naked jesus, please stay behind the line

not much has gone down this week at all. work keeps going... but Christina got a pet snail. pecos lives in the tree in our front yard.

Thursday I saw "Herr die Ringe" the third one. and since I haven't seen the second one yet, I got a run thourgh so I would know what was going on. the short version took like 20 min...yikes...and the third one was 4 hours....it was good but movies that have giant spiders don't normally hold my attention for that long. it's a bit of a damper when I don't even want to look at the screen.

but welcome to the exciting part of my week. BERLIN!!!!!! we arrived on the train from Jena. the following will be my rant on German efficiency:
all I have heard about the transportation systems in germany is that if you are about 2 seconds late to the station, the train will already be gone. however, when I have been on the train this has not been the case. today's train stood at a standstill for 45 minutes. forty-five. unacceptable. so the train got in at 6:15 instead of 5:30, so every train behind it had to be majorly behind as well. we would have been screwed over had we been on the later train to Berlin. but the good news is that we made it. and unfortunately that's not the end of the train dilemnas for the day. on the U-Bahn tonight at one of the stations, this dude kicks the train. kinda random, but it's germany, crazy stuff goes down here. and it was extra weird because the doors were still open, it definitely was't out of disgust for missing the train. the one kick wasn't enough because it was below the window. he proceeded to KICK IN THE WINDOW OF THE SUBWAY! becuase that makes me feel safe that a giant pane of glass isn't going to fall onto my head at any given moment. our only guess is that he was drunk. it was kinda early, but again, it's germany after all. and he was hella pissed at the lady with him.

we went to a fin italian place for dinner and then headed to the Gemael Gallery. it was really cool. and extra cool. becuase it's free after 6 on thursday nights. the art inside was mostly biblical or mythological, so there were a bunch of madonnas with baby jesus. and we were reflecting on how all the baby jesuses didn't have diapers. also there is this little metal strip about 2 feet around the walls. I only noticed this after I was yelled at in german by the dudes that are paid to follow you around the museum when my toe crossed over (because I was planning to sneak a Rembrant out in my purse, but that little silver line made me change my mind.)

it's still kinda hard

"it's still kinda hard to be cool with music and instruments like this....as a country"



saturday morning we got up and walked to the Dornberg train station. not as far as yesterday to Buergeler, but almost. after the train ride into Jena, we walked around the city realizing that all the shops were closed already. grr. it had taken about an hour and a half to walk to the train and then about 20 min on the train so we missed all the local shops and were forced to shop in the traditional mall way. we had to meet alex back at the train station because he was going to take us to our pension and then drop us off at the planetarium. that's right, we went to the planetarium show. and not just any planetarium show, the "Queen ~ Heaven" planetarium show. it showed some of their music videos and some stellar graphics along with the music. it opened with Flash and used graphics and audio clips from Flash Gordon. that part was special. we went to dinner at this teeny italian place around the corner from our hotel and the food was AMAZING. it was real italian and it made me miss italy. ordering however was interesting because we only know english except for a few phrases and he only knew german, but it was great because we were all trying so hard. even though the food was great and we all wanted pizza pretty bad, it just made us think of and wish for Peppinos in clemson....then Pot Belly in clemson...and then I thought about going to Bottom's up back in richmond...yum...

Sunday we went to the Dornburger Rosefest. Germans will take any reason for a party...and there's nothing wrong with that! we got there pretty early, but it turned out well because we found a parking spot pretty easily. we wondered around through the rose gardens....gorgeous. I want a garden like it, but I don't think it's gonna happen. no matter how much I want it, I might not be able to put a fountian in my yard. We toured Goethe's house in Dornburg and listened to two organ grinders with stuffed monkeys instead of real ones. hehe. we went back to the city square and got Rose Punch and I had an official Thueringer Braetwurst. We listened to the performers on the stage and I tried a Rosenbier radler, not the best, but not bad. this guy was singing and he was dressed up as a russian singing what seemed like german drinking songs, and he had the positively scariest laugh in the entire world. I will have nightmares about that laugh. as we were about to leave, another band walked through the entrance with quite possibly the oddest instrument I have seen yet. it had valves like a trumpet, but I think a mouthpiece similar to a basson, and either 4 or 6 bells coming out the top.

so I asked if we could stay and listen to them because I was very intrigued. together they sounded like a cross between a group of saxophones and a group of bagpipes. as we were about to leave for the 2nd time we ran into Herr und Frau Fuhrmann. Herr Fuhrmann is the computer guy at the institute and Frau Furhmann cooks lunch and takes us to the supermarket so that we can cook for ourselves too. They told us that there was about to be a parade, so we stayed to watch that too. it was people walking through the city dressed up as if they were from different time periods of germany. and no joke, for a "current" girl: lime green slutty shirt with camo pants and kneehigh white high heeled boots! tragic. and the future of germany was particularly distrurbing: they had a shuttle in a trailer (that's ok) but they were all dressed in those white biohazard suits that covered their entire bodies. apparently they are expecting an out break of horseflies or something in the next few years....psychos...

Food:
Thueringer Braetwurst
softeis
Rosenburche

pictures so far

my bubbles

for this one, you gotta go back old school. like 8 years ago to the time of boy bands and of *nsync. think to the "it's gonna be me" video when they're doing what boy bands do in the giant egg.

ok, now transport that giant egg to Bad Sulza and put a pool underneath it with and replace "it's gonna be me" with enya type music. we spent like an hour, floating on our backs listening to the music above and under water. then went out to the other pools. one outside, one inside, and a couple hot tubs. VERY relaxing. we should definitely have those things in america. they had these underwater lounge chair type things built in that have cold water jets in the heated pool too.

this is civilization! there has to be sliced bread!!

we went to the supermarket today which is a bit of a challenge. we have to use a german dictionary to figure out what we're buying, not to mention Autumn is vegetarian and so we have to check labels for that too. so, we don't have time to go to the store everyday and we buy a bunch of food. we kinda scared the locals. they don't buy a bunch of food at once. I think they buy enough for one day and then just go every morning. I cooked dinner this evening. Baked Ziti. fantastisch! Frau Fuhrmann takes us when she goes, but she doesn't know any english, so we both act things out a bit with each other. must be funny to watch.

back to reality, oops there goes gravity

we had to go back to tautenburg today on the train. Alex picked us up from the train station in Jena and drove us back. on the way we saw Erdberland and stopped to pick fresh strawberries. I fell asleep in the car because the conversation was about anime and I just don't know anything about that....work begins tomorrow.

three hour tour...

Christina and I showed Autumn around. the fun shops we'd found, and we went beerstein shopping....and on a puma hunt. however we didn't find any that we liked.

We took a tour of the city that was geered for english speaking college-ish age people. We started at Marienplatz and Daniel the irishman told us about the glockenspiel that portreys the jousting tournament that was held to celebrate Ludwig II's marriage. the 2nd level of the glockenspiel does the "dance of the coopers." When Munich was suffering from the plague, people wouldn't even leave their house because they thought they would catch it. A bunch of guys decided that since noone had been sick in about a month they were tired of being inside all the time and went outside into the square and started doing this crazy dance. The whole town came out and went on with their lives. Since the plague never came back to Munich they said that the dance of the coopers fended off the plague so now it's a traditional dance in Munich. Then he talked about the Frauenkirche, the church with two towers with onion domes on top. These towers were not destroyed in WWII like most of the rest of the city because they were used as a landmark for planes flying over the city. there is a legend that when it was built, the builder was running out of money and had to make a deal with the devil to finish building the church (the irony). he and the devil stood in the entryway of the halfbuilt church making the deal and the devil said that he didn't want to see any windows in the church and that if there were windows he would take his soul. When the church was completed, the devil was pissed because of course there were tons of windows on the church, so he went to collect the builder's soul. the builder pointed out to the devil that from the place they stood on the day they made the deal, you cannot see a single window. the columns of the church are strategically placed so that from the entry the windows aren't seen. The devil was so mad that he stomped his foot in anger and supposedly left a footprint in the entryway of the church. we then went to a past duke's house where the pet monkey kidnapped the baby from the nursery and climbed onto the roof with the baby....and then on to the Englischer Gardens to see the nudist meadow. I kid you not. we were warned in advance of the two most famous nudists in munich: "The Tripod" and "Robo-cock" and that it can be frightening to see them...fortunately, it wasn't a popular day for the nudists... then we went to the Isar River to see the surfers. this is really cool. there's a concrete step at a bridge and it creates a wave that people surf on. it's pretty amazing, but looks really bad when they fall off into the water...almost expecting a crushed skull. then the tour ended at a bar for happy hour to hang out with the other people on the tour.

On the tour with us were Jaime and Katie from elon, Aaron the austrailian, Mark the air force dude stationed in italy, the frat boys from UGA, and the drunk old british men on the tour led by a hot irishman, another austrailian, and a brit. We all went to Hard Rock for dinner with the exception of the drunk old men, because Jaime and Katie were craving a hamburger. it was really fun and cool because Katie and I have mutual friends back home. pretty crazy...

just say no to he-capris

I am seriously concerned for the people of Germany. the people here (men especially) have quite horrible fashion. some people manage to dress themselves in a practical fashion. For instance, the men here choose to wear either capris or short shorts. so at first I thought just a couple guys had gotten confused and found themselves in the women's department, but no. people do this on purpose. we saw a man wearing a leiderhosen. it's bavaria, people wear leiderhosen. but this guy was wearing daisy duke length short short leiderhosen!! and riding a bicycle! so even with all the clothing issues, I love the shoes! surprise surprise. Christina and I went to see the glockenspiel today. pretty cool to watch and I filmed it in case anyone wants to see the video. we also took the train over to the englischer gardens and walked around the paths to the chinese tower where there was a beergarden and a band, but we didn't have time to stay because it was time to go pick up Autumn! we took her to the haeufbrauhaus!! There was a band in leiderhosen playing music and people singing drinking songs. hilarious! basically, you just have to find a spot for yourself, so you go up start talking to people and make friends. the beer comes by the liter. in huge glasses that you get to bang around to the music and such. hehe. when the band finished playing we left the haeufbrauhaus to go back to the train station and followed these guys drunkenly singing drinking songs....
when I was just a young boy
my father said to me
what're you gonna do boy
what're you gonna be
...
but I liked the color green
I think I'm gonna learn
to drive a - F16
foxone foxone
foxtwo foxtwo
fox three foxthree
...
F16

they were kinda hard to understand...

trains and trains and trains

we found a fantastic internet cafe. and we're now in a somewhat normal hotel...but I didn't mind the bed and breakfast. the lady who ran it was really nice. the morning was spent partly figuring out the trains. we were never lost, or in the wrong place, it just took a little bit getting used to it. we went to the Deutsches Museum after checking into the hotel. We started out looking at the mechanical power section and then moved to aeronautics, the einstein exhibit, physics, and the "math closet". the physics section was not cool. well I guess it was, but there was sooo much more they could have done with it. they just left it at a level that made it seem more like they were trying to show optical illusions. the math closet was basically a couple rooms with geometry toys and puzzles. it was kind of fun...like being back in high school in Mrs. Flornoy's class doing those puzzle things.... they had two entire floors of Astronomy! and we would have gone to the Planetarium too, but it was entirely in German...what's up with that?

We walked around Marienplatz and Karlplatz window shopping and people watching. there are some serious issues with german fashion. some of it is cute, but some of it is absolutely horrible. we had street food for a late lunch. I ate a bratwurst. it was interesting. I guess I'll eat one again, but it won't bother me if I don't.

We went back on the train to walk around the Englischer Gardens. it's the largest park in europe. we went to the lake park of the gardens and found a bunch of ducks and swans. Germany is so green. I mean, Munich is a big city, but they still have this giant park for people to walk around or ride bikes or play sports and music or layout. geez, America.

food:
bratwurst

yay muenchen!!!

I think I just walked 10 miles. we walked down Maximillionstrasse which is where all the really expensive shops are. like Louis Vuitton, tiffany's, Gucci, and the like. it was kinda depressing. Then we found the shopping street for normal people: Neuhauserstrasse.

We got some culture tonight. We saw the muenchen philharmonik orchestra. They performed two symphonies and it was really good. The lead flutest was this guy who was very into the song. I thought he might fall out of his chair, but he managed to keep it under control. After the concert, we met up with Aaron and Caroline (who are American~yay! and are living in Munich for the summer) for eis. Christina and I split Spaghetti Eis, which look scarily like a real plate of spaghetti. It's vanilla ice cream put through a spaghetti pasta maker then with strawberries for the sauce and coconut for the parmesan cheese.

foods:
whatever I pointed to in the cafe, I was unlucky and it had onions.
cheese and butter sandwich at the concert hall
it was a very bad day for food.

damn the autohahn

we had to get up early today to observe from the SARA telescope. apparently this was the first time anyone has ever remotely observed with a telescope on Kitt Peak from Germany. watch out world record book. we also got to see the telescope we will be working with here. it's bigger than the one in Arizona, but we haven't been inside yet.
we left Tautenburg for Freising today at 11. the trip is supposed to take 4 hours. after 2 hours dead stopped on the autobahn, we made it in 5 hours. when we were moving, we were going around 145 mph. it's a pretty efficient way to travel, just not what I'm used to. we're spening the night in Freising and going to Munich on the train in the morning

new food
fasting

The Annaverse

today was kind of a housekeeping day. we went shopping in town for groceries, got everything set up in our rooms, and met a bunch of people that will be working with us there. in our house, Christina, Autumn, and I live with a brazillian, this guy named Alex and Andy the grad student.

We also went to Weimar today and met the wife of the director of the Tautenburg Observatory. she is absolutely amazing and soooo fun! she walked us around the city and told us all of the historical stuff. the balcony where Hitler used to give speeches back in the day. the palace of the king and the fancy house of his mother...then we saw the library of Anna Amalia (yay), but it burned down in February (boo) 2 weeks before they were going to transfer all the books to the new library, so practically everthing was ruined. we had dinner at an AMAZING Italian restaurant. I still haven't gotten used to the days. the sun is up until about 8:30 and it's still light out until about 10pm.

....

so christina and I are minding our own business and working in our office. it's midnight. college students are awake at midnight. well this dude comes in and fusses at us in German. I think it was about the light coming from our office. and there is nothing we can do about it other than sitting in the dark, or going back to the house...alas.


new foods:
corn
german green beans

arrival in Tautenburg

Today we had to leave Freising. a day on the autobahn. we drove 4 hours to see the Sababurg Castle-sleeping beauty castle and then stumbled upon the Rose Festival in a town-Hann. Muenden-down the mountain which was pretty cool. There is a fairy tale road and area by the castle with statues of different Grimm characters. we pretended to be princesses in the tower...yay!! at the festival they had a german band with singing and there were these drunk men singing and dancing along. it was basically like a street fair. we ate at a greek restaurant for dinner, then came another 2 and a half hours to old east germany to the Tautenburg Observatory. I'm in my office now (yay) but I don' like my computer. first, it's linux, so I'm pretty much lost on it anyway, and then all the keys on german keyboards are different, so it is pretty annoying. I kinda just want to launch it across the room actually.




new foods:
german pretzel
gluehwein (mulled wine)
gyro
zaziki
frettes
uoro

germany day 2

today we woke up early and strolled and shopped through Freising. I've begun my search for fantastic european shoes...yay! we spent a couple hours there then went to Landshut to see the city and castle of King Ludwig. we took a tour of the castle (in german) with a bit of side translation by Dr. Hartmann. we, as the dumb americans, managed to get fussed at by the tour guide, but I think she was just really fussy. We walked around the city and shopped and saw the churches there. one of them has the tallest tower made of brick ever. kinda cool, but an odd claim to fame. We ate at a really good chinese restaurant in Freising and just had a quiet evening. up horrendously early to drive to northern germany tomorrow.


new foods/things:
flavored goat cheese
kinderegg
black forest cake
susssaur huhn (sweet and sour chicken)
soy sauce
chinese predinner shnapps
chinese postdinner shnapps
chopsticks (and correctly and able to eat rice)

off to Germany!

yay for germany!
and yay for British Airways with British accents and for getting me here safely (and no, we didn't land in the ocean)

But here was my issue on the plane: k, so we have dinner, watch a movie, all that jazz. normal plane procedure. This is an overnight flight, so I didn't think sleeping was unreasonable. now, noise isn't a problem at all. I can sleep through about everything. here was my nearly fatal mistake: I reclined my seat. gasp. the lady behind me took offense and yelled, "excuse me!!" I said "sorry" and waited until she went to the bathroom and then I put it back and didn't hear another word out of her. It is just common knowledge that you get to sleep on an airplane when you on overnight flights. so that's my episode with the bitch going to britan. We had a mad dash in the London airport to make our flight. The plane landed at the farthest part of the airport. We had to go all the way out of the secure part of the airport to go back through security...and we had 40 min from when the plane landed til the plane to muenchen shut the door. we made it with about 5 min to spare and thankfully the plane was delayed a bit so everything worked out. and now...tadaa!! stamp #2 in my passport!!

the great news is, everything's been great in germany! we drove through the campus of the Max Planck institute and then went to Freising and walked around the city. european cities are so fun. it's so bustling and everyone's getting fresh food from little markets. we sat and had beer and lemonade (it doesn't taste the same with german beer and it's 50-50) and people watched for a while. We picked up Autumn from the train station and had dinner at the Weihenstephan Bierhaus...which was interesting...I don't exactly have the most experienced tastebuds so it was all pretty much new to me.


new foods/drinks:
cabbage salad (kinda like saurkraut)
white asparagus (spargel)
spatzle (a type of pasta)
horse radish
radler (beer and lemonade, but the german version)
real german beer
liver dumpling (yuck!)
bread dumpling
bierlikor

My Last Night on the Mountain

Well, Creepy Guy struck again. Encounter #4.

I went walking from the telescope to get some coffee to help me through the night to 5am. The moon had set, so it was dark, but I didn't want to use my flashlight because I like to look at the stars. It's like I'm an astronomer or something. The lights of Tucson can be seen on the eastern horizon, Phoenix to the northwest, and Mexico to the south. The views are amazing. I saw 2 more shooting stars today. I hope I'm always this excited to see them.

I am now a SARA Observer. I've named it to myself. I figure that since they're leaving the undergrads alone with the telescope we have the authority of title. I think it was more of an issue of lazy grad students.

The Plague

Today was a horrible day of bugs. I have now made the mental note not to go outside betwee noon and 2pm on the mountain in Arizona. The passing lane for the flying insects was apparently right by my ear and there were many suicide attempts into my face. We were also attacked by ladybugs, which isn't quite as serious, but still major excess. The most recent, however, is the spiders in the SARA room, where I work. This afternoon "Gimpy" arrived on the wall by the bookshelves. We named him Gimpy because he's missing a leg. To clarify, this is not a tiny spider or a grand-daddy long legs. It is like octopus spider size, so I don't want any grief about the issues between Gimpy and me. So, Autumn, Steve, Kiran, and Hartmann were all gone...and Christina founnd a flyswatter. That's when things got interesting. We decided that any hope of exterminating Gimpy would be when Autumn was not in the room...she has save all living things tendencies. Gimpy was currently hiding behind a piece of wood and in went the flyswatter, because it was a logical thing for astrophysicist students to do at 12:30. Gimpy ran and tried to retaliate which produced basically a screaming fest and running around the 10 by 12 foot SARA room avoiding computers, chairs, telescope equipment, and electrical wires. It was quite the fiasco....and just a second ago, and I'm sure he was sensing my hostility towards his kind, a mosquito eater appeared in the corner of my eye and tried to land on my head. And I get looked at with quizzical faces because of my quick reflexes of self defence.

Kitt Peak, Arizona

It's my second night on Kitt Peak in Arizona. We haven't had any Gamma Ray Burst activity, but it gave us time to view some other cool things in the sky: clusters, nebulas, galaxies...and others of the sort. I didn't make it the whole night last night....gave into sleep around midnight arizona time, but 3am for my body clock...since I had to get up at 5 to catch my plane out here, I was pretty exhausted. Today we got to visit the University of Arizona in Tucson and tour the astronomy facilities and campus. They have like 7 or 8 astronomy buildings! and the campus is really cool, but I don't know if I see myself in Arizona. Also got to tour the Steward Mirror Lab where they make the huge mirrors for the big telescopes around the world, so I am now an expert on mirror making...who knew.

However, the most exciting news of the night: I saw my first shooting star! It's pitch black on Kitt Peak with only a few cities close by...Tucson is an hour and a half away, so it's pretty much more stars than I've ever seen. The halo above Tucson can be seen to the east, and Phoenix lights can even be seen from 60 miles away...thank you mountains. It's awesome that it's so dark because you can just look up at the sky and see the milky way and who knows how many planets. In honor of Arizona, we are taking images of the Sombraro galaxy as the last ones of the night, and it's 4:10 am...we have about 45 minutes left to observe before the sun comes up, then it's off to my blacked out window room to sleep into the afternoon....