-17T08:27:00.000-04:00

So we just had Pentecost (fiftieth day after Easter Sunday, feast celebrating the Holy Spirit coming to the disciples), which meant that Monday was a holiday. Three day weekend! I spent mine in Brussels with my friend Stephanie who's been studying in Mulhouse, France (blog here). We arrived Friday evening and left Monday afternoon.

Friday we didn't do much. We found food (doners) and chatted, and then we went to bed. We stayed at this pretty nice hostel, called the Hello Hostel. It was clean and the manager was nice. The breakfast was terrible, but it was free so no complaints.

The area we stayed in

Saturday we got up pretty early, which ended up being a pretty good thing as we spent way too much time trying to find the atomium. Lesson: don't just assume that an arrow on the map means it's nearby or that you are headed in the right direction. Always look up exact locations for anything you want to see. We ended up giving up on it until we could figure out exactly where we needed to go and headed for the comic strip museum. It was awesome. Everything you could ever want to know about the history and development of European comics in French, Dutch, and English. It wasn't exclusively european, per se, but frankly, the creators of the museum clearly felt a little bias. Interesting stuff though. Many comics I had not heard of, partly I think because I'm only 21, and partly because many comics don't bridge the Atlantic. I did get to learn about the Smurfs though. They're actually a Belgian comic strip, so when we got to the gift shop I couldn't help buying myself a souvenir: a copy of the first book of smurf comics, in its original french. Les Stroumpfs.

Outside the comic strip museum

After the comic strip museum we headed over towards La Grand Place. There are many Places in Bruxelles (the Museum Place for example) but this is the big one. It's huge, and the buildings are centuries old and ornately decorated. It's filled with tourists of course. We decided to have lunch there and settled on sharing an order of moules frites (a very good idea because they give you a lot). Moules frites (or mussels and fries) is almost a national dish. It's sort of a "must-have". It was delicious. Stephanie ordered a beer, which I tried (because you can't go to Belgium and not have any beer), which was not delicious. Whenever I took a tumble in the waves at the beach my relatives would laugh and say "well now you know the ocean's still salty". Well I took a sip of the beer and it still doesn't taste good.

La Grand Place

Moules Frites!

Following lunch we headed out to find the Mannekin Pis, the famous statue of a peeing boy. I have a thing for strange or funny statues so I was looking forward to this. Sadly, it's a tad anticlimactic. It's really small, and on this sort of side street. We almost missed it. It was sort of like, well, ok, I guess I'll take a picture...Not that cool. Not sure why this is so well known. We next went to the bourse (or stock exchange) and then took the metro to the stop for the Atomium and Mini-Europe (thank you free brochure from the comic strip museum).

A random parade/procession thing that went by

the Mannekin Pis

La Bourse

Next stop: the Atomium. The Atomium is this giant metal structure representing an iron crystal built for the 1958 world fair. It's sort of akin to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. You mostly go for the view. Which was worth it. It was also worth it just to get a picture of a giant iron crystal.

Atomium

Mini-Europe is a major tourist trap. Just a warning. It is especially attractive to families with small children whose parents are overly indulgent and incapable of discipline. That's all I'm saying. It was fun though. They had representations of all the different EU countries' well-known cities and landmarks. They even had little miniature people and moving parts. Each country also had a button which played it's national anthem, but they all sounded the same to me.

La Mini Place

That sort of rounded out Saturday. We had dinner at a little Italian restaurant on a street indicated by our map as having lots of food. The street is literally one italian restaurant after the next, with pretty much equivalent menus and prices. You can either just pick one or allow the Maitre D's to fight over you. The Maitre D's are hysterical. They stand outside trying to convince people to eat at their restaurant and pick playful fights with each other ("Don't eat there! They'll poison you! Don't listen to him! He's french!). We just picked one and ate off the 12 euro menu. Pretty good, and it included dessert.

Sunday. We slept in a bit more knowing things wouldn't be open for a little while but we headed out around 10. First stop: Le Palais de Justice. Unfortunately, it seemed to be undergoing some maintenance that requires scaffolding to be placed over the entire front of the building. So I only got side shots. Across the street though was this neat looking war memorial commemorating the soldiers who had died in the first or second world wars. At least, I thought it was neat until I turned the corner to look at the other side and realized it was a tomb. Then it was just creepy.

Le Palais de Justice

War memorial/tomb

We then headed towards the royal palace. On the way, we stopped at the fine art museum and went through like a gazillion exhibits of mostly religious art covering like 4 centuries. We walked away feeling very cultured and continued on to the palace. I love castles, palaces, mansions, you name it, so if there's a royal palace to be seen, I'm going to see it. No tours though. You can look from the outside but that's it. Sad day. Guess that's the downside of still having a royal family.

As close as I can get to the Royal Palace

After the obligatory picture taking, we headed through the park towards the Belgian Parliament building. On the way we stopped for these:

Belgian waffles!

You knew it was coming. I couldn't go to Belgium and not get waffles could I? Stephanie got pistachio ice cream on hers; all the white fluffy stuff on mine? whip cream baby. Be jealous. Another obligatory picture of the Belgian parliament and on we went. EU Commission: rather boring. EU parliament buildings: also rather boring. Belgian Arc de Triomphe: not boring.

EU building

Belgian Arc de Triomphe and one of the wings

I'm not sure what is in the left wing, but the right wing houses an enormous history museum. I know it's enormous because Stephanie and I went through all of it. It was very interesting, but you can't help but start to yawn at some point. It's a lot of stuff. But we left feeling very cultured. By that point we were getting rather tired, and running out of stuff we wanted to do. We had made what we thought was quite a long list, but we got it all done. So after dinner (I got a croque monsieur) we hung out in La Grand Place for a bit before heading back to the hostel.

In our wanderings we came across this, and I needed a picture.

We had one more morning in Brussels. We looked at the maps. We looked on the internet. We looked at the brochures. According to everybody, we had done it all. Now what? I'll tell you what. The Chocolate Museum. It was small, and not overly informative, but it had plenty of free samples, and a demonstration by a chocolatier. Worth it? Yes. Thus ended our Belgian adventures. Train rides home for both of us, in different directions. Fairly uneventful, though one of my trains ended up being defective so I got on another train to Hamm, though I had already missed my connection, and then took another train to Paderborn. A very full train. I had to stand the entire last leg of the journey (like an hour), squashed between a bike, a baby stroller, 8 other people, and a family with a dog. Between one set of stops it was so crowded I stood on one leg so the poor dog could lay down. Good to be back.

Bits and Pieces

2011-06-15T09:02:00.000-04:00

Haribo gummy bears are very popular here. They have more varieties of gummy candies than I knew existed. Tonight I decided to try a bag of Original Happy Cola and now my whole room smells like soda. Pretty good though, and my room could smell worse for sure.

There seems to be a hose trend here. I've seen several girls walking around or on the train or something wearing black hose with a) shorts of lengths varying from hot pants to bermudas or b) a skirt or dress so short it could not possibly be covering everything it needs to. I'm not talking leggings or tights here, I'm talking about old fashioned black hose. It's not really an attractive look. And the girls who tend to be wearing this trend are not the super skinny wannebe models who are prone to wearing outrageous clothing; it's the girls with a lot of junk in the trunk if you know what I mean. I really want to walk up to them and explain that wearing shorter skirts is not going to get them the kind of attention they want. And Hosiery Should Never Be Used As A Substitute For Pants!

My love of Kinder chocolate has extended from Kinder Bueno to Kinder Riegel bars as well. Mmmm.

Everyone here eats their french fries with mayo instead of ketchup. I know people in the US who do this, but it's not really "normal". Really I could go either way. Ketchup or mayo, or nothing, it really doesn't affect my love of french fries.

You know how on plastic drink bottles they have the extra piece of plastic below the cap? And normally it breaks off when you open it the first time (or sometimes it stays attached and just slides off with the cap)? They're different here. They have the same piece of plastic attached to the cap, but it stays attached. It breaks about halfway around (thus allowing you to remove the cap) but it stays attached to the cap. Still not used to it.

Also, the high here is still only about 75 degrees. We've had one or two days where it got up to 80, but that's about it so far.

A lovely sunset out my bedroom window!

Ascension Weekend Part 3

2011-06-06T04:50:00.000-04:00

Welcome to part 3 in which I go to Herrenchiemsee. If you're not sure what's going on here, go back about two posts and catch up. Ready? Let's go.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I got up early and hopped on a train at 7 am. Some people make fun of me for the way I travel, but frankly I'll sleep when I'm at home and have nothing better to do. I'm here to see stuff! So I get up early and run around all day until I fall over from exhaustion. After I got to Prien, I hopped on the "Chiemseebahn", an adorable little train that takes you from the train station to the boat dock. One short boat ride later I was on the Herreninsel ("Gentlemen's Island").

Herreninsel, from the boat

Ok a little more history. Ludwig II was really big into the absolute royalty of the past. He fell in love with stories of knights and princesses when he was a little boy and never really moved on from that. He was especially inspired by the Sun King, Louis XIV of France, and often called him his "ideal". He basically saw Versailles and like myself wished he could live there. Unlike myself he had the money and power to build himself his own Versailles, which is essentially what he set out to do with Herrenchiemsee (pron: Hair-en-kim-zay). Like Neuschwanstein, he didn't get to finish this one either. He only got the main building built (no wings) and didn't finish decorating that. He had also planned on having the grounds cover most of the island but never got around to it. In building Herrenchiemsee, he wasn't going for an exact replica. He wanted a "perfected" Versailles. "Historicizing" was a popular trend at the time. Basically the idea was to take a historic style and then perfect it. So Herrenchiemsee is supposed to be a monument to world of Louis XIV but at a higher level and with modern conveniences. Historical accuracy wasn't really a concern.

Once again, I got assigned to an English tour, but it wasn't for a little while so I did some meandering. Saw an old church, some farm buildings, an orchard (apparently growing citrus fruits was the thing to do to show how rich you were). Then I started down the walk towards the palace. The original landing point that Ludwig would have used doesn't leave any room for a ticket booth or souvenir shop, so they make the boats dock on the other end of the island. However, it's a pretty island and I passed by some German cows.

German cows

The path runs sort of perpendicular to the way the palace and gardens are set up, so you're walking along and then all the sudden you turn your head and there it is. Gorgeous. The fountains and front lawn are just lovely and then you walk up to this huge imposing edifice.

Herrenchiemsee with front lawn and fountain

Gardens, fountains, and palaces, oh my!

The Fama fountain

Now I have seen Versailles. I have been through that palace, and all over it's grounds. I am here to tell you, Herrenchiemsee is more elaborate, more ornate, more over the top. Ludwig's King's Bedroom and Hall of Mirrors are better than the originals. When you come in, you're in this large foyer with a double staircase. He wanted it to resemble the room in Versailles with all the different types of marble (which it does), but instead of using marble, he used this stucco stuff that's actually more expensive than the real deal. Only the floors are actually marble. Then you go through the first and second antechambers which have these huge crystal chandeliers. Each one weighs over half a ton. No worries though, they're each being held up by a golden angel. The King's Bedroom is magnificent. The gold leaf alone took 7 years to finish. Everything is gold. It's just dazzling. Strange thing though: Ludwig never used it. He lived in the palace for like a week (remember it's still not finished) and he chose to live instead in a second apartment he had built for himself. I personally would not be able to resist sleeping in that bed. How you could build that room and not sleep in it is beyond me. Maybe he was crazy after all. Anyway, the Hall of Mirrors is unbelievable too. It's longer than the original, has more chandeliers than the original, and is just more sparkly than the original. All of the chandeliers are lit with candles, and it took a crew of servants about half an hour to light them all. Ludwig never bothered having a banquet in here; he only had the candles lit for himself. Unlike the original Ludwig also had the ceilings covered in paintings. The artist suggested painting Ludwig as Helios, but he refused and made him change it to Louis XIV. He was rather finicky about this being a french palace. He wanted very few references to Bavaria and there are no portraits of him in the entire building. His own apartments are nothing to sneeze at either. Gorgeous, but not quite on the scale of the official rooms.

After the tour, I went into a special exhibit on Ludwig II's life and castle building. They showed some stuff about his childhood which was kind of fun. For one Christmas, his grandfather Ludwig I gave him a block set of some famous castle so he could build it and commented in a letter that his grandson "already shows great skill and taste in construction". There's also a miniature bayonet that was made for him so he could start military training when he was seven. They also showed a typical weekly schedule he would have had as a kid. Literally every minute of every day was planned out for him, even when he was on vacation. They had a lot of stuff about the war with Prussia and then Bavaria losing its sovereignty. I have to admit, I lost interest in this part. I've just never been that interested wars and battles. The next room however was great. They had computer animations showing how Neuschwanstein was built and virtual tours of some of the rooms he had planned but been unable to finish. They also had a virtual tour showing another castle that he had planned but never started. It was really cool to see, especially after having just been there.

The back lawn, which was the original entrance

Taste the rainbow! My afternoon snack

This palace is known as the "new palace" because there's also an Augustinian monastery on the island which had served at one point as a royal home (the "old palace"). So I went over there and walked through it. Very boring, sorry to say. Only about three rooms were still as they were when Ludwig would have been there: his bedroom (very plain), his living room (also rather plain), and the dining hall. The dining hall was kind of cool in that the walls were painted with portraits of various Roman emperors. The rest of the building is a museum with some stuff about WWII that I did not understand, and a lot of paintings by a local artist who apparently enjoyed painting naked women.

I still had a few hours before the last boat left the island (to be followed by a two hour wait for my train) so I started walking around. There are paths all over the island taking you to different look out points and the like. My first destination was a really old church that is apparently one of the oldest in Germany. Who knew. It was tiny so I'm pretty sure only about 15 people could have attended at any given time. 20 if they were all very skinny and sat very close together. I then walked down to the other end of the island to a pretty little spot called Otto's Ruhe (Otto's resting spot) where I rested for a few minutes. Then it was time to head back to the dock, passing by Herrenchiemsee one last time.

The extremely old and extremely tiny church

Otto's Ruhe

Herrenchiemsee in the late afternoon sun

The original entrance as seen from the boat as we were leaving

Then it was a boat ride and several train rides home. What a weekend. I wish we had castles in the US. Democracy is great, but if you don't have a king, there's no one to build a castle. The white house just isn't the same. If the government is so intent on wasting money, the least they could do is waste it on something beautiful.

Ascension Weekend Part 2

2011-06-05T16:42:00.000-04:00

Here we go with Part 2 of my Ascension weekend adventures. Go back one post to read the first part and then you'll be caught up. Part 3 to follow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fussen

Ok, at some point in all this you are asking yourself, wait, this is a 4-day weekend, why is she only doing two days? There's a fairly simple answer though as usual I will spend a paragraph explaining it. I had planned three days with a day at Linderhof, another of Ludwig's castles. However there were absolutely no hostels available for Friday night. Not one in all of Bavaria. So I cut out Linderhof. Then when Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau only took a few hours I started to think Linderhof might be back on the table. Alas neither bus nor train could be induced to cooperate, leaving me with an empty afternoon in Fussen.

It's not a large town (ok, it's pretty darn small), but like most it is filled with signs promoting its points of interest. So I started going down the list. The cathedral is a real gem. Quite unexpectedly given the size of the town and the plain exterior, the doors open to reveal a light airy chapel with the most beautiful ceiling. Almost everything inside is white, except for the organ, the altar, and the ceiling. The ceiling is decorated with paintings ranging from biblical scenes to important bishops reading to small angelic children. The color immediately draws your eye upward. It's amazing I didn't bump into anyone as I circled around with face up at the ceiling. The gold and marble organ is something to behold as well, though at the moment they're fundraising to have some apparently much needed repairs done.

As I wandered on I came across the ruins (and I mean, literally only the front and half of one tower were not yet caved in) of an old castle that must have once been quite pretty with its double staircase and fountain.

The poor ruined castle

Next door is the town castle/fortress/monastery. Part of it is now an art museum with I did not go in seeing as I'm a cheapskate, but the roof garden and tower are free. The tower is maybe six stories high but it has great views of the lake/river and mountains.

One time monastery, then fortress, then castle of sorts

View from the tower

I love the color of the water

Also of note: an old creepy cemetary in which the graves are facing in all different directions. I felt weird even walking on the path, like I might be unwittingly stepping on somebody. I found a gelato place and got tiramisu gelato. Be jealous. I also came across a random jazzband on a street corner. (Name that tune: Cause I ain't got no-boooood-dy! .... I am so sad and loooone-ly!) My feet were officially not happy campers by that time so I started following the signs for the youth hostel.

The signs said this was important

From the bridge over the river, such a pretty area

My first youth hostel experience began with me walking into a lobby full of screaming children. I got checked in at the desk no problem where I also learned that besides the youth dorms they also offer private rooms for families. I swear the kids were running up and down the halls yelling at the top of their voices continuously for the next 4 and 1/2 hours. If my sister and I had ever even thought of making half as much noise as these children, I would not be alive today to tell you how awful these brats were. I was beginning to fear for my sanity (and my ability to sleep) when suddenly at 10 everything went silent. Thank god for enforced quiet hours! Other than that, it went great. It was very clean. I shared a room with five other girls one of which was from Canada. It was nice getting to speak English for once. The others were Asian, so they didn't say much but were very nice. The bathrooms were not my favorite (smallest shower I have ever seen) but high pressure, hot water makes life better. Free breakfast in the morning didn't hurt either. All in all I had a nice afternoon in Fussen and a good first hostel experience.

This is what I woke up to the next morning!

Ascension Weekend Part 1

2011-06-05T15:32:00.000-04:00

Thursday was Ascension, a national holiday in Germany. Because it falls on a thursday, friday is sort of a holiday too. Four day weekend, woohoo! (Side note: school was still in session on Friday, which I know because a whole bunch of high schoolers got on the train out of Fussen with me and then deboarded a few stops later in front of a large building). Anyway, I used my holiday to go castle-hopping. First Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau, both near Fussen Germany, on Thursday and then Herrenchiemsee near Prien on Friday. There so much to talk about so this is going to be a three part posting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I love traveling by train, watching the scenery glide by your window. You get a wonderful feeling for what a country looks like when you travel by train. They're so convenient in Europe too. I left Paderborn at a quarter to 8 on Wednesday evening, so I got about 2 and 1/2 hours to see by.

Germany is so beautiful. Sparse pine forests cover the somewhat ungently rolling foothills of the mountains. Quaint villages nestle between the folds of the land looking in all probability just as they did a hundred years ago. When night came and I could see nothing more, it was as if the lights had just come on at the end of a movie.

When I finally arrived in Fussen the next morning I was exhausted, freezing, and dying to find a bathroom. (For the record, there are free public WC's at the Fussen train station and at Hohenschwangau). The bus to Hohenschwangau (the town) was pretty short (3.80 for a two way ticket, saving you about 50 cents), and the bus driver was super nice about my butchered pronunciation. Correct way: Hoshvangow. Traveler's Tip: get the royal ticket and see both castles. It doesn't take that long to do them both and Hohenschwangau is just as deserving. Also, go early. Most of the large tour groups come in the afternoon, but there were no lines when I got there. Sadly, no pictures inside the castles (this is becoming a recurring theme).

You have to do a guided tour to see the castles and they assign you to a tour based on your language of choice. It was great getting to be an American tourist amongst other American tourists for a while. Plus the tour guides spoke very clearly so I can tell you a whole bunch of neat stuff.

First a little history lesson. Hohenschwangau literally means the High Swan District. According to ancient legend, this is the Swan Knight's lake. Considering the fairy tale is of French origin, I think this a whole bunch of medieval hooey, but if there really were some medieval knights who built a castle here and were known as the Schwangau knights. The castle was called Schwanstein and swans later became a symbol of the Wittelsbach family (Ludwig II's family). Ludwig II is also sometimes called the Swan King. Anyway, the Schwangau knights died out by the mid-1500s, the castle switched hands several times (and fell into major disrepair), and King Maximillian II of Bavaria scooped up the property and built Hohenschwangau on the ruins. Max and his wife Marie had two sons, Ludwig and Otto. At 23, Otto (the younger son) developed a mental illness (probably schizophrenia). Ludwig became king at 18 when his father unexpectedly died of illness following a trip to Italy. His grandfather was still alive by the way, but he had abdicated the throne ages ago to let his son do all the work while he enjoyed retirement. Ludwig II built (or started to build) some of Germany's most famous castles and palaces. For obvious reasons I'm a major fan. He was also good buddies with Richard Wagner. Anyway, after he lost the war with Prussia, he got demoted. He was still King, but because Bavaria was no longer a sovereign nation, it really didn't matter. He responded by spending inordinate amounts of money to build his fantasy castles. The bank threatened to seize his properties, but the government sort of stepped in. They got a foreign doctor who had never even met Ludwig (they didn't even use one of the doctors who were tending Otto) to declare him "crazy", sent out an official proclamation telling everyone he was not fit to rule and formally deposing him, and they forced him to leave Neuschwanstein and come to Munich. The next day he was mysteriously found dead by the lake. No cause of death. Otto already being on the not-allowed-to-rule-the-country list, their uncle Luitpold ruled as Prince-Regent for 18 years until he died. His son Ludwig then took over and got the government to make him King instead of poor, crazy Otto (who at least got to keep his titles until he died). Draw your own conclusions.

Hohenschwangau, from the town below

The main entrance into the court yard

Ya'll know I have a thing for funny statues

Neuschwanstein, coming through the clouds,
as seen from Hohenschwangau

Anyway, Hohenschwangau is where Ludwig grew up when the family wasn't in Munich. He spent a lot of time there as an adult as well. The family still owns this castle, and to my mind it's more of a "real" castle, a little more authentic. They have a lot of the original furnishings and decorations and stuff. The walls are covered in murals (depicting a variety of things but frequently the story of the swan knight) that still have all their vivid color because Maximillian had the good sense to have a clear protective coating applied on top of the paint. Apparently the way they lived was the queen had her floor, the king had his directly above it, and they put the kids in a separate building. Nice right? Max travelled to Turkey and loved it so much that he had his wife's bedroom fitted up with columns and Turkish-style decor so she could experience it too. He was very romantic: in his bedroom he had stars on the ceiling with tiny crystals so the stars would glow if you put a candle on the floor at night. Sound strange for a guy sleeping on a different floor than his wife? No worries: there's a secret door in the king's bedroom that leads down to the queen's. Most of what I marveled at though were the ornate pieces they had on display. Gigantic solid gold centerpieces, silver replicas of famous fountains, an ivory and gold cabinet with the coat of arms of each Bavarian district. One of the Russian czars gave Ludwig a cross for his chapel made entirely out of lapis lazuli. Someone gave Luitpold (the uncle) a gold statue of Diana the huntress on a green marble mountain because he like hunting.

I had some downtime before my next tour, so I wandered a bit, looked around the shops and such. Then after buying my mommy a present (it's a surprise! so she'll just have to guess) I started up the mountain. This is no wussy hill. This is a mountain and it is quite a trek. It's not very far, but it is very steep. Either bring a water bottle with you or be prepared to pay for the shuttle or horse-drawn carriage. I was especially glad to have my water bottle after I decided to go see Mary's Bridge. What can I say, my parents have raised a hiker. I'm sure it has magnificent views, but it was so cloudy all I saw was white. Down in the ravine some 150-200 ft below us (my mother would have hated this bridge), there was a nice waterfall. You can get an even better view of the waterfall if you go down a gazillion stairs to this sort of lookout point. I was quite glad I went down the stairs until I started to go back up them again.

Hohenschwangau from the bridge (it was really really foggy)

The waterfall, from the bottom of the gazillion stairs

Apparently this is the thing to do.
I however refrained because I am a girl scout
and I leave nature the way I find it.

Clouds were pretty much the order of the day. They made it somewhat difficult to get good pictures. It did add to the whole fairy tale aspect of it all though. Neuschwanstein is literally like walking into every fairy tale you've ever heard. The windows of one room were open and some clouds billowed in: I seriously felt like I was in heaven. God, if you're taking requests, I would like my room to look like Neuschwanstein. The sad thing with this castle (and most of the castles Ludwig built) was that it was never finished. Ludwig only lived there 172 days and he never saw it without scaffolding. The parts that he did finish are beyond description though. The throne room looks like a Byzantine church and its floor has a mosaic with over 2 million tile pieces. There's no throne though; it never got built (stupid stingy government). The Singing Hall is also amazing. The walls are painted with murals telling the story of Perzival the Grail King (the father of Lohengrin the Swan Knight). Actually most of the walls in the castle are depicting the story of somebody. St. George and the Dragon was clearly a favorite. The king's bedroom is probably my favorite room. It took a team of woodworkers 4 years to finish all the carving in that room alone. You can see into his bathroom and it gives new meaning to "the porcelain throne". It literally looks like a wooden throne with a leather seat except that there's a lid. That's the other thing about Ludwig: he liked his modern conveniences. The whole castle was built with modern plumbing (for the time), electric lighting, and central heating. He also had a telephone, but the only place he could call was the post office since nobody else in Bavaria had one. He also had a state-of-the-art kitchen and a nifty way of calling his servants. He would press a button which would sound a bell in the servants' waiting room and turn on a light telling them where to go. Not bad for the 19th century. I spent most of the tour with my mouth open; Ludwig had a flair for the ornate. It's sad he didn't really get to enjoy it. I mean, he built a fake grotto complete with waterfall for the acting out of of Wagner's operas, and it never got used. He never saw a performance in the Singing Hall. He never got to hold a banquet there. He never even got to finish building the thing, let alone decorating it. The guy created something beautiful but never got the chance to see his vision come to life.

It was not this hard to see I swear,
but my camera skills are lacking.

The front entrance to the castle

Around noon the clouds dissipated a bit and
I got a better view of the castle from the town below

Before we feel too bad for him though I will tell you this funny story. He and the sister of Empress Elizabeth of Austria (Empress Sisi), Sophie, had a thing for like forever. They got engaged and then after 8 months he broke it off. By mail. Without a reason. Can you imagine? "Dear Sophie, It's over. ~Ludwig". Jerk. This may have contributed to the insanity accusations. Oh and the cinematic romance between him and Sisi? Completely made up.

Wewelsburg

2011-06-01T10:43:00.000-04:00

Sorry I'm running a little behind on the posting so if you want pictures you're going to have to look on facebook.

Last Saturday I went to Wewelsburg castle. It's not super well-known, but it's actually Germany's only triangular castle (or so the brochure says). I mainly went because it's a castle and it's only a short bus ride away. I took the bus from the Paderborn train station to Wewelsburg, which was really only a fifteen or twenty minute ride though the website said thirty. It's in a tiny little village, very quaint. The castle is not hard to find (when I say village I mean it) but if you're having trouble look for the church. For 3 euros you can go in the castle/"historical museum" and the SS museum in the carriage house next door is free. Grand total for bus rides and museum entrance: 14 bucks. Not bad at all.

The castle museum is really neat. It's not just about the history of the castle itself, but also about the history of the area. It's all in German, so I just sort of looked at stuff and got the gist of things. There were some cool old sculptures and portraits, some processional dolls from the middle ages, lots of old swords, and some stuff about the history of the city of Paderborn. Apparently at one point in the 1400s there was a terrible fire in the large tower of Wewelsburg. Also, apparently the area is known for wrought iron work, glass blowing, and wheat. And apparently the rhino is a symbol for the area because apparently at some point there were rhinos in the rhineland? I don't really know on this one, but there were some bones arranged to fit a picture of a rhino on a wall. I also got to see the dungeons and the interrogation room where the bishops held witch trials.

The SS museum is fairly depressing. This actually has some stuff in English so I understood quite a bit more. Himmler decided Wewelsburg was going to be a sort of West Point for SS leaders and was trying to use it to give the SS some sort of historical validity. Now for the record, this castle was built for the Paderborn bishops. It has never had any knights. The moat was never filled and has never had any military value. But Himmler came in and made a bunch of fake stuff, knights' armor, shields, swords, china sets, old-looking books, etc, with the swastika on them. I mean, the shear volume of stuff they had impressed me. The townspeople actually began to believe that the SS leaders were indeed descended from some ancient royal line. The Nazis effectively changed history. Apparently this museum is partly intended to wipe out some remaining beliefs in this myth. The nice thing about the SS museum though is you walk through the dry moat which they've fitted up as a garden to the large tower to see two of the rooms Himmler had started to renovate. They never got to finish and no one's even sure how they intended to use the rooms. The main floor has a bunch of columns and they think it might have become a meeting room. The "keller" or crypt below ground is just down right spooky. For a long time there were rumors that the nazis had made some kind of valhalla down there but it's just a domed ceiling with stone walls and floors. The whole place echoes like crazy (you can hear people breathing) and in the center there's an indent where they think the nazis had intended to put an eternal flame. I didn't spend a lot of time there.

It was definitely worth it. If you can read German, I think you could easily make this into a nice afternoon. If you're like me and you just look at the pictures, it's about 2 hours worth. I went back to Paderborn for lunch where I got some delicious fish and chips.

More Odds and Ends

2011-05-29T16:21:00.000-04:00

So here's some more random little pieces for you.

Uni Paderborn does not have any school colors or an official team mascot. Dr. Tiemann did remember that occasionally a rhino is used on school pamphlets on the like, but maybe 1 of every 200 students knows this. I was like, what do you mean you have no school colors?? I can understand no mascot (sort of), but you have got to have a color scheme. Nope. What do your teams wear? No teams. Germany (and really the rest of Europe too) do not have collegiate sports. They have club teams and intramurals and the like, but no official school teams. Very different system.

Windows here open in two directions. Turn the handle sideways and it swings open like a cabinet door. Turn the handle up and it leans in from the top, to form an opening of about 3 in. Turn the handle down and it locks in place.

Everything shuts down on sundays. I complained about this when I was in France, I'm complaining about it here, and I will probably complain about it somewhere else. I'm sorry, but it's not like they're all in church all day or something. The least you could do is have the grocery open for reduced hours so I can go get fresh bread. Geez. Also, the whole town shuts down at about 6. Literally every thing is closed except the movie theater and there is no one around.

It stays light here until like 10:30 and the sun rises at like 5 am. I've never thought about it before, but people talk about "the dark Georgia night" as just so encompassing. I guess if you're used to this, the southern US would seem to have a very deep shade of night.

I've tried a few sodas over here. Mezzomix is pretty good. I'm not sure if I've only been getting the orange flavor (like Cherry Coke) or if that's what Mezzomix is: a coke-like soda with some orange flavoring. I was also in the grocery store and saw "The Spirit of Georgia: Traditional Refreshment". (It also clearly says "Made in Germany"). It comes in two flavors, Blood Orange, and Peach-Lime. I felt compelled as a person actually from Georgia to try both and test the validity of their claims. Neither would I call a "traditional refreshment", at least not traditional to Georgia, but that said both were pretty decent. The Peach-Lime is better than the Blood Orange.

Universities in Germany are almost never campuses. They're usually a conglomeration of different buildings around a city or an area. Steffi tells me that where she did her undergrad, the science buildings were located a full 30 minutes away from the university offices. Uni Paderborn is apparently very much a special case in that it is a campus university. However, it is still not a residential campus the way you see in the US. In the US, most college students live in on-campus housing of some kind, with the rest in nearby off-campus housing, and commuter students being the minority. At Paderborn, they do have 2 campus "dorms" (loosely defined here), but the vast majority of students live around the city or commute from home. Two of the guys I work with come from small towns about 20-30 minutes away so they just live at home and commute. This accounts for the fact that the mensa only serves lunch and even the snack bar is closed by 4.

Where I live

2011-05-25T13:25:00.000-04:00

Dr. Tiemann teaches an experiment-based intro chem class. He's about to drop an egg onto a bowl of silica gel that theoretically will absorb the impact, leaving the egg intact. I say theoretically because his aim was a little off and the egg cracked on the side of the bowl.

This is the front entrance to the school. It's more or less one interconnected building, with many offshoots. The giant letters? Markers so you know which section of the building you're in. It goes through P as far as I can tell. The school was started in the 70s but they've added on and renovated several times.

No campus is complete without an army of bicycles.

The main walkway which I use to get home.

My apartment house, Mallinckrodtstr. 60.

My room. You can see my bed in the corner. To the left of the desk is a bookcase and behind the camera is my closet.

My bathroom. Small, but clean.

Pictures of the lab/groupmates forthcoming.

Experiments in Laundry, Internet, and Climate Change

2011-05-25T12:58:00.000-04:00

None of these topics are particularly related to each other, but none of them really deserve their own post either. So bear with me.

Laundry is something of a milestone when traveling. Lots of people travel, especially domestically. Being away from home is really not that alien a concept. Most people at some point in their life will have to pack a suitcase or duffel bag or whatever and spend at least a few days somewhere besides home. That's the world we live in. Vacation probably accounts for most travel, be at during the holidays or simply some time off. However there's a difference between traveling and going someplace on vacation. That difference is laundry. If you're not gone long enough to need to do laundry, you're not really traveling. You're just visiting. Laundry anywhere but home can be tricky, but in a foreign country it takes on an extra challenge.

When I was in a home-stay in France, I had to ask my host-mom about when I could do laundry, and how to use the washer, and where is the non-existent dryer, etc. David is staying in a hotel, which means he has two options: laundry in his sink or laundry at the possible laundromat somewhere by the train station (he chose the first). I suppose if you are not on a student budget you would probably be in a hotel with laundry service but I digress. For me, this meant going to the office at the designated laundry-token-selling time to get laundry tokens from the nuns. They were very nice, but they don't speak english. We sort of gestured back and forth for a bit, and finally I got what I wanted (3 tokens) and they got what they wanted (euros). They also wanted information. I could tell I was going to be the topic of discussion that night at dinner at the convent. All they could really get from me though is Studentin, Chemie, Studentin, USA, Atlanta, Ja. I have no idea if I answered the questions they asked, but I answered. Of course, that still left me with the problem of how do I use the machines...

The laundry room is in the basement and has about 6 washers and 4 dryers. I swear, I thought my mom's washer/dryer set had a lot of options. No. These things are old and crickety and they put hers to shame on the options count. I have no idea what I chose; I just went with what appeared to be the most popular settings . For all I know I chose everything wrong, but it worked. My clothes are clean. The dryer took forever (almost 2 hours straight), but I didn't have to pay for it so I don't care. I used the free sample of Spee laundry detergent I got, and I approve. I did not dry my jeans because that's iffy at home let alone with a dryer I don't know, so I hung them to dry in my closet.

Internet. Oh the internet. Nothing is ever as simple as it appears to be. You know how I said I bought a month's worth of internet? I was wrong. I bought the starter set which comes with 10 euros worth of internet time. Which of course I've already gone through because it was set to the daily rate. Oops. So I went back yesterday and bought 15 euros worth (with the help of a very nice british woman) and have set it to the monthly rate.

People talk about jet lag and being up at all the wrong hours and not being hungry at the right times. BS. I got over all that after like a day and a half. The thing that kills me is the climate. It is not only much cooler here, it is also much much dryer. I know, I know, I'm from the South. I'm used to ridiculous amounts of humidity; I'm not a good judge. I'm not kidding, this is comparable to when I've been on vacation (we didn't have to do laundry) in the Rockies. I'm using chapstick like there's no tomorrow and I think I'm actually getting the doctor's recommended daily water intake for once in my life. Maybe as it gets more towards summer it'll get better?

First Weekend

2011-05-24T06:57:00.000-04:00

I've had my first weekend in Germany. For the record I plan on utilizing each and every one of my weekends to its fullest potential. This weekend was a Paderborn weekend.

Saturday David and I met up at the HNF computer museum. According to the brochures, it is the world's largest computer museum. Personally, I'm inclined to think it is probably also the world's only computer museum, but you never know. I fully intended to take pictures, but then completely forgot except for one picture of a Jacquard loom. My apologies.

Jacquard loom: it actually worked and everything!

It (the museum) really was huge though. It took the two of us three hours to get through the whole thing, and we couldn't even read any of the descriptions. If you know German, you could easily spend the whole day there. There was a lot of neat stuff. Remember when I took that History of Science and Technology class? Well, this was kind of like taking a walk through that text book. They also had an impressive collection of old cell phones, calculators, and computers. (Remember the original Macintosh?) They had a lot of cool newer technology in there as well that you could play around with. There was this one were you sat down and it scanned your face and then you picked a famous portrait and background for it to put your face on. Not that cool? Try doing it only using your eyes. It was really hard to control so I know have pictures of myself as Lara Croft on a beach and Napoleon Bonaparte on the startrek set. I would share but they're just print outs so you'll have to wait until I have a scanner again.

After lunch, we went to Schloss Neuhaus, the castle in Paderborn. It's not terribly big, but then neither is Paderborn. It's in very good condition overall. There's a small, free-entrance museum, but you can't go into the rest of the building. The gardens were nice though.

Schloss Neuhaus, as seen from the back, with garden

Yesterday, David found a cineplex that was showing the new pirates movie in english, so we went to go see it. We had to see it in 3D, which ordinarily would have meant more money, but we had accidently stumbled upon their monthly Ladies Night. We got funny looks for paying seperately, but we only had to pay 8 euros instead of 9. Woohoo. The movie itself? Not bad. I rank it above the 2nd and 3rd pirates movies but it's not as good as the original.

Foosball

2011-05-22T07:20:00.000-04:00

Foosball: Traversing Language Barriers One Game at a Time.

Friday afternoon the guys (Christian, Simon, Dominik, and Thorston) invited me to join them for a little after lunch foosball. Over in the chemical engineering building there's a foosball table and a ping pong table that they frequent. I am sadly out of practice and definitely the worst player. I lost every single game. Terribly sad, but I'm sure I'll get better. The wonderful thing about foosball is that you don't need to talk to enjoy it. A lot of the time people just talk in German which I don't understand, so I sort of zone out. The conversation naturally tends to just sort of bypass me because I have no idea what they're talking about. Thorston chides me and tells me I need to complain more because they need to practice their english anyway. Mostly though it just doesn't bother me enough. Foosball however is the exception. Cries of delight and moans of despair are pretty much universally understood. We can all play foosball and no one needs a translation to be a part of what's going on. We laughed and teased each other about times when the goalie accidently knocked the ball into his own goal or when the kickers in the middle bounced the ball back to the other team. Foosball is great, and I may like soccer just a tiny bit more because of it.

Lunch

2011-05-20T17:33:00.000-04:00

I think I mentioned before that we have lunch together in the mensa (dining hall) everyday as a group. Well, after a week of school lunches I've come up with a few conclusions.

1.) I intend on buying lunch a majority of the time. It's 2 euros for whatever you can fit on your plate from either of the two main lines, and at 10 euros a week, I can't really do any better.

2.) German students eat slightly better food than American students (at least at all the schools I've attended), but it's essentially on the same level. The food really isn't that bad at all. I didn't care for the meatloaf too much, but I've never been a huge fan of meatloaf. The fried tilapia filet I had today was probably my favorite so far.

3.) Trends: Germans have a lot more sauce-based meals. They also eat more rice, which is fine with me because I like rice. I just don't put pepper on it the way they do. (No salt, just pepper). They also eat this white lumpy dessert stuff that I'm slightly scared to try, but considering how many of them eat it almost everyday I think I'll have to. I got up the nerve to ask what it was and I think it may be some kind of rice pudding.

4.) I've also gotten to observe the crowd of Uni Paderborn students eating lunch. They mostly look like the crowd you would see at Russell House. Slightly preppy on average, and with more scarves. Part of the differences I think are seasonal, but others are just Europe vs. America. Mostly though people are wearing the same sorts of tops and jeans people wear back home.

5.) I'm not sure where this comes from but for whatever reason the stereotype is that most Germans are blond. I'm going to go ahead and call this myth Busted. I probably have the lightest colored hair of anyone in our group, minus Dr. Tiemann who is actually blond, and definitely most everyone I see around has darker hair. Brunettes are by far the majority.

6.) I knew this before but I thought I'd reiterate for those who are unfamiliar with europe: they cut up everything. They use a fork and knife on every item on their plate that does not require a spoon. Even french fries. Absolutely hysterical. I'm doing my best to fit in, but I feel awkward. I kind of hope the mensa serves sandwiches or burgers or something like that one day just so I can watch them cut it up.

Chapter 3: In which I wander around aimlessly

2011-05-20T17:04:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a fairly normal day as far as that goes. The silica gel stuff takes a while to make, which means that as of right now I'm not doing a hell of a lot in the lab because that's all I'm doing. So I'm slowly going through the literature they've given me to read. It's boring. I can't help it. The project sounds very interesting and I'm excited to get to work, but reading papers is awfully dull. At least they're in english. After work I walked back to the apartment to drop off my backpack and then headed downtown to just sort of meander. I'm pretty good at meandering. Saw lots of pretty buildings, passed by the town hall, and such.

One of the main streets in the town center

"Paderborner Rathaus": Town hall

I was just thinking to myself, "I wonder where the church is. There's got to be at least two or three around here," when I heard the bells chiming. So I let my ears lead me and I walked straight into an open square with a modern art museum, a fountain, and three churches. Good job cantwell. After ensuring that my phone was on silent I slipped into the "dom", or cathedral. Based on my limited understanding of german and the pictures, it looked like it had be destroyed (and I do mean flattened) several times. Each time the people just sort of got together and built it back up again. Only a few sections are still in stone, but many of the altars/side chapels/sculptures/etc had been saved. Really I was surprised at how much of the older pieces had survived the wear of time (and bombs) considering it was built in the late 700s. A small mass was starting in the crypt (which I gather is where they have their smaller services) so I got to hear the organ reverberating through the cathedral. Just beautiful. The cathedral by the way holds the relics of St. Liborius. The church across the street has the shrine and relics of St. Ulrich.

Fountain in square, you can see the cathedral in the background.
The weird looking building is the Diocesan museum.

Another look at the cathedral

I then started to wander back and became intrigued by the large stone wall that bordered the sidewalk I was using. So I followed in around until I found a gate. The wall went so long without interruption I was beginning to get a "secret garden" kind of feeling from the pine trees sticking up of the wall. Not exactly a secret garden, but perhaps a holy one. I had found the local convent. It's possible that's where the nuns who run my apartment building live. Oh yes, my place is run by nuns. I'm not allowed to have visitors after 11 (and definitely no overnight guests!) and there's a cross on the wall by my bed.

A house in my neighborhood; I hope they like ivy...

I'm really not sure why there's a giant wiener.

My "secret garden" wall

Stay tuned for the next page turning adventure!

Odds and Ends

2011-05-18T17:17:00.000-04:00

Mostly these are just random happenings of today, but some random thoughts are mixed in as well.

Today after lunch there was this big give-away thing. Apparently on a semi-regular basis these people show up with dozens of boxes filled with bags and any student who walks up gets a bag full of freebies. Now like any good college student I have a built-in radar for free stuff, but generally at USC, freebies are usually flyers, chapsticks, key chains, the ever-popular coozie, etc. Oh no, this is different. They actually get free samples. From real companies. Now, there's a lot of little coupon-flyer things in the bag too but among the free stuff I got: one load's worth of Spee Black laundry detergent, BeBe "happy" body lotion sample, Loreal soft bronzing lotion, Calvin Klein "one" perfume sample, Garnier Fructis Glanz-Shampoo sample, a packet of french salad dressing, a travel size bottle of Nivea showel gel, and the March 2011 issue of Maxi magazine. Neat, huh? After we all got our bags and got back to the lab we sat around the common room going through our stuff like little kids taking inventory of their Halloween candy. Someone came across a sample for a home-waxing product. I'm not sure how he ended up getting volunteered for this but the next thing you knew, Christian (the one who picked me up from the airport) was sitting in a chair with two waxing strips on his leg. All I will say is that I can personally vouch for the effectiveness of this product. And I hope his hair grows back soon or he's going to have a funny tan. We also each got a different flavor of this carbonated juice drink and it's terrible.

Yesterday the fire alarm went off in the chemistry building. No worries, it turned out that someone had spilled something on a heater which created a lot of steam which set off the alarm. It still took 3 fire trucks, an ambulance, and 2 police cars two hours to fix everything so we could go back in. Dr. Tiemann was cold and tired of waiting outside so we followed him into his office next door and watched everything from there.

You know how everyone says that Germans are tall? Well I've decided that I'll never know. Why? It's simple. At home in the US, everyone is taller than me. Here in Germany, everyone is taller than me. I have no basis for comparison.

Carbonated water ("Sparkling Water") is the norm here. I've been warned to be careful if I buy a bottle of water because most of the time the companies don't bother to specify that it's sparkling. If I want "distilled" water, I'm going to have to drink tap, or find specifically labelled "Distilled" bottled water. The group members who haven't visited the US were surprised to hear that a) I don't like sparkling water, b) most people don't like sparkling water in the US, and c) sparkling water would be harder to find in the US. The reason all this came up was that the group has a bunch of crates of sparkling water bottles for group use. I did take one because I wanted the bottle to fill up with regular water. It's huge and more than worth the 30 cents. Isn't it weird how tastes are sometimes reversed in different cultures?

My internet works! It's slow but that's ok. I've definitely put up with worse. I had to buy a wireless stick and a prepaid simcard for it. I probably could have gotten a cheaper stick somewhere else but the Aldi had the cheapest service so as a whole it was cheapest there. Only 15 euros a month and you buy a month at a time so it's not like I'll be paying for service after I've stopped needing it. Plus I can reuse the stick again and again, so in the long run I think it'll pay off. Definitely a good option for anyone needing internet in a foreign country.

Also, I got Kinder bars at the grocery store today. I love them; I've missed them. I'm trying to figure out what it will take to get them sold in the US. If you're curious what I'm talking about google search Kinder Bueno. It was first released in Germany but it's actually made by Ferrero, the Italian chocolate company. Mmmmm yummy.

The Lab and The Group-mates

2011-05-18T16:38:00.000-04:00

I've met the whole group at this point, I think. More or less anyway. And I'm pretty sure I know everyone's name. Sort of. I can identify the two Christian's, Steffi, Dominik, Anna, Sabrina, Danielle, and Simon. And Dr. Tiemann, our boss. I'm only sort of sure who Thorston is, but I'll get there. I also feel like there's someone I'm forgetting but oh well. They're all super nice and friendly. And they do all speak some english, but they mostly speak German unless they're talking to me. My german is improving by the way. Drucken means push and ziehen means pull, which I know because all the doors at the university are labelled. Also, they call foosball "kicker" or so it sounded to me. They thought "foosball" was a pretty interesting label but I haven't the slightest idea why we call it that. This led into a discussion about how americans don't care at all about soccer. They thought it was very funny that it's sort of something we have our kids play, but when they get older most of them stop playing soccer and pick a "real sport".

Oh and the lab is beautiful. It was built only a year ago so it's brand new and shiny and pretty. It's large too and all the students have individual desk spaces. Really nice. I'll try to remember to take pictures so you can see. The other thing about this lab group is they're very close knit. Apparently we have lunch together every day in the cafeteria. (The food in the mensa is pretty good and very reasonably priced btw). Even Dr. Tiemann eats with us. He buys his food there just like the rest of us. Very cool. His english is really good too, although he has a distinctly British accent when he talks, which is kind of funny. Then, tonight a bunch of people from the group (like 7 of us) met up with David and his grad student Martin at the school pub. Yes, you read correctly, school pub. As in serves-alcohol-on-campus school pub. I just had a coke but it was fun. We sat outside and just talked and laughed for like 2 hours. I'm really happy with my group; it's going to be a fun summer.

I'll put some of my other odds and ends in another post. Tschus!

The Past Three Days

2011-05-18T07:26:00.002-04:00

I'm in Germany! Woo.

So here's how it went. I said many times that the only thing I was worried about was the first two days because I knew they were going to be beyond hectic. I was right.

I flew from Atlanta to Charlotte Sunday morning. I got to the airport way too early, breezed through security and sat around doing nothing until my flight at 11. The quick flight to Charlotte was rough, to put it mildly. I was glad of my long layover before the flight to Munich because frankly it was nice to keep my feet on the ground for a bit. Then I had the long flight to Munich which was very smooth overall. Huge plane, 10 seats across with two aisles. The bathrooms were down these stairs which I had not encountered before and which I thought was pretty neat. I watched Tangled twice (it was a long flight) as well as Megamind. I slept for a little bit but I couldn't really get to sleep for any long amount of time. I had another fairly long layover in the Munich airport. It was really very empty, at least over where I was. Very few people around. Then I got on the plane and knew why. My plane to Paderborn could not have held more than 25 people. Frankly my first impression was a school bus with wings. It was so small that we had to take a little bus over to the plane which we boarded from the outside thanks to the fold-up stairs on the plane door and I'm pretty sure the bus was bigger. I had a window seat next to a business man who was clearly trying very hard to memorize some presentation. It was only a fifty minute flight, shorter than the one from ATL to Charlotte, but unlike the US Air flight I still got a drink and a snack. The only way I can describe this thing is to say it reminded me of a chocolate-covered twinkie. Too sweet for my taste, but way better than a bag of nuts.

Arriving in Paderborn was very simple. It's a small airport, and before most of the people on our flight had even finished riding the escalator to baggage claim, the (only) carousel had started delivering our luggage. Mine was thankfully near the beginning so I only had to spend a few minutes worrying about all the many ways in which my suitcase might become lost. I had already had my passport stamped in munich, but I had never done the "customs" thing. I was beginning to wonder if they did it at all here, when a uniformed man stopped me and asked where I was from. "Atlanta?" "Ja, oo-ess-ahh?" "Ja (accompanied here by vigorous head nodding)" "OK, yoo haf anyting yoo bring vit yoo? like giffs oo pakages fyer frends?" "uh, nein" "OK, gut". And he walked away. Apparently that was customs, and I apparently passed. Yay.

Christian, a member of the group, met me at the airport. There weren't many people waiting for our plane (gee wonder why) so he was pretty easy to spot. Then we headed to his car and off to the university where we met up with Steffi (pronounced Shteffi). From there we all went to the apartment. It's Beautiful. I swear it is nicer (and larger) than any place I've lived on campus. I'm on the fifth floor (labelled 4 because it's Europe), I have my own bathroom, and everything is clean. I have sheets, a pillow, a comforter, an extra blanket, and a full set of towels. I successfully timed the walk this morning and it takes me about 3 minutes to get to campus and then maybe 7 or 8 minutes to complete the walk across campus to the chemistry building (clear on the other side of campus of course).

Yesterday we took care of some of the business-y things of living in a foreign country. Steffi took me to the registration building and then the bank. In Germany, everyone, even German citizens, have to register with the government whenever they move in or out of a town. So I'm now an officially registered Paderbornerin, with a new shiny bag that says so. It had a lot of junk in it that I'm sure would be useful information if I could read German, but the bag itself will make a good shopping bag. Note: stores in Germany do not provide bags, so bring your own! The bank was also a major stop. To receive my scholarship I must have a German bank account so they can deposit the money. This can be an issue because many banks won't open an account for you for such a short term. We may have *implied* that I was going to be in country for *slightly* longer than is actually true, but the bank woman had the dates in front of her and didn't say a word. So I'm getting a free student checking account, bare bones, no frills. I do have to wait though because the branches don't set up the account; they have to send it to the headquarters. I will eventually get a confirmation, a formal contract type-thing, and then a debit card. I'm glad this bank worked out because this is the one that has atm's on campus. Super convenient. Eventually when I get my money I will pay back Mrs. Brebeck from the international student office who paid my first rent.

Let's see what else have I done... Oh, yes, I've been to the grocery and got a small amount of food. I've eaten a doner (sort of sandwich made out of pita-like bread with meat). I can't think of much else at the moment. I'll write more about the group and the lab later. This post is already way too long. Feel free to ask questions in the comments though.

PS: we also clearly took care of my internet and I met up with David but again this post is too long so I'll tell you later.

Background

2011-05-06T15:48:00.000-04:00

A little background on this next adventure of mine. In ten days I am leaving for Germany. I'm going to be in Paderborn until July 15. The next week I will be hanging with my former and future roommate Becky in Bamberg, where she has been for a couple months already. Then I will be going to Heidelberg for two days for a conference, more on that in a bit. I leave Germany on the 26th and come home for the remainder of my summer vacation. Sound like a plan? Gosh I hope so.

So by now you're saying, Jackie that sounds delightful! But what are you doing over there for all that time? Are you doing study abroad?

Well, sort of. I'm doing a research internship through the RISE program of the DAAD (website here). It's a great program that accepts undergrads from the US, the UK, and Canada and pairs them up with PhD students in Germany. Basically how it works is they have German PhD students submit project proposals. The undergrads then apply and pick out their three favorite projects. The DAAD people then match up undergrads and projects, starting with the best students and the most popular projects. They say most everybody ends up with their first or second choice. Then they award the scholarships. The internships are different lengths so the amount you get varies, but it's a fairly ample amount. Thank you government funding! The wonderful thing is that the system is very flexible. You and your PhD student work out the dates you're going to be there (provided it's after a certain start date) and the DAAD gets the work permit taken care of for you. I'm going to be at the University of Paderborn doing research on inorganic nanoporous materials.

Another cool part of the internship is that they get all the undergrads together in Heidelberg for a couple days of conference. There are two other RISE students from USC so I think a picture in Heidelberg is definitely in order.

Oh, and no, I don't speak German. I've taken a semester, but I didn't learn much. Just the basics, but it's enough to get around. The working language will be English. I've already been in contact with my PhD student, Steffi, and her English is great. I've also gotten in touch with another RISE student who will be in the chem dept at Paderborn and he seems nice. His German is worse than mine so it should be interesting.

Hm let's see...what else...oh yeah! Accommodations. Where will I be living? Well, the University of Paderborn has dorms like most universities, but they're slightly overpriced (like most universities) and booked. So Steffi found an apartment place for me to live. It's literally across the street from the university and from what I can tell is part of the hospital grounds. A picture from Google Earth says it's the dorm for student nurses. Anyway it's a great situation. I'm pretty sure that's all for now...I'll keep you posted.

Roommate Contract

2010-08-23T19:38:00.000-04:00

USC housing has this cute little roommate contract thing to help prevent conflicts. I feel like overall it's a pretty decent thing for freshmen but at this point it's a little silly. So we were silly back. Please keep in mind that the answers are supposed to be our agreements on various issues so later in the year we can go back to this useless piece of paper and say, but look you said you were going to keep your clothes off the floor.

Academic success:

You should probably study.
Youtube does not equal studying.
4 am = not a good time for a dance party

Guest visitation:

All male visitors must be screened for worthiness. Only handsome, intelligent, funny, charming, and wealthy princes are acceptable. Others may be admitted on a case by case basis.

Sustainability:

Room temperature - we don't have control over this (this section was sort of outlined for us)
Recycling - w/e
Overall - Not important. Duh.

Bathroom Use:

Showering is recommended. Toilet paper is required. No floods please.

Cleaning Standards:

A zero-tolerance policy on all bugs of any kind will be strictly enforced. Mold is a bad sign. Spiderwebs are a worse sign. (Cuz that would be violating the zero-tolerance policy).

Behavior:

1.) No snorting pixie sticks in the apartment. (Not a euphemism).
2.) No drunken tea parties with any "mad hatters" after 3 in the afternoon. (Totally a euphemism.)
3.) Telling freshmen our apartment is the secret portal to Hogwarts will be heavily frowned upon.

Bullwinkle's Rules:

(This isn't a real section. They wanted us to talk about personal property boundaries, but that's just not funny. At the top of the page they had asked for a "head of household" so we elected Bullwinkle J. Moose)

#1: No antler jokes.
#2: The Moose Institute of Toe-dancing is a perfectly respectable source of education and should be treated as such.
#3: Frostbite Falls, MN is an excellent place for a vacation. Not really a rule, just a fact.

Miscellaneous:

No getting sick.
No failing out of school.
Coupons are free-range.

If everyone took their roommate contracts this seriously, the world be a better place.

Thoughts

2010-07-23T21:19:00.000-04:00

I couldn't think of anything original to entitle this post so I went with the blatantly obvious.

Today was...interesting. I did not go to work today. I had planned on it, but it just didn't happen. This morning Keri and I went to the Ernest F. Hollings Special Collections Library Dedication. I know, sounds excruciatingly boring right? Well, I'm not what you would call apt to attend library dedications. However, 47th Vice President of the United States of America Joe Biden was attending and if it's important enough for him to show up then it must be sort of a big deal. Fritz Hollings is South Carolina career politician who after being SC Governor went on to spend like his entire life in the US Senate. Now that he's retired, having nothing better to do, he secured $14 million of federal funds for us to put a big addition on our library. Yay! And apparently he and Biden are best buds. Whatever. So Keri and I went, and I wore my yellow dress with my super cute striped heels. Was it painful? Of course but I looked amazing. That whole deal took forever. We showed up super early so that security wouldn't have a line which was a good choice. It didn't end until like 2 and we were starved so we decided to skip the tour. It's not like we don't live here or anything. Lunch = five guys = happy place. At that point research was not going to happen for either of us.

Then we went to Keri's apartment and watched a Scooby Doo movie followed by a couple episodes of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Oh. My. Gosh. Go find an episode online because they are freaking hilarious. For those who don't know, Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose started in 1959 and moved to a weekly Sunday show on NBC in 1961 which ran until 1965. A few thoughts: I am in love with Bullwinkle. For real. Cutest character ever. And it is so educational. After a bit of the main adventure, we go to story time, followed by some poetry from Bullwinkle and a history lesson courtesy of Peabody, and then we add on a little more adventure. Perfect. And can we talk about the anti-Russian propaganda? Thank you Cold War. Holy Cow. How did any of these kids grow up not hating russians? And I swear there are several Hitler references. Frankly, I'm surprised my parents don't have some crazy paranoia about east europeans. I mean, really. Wow.

I Disagree with the Judges

2010-07-13T22:54:00.000-04:00

If you don't watch "America's Got Talent", I apologize for the rant that is to follow.

I want to reach into the television and shake the three judges and say,

WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU THINKING??????????????????/

Where do you get off supporting a 70-year-old hand-whistler?? What makes you think this a Las Vegas act? She's not doing anything. She stands on the stage, by herself, with nothing but a microphone and whistles boring songs. And you just keep repeating how "unique" and "interesting" she is. I'm sorry, but at this point in the competition I need more than an "interesting" old woman with a unique "talent". It's got to be entertaining. She's not that entertaining. And I'm really not that interested in the dirty details of her life. Frankly, if it was a choice between staying home and watching my mother quilt and going to see a hand-whistling act, I'd stay home. It'd probably be more interesting (especially knowing my mother) and it'd be free.

And, judges (specifically Howie), what's up with your extreme bias towards her? You demand that every other act on the show take their act to the next level. Dancing groups, singers, variety acts, you dismiss them all if they are anything short of step above where they were when you last saw them. That's fine, but when are you going to ask the hand-whistler to step it up? Many acts didn't even make it to Hollywood because you thought they couldn't scale it up. How is one old lady along with a microphone ever going to scale up to a big exciting Las Vegas show?

Which leads me to my next point, THIS IS NOT EXCITING. You rag on a guy juggling and jumping through hoops of fire as not being "enough" but you enjoy hand-whistling? I'd rather watch my dog sleep. She calls herself a musical act, which I see nothing wrong with, but you need to start comparing her to the other musical acts. There are much better singers, bands, etc that should go through instead of her. I'd rather watch the little kid who dresses like mozart and plays the piano. He is at least cute. And more interesting to watch.

ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MINDS???????? How did she get this far and why is she still here? Send her home! The only thing that gives me comfort at this point is that it's out of your hands. America gets to vote and I hope the public has more common sense than you. No one in their right minds would pay money, in Las Vegas, to see hand-whistling.

New Favorite Commercial

2010-06-30T17:48:00.000-04:00

I hate Geico commercials in general, but this is just too funny:

18 Continuous minutes

2010-06-28T23:08:00.000-04:00

Tonight I have a treat for you my friends. Ok not really. This is actually quite likely to be my most boring blog to date, but my wacky inner child is insisting I try it. For the nexy 18 minutes (until 11 o'clock) I will blog continuously. My thoughts laid bare for you for the next 18 minutes. Should be a fairly short post, haha.

GO GAMECOCKS! The game is on (SEVEN. NOTHING.) so expect some GO COCKS randomly interjected. Super awesome game. UCLA is getting creamed tonight.

I am not interested in seeing Night and Day. I just don't want to see another spy couple movie. It's just getting old. Mr. and Mrs. Smith, that movie that just came out with Catherine Heigle or however she spells it...about a thousand other movies/tv shows. It's just not original. I'd like to see the superhero movie fad die out too.

Another hit! Aw look at the cute kids in their gamecock jerseys! All children should wear cute little jerseys at games. It should be a requirement. Oh I love how they have to point out that Clemson and Carolina hate each other. I mean everyone at that game knew that. That dumb little blond interviewer they have was like "And you're here with your big rival, University of South Carolina, how does that make you feel?" over and over again with the clemson coach. Man she is dumb.

That's right change pitchers. Do whatever you think you need to do. We are so gonna win.

I'm not a big baseball fan. It just doesn't move fast enough for me and I don't understand all the rules. I know the basics. I can follow along well enough. I just don't get the umpires' calls most of the time. Aaand we've got our guy on third. I didn't know that we only have 1 NCAA championship. Kind of embarrassing really. Especially since UCLA has like 126 or something. Crazy. I'm not a fan of the the socks pulled up over the pants. I've seen two pitchers do that. I haven't noticed if our pitcher does it or not. What advantage does that give you? I can't really see you having a big problem with loose pants when you're pitching. Plus they're not really that loose either.

"Sharks have a week dedicated to him". I love that line. Too funny.

Oh! OMG. They're making a movie about that short story. Ok. Sorry. The short story is about this dude who ends up on this island owned by this rich dude who hunts a lot. The rich dude is really nice to him and is like showing him all his hunting trophies and stuff and then he (our protagonist) realizes that the dude brings in slaves to the island and hunts them. In opposition to hunting with him, the protagonist ends up being the rich dude's opponent in a kill or be killed hunt. Protagonist kills rich dude, happy ending. So there's going to be this movie with a dude who takes these people on a hunting trip and then they become the "game". Yes. Ok.

Blake Cooper...does not pull his socks up. Hm. You know I think everyone on UCLA's team does the sock thing. Must be a style choice. Not one I agree with. Not flattering. Although I don't like our gray uniforms. I wish we had garnet ones instead. With black pants. Yes. That would look a lot better. These just look dingy. But at least we don't pull our socks up over our pants.

Oh come on. Get them out. I don't want them to score. I want a shut out. Oh and now we're talking to the pitcher. Will he stay or get switched? Stay apparently. Come on. Pitch him strikes. Just strike him out. Yes. See he must be able to hear me through the tv afterall. Crap. Bases loaded. We need to get our act together and not run into each other so much. And Cooper's going in. Well he did a good job but I think it's time to put in a closer. Listen to me. A closer. Like I know what I'm talking about. I have officially watched way to much ESPN.

I have actually gone over by 8 minutes. Bonus!

The Jackie Cantwell Swimwear Laws

2010-06-26T23:03:00.000-04:00

I went to HI two weeks ago and I spent the past weekend at Myrtle Beach and my ability to control my comments about other people's bathing suit choices is now gone. So here are the new rules, and I expect everyone to follow them, for the general public benefit:

1.) Just because you can physically fit into a particular bathing suit does not mean it fits you properly. You should only wear bathing suits that actually fit.

2.) Bathing suits should be age appropriate. Just because they sell bikinis in the store that you shop in does not make them automatically appropriate for you. If you don't have the body for a bikini, you are not allowed to wear one. I don't care if you are "forty and fabulous" you have passed the time in your life when a bikini was appropriate.

3.) You are not allowed to wear a bikini if you're pregnant. I'm sorry, it's just wrong.

4.) For both men and women, your bottom should cover your bottom. If I can see butt crack, it's too low.

5.) Speedos are totally illegal. Not manly and not attractive.

6.) If you're going to wear a string bikini you need to double knot the strings. And that's all I'm going to say on that one.

7.) General rule of thumb, if you would not want to see someone else of your age and body type wearing that bathing suit, you shouldn't either.

10 TV Jobs I'd LOVE to Have

2010-06-21T19:43:00.000-04:00

#10: Sideline Sports Reporter. Simply because I'd do a waaaay better job than any of the bimbos that somehow get paid to go, "So, like, Brett, as the uh team captain, how do you think you're going to, um, play after halftime? Do you think you'll like play differently?"

#9: Judge on pretty much any of the major competition shows (Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, America's Got Talent). Because I'd be awesome.

#8: Camera girl for ESPN College. For the sole purpose of forcing the camera to show the band instead of the cheerleaders every once in a while. I mean, come on, if we switched uniforms, I think the band would be FAR more popular than the cheerleaders. Think about it.

#7: Taste tester for the Ace of Cakes. I know this job doesn't exist, but it totally should. It would be so delicious.

#6: I wouldn't mind taste testing for Alton Brown either.

#5: I want to design a challenge for and be a guest judge on Project Runway. Do you have any idea how epic that would be??

#4: Whatever level of Producer/Channel owner is required to control what commercials come on. I don't mind commercials if they're funny, but all those "ask your doctor about"'s have got to go.

#3: Camera man for "Planet Earth". SUPER EPIC.

For the record, the next two were super close.

#2: Show host for the travel channel. Travel the world, all expenses paid, as your job? Hell yeah I'd do that!

#1: Mythbuster. I would LOVE to be a mythbuster. Science, crazy myths, and explosives, oh my!

Super Good Day

2010-06-16T01:10:00.000-04:00

1.) Successfully adjusted to Atlanta time.

2.) I got to cuddle with my dog.

3.) Got a free coca cola at the gas station. Apparently they are very appreciative of their customers.

4.) Drove to Columbia, no problems.

5.) Went to work for a little while and was semi-productive. (inventory).

6.) Grocery: lots of yummy food, including Stouffers for dinner. Plus more dinosaur chicken nuggets.

7.) I did not get rained on during my walk back from parking Fred.

8.) I got my first paycheck as a lab assistant. That's right. I am awesome.

9.) Enjoyed america's got talent.

10.) I ordered the online textbook I have to buy for next semester and the grand total was a whopping $26. Be impressed.

Big Day in the Lab

2010-06-01T23:30:00.001-04:00

Well the boss had been gone the last two weeks (visiting researcher in Japan) and today he came back. Now I would like to remind my readers (all three of you) that we are, generally speaking, fairly productive. The problem with chemistry, science, and research in general, is that it's a lot of hurry up and wait. Emphasis on the wait. If you get too far ahead of yourself, you risk wasting time, energy, and resources (never good). So there's always a limit to how "productive" you can be in any given amount of time because you need to have some kind of results before you can move on.

So there we all are looking at our lab books and our crystals (or not, as the case may be) and trying to decide how best to make it sound like there's more than there really is. Or rather, how to show our efforts to their best advantage. Anyway. So we're all also kind of drifting around the various parts of the lab. No one wants to run into him first. But you can only be vaguely evasive for so long. The boss decides to set up individual meeting times with each of us, to discuss "where you're at" (aka what the hell you've been doing for two unsupervised weeks) and "what your next steps should be" (aka what you ideally should have already done). Guess who got to go today? Yep, yours truly.

Apparently, I'm on track. Do I now have enough to keep me busy for the next 2 years? Of course. But I managed to escape with what a grade school would call "Satisfactory". Score one for Jackie! The other side to this is that meeting with the boss is like meeting with a tidal wave. He just overflows with ideas of what you could do.

Goodbye Narnia, Hello Middle-earth

2010-05-25T23:35:00.000-04:00

I have finished the Chronicles of Narnia! Anyone who has read them knows this really isn't much of an accomplishment, but all the same I can now say I have read the whole series. And I definitely have my favorites.

First, a little background: The books were originally published in the order The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; The Horse and His Boy; The Magician's Nephew; and last The Last Battle. Now there are all kinds of scholars who argue the merits of reading them in their original publishing order. Lots of junk about how The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was clearly meant to be read first and that chronological order is really not that necessary. However, an old letter from Professor Lewis to his son mentioned a preference for the chronological order (he also said it didn't think it mattered what order they were read in). I personally like the chronological order because it makes it easier to follow some of the leaps in Narnian time.

At any rate, my favorite is The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Followed by The Horse and His Boy. The Last Battle gets third because although I like some of the beautiful imagery in the end, I'm not big on "end of the world" stories. They scare me too much and I don't have a dog to cuddle with. Prince Caspian ties with The Silver Chair. I will admit that Prince Caspian is a much better character in Dawn Treader; he's really dense in his first book, but then again so are Eustace and Jill. Magician's Nephew comes next because again the imagery is beautiful. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe comes dead last. I just don't like that one, which I hate to admit because most people like that one the best. *sigh*

Well, anyway, now I'm going to go back to Middle-earth. Parts 2 and 3 of Lord of the Rings are beckoning.

Adventures

2010-05-18T23:19:00.000-04:00

It was a cloudy day outside the GSRC. The researchers were researching. The reactions were reacting. The sonicators were sonicating. All was normal. Until something disturbed the quiet halls of academia. That something was a fire alarm.

Now the great and sage professor had told his pupils on countless occasions, "We don't do fire drills. If you hear a siren, it's real. Just get out!" So it was with great haste that the young student made her way down the winding path of the stairwell, followed closely by her confused foreign comrade, who had never heard the formidable call of the fire alarm.

With great patience the little community of scholars gathered outside their ivory tower and waited for clarification. A fire truck and a small delegation of the local police arrived, only to foster the growing curiosity of the group. Finally an agent of the Health and Safety Department was found and the scientists were enlightened. They finally learned as they filed back to their respective places of study the cause of all the commotion.

Apparently if there's too much water flow in a particular tube in the mechanics room it automatically sets off the fire alarm. Fantastic.

Summer Projects

2010-05-15T14:48:00.000-04:00

Well here I am. On campus in the summer. Another adventure is underway. I have two summer projects that I'm working on.

Summer Project 1: Reading

I've always got an incredibly long reading list, but this summer I particularly want to read the Chronicles of Narnia Series and parts 2 and 3 of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I'm taking a class next fall about Lewis, Tolkien, and Williams, and I've got a bad feeling that I'll be the only person in the class who is not fluent in Elvish. I have seen both the "regular" and the extended editions of all three movies and read the Fellowship. So I'm probably about on par with a normal person's understanding of LOTR. And trust me, that's accomplishment because last fall I didn't even know who Legolas was or how to spell Gandalf. Sad but true. Right now though I'm working on Narnia because I'm borrowing the series from my sister. I had previously read the first two but that was a long time ago, so I just reread those and today I finished book 3, the Horse and His Boy. I really don't want or need all the other people in the class shunning me as the loser who hasn't even read the Narnia series or heaven forbid be the person who hasn't read Lord of the Rings. So this is definitely getting priority on the reading list.

Summer Project 2: Don't Starve

The situation: No more meal plan. Also no freezer and limited fridge space.
The conflict: I like eating.
The solution: Microwaveable easy mac.
Haha I'm just kidding. I eat more than easy mac. I went to the grocery and got myself some bread and sandwich stuffs. And poptarts (I Looooooove poptarts). Also got a fruit bowl thing with pineapple, strawberries and kiwis. Cuz you know I've got to at least try to eat healthy. I do of course have the cosco bulk box of easy mac. Yum. I had soups but I finished those last night, so no more until I get back to the grocery. The major purchase was Jimmy Dean fully cooked sausage patties. I was leary but Mere eats the bacon all the time (she doesn't even microwave which I think is gross). As it turns out they're not bad. Yesterdays breakfast was two sausages cut up on a bagel with some cheese. Delicious. So I'm not starving yet. Dinner is still a work in progress and tonight I think I may treat myself to some Which Wich.

The Calbert Report

2010-05-05T22:51:00.000-04:00

Now go back and reread the title as "the calbear repour" if you didn't the first time.

Thank you.

First on the agenda: Where in the world is Jackie San Diego? Aka Jackie still wants to kick some people in the housing office. Stupid lazy overly complicated bureaucracy. grr. Yes I am still in my room on the 5th floor of the honors dorm and will be there until an undetermined time on one of two semi-determined dates. Becky and Casey (the suitemate) both left today so its fairly empty and frighteningly quiet. Plus the tv's gone.

Tomorrow looks to be a combination of Hectic and Tiring, with chances of Research in the afternoon. Be sure to bring along your Problem Solving Skills folks because we could get some pretty befuddling Packing storms throughout the day.

News of the weird: It seems my brain only cares to remember random factoids about specific randomly selected people. If you're not one of those randomly selected people, I seem to be capable of holding entire conversations with you without knowing your name or even how it is you know mine. A rather severe drought of name-memory was ended today when I finally stalked around facebook until I identified the poor boy.

Word of the day: vamoose. v. to depart quickly.

And now for The Bright Side, brought to you by Purex 3-in-1 Laundry Sheets! The curtains had very strange and inexplicable stains on them, in addition to looking like Kansas during the Dust Bowl. So into the wash went and now they look nice and fresh and clean.

And to end off our night, I saw a puppy going for a walk today. Good night America!

NRJ

2010-04-25T10:31:00.000-04:00

The one awesome thing to come from this stupid "let's take business french it'll be so useful" idea of mine: NRJ.com. For our last project for the class we had to pick a french company and do a presentation on it. You know, powerpoint, 10-ish minutes, not that hard. Not a lot of guidance either, but that's a different topic. I did mine on Lacoste (the little crocodile shirts). The two guys who went the same day as me made me look great cuz they didn't know about the powerpoint requirement. haha. yep.

So Friday's presentations were much more like mine and this one guy (who's name I cannot remember for the life of me) did his on this french radio company, NRJ. It started as an acronym but it's not anymore. Pronounce it like "energy" with a french accent and you'll be good to go. So get this: they have online webradio stations. NRJ Pop, NRJ Rock, NRJ Reggae, etc etc etc. Now prepare yourself for: NRJ French. Yes. A free webradio station that plays round the clock non stop music exclusively in french. Can you say AWESOME? I can.

Curse you, beautiful sunshiny day

2010-04-01T14:50:00.000-04:00

How am I supposed to get anything done on a pretty day? Worse than the internet trying to trick me into procrastination, the warm sunshine is just begging for me to nap on the horseshoe. Which I one hundred percent shouldn't do; there are far too many things that really really really ought to get done for me to go laying about and daydreaming. Humph. Maybe if I wish really hard and cross all my fingers my homework will do itself and my laundry will magically be clean and folded neatly in its drawers.

Oh I know, but a girl can dream right?

Holy Cow

2010-03-29T17:32:00.000-04:00

I decided that I was going to head off my itchy eyes right from the get-go this year and bought allergy medicine today. Now I'm a bit, uh, reluctant to spend money so I went for the cheap CVS brand allergy tablets. You got 48 tablets for the same price as the 24 tablet box of name brand whatevers. And it clearly says "For allergy relief: sneezing, runny nose, itchy watery eyes, itchy throat". Great! That pretty much covers my basic anti-allergy medicine needs right?

WRONG.

When the back of the box says "marked drowsiness may occur" they are not kidding. I have been practically asleep on my feet all day. Oops. Really glad I only took 1 instead of the recommended 2. Geez. Moral of the story: don't mess around with allergy medicine. Always put down the money for the non-drowsy kind.

Science Quotes

2010-03-26T18:00:00.000-04:00

Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions.
Evan Esar

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ...'

Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)

There are no such things as applied sciences, only applications of science.
Louis Pasteur (1822 - 1895)

hehehe.

Bummer

2010-03-15T10:49:00.000-04:00

The real problem with spring break is that it ends. Going to class again is such a bummer. I don't really mind sitting through class so much, or even the learning thing. It's the whole homework thing that has to go. Oh and the getting up part. If I could stay in my nice warm bed and learn from there, it would be much better for sure.

In other news I'm reading Fellowship of the Ring and enjoying it.

Google Trends

2010-03-07T18:10:00.000-05:00

This kind of stuff always peaks my interest.

Harry Potter reaps 5.2 times the number of searches as Lord of the Rings.

People search for "free movie" 17 times more often than "buy tickets".

Paris Hilton is 12.5 times more popular than Nicole Richie.

Katrina still gets 1.5 times more searches than Haiti.

3 times as many people searched for "physics help" than "biology help" and 1.36 times as many needed help with chemistry than with physics.

Peace Corps is most often searched for in Washington DC, followed by Madison WI and Portland OR.

Sound Familiar?

2010-03-03T22:14:00.000-05:00

You might work in lab if you're more afraid of what's on your hands before you go to the bathroom than after.

You might be a science major if your notes include the words "various math steps later".

You might be science kid if you have ever considered ditching class to go to a seminar.

You might be a chemist if your experiment would be illegal in your parents' garage.

You might be a physicist if you have ever been disappointed that your intro physics book didn't include the quantum mechanics appendix.

You might be a biologist if you have ever grown something that could wipe out an entire third world country.

You might be a science major if you think Schrodinger would be an epic name for a cat.

Or Earl and Meyer for a set of dogs.

Funny Story

2010-02-24T20:11:00.000-05:00

Ages ago in Pchem (ok like two weeks ago) I turned to my dear friend Lindsey and I said, "Dearest friend Lindsey, I have procured an apartment for us for the upcoming academic year in a most favorable location, near a park". (Now you know me better than to think I would actually say it like that but just go along with it, ok?)

So she responded, "Oh really? Do tell!"

and I said, "Oh yes. We are to have 306, of Legare."

And do you know that she very specifically neglected to tell me until just today that the apartment I had procured with so little thought happens to be the very apartment which she inhabits at this very time? I cannot even begin to tell you my surprise!

Wait...what?

2010-02-19T11:06:00.000-05:00

So my roommate considered going to the baseball game today. Then we realized that neither of us knew how to get tickets for sporting events. Because we're band kids. How sad is that?

For the forecast, I am now hoping it rains soon so I can wear my adorable plaid rain boots. Unfortunately today is far too bright and sunny to get away with wearing them.

In current events, I have a fairly busy weekend ahead of me. Volunteering as a returnee at the Study Abroad Pre-departure Q&A session today, tomorrow I'll be at a bball game in the afternoon (men's), carolina scholar weekend dorm tour at 5, immediately followed by bowling with the research group. Oh and sometime this weekend I need to do 3 lab reports. Hehehe.

Now back to the olympics...

Yay for me!

2010-02-10T22:58:00.000-05:00

Ok excuse me while I do just a little bragging: A on my first physical chemistry exam, A on my first physical chemistry lab report. Boo-yah! K so out of my class of 46 persons, I was one of 17 to get an A. Now before you all go saying, but Jackie, I thought you said this was a weed-out class. Trust me it is. Another 16 people failed the test. It seems to have been one of things where if you got it, you really got it, but if you didn't, you REALLY didn't. I've been reserving judgement as to whether or not I like pchem until this first exam, because it's all well and good to say a class isn't that bad, but until you've taken the first test, you don't really know. So I give myself official license to like pchem.

Also in the good news category, I feel rather validated in my career choice (research chemist) in that pretty much everyday I feel like I'd rather just go to research all day. You have no idea how much more productive I could be if I didn't have to go to class and do homework. Sigh. Oh and I got to watch Kristina use the UV-vis spectrometer which was pretty cool, except it was having issues. It's kind of grumpy and only likes certain people. Apparently Kristina is not one of them.

Oh and as my final good thing of the day I had hot chocolate from Starbucks and it was yummy. Thank you and good night.

Just another typical day

2010-02-05T17:23:00.000-05:00

TGIF. I'm so ready for the weekend. And check this: no lab reports this weekend, and no basketball games. I need the break. Today was a good day overall, except for the continuous downpour of rain. In business french we've moved on to marketing, which I find rather more useful than the types of french businesses and how to start a business in France. Trust me, I have no intention of ever trying to start my own business, let alone in France. Physics is still retarded. This woman just can't teach. I'm sure she knows her stuff, but her ability to teach is non-existent. However, today was cool because I made friends with this guy who sits next to me.

Research is going well. Can't really know if what I'm doing is working because I can't identify it based on XRD alone. Not being able to identify is generally a good thing, because it significantly increasing your chances of having found something new. However, this also means you have to give your samples to Mark (the crystallographer who can pretty much identify anything), which means you won't really know what they are for a few weeks at the earliest. This can make it hard to move forward. So right now it's kind of a waiting game. I also have 4 more samples that I'm in the process of cleaning in the sonicator. And by monday that will go up to 6, because I just put in 2 more reactions today.

Oh and success of the day: there's a mac in the main room that nobody uses, that is never on and I wasn't even sure could turn on. But I get tired of going to the mac in the XRD room to check email or whatever (plus I feel bad using that one cuz everyone needs it). So today I tried turning it on and was able to get it up and running, and hooked up to the internet. And I found an extra mouse for it. Score one for Jackie.

King Google

2010-02-02T22:24:00.000-05:00

Ok I might need to just invest in Google stock. I use:

Gmail
Blogger (owned by Google)
Google Earth
Google Analytics
Google Wave
Google Chrome
and of course Google the search engine

Seriously if Google decided to just stop, my life would be basically over.

Nerd Jealousy

2010-01-31T21:44:00.000-05:00

This is terribly nerdy. One of my friends changed her profile picture to a picture of her wearing her lab goggles and I was like OMG! I have to have a picture of me in goggles! So this is what I got:

Ta-da! Think of me what you will, but I don't hate this picture. Even if my glasses are a little crooked (which is kind of their normal state really).

Rainy Yucky Day

2010-01-30T14:27:00.000-05:00

Problems I have with today:

1.) It is disgusting outside. Rainy, windy, cold. Not acceptable.

2.) I'm spending most of it being uncharacteristically productive, but not in an enjoyable way. I'm doing a pchem lab report which is making me want to run into walls.

3.) I probably won't finish the lab report today and will have to spend tomorrow working on it as well.

4.) I had a peanut butter and jelly bagel sandwich for lunch that has decided to pick a fit with my stomach. My stomach is incredibly disappointed in my lunch choice and has decided to be incredibly uncooperative and distracting.

5.) I still haven't gotten my nap.

So I vote for a do-over. Today would be much better if I could erase my to-do list, change the weather, and add a happy soundtrack.

Interview Oopsies

2010-01-23T11:53:00.000-05:00

K, so I went to the Career Center and picked up (and took home) a copy of "Job Choices 2010: For Science Engineering & Technology Students" (published by www.jobweb.com) from their lobby. This morning I was perusing the obligatory article on interviewing. Every career success magazine has one and they all say the same thing. Be on time; dress to impress, but be conservative; answer questions honestly but positively, etc. What made them unusual was their inclusion of a half page section entitled "What were they thinking?" They are simply too funny so I felt I had to share. Real employers told jobweb.com that real job seekers:

came a day late for their interview
asked the interviewer for a date
talked on their cell phone in the middle of the interview
wore a prom dress to the interview
wore a sequined suit with a gold cowboy hat
brought their lunch and ate it during the interview
told the interviewer that they were only there "for practice"

And this one's a jewel:

told the interviewer: "Times being what they are, I can't be too particular, so I'm interviewing with you."

Please don't be one of these people!

Again, I didn't come up with these, so check out www.jobweb.com for more.

Normalized

2010-01-20T17:12:00.001-05:00

Another cartoon based off Pchem notes. Enjoy.

My handwriting is chicken scratch at best, so the dialogue is as follows:

Teacher: Class, this is our new student, Psi.
Sine: He looks like a nerd!
Teacher: He's not a nerd! He's been normalized. Sine, you're normalizeable; you could get normalized too if you'd just learn your calculus!
Sine: Oh yeah? Well maybe I don't wanna be an acceptable wavefunction of a system!
Etothex: Can I be an acceptable wavefunction?
Group: NO!

Degenerate Eigenfunction

2010-01-19T17:17:00.001-05:00

If you don't get the joke, please don't ask. It was based off the notes we took in PChem today and it's mostly only funny if you have taken PChem. Ok, it's probably not that funny at all. But I think it's hilarious and in the end, that's what matters. This is what happens when you take a really boring class (aka stats) immediately following an interesting one (aka pchem). More to come.

Levels of Accent Confusion

2010-01-13T18:31:00.000-05:00

I realized today that most people don't really think of having an american professor as a luxury. Most people sort of expect it, especially considering USC is an american college. I however take A LOT of mathy, sciency type classes. Mathy sciency classes tend to, but are not limited to, be taught by people from a foreign country. This often comes with a ridiculously confusing accent. So here's my handy-dandy Richter Scale of Accents:

0- No accent at all! Maybe a slight hint of southern under there but really the only thing that could confuse you is the material he's teaching.

1- Accent is so slight that you may not notice at first that they're not american. Maybe a random word here or there could throw you off.

2- Accent is definitely foreign but he/she has obviously been either taking a lot of english classes or has been here FOREVER. Shouldn't give you too much trouble but keep an eye on their grammar.

3- Accent is thick enough for you to easily identify their homeland. This one may require you to pay much closer attention to what they're saying but you should be ok.

4- Accent is thick enough to make understanding difficult. You aren't going to get every word but if you can get the gist of things you'll at least know what to study.

5- They're straight up speaking a foreign language. Good luck.

New Classes!

2010-01-12T14:14:00.001-05:00

Yippee! Oh come on now you knew this post was coming... If you're not ready, and/or not willing to put up with the following level of nerdiness, feel free to find a "cooler" blog to read. For those of you who have already joined the dark side and received your complementary cookie(s), please read on.

So there was really no point in posting yesterday on the true first day of the semester b/c I only actually had 2 classes yesterday. Mondays are a good day for me. I don't do much. I had business french for the first time yesterday morning. Should be an interesting class; we're going to be doing a wide variety of assignments, eventually including writing up our resumes french style and searching for and writing a cover letter for a real life internship that we might be interested in. Wonderfully practical and there's only 6 of us.

Physics is still not phun, but it will be less ohmygoshwhatthecrapamIsupposedtodo than last semester. I now fully know the tortures of using a clicker and CAPA. Yucky but I'll live.

I also got to stop in the research lab yesterday and now I'm all set on when I'm going in this semester.

Pchem. In chemistry major lingo, pchem is physical chemistry. It is organic's bigger, badder, older brother who likes to eat undergrads for breakfast on top of its Wheaties. The ACS (American Chemical Society) sells bumper stickers that say Honk if You Passed PChem, and assuming I survive Pchem I and II, I want one. Really though it should be ok. The professor seems really nice, doesn't have a foreign accent, and counts attendance for 5% of our grade. All desirable qualities.

Stats is a joke. This should not be a class. For real. I can't believe I'm getting 3 credit hours for this. Today he went over the syllabus and then briefly explained what a mean is, and how stem and leaf plots can help you visualize data. Which he defined for us. The only downside is that he has a REALLY thick chinese/japanese/asian accent. So I don't really know what he's saying, but according to the syllabus I've already learned everything he's going to teach.

I have chem lab for the first time tomorrow (just a recitation) and phys lab on thursday. Yippee!

Too True

2010-01-04T10:59:00.001-05:00

Nobody will ever win the Battle of the Sexes. There's just too much fraternizing with the enemy.

~Henry Kissinger

Oh Steve...

2010-01-03T13:19:00.000-05:00

"a sad, sad effort" is a bit of an understatement, don't you think? The band showed up. We were so cold we could barely play. The cheerleaders showed up. They were at least in the sun, but they only had jumpsuits to keep them warm. We at least had layers. 30,000 fans showed up. We gave them more than a homefield advantage. Everyone came but the football team.

They had four days of practice out there. They were in great hotel right by the stadium. They had heaters on the field to stand by if they got too cold. They had all the equipment they were used to. In short, they had every possible advantage. But, once again, our team is just not capable of winning a bowl game.

Next year they'd better do well and take us to the Chick-fil-A bowl so at least when they epically fail, the fans will be warm and dry!

Quote Day!

2009-12-29T16:54:00.000-05:00

How can one conceive of a one party system in a country that has over 200 varieties of cheese?

Charles de Gaulle

French general & politician (1890 - 1970)

Manatees!!

2009-12-22T12:42:00.000-05:00

"Barbara Manatee, manatee, manatee, You are the one for me, one for me, one for me, Sent from up above, up above, up above, You are the one I love, one I love, Oh Barbara!" ~Silly Songs with Larry, Veggie Tales

Sometimes referred to as sea cows, manatees are infinitely amusing water mammals, but that's pretty much all I knew by myself. Oh and they live in marshes, which is bad for them because boats come through the shallow waters and hurt the manatees. Well, my interest in manatees was recently renewed when a friend of mine posted some manatee pictures from a recent dive.

Here I bring you the knowledge gleaned from my questions to Caleb, marine science major, and manatee semi-expert:

He doesn't know what's up with the eyes, but the nose plugs keep poor Barbara Manatee from breathing in water. He also tells us that manatees are fairly friendly, if a little slow. They tend to be curious or indifferent to the presence of people, and enjoy having their bellies scratched.

Our outside research (aka Wikipedia) adds that they are grazing herbivores and are endangered. They have no natural predators but as I mentioned before they get hurt by boat propellors.

Save the Manatees!

Machu Picchu

2009-12-20T13:27:00.000-05:00

Well, it wouldn't really be my blog if I didn't provide you with random and only marginally interesting information. Today's topic? Machu Picchu. And no it is not a pokemon.

It's a place, as you can now see, and my current desktop background is a picture of it from NatGeo. The NG photo also includes a llama :). Anyway, Machu Picchu (pronounced matchu peektchu) is an Incan site in Peru, and is often considered to be the "Lost City of the Incas". It's situated 8000 ft above sea level.

It was mostly-ish constructed in the mid 1400s but it was completely abandoned within a century. The natives were likely wiped out by smallpox from spanish conquistadors, although historians are pretty sure the spanish knew nothing about the city.

It lay utterly abandoned for centuries. There are some indications that in the mid 1800s the site was visited by and plundered by various europeans. There are also many claims for discovery of the site at the turn of the century, but it wasn't until American historian Hiram Bingham found it in 1911. He wrote numerous books and articles on Machu Picchu through out is life. National Geographic devoted their entire April 1913 issue to the site. Although more than one theory exists about the role of Machu Picchu in the Incan Empire, the generally accepted one names it as an estate of the emperor Pachacuti.

Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site but they are likely to add it to the List of World Heritage Sites in Danger because of heavy tourism.

A New Direction

2009-12-19T23:28:00.001-05:00

So, I haven't exactly posted in a while. Ok a really long time. Stopped for a while cuz I didn't really have much to say after France, then I kinda picked up a little with school, but once again ran out of things to say. So here we are way later with the most recent post as like two months ago. Oops.

I needed a new theme, and the blog needed a face-lift for sure. My mother always refers to me as her "Scarlett" for my occasional inability to recognize that parades do occasionally get rained on. Minor side story: My senior year, in the midst of the marching band rehearsals, crazy ridiculous volunteering for clubs and such, and the academic, um, "thrill" of 4 AP classes, I somehow became in charge of organizing the Homecoming Parade, which is kind of a big deal at my high school. It was crazy and ridiculous and I'm still not sure how I pulled it off, but throughout the process whenever my mom asked what would happen if it rained, my immediate answer was, "It won't." It didn't.

Anyway, I don't always have such a lovely Life Will Be Perfect rose-colored sunglasses outlook, but I try. I gripe and whine like everybody else from day to day, but at the end of the day, tomorrow is still another day. Except of course if your math homework is due tomorrow. But I don't have math anymore so that's no longer a problem.

I'm also an EXTREMELY left brained person. It has its ups and downs. My idea of creative is clean lines with funky colors, and a slight chemistry theme. Yup. There you have it: Jackie's blog, take two.

Joy to the World!

2009-09-10T15:44:00.002-04:00

I did something in lab today!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I got to learn how to cut off a piece of silver tubing, use pliers to crimp one end shut, melt the edges closed, fill it with reagents, and seal it. And then we put it in the furnace! Yay!

I also know what I'm doing now. I'm synthesizing new ruthanates and gallanates for basic research. In Calbert-terms, I'm making new stuff for the sake of making new stuff. Yippee!

Oh and my math professor gave the whole class a 1-day extension on the homework so now I have time to fix those draining tank problems. Woot!

AND as if my day wasn't good enough, I got my guard rail today! Now I don't have to worry about falling out of my loft anymore.

Could we just all have a round of applause for God for delivering such a well-rounded, wonderful day?

Physics in not Phun

2009-08-24T16:30:00.003-04:00

...but it is funny. Today I had my double dose: lecture and lab. All the normal people are sitting there cringing on my behalf and my mom's thinking to herself, "Lucky!"

I am not lucky. Physics class is awful. I like my teacher, and I have a great TA. I know another sophomore in the lecture class with me, and overall the class doesn't seem too hard. The lab is going to be downright easy. No the problem I have with my physics class (and more specifically the lab) is what my problem usually is: There are just too many stupid people in the world.

Now I realize that I have an unusually low tolerance for people who ask dumb questions, but there was this girl in my lab today (who I'm assuming is a freshman and will hither to be known as 'Emily') who really just shocked me. I just didn't think it was possible.

'Emily' was that girl. The one that the is in books, and tv shows, and movies, and who is in all sorts of hypothetical examples, but who you didn't think actually existed. Like I really didn't think anyone ever actually asked the teacher if he was going to give them the answers. My teachers always say things such as, "Well, I'm never going to just give you the answer, but I'll help you work through the problem." So our TA goes and says something along these lines and she follows this up with, "But after that, you'll, like, tell us, the right answer, right?"

It was like that the whole class. And all we did was go over the syllabus.

It's going to be a long year.

Mmm New Dorm Smell

2009-08-17T10:30:00.002-04:00

Ok besides being ridiculously tired, I'm very happy with my new dorm. It's big and spacious and fantastic. My only real problem is not enough storage. But I've got it covered. I'm next door to the science buildings, just up the hill from the band hall, and right around the corner from Strom. Perfect! I have a beautiful view of the stadium from not 1, but 2 windows (which have curtains now btw). My roommate is supposedly moving in wednesday. And thursday the cafeteria downstairs will be open. Yes! Life is good.

New director smell, not so good. Verdict is still out with me. He is much more, um, intense, than say Brozak. He really wants us to be the best band in the SEC, which of course we will be, but that's besides the point. I can tell band is going to be a lot more work this year, I'm just hoping that he also makes band a lot more fun this year too. He seems like a very serious guy, and I'm hoping he loosens up just a little bit after band camp. I don't know; we'll see.

Our first show, for those who are interested, will be Dave Mathews Band (and yes we're playing Ants Marching). The music is killer.

Back to School

2009-08-14T10:22:00.003-04:00

Today is my last day at home. Phooey. I have to go back to actually doing something every day. I'm almost done packing. Just a few more things that have to get stuffed in. How I don't know, but I should be able to get it. It'll be so good to be back on campus and see everybody again. It feels like it's been ages since I've seen anybody. Tomorrow we have to leave really really really early in the morning so we can get to the dorm when it opens. I'm sure a bunch of people are going to move-in today despite the fact that housing says we can't, but I'd rather not risk it. It's not that big a deal. Ok, I better go finish packing...:(.

Jackie's Random Thoughts

2009-07-31T13:35:00.002-04:00

This qualifies as one of my more random thoughts: can you give a cat a bath? Now, obviously, I have never owned a cat. I know people who do, and I'm sure they would all tell me that they have never even considered bathing their cats. I understand that for the most part, cats clean themselves. However. I worked in pet kennel and I assure you that I have never yet come across a cat that smelled good.

Dogs get baths all the time. Most people who have dogs can tell you some pretty funny stories involving giving Fido a bath, but they will all tell you that you have to wash your dog from time to time. And besides, they look so much better and they smell SO much better after they've been bathed with puppy shampoo.

So that led me to my all important question of is it possible to wash a cat? Does anyone do this? Because let me tell you, I would (but I'm also the kind of person who would be training the cat to go out in the yard like the dog). The answer, according to Yahoo! Answers, is Yes, people do wash their cats. And there are lots of tips there for how to pull it off. Personally I think it's a matter of starting young. If you start washing the cat as a kitten, using very gentle methods and lots of kitty treats, I think it would probably be just as easy to wash the cat as the dog.

I mean, after all, Calbert is no big fan of bath time, but he tolerates it because he knows there are biscuits involved.

What is the difference between a Jam and a Jelly?

2009-07-25T09:18:00.004-04:00

The title is pretty self explanatory so I'm going to just dive in.

According to Dictionary.com :

jam: n. a preserve of whole fruit, slightly crushed, boiled with sugar.

jelly: n. a food preparation of a soft, elastic consistency due to the presence of gelatin, pectin, etc, esp. fruit juice boiled down with sugar and used as a sweet spread.

I would like to point out at this time that "jam" had twelve dictionary results whereas "jelly" had merely five.

wiseGEEK.com provides us with further analysis:

Jam is made from whole fruit and jelly is made from fruit juices. Jam is healthier for you. Jelly is generally sweeter than jam. Both are types of fruit preserves; other fruit preserves include confit, fruit butter, conserves, and marmalade.

Now you know.

Vacuuming and other such things

2009-07-24T11:27:00.003-04:00

When I was in tenth grade, one of my very best guy friends and I were in the same french class (we've actually always been in the same french class prior to college but back to the story). Anyway, our teacher always went down the rows every monday asking what we did over the weekend. Johnny's answer was always cleaning. "I cleaned the bathroom" "I vacuumed the second floor" "I cleaned out the basement" "I cleaned out the garage". No really. Every time. It was always a big class joke. Now the joke's over. I have spent most of today cleaning.

I vacuumed the basement. I swiffered the first floor. Not that you can tell, Calbert took care of that pretty quickly, but at least now there's less fur-bunnies rolling around. I emptied and refilled the dishwasher. And I'm about to go bathe the dog, which I'm sure will make him uber happy with me.

Oh and I killed three spiders in the basement. I should have a parade.

France Picture

2009-07-20T20:29:00.004-04:00

Azay-le-Rideau, from the side

Disagreeable Smells

2009-07-15T19:42:00.004-04:00

Everyone smells things differently, but there are lots of smells that just about everyone agrees are disagreeable. And for every one of those disagreeable smells, there is someone out there who likes them. Like gasoline for example. My lab TA first semester loved the smell of gasoline, but I like many people don't like it.

My personal list of smells that I love that most people hate:

~Fresh paint: I love the smell of fresh paint and the stronger the better.

~Bleach/chlorine: To me this just smells clean but I've been told I'm crazy.

~Shoe polish: Can't really explain this one.

~Coffee: This isn't really that unusual, lots of people like the smell of coffee. My little weirdness is that I don't like coffee, just the smell.

Smells I don't like include nuts (except for peanuts), cigarette smoke, and "airplane smell". Buses don't smell too terrific either. Thoughts?

Home Sweet Home

2009-07-12T19:23:00.004-04:00

Home is a wonderful place to be. Annelise and I chilled out and talked and caught up. I talked to Steph for just shy of 2 hours on Skype. Savannah and I went swimming and then out to eat (cool Italian place called Figo).

Yesterday Meredith and I watched Mamma Mia on Sing-Along-Mode. And yes, we sang along.

I have Giradelli (spelling?) fudgy brownies cooling while my giant puppydog stares gloomily in the direction of the kitchen. (He doesn't dare try anything with Dad home).

Oh and I have been mildly productive. I made my bed today. And I did laundry. Boo-yah.

Home!

2009-07-03T22:35:00.004-04:00

Yeah, I'm home. Back in ATL. major relaxation in store. Woke up at 4:30 am this morning (france time) and guess what? It's currently 4:36 am france time. Full 24 hours with only naps to keep me going. Woah. So I'm pretty tired.

But it's so good to be back. I love travelling, and trust me France was the ultimate, but it's always good to come home and fall into your own bed.

Giving out souvenirs to the family was fun too. Like christmas in july. le noel en juillet. teehee. ok. seriously that's not funny; I should get to bed soon before I start making bad puns. Ok.

Good Night everyone from the American desk of Jackie

Soldes

2009-06-26T10:52:00.003-04:00

Soldes ("Sales") are the most wonderful things the world has ever thought of. And France knows how to do it right. The french don't really do the after-christmas sales or tax-free weekend anything like that. What they do have is a five week extravaganza in June/July that is to some extent regulated by the government, but isn't exactly standard, and which makes my life super fabulous.

So after class wednesday (the first day of soldes) Hannah, Stephen (pronounced steph-ahn) and I went shopping. It was crazy, but awesome. I didn't buy a lot (I've already done a bit of shopping as you know) but the stuff I did get was incredibly cheap. One shirt (a new favorite) was only 3 euros. I know right? We had a great time. Stephen was a good shopping buddy, but Hannah and I kind of felt bad for dragging him around so many girl stores. We tried to get into a men's or a shoe store every other store so he wouldn't be too too bored.

Random observation: french people are completely oblivious to other people around them. they really don't notice anyone else around them, stepping up in front of you when you're at a rack, even cutting lines. it would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.

Well anyway, yesterday, Lucia Hannah and I took the bus to the H&M. OMG. It was literally three times as big as the one by my house (atlanta). Crazy huge. Made a couple purchases. Including a butterfly ring that was only a euro. *contented sigh*.

Today Hannah and I made a trip to the fnac (pronounced fuh-nack) for the books. Generally speaking it's kind of like a best buy, but they also have a fairly large book section. Got a french-french dictionary (a Petit Robert for anyone who cares) because I've wanted one for a while and the 4th Harry P (our new nickname for him) because well why not. Will probably start Accro du Shopping next though. Hm. Ok that's about it. Peace.

Music Festival and my Mon/Tues

2009-06-23T16:14:00.003-04:00

Sunday was the Fete de Musique here in France and it is a huge deal. The entire country jams out for the better part of the day, all in celebration that it's officially "summer" (it feels like spring). I started out around 4 or so, at Parc Prebendes where I knew there would be a concert going on.

I btw became the person to know, because I had gone to the tourism office earlier and gotten a little schedule of events (complete with map) showing what was starting when and where to find it. Yep pretty sweet.

Then I met up with Mary and some other girls at Place Plume and we listened to a girl called Soem and then a blues group. We got kind of bored and started wandering. We met up with Jane after that and wandered a bit. Then was dinner (sandwich, not the best) and we listened to a reggae group (not really) followed by a british pop group called The Radiophones who had THE cutist drummer. What is it about drummers? Anyway I digress...

So we were pretty done with place plume then so we followed jane and met up with these french guys she's gotten to know (just ok looking) and then we met up with even more girls. Then the group redivided and my group went and got drinks (I got a pina colada). So then we went back to place plume for a while, and I finally headed home around 12:30, at which point I realized that it was about dinner time on the other side of the pond and called my dad. End of day.

Monday was very tired. Everyone was tired. Really really tired. Our teacher tried to be all "Tell me what you guys did this weekend" and we all just looked at her like "Really? What do you Think we did this weekend?" Funny. Then after classes Hannah and Stephen and I went and did a little pre-sale shopping. Eurodiff was having a pre-sale and so I got a pair of shoes, a shirt and a scarf all 40% off. We also mapped out our plan for tomorrow. Soldes are awesome. Today was spent miserably shuffling through a really long day of classes. Yuck. Great art history class though and afterword I talked to my mom on fb and played some foos with Wayne.

End of day.

Versailles!

2009-06-21T06:20:00.003-04:00

or as my mother called it, The Big V.

It was HUGE. so amazing...so extravagent, so incredibly wealthy...Words really don't describe it.

It was an extremely early morning, only made worse by the fact that it was cold yesterday and none of us had planned on it. Then we made the horrible realization that Olivier (the coolest professor ever) would not be accompagning us on this excursion. He was replaced by a strange woman with a moustache. Who talked very very very softly.

3 hour bus ride later we arrived at the coolest place in the world. We were informed that we could wander freely (just get back to the bus on time) or follow our "guide". Madame Moustache (as I continued to call her the rest of the day, much to everyone's delight) led us into the first room and spent (kid you not) 45 minutes explaining it to the group. Now I love explanations, and knowing the history and the basics about what I'm looking at, but there are limits. It was at this point that we (Sylvia, Rachel, Olesya, and I) decided it would be better to wander freely and actually, you know, SEE versailles.

Well, sylvia and I lost track of rachel and olesya in the crowd so we ended up seeing the rest of the chateaux by ourselves. We saw the grands apartements, the royal residence rooms, and the dauphins appartements. Booyah. We then took on the gardens.

For those who don't know, versailles has spectacular gardens that cover acres...really. And Sylvia and I saw all of it. In three hours. OMG. So tired. So then every saturday afternoon they turn on the fountains, which is incredible. So we saw many of the gardens again. Then we ran into Olesya, Rachel, Stuart, and two other guys (whose names escape me, but who all went to West Georgia with Rachel) and we all went to the Domain of Marie-Antoinette. We wanted to see her little farm thing, but we couldn't really find it. We DID get into the Grand Trianon (Napoleon's residence) for free (due to a combination of our student ID's and my french) which was cool but it wasn't what we were looking for. It was starting to get late, so we gave up on Marie's farm and headed back.

At 5:30 they had the awesome fountain show at the neptune fountain. So cool. The fountains start up and get bigger to music. Very cool.

A 3 hour bus ride later and I crawled into bed, exhausted but happy.

Chenonceau

2009-06-19T12:19:00.003-04:00

Gosh I love castles...

Today we went to chenonceau. This was not a trip via the institute, but rather via Duffy (it's coming from our extra Duffy money for the knowledge of mes parents). Twenty minute train ride takes you directly to the castle. Right out front. Kind of funny really.

Lovely castle, goes right over the river. One problem: old castles require maintenance and that maintenance can last years. Maintenance requires scaffolding, my pet peeve. So I practiced a little Jackie-Cantwell-Photography-Magic (aka tips I got from the AJC living section). You can get great angled photos, side views, and vertical shots that just barely cut out the undesired section. Another great way to "cut out" scaffolding: stick a person in front of it. Literally place your desired model so that they (mostly their head) blocks the undesired section (aka the icky scaffolding) and leaves the rest of the beautiful tourist attraction in view. Perfect every time.

Also took some blurry pictures of the indoors. Oh and there was this cute little maze which we got totally excited about, because really who doesn't love a hedge maze? But then we got completely let down, seeing as we were rather too tall (the hedges only came up to our shoulders) and rather too smart (it would have been a difficult maze if we had been like, 5). Oops. Explored the gift shop. Nothing worth buying. Got back on the train. Went and got a chocolate eclair for no reason other than I wanted one. It was delicious.

This has been the 6 oclock news from FTDO. Jackie Cantwell, signing out.

PS: OMG VERSAILLES TOMORROW!!!!!!!

Thursday of Crazy Week

2009-06-19T12:09:00.003-04:00

Wine and Cheese Tasting:

Ok prepare yourself for the revelation of the century (not really): I don't like wine. It's not just a certain type of wine either. We had dry wines, we had sweet wines, we had white wines, we had red wines, we had many different types of wine. And I didn't like them. Just not my thing. The average glass of wine has about 100 calories, the average chocolate milkshake has about 200. I'd rather have the milkshake than the two glasses of wine, sorry. A sweet wine has more calories than a coca-cola and I would definitely choose the coke.

Cheese however is a different matter: I LOVE cheese. We had goat cheese, cow cheese, sheep cheese, pasteurized cheese, not pasteurized cheese (which is not allowed aux Etats Unis)...and I loved it all. The camembert was a favorite. Love cheese. Could eat that stuff all day long...(on a related note: I have become adjusted to the goat cheese with strawberry jam combo and now find it an acceptable dessert).

Oh and if anyone was wondering, 3-4 glasses of wine DOES make me tipsy. I was a far cry from drunk but I definitely had a slight headache and standing completely still without wavering was starting to become a problem. I kind of knew that would happen though, seeing as my mom is also petite and her limit is really about 2-3 glasses.

Yep. That was the wine and cheese tasting. Any questions? No? Good. Moving on.

Crazy week: Part 1

2009-06-19T11:44:00.003-04:00

Crazy week...so we'll start from the beginning and go from there...

Wednesday I went to Azay-le-rideau and Villandry (both chateaux).

Azay is a really neat castle that's situated right next to the river so it has a sort of natural moat going for it. Very pretty and it was a gorgeous day. really pretty architecture, and the furnishings are incredibly gorgeous but of course no flash photography indoors. blurry photos are no fun. but it was still really really cool and olivier (the awesome are history prof) was with us. he is so passionate about his subject and his knowledge of everything is so incredible.

Villandry was that same afternoon (there's no classes on wednesdays in France) and it was also amazing. it may be my favorite chateaux based on pure beauty. The castle itself is nice and looks very nice, but its famous for its gardens. They are the most beautiful things ever, the flowers are all perfect and perfectly placed. It smells like heaven too. The entire area is filled with the perfume of all the flowers.

Then we were really hot and we wanted ice cream and they had all these really unusual flavors. Like flower flavors. I debated between rose and lavender, but I decided on rose. It was good, not a new favorite or anything, but it was sweet and cold and that's what I needed. You definitely feel like you're eating a flower, but it wasn't bad at all.

Ok so that's pretty much it...more later!

Amboise and Blois

2009-06-15T08:04:00.003-04:00

Oh the adventures of the weekend...

So saturday I had the excursion to Blois and Amboise. First stop: Amboise...

Amboise is a really cool chateaux that was mostly destroyed by revolutioneers. I would love to go back in time and tell them that tearing down 3/4 of a major tourist destination is a bad idea and that the french people would regret their decision, but alas I can do no such thing. Olesya and I have decided though that we were born to be princesses.

Beautiful tapestries, intense stone sculptures, and amazing woodwork. And of course fabulous views. yep, definitely born to be a princess. We also got to see Leonardo Da Vinci's grave (it's in the royal chapel). Then after chateau-ing it up we went and visited Da Vinci's house (for those who do not know, he spent the last three years of his life sitting in the lap of luxury as the french king's new favorite). Very cool but we weren't allowed to take pictures inside.

Next stop: Blois. Blois was awesome just in that it was all still standing. Well sort of. This is yet another castle that went through multiple renovations, not all of which went to completion. Literally four different styles of architecture, all vastly different. You can literrally look around the inner courtyard and watch the renaissance take over france. Very cool. Can't wait to show you pictures.

Walked around a bit. Had the best lemon sorbet ever...like frozen lemonade on a cone...yummy! And then we got back on the bus and came home.

On an unrelated note, I'm reading this really awesome book right now. In english it's title is Life of Pi and you should go buy it and read it right now. Super duper good. Almost as good as the sorbet. Ok I'm done for now. Pictures on facebook later today.

Shopping

2009-06-12T10:05:00.004-04:00

I have had much wonderful shopping here.

You've already heard about my two scarves (I'm thinking of getting another one) and my books (also thinking of getting another one).

You must now hear about my super fabulous buy. Before this totally gets eclipsed though I'll throw in the fact that I also got a cute little cardigan. Ok anyway on to THE purchase.

So it was really yucky and cold and AWFUL for like the past three days. Ugh. I hate rain and I hate cold and it was not going well for me. So a bunch of us were in this I-need-a-jacket/coat kind of mood so we went shopping. (this weekend is going to be hot ironically). We were in zara and noticing that the bomber jacket look is very in right now and were commenting on how we had seen them quite a bit since arriving in france. problem: leather is expensive. so we moved on to the next store. Pimkie.

I (along with Mary and Katie) were standing around watching Tegan try on a brown leather bomber jacket (which she ended up buying) when I noticed a black leather jacket on the rack below. It's sort of a blazer look (almost). think fitted leather jacket with some seaming and zipper accents. less bomber more sleek. It was priced at 30 euros (give or take $40). Guess what came home. *happy face*

Yep. The grand purchase. hurrah. Ok off to do more shopping. (jk)

The crazy woman I live with

2009-06-12T08:03:00.005-04:00

I'm starting to sort of comprehend my host mom. understand no, but comprehend yes. she's been moving my stuff everyday, like my back pack will be like 2 feet over from where I left it or random stuff like that. I couldn't figure it out for the longest time; I mean what's the point of moving it over a few inches? it wasn't like she moved it to a completely different location in the room: that could be attributed to a super high level of OCD but this just didn't seem to qualify. Then I realized that she vacuums everyday and she moves anything on the floor so she can vacuum. She vacuums btw like my grandpa: perfectly straight lines on the floor that do not overlap. Crazy.

I have been whining about the food for some time now about how it's always like all veggies and salad. Well last night I found out the reason for this. She serves me veggies and salads and healthy stuff because she knows I eat sandwiches (which I consider healthy) everyday for lunch. She's trying to make sure that my diet is balanced so I don't get fat. I would love to tell her that if my diet gets any more balanced, I'm going to starve. So I bought a six pack of Kinderbars (candy bar that is kind of like kitkat + 3 musketeers + nutella) to keep me satisfied. rawr.

Oh and apparently Im too loud in the morning (my side of this story is that she's a light sleeper and the walls are I kid you not an inch thick (I measured) and for goodness sakes I get up at 8 that's not soooo bad) so I'm no longer allowed to brush me teeth or anything in the bathroom in the morning. I have to use the kitchen sink. Yep. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

Next week though our schedules are so different that we're not eating together at all so I basically won't see her for an entire week. Ahhhh....

Hm

2009-06-10T07:45:00.003-04:00

Pleqse exscuse qny typos in the follozing postm it is being zritten on q french keyboqrd becquse i, qt the institut right noz qnd their keyboqrds qre different fro, ours qnd i, only ,ildly concerned qbout your qbility to decifer it: plus if i try to do it zithout typos it zill tqke like tzo dqys to qcco,plish:

It hqs rqined here for the pqst three dqys qnd it is reqlly cold qnd zindy qnd frqnkly i, tired of it: zhy isnt it behqving like su,,er§ so,e friends qnd i hqve decided thqt ze qre tired of zeqring the sq,e light jqckets qll the ti,e (nobody brought heqvy coqts) and ze qre going in seqrch of blqzer ish things thqt qll the french women weqr lqter;

Bought tzo scqrves yesterdqy qt ProMod; very hqppy qbout thqt; also zent book shopping; two for mere (,y sis) qnd two for me; not telling the first tzo but the second two qre L'histoire de Pi (Life of Pi) qnd Les Confessions d'un Accro du Shopping (Confessions of q Shopqholic); they're level 6 qnd 7. thinking about getting another one. something like a level 8 or 9 just to try it qnd see if I cqn hqndle it becquse hqrry potter is level 6 qnd thqt zqsn't too hqrd.

Yep thqt's pretty ,uch it. ok I'll stop torchering you zith this crqzy ,essed up keyboqrd. Fro, noz on im only posting fro, ,y co,puter:

France looks like Ohio

2009-06-08T08:12:00.003-04:00

My academic advisor slash scholar mentor Dr. Morgan gave me this book before I left (kind of a gag gift) that's a reproduction of a WWII GI Guide to France that the governement had written up. This book is hysterical for anyone who has studied french culture at all because it's just so wrong on so many levels. Like at the time it probably served its purpose very well and it was written in a very effective "regular Joe" kind of style, but really it's just the funniest thing on earth. One of the representations of France that this guidebook provided was that France looks like Ohio. Well they're not entirely wrong.

I spent a total of 8-9 hours saturday on the road to and from Mont St Michel and France does look rather like Ohio. Farmy, with some trees, and fairly flat with the occasional slight hills. Ohio. The major difference is that the cute little towns you pass have a heavy dose of frenchness.

Mont St Michel is super cool. Giant cathedral on an island in the atlantic. It did not rain while we were there so it was great. The prof who was with us was really super knowledgeable about everything and it was great walking around with him and learning all about everything. The cathedral is a victim of bad planning, wars, picky kings, and budget cuts. First of all most of the island is sand, not rock so the medieval builders had a hard time getting the building to stay up. Then they had a problem with france and england being in perpetual war and they had to build huge walls around everything. Then the kings were like hey let's make this a prison. And the monks were like, well we don't have a choice do we? and the kings were like nope. So there's about four different centuries of archetecture in this one building. Very neat.

We then went to St. Malo (where it did rain) but we had galettes and crepes and gelatto so it was ok.

It's Not Just the Electrical Outlets

2009-06-08T07:59:00.003-04:00

France is weird. No really. Not kidding, it is WEIRD here. Like go back to the early nineties weird.

It's june right? Not in France. It feels like september. rainy and cold. Wednesday is supposed to be sunny so I'm going to do some shopping and get myself a scarf and a sweater. Stupid weather.

So electrical outlets aren't the only things that are different here (which by the way I don't understand. Didn't the electricity thing start on our side of the pond?). The locks are different too. Like if you don't lock the door a certain way it's not actually "locked" it's just "closed by key" meaning with the first one the door will not open from one side at all even with a key (this confuses me to no end) and with the second one you can open either side with the key (but not without). Really strange.

Also they don't have dryers here. They hang everything up on racks 40s style. So you can only do laundry when it's sunny. (still can't tell if my host mom is going to do my laundry for me or if I'm doing it myself...) They also have dishwashers but they don't use them. Ever. And they don't have air conditioning either. Like I understand to some extent that they don't really need it like 80% of the year, but really? It gets decently hot here in july and august (which by the way is when kids here have summer vacation). Strange.

Also nothing is open on sundays. I'm not just talking like government buildings and schools. NOTHING is open. A few cafes and the mcdonalds (which they call the MacDoh) and that's it. So no shopping on sundays (very sad).

I just don't understand the french. It's not like we're just not on the same page; it's more like we're in different libraries. I think it's because they drink too much wine.

Lots of Info: Part 3

2009-06-05T08:46:00.004-04:00

Sooo much to talk about, sooo I broke it up into multiple parts for my sanity and your convenience. Parts 1 and 2 cover general observations and classes. Part 3 will discuss my excursions.

There are lots of excursions/activities offered through the institut. Azay-le-rideau (it's a castle) is included through the USC program. The other castles I'm going to are Chenonceau, Bloir and Amboise, and Versailles (palace of the sun king). Tourraine (the area of Tours and the Loire (river) Valley) is filled with castles because throughout much of french history (like 3/4 of it) this is the area that french kings chose to live in. The thing to remember with french castles is that they are not and have never been private residences. If the king lived there, it was not just his home, but also the main governmental building. When the history books say a certain place was where court was held, they mean literally the king's court (all the important people) lived and worked in the palace. And even during those times, it was open to the public. Everyone, so long as they were dressed appropriately could go in and see just about any part of the building. That's why Versaille is so huge.

Imagine if the White House was where the President and his family as well as all the Congressmen and their families lived and took care of the nation's business, and on top of that, anyone wearing a suit and not smelling like rotton eggs could come in and watch Obama brush his teeth. That's what Versaille was like in it's hayday. Crazy.

In addition to the castles, I'm also going to Mont-St-Michel and St. Malo. Mont-St-Michel is a huge cathedral on an island in the atlantic ocean just barely connected to land by a road. St. Malo is the nearby area. Crazy cool. That's actually tomorrow.

Oh and not next thursday but the thursday after I'm going to a wine and cheese tasting here at the institut. yay goat cheese.

The institut also has a bunch of free activities. Like yesterday we went to the Musee des Beaux-Arts (Museum of Beautiful Arts) which was very cool. 17th/18th/19th century art (I don't really know). Both paintings and sculptures. Yep.

So that's about it..working on the get-pictures-on-facebook thing...Have a good weekend!

Lots of Info: Part 2

2009-06-05T08:27:00.003-04:00

There's tons to fill you in on so I broke it up into parts. This part will focus on classes.

All of my classes here are language intensive, which means I focus on improving my french skills versus fulfilling general ed requirements for USC.

I placed into B2 (highest of the intermediate levels) which is a 6 or 7 out of 9 on the old system. So I'm fairly high up there I guess. I don't know and I don't really care. The class isn't too hard and it seems to be a pretty good fit so we're good.

Monday through Friday I have french language class for three hours in the morning which is mostly grammar. yuck. The afternoons are all different.

Monday I have a two hour lunch break (facebook anyone?) followed by atelier, which is more or less a recitation class for french language, then an hour break, followed up by civilisation which is a culture class. Haven't had one yet but it should be good. Tuesday is a full day. Only one hour lunch followed by civi, recitation for my oral expression class, oral expression class (way fun we spend the whole time working on prononciation and inflection etc), and ending with art history which should be cool. Wednesday I just have literature in the afternoon, which is sooooo boring. Normally I do well in lit classes and am semi-interested in them. This one is just boring. Don't know. Thursday it's oral expression and recitation. Friday I have nothing in the afternoons. Woohoo!

There are only 10 people in my class. About 6 of us are students (3 from USC, an italian, a spaniard, and a girl from Illinois) in college. There are 3 adults who are going back to school and there's an older canadian woman who is just doing french because she's bored. I don't like this woman very much because she kind of hogs the teacher's attention which is sort of annoying. Ugh.

Not sure if there's anything else to say about classes....Hm ok moving on. Please continue reading through part 3.

Lots of Info: Part 1

2009-06-05T07:25:00.003-04:00

I have lots of info to share so I'm breaking it down into more manageable pieces. Part 1 will focus on life here in france in general, as well as my day to day existence.

Basic observation: french people own lots of mirrors, but I don't think they use them. Seriously I swear some of them don't look at what they're wearing before they put it on. Very funny and occasionally disturbing. Park = people running = really short jogging shorts and waaaay to much thigh. Think 1980s basketball shorts.

Parks are awesome by the way. They're everyway here. I walk through two to get to school everyday and there are always a ton of joggers as well as these little old ladies walking their dogs. The dogs by the way have learned to recognize a college student. They will literally sit down when they see you coming and refuse to move until you have petted them in passing, which of course we all do.

Food here is amazing. I have breakfast (bread and butter and orange juice) and dinner at the house and lunch at the institut. The institut has two cafeterias but when they say cafeteria they mean a room with a vending machine. So we (everyone) just goes to one of the hundreds of little cafes/boulangeries in the area. A boulangerie is like a sandwich shop more or less and I LOVE them. Today for example I had a Sandwich Chevre which is goat cheese (it's a specialty of the area and very good) and some lettuce on french bread. Costs like 2 or 3 euros and is like a foot long. Delicious.

At first I was mildly concerned about my host mom (that's what we call them, host moms, host dads, etc) and her idea of dinner. The first night she literally served me a small salad (just lettuce), a piece of bread, and water. I went to bed starving and confused. It has greatly improved though. Funny thing: I get the impression that she seems to think that we don't have vegetables in Georgia. A couple days ago she made this carrot salad thing and proceeded to explain to me what a carrot is. She did the same with this broccoli dish. I think she was mildly disappointed that I both knew what they were and ate them regularly. Yesteday we had radishes as our precourse and she was all happy to find out that I had not eaten them before, despite the fact that they are fairly readily available in Georgia. I lied and said I liked them. Our main dish last night was mussels (les mouilles?) and they were sooooo good. I think we were both glad to find out that we're both seafood eaters.

Funny comment my host mom made: I mentioned that I love french food and she was all like oh yes french food is so good and light, not heavy like american food. I nodded along because this very true, and she proceeded to say "that's why you're all obese". hahahahahaha

I do walk to and from school everyday and it does take me a full 20 to 25 minutes to do so, but it's not so bad. It's a good time to just chill and listen to my ipod. Plus a good long walk like that is my way of justifying dessert (omg sooo good).

Another random observation about france: it is Incredibly dry here. Like really really dry. My lips are so chapped (is that really how you spell that?) and and my hair is like hay right now. Such a change from the humid south.

That's pretty much it. Please continue on for parts 2 and 3.

Funday

2009-06-02T10:34:00.001-04:00

Like Sunday but more fun.

This morning Olesya (who is also my current roomie) and I got up early (7 am) and started our super awesome day. No really it really was that good. Breakfast in the hotel (which as it turns out is not complementary but we probably couldn't have gotten it any cheaper). Then off to the Sacre Coeur (the Sacred Heart Basilica)! It was Beautiful. Inside and out. Gorgeous views too, but be warned: it's a bit of a hike. We give any and all stairs evil looks now. Totally worth it though. Montmartre is a very pretty area as well. Very typical "oo-la-la" frenchy.

Next stop Le Palais Garnier. This is the Grand Opera House. SOOOOOOOOO opulant. Everything is marble or gold plated and everything absolutely everything glitters. This is also where many parts of the Phantom of the Opera was filmed. And only 4 euros.

Louvre. The whole darn thing is just so amazing to look at it's unbelievable. I'll spare you the gushing over the outside though and just tell you what we looked at: some random french art, some really cool medieval art (we're assuming that that was also french), the napoleonic apartments, more art, the rubens room (boring), some statues, the venus de milo, the medieval louvre (the original foundations of the louvre castle that the current louvre is built on), a sphynx, winged victory, psyche and cupid, hermes, cardinal richelieu (these are all statues by the way), diana, (there were others but I forget), lots and lots of spanish/italian paintings, and of course the mona lisa. the crowd was INSANE. everywhere else the crowd was very manageable and not at all overwhelming, but...let's just say the venus and the mona lisa are different. asian people (no offense just a general thought here) tend to be VERY pushy and arrogant (with no concept of personal space) and they seem to feel that you do not matter. at all. now for those of you who don't know me, I'm rather short. Not like short short, just below average. Well below average does not cut it. I saw the mona lisa for like 1 minute when someone's head moved. Then it was gone. Pooh. Olesya took a picture above the crowd for me so at least there's that. I didn't really see anything astonishing about it anyway.

So our feet hurt really badly and we were starving (it was like 1:30 at this point). we went out and found this cafe/bar/food place and got sandwiches and cokes. Coke is expensive here (like 4 euros) but i needed caffeine. We ate this in the gardens of the tuileries (just outside the louvre). OMG. so cool. And then we went to the place de la concord. Neat obelisk and fountains. nice buildings nearby. *shrugs*. after that we went to the Sorbonne (the best french university period) but it was pretty anticlimatic. we then continued on to the Jardins de Luxembourg (the real destination anyway). These are beautiful gardens and there's a pretty sweet palace right there too.

After that we had done all of our must-sees and so we decided to take the advice of my Forber's Paris Guide (which has the most helpful map and metro map) and do the boat ride on the seine. This is such a good idea. Beautiful way to see the sights from a different angle. After we passed the Eiffle my camera battery died. Poor thing had been on almost nonstop since that morning. We grabbed dinner at a cafe across from our hotel. Amazing food, great waiter. And then we settled down into the hotel for the night. Cuz it was like almost 10.

Friturday

2009-05-31T17:30:00.003-04:00

Friday and Saturday have merged into Friturday in my mind. Overnight flights can do that to you.

The flight: Huge Boeing 777 and I was dead center in the back. yay...not. the guy on my left was an american businessman who only spoke enlgish but thought the flight attendants only spoke french. the guy on my right was a french businessman who only spoke french but thought the flight attendants only spoke english. they speak both of course so this provided some amusement. I was very cramped, but well entertained. they had these in flight entertainment system things in the back on the headrest in front of you and you could watch movies or tv or listen to music or play games even. I watched charlie and the chocolate factory, pocahontas, and an episode of Les Experts (CSI with french voice overs). did not really sleep though I did try.

Met up with Olesya at the airport and we grabbed a taxi to our hotel. the driver was very nice and showed us everything. cheap too. we split it so it was only 25 each. our room is TINY though. and our bath room is hysterically small. You have to open the door to brush your teeth. and you can't turn around in the shower. oh well.

This brings us to Day 1 in Paris. Went to the Eiffel Tower first of course. Gorgeous but very very very crowded. Lots of pictures. We didn't go up because the lines were worse than an amusement park. Then we went in search of lunch which was hard to find, but delicious. Pizza place. Les Invalides was cool. Didn't bother going in to see the tomb. Apparently we didn't miss much. The we went to the Arc de Triomphe. Very cool. Champs Elysees was also pretty sweet. Oh Champs Elysees...da da de da da...

Anyway, then we went to Notre Dame de Paris (soooooooooo impressive) and Saint Chapelle. Then we went back to the hotel and met up with the group. Duffy took us to Montparnesse and it was so awesome. Seriously great views of all of Paris. Definitely worth doing. After that we went to dinner (crepes). *whew* What a day!

Please feel free to read my next post: Funday.

Night at the Museum 2

2009-05-25T17:34:00.003-04:00

Just got back from seeing night at the museum 2. overall pretty good. about on par with the first one. had a lot of clever stuff in it. good for the kids and the history buffs. (I sort of fall into both categories). enjoyable, especially if you've seen the first one. probably less so if you haven't. anyway pretty good. anyway, I'd give it a B. didn't see any good previews...

Some of My Best Ideas Really

2009-05-21T11:40:00.003-04:00

So Blog Post Ideas 21-30 contains some of my best really and I just HAD to post my responses.

21: I'm fairly certain that I have always been partial to blues and greens.

22: I don't actually have any rainboots. Rather sad.

23: Ok, I'm sure there are like a gazillion really good pertinent questions you could ask to really super important people, but I can't think of anything that I'm just desperate to know so I'm skipping this one.

24: 2 dogs: an English Springer Spaniel named Coach (short for Coach Bobby Knight) who passed away at the age of 13, and a black lab named Calbert (short for Calbert Cheaney) who will be 8 this July. My dad's a big Indiana University basketball fan.

25: favorite class: Basketball Pep Band. even if our team did play like crap at the end of the season.

26: Calbert could easily have a BA in Supervising. He can follow anyone around and supervise them doing anything. He's especially good at supervising my dad on the weekends and my mom around dinnertime. He's such a good superviser he can do it with his eyes closed, which he does most of the time.

27: I'm probably Violet (the girl who ends up as a blueberry). Not sure why, but she seems to be a little more fitting than the others.

28: Absolutely! I love a good storm. Calbert however does not.

29: I've thought about this and I really think I would be in Slytherin. I know I know it's the evil one, but really not everyone who goes to slytherin ends up evil. Gryffondor is known for bravery; well we can knix that one right now. I'm just not nice enough to be in Hufflepuff; I can only be Suzy Sunshine for small, isolated periods of time. I'm smart enough for Ravenclaw, but I'm not the right kind of smart. I don't like studying, being in libraries, or doing extra class work. I would be bored in Ravenclaw. Slytherin is full of people who know what they want and how to get it. They're the "go-getters". They also have a tendancy to be snobs and have a certain disregard for rules. We have a winner.

30: I once tripped on the sidewalk while wearing roller blades and tore up both my knees. It was awful. I still have the scars.

Blog Post Ideas 21-30

2009-05-21T11:38:00.003-04:00

21. What was your favorite color when you were little? Now?

22. What one item is your wardrobe lacking?

23. If you could ask anyone any question (just one), what/who would you ask?

24. How many pets has your family had and what were they?

25. What was your favorite class last semester?

26. If your pet had a major, what would it be? (like a BS in Napology)

27. Which Charlie and the Chocolate Factory character are you most like?

28. Are you a fan of thunderstorms?

29. Realistically, which Hogwarts House would you be in?

30. What is the most embarrasing injury you’ve ever gotten?

Blog Post Ideas 11-20

2009-05-17T11:20:00.002-04:00

11. What were some of your favorite childhood board games?

12. What movie (if any) in theaters do you want to see?

13. If you could take any movie and watch it on IMAX, what would it be?

14. What are some of the best/funniest Apples-to-Apples match-ups you’ve had?

15. What is your pet’s name? What’s the story there?

16. Are you a beach or mountain person?

17. Why did you start a blog?

18. What was the last meal you had?

19. When was the last time you had milk and cookies?

20. What is your dream car?

Once again, I'd love to hear your responses, so if you decide to use one, leave me a link!

Jackie's Garden

2009-05-14T15:50:00.007-04:00

Today my mom and I went to lowe's to get flowers for this one flowerbed in our backyard.

I have a thing about flowers. I don't like plants that are just green. I want things that have big fabulous flowers all over the place. I also like semi-unusual looking flowers, which tend to be annuals (one year only), whereas my mom only wants perennials (the kind that come back every year) for obvious reasons. So everytime I go to lowe's to help pick flowers, I end up going "ooh, look at that one! Let's get one of those!" or "hey those are cool! let's get them!" and the answer is always "but those are annuals". Phooey! BUT...I managed to find the only cool looking ones so those are what we got. So we're calling the flowerbed mine even though it's not my flowerbed, and I didn't buy the flowers. But I'm not complaining. So here's Jackie's Garden:

Back row: Foxy (a Foxglove), Yellow Yarrow, Apricot Yarrow, Herman (Heliot Coreopsis), Vince (the verbena) Middle Row: Chilean Avens, unidentified herb, Jenny (the Queen Victoria Lobelia) Bottom Row: the mini-rose, Flora (a flower we lost the tab for), John (a blanket flower), Betty (giant pink daisy), Joe (another blanket flower), and the daylily.

I just had to name some of them. I mean, who really wants to be called a Queen Victoria Lobelia?

Foxy is my favorite:

But I really like the pink daisy too:

When I go to the Zoo

2009-05-11T21:04:00.004-04:00

You remember my blog-post-ideas blog post? Well I've decided to go ahead and write one of them out. Namely the "When you go to the zoo, what animals do you absolutely have to see?" (#7) idea. Grab your safari hats because here we go!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have not been to the zoo in a long time, but I have been to a lot of nice zoos. Among my favorites are the Indianapolis Zoo, which has a lovely polar bear exhibit (or at least it did the last time I was there), the St. Louis Zoo, and Zoo Atlanta, which has a very nice panda exhibit. Overall, the zoo is not among my absolute favorite places to go. It tends to be overcrowded, with lots of completely uncontrolled small screaming children, overpriced, and it smells bad. However, I love seeing the animals. They make it all worth it. Especially if you are at your leisure to see them as you please, and not hurried along by a teacher with a field trip schedule to stick to.

Tigers (and big cats in general) are a must-see for me. I love their powerful grace and austere beauty. Feeding time is optimal. Basically, they're my favs.

Elephants are the bomb too. You gotta respect the ears.

Pandas are just great. Zoo Atlanta is pretty special in that it has pandas at all, and we were super ridiculously lucky when last year one of the females had a baby. Very rare. The baby is called Mei Lan. Isn't she cute?

I have a strange fascination with the platypus, so if a zoo has them, I will go see them.

So that's what I would go see at the zoo. What are your must-see animals?