sts 125

the launch was awesome! i still have a hard time believing i was actually there! we watched from kennedy space center, so about 7 miles from the launch pad.

the top image is professional (http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/05/hubbles_final_servicing_missio.html) but the 2nd one was my view!!

I'm famous!

I'm credited for the picture of hanny's voorwerp that I took with Dr. Keel while at Kitt Peak!


http://www.hannysvoorwerp.com/?page_id=8

the international space station!

this little red dot is the iss as seen from kitt peak. it was awesome to watch it pass by every night!

what is this? a center for ants?

so here's where we are. and that's the moon lighting up the telescope dome enough to have it and the stars in the background too.

tonight has been much more successful than last night. major software issues seem to be resolved or at least saving themselves to come about at a much more inconvenient time. I've actually been running the telescope, so i tell it how long to take an exposure and which filter - but we have a night assistant that actually does the moving of the telescope. I like having a night assistant because if something bad happens, it's almost like instant tech support...or at least he knows who to contact to fix any problems.

I did get to watch ISS go by again before we started with images and attempted to get a picture, but my camera hardly picked up venus (the brightest thing in the sky tonight) so i didn't even try with ISS. We are also having a minor ant infestation due to some chocolate that was left open from people doing data reduction this afternoon.

i currently have a sinus infection, so i have occasional coughing fits which means long periods of sleep are a challenge. but, man, i had the best nap this afternoon after about 5 hours of on and off sleep after week shut down the telescope at sunrise. after tomorrow night's run which will end around 6 my time, we have to get down the mountain and to the airport for our flight back to tuscaloosa at 1:30. I'm counting on sleeping on the plane because when i get back to tuscaloosa I'm going with friends to see twilight, which is the new book series being turned into a movie franchise. I actually read the book on the travel day to get here and got completely sucked in, so I'm pretty pumped to see the movie this week too.

as the dome turns

galaxyzoo project take 2:
2 hours in and we haven't actually gotten to look at anything.

I did end up driving myself up the mountain today and i didn't even get lost! it's actually a very nice drive. nice views, lots of cacti, indian reservation, illegal immigrant checkpoint...the usual. they sent me in a hybrid which was fun, but I didn't know it was a hybrid and kind of wondered why there was an extra gauge with pictures of a battery. it was pretty fun to drive.

telescope is broken for the time being, so we're taking advantage of this by taking pictures of venus and saturn which are very bright right now in the sky AND we went out in the cold to watch the ISS pass over. Endeavor is docked so i got to see both.


since i've just been playing on the internet so far on this observing run, here are images from april:

excuse me, but there IS cause for alarm

so I'm pretty sure I only slept for like 2 or 3 hours this morning...and I'm still not sure how that happened. we shutdown the telescope around 530 and my supercool self woke up at 930. it should add some extra deliri-oscity to tonight. so here was sunset:I just went out to try to take pictures of the stars on my spiffy new camera, but i couldn't take a long enough exposure. boo. and here are chris and I modeling for dr. keel's artsy streak:

omg so these grad students from Indiana came in from a different telescope to borrow a level since they were having trouble finding objects, but one of the kids looks EXACTLY like Dale from Greek.

in addition to operating the WIYN tonight, we are also remotely operating the SARA down the road, so that's added an extra twist to the evening. I'm still shortcutting my way through the data since we still haven't quite gotten the exact way to work yet.


time: 2:50 am
current soundtrack: jingle bells
currently tired of: being shocked by EVERYTHING, not sleeping, not seeing my friends


it's about 5 now and we're finishing up the last image so it's almost bedtime! sorry for the serious post...maybe i'll get my humor back once i get some sleep...

would you like to run your victory lap now?

I'm back at Kitt Peak, but this time with Dr. Keel and Chris Lintott...and at the WIYN telescope.
There are 17 computer screens in the control room right now. thankfully we're only using 13 of them. but there are 5 of us, so that makes it a little better.

The picture is of the WIYN telescope taken from the SARA telescope. WIYN is the funny shaped one. and I'm currently sitting in the rectangular box to the left of the dome.

I am currently running 3 computer screens at once, so now that only leaves 2 not in use. I'm amazing at multitasking. I'm attempting to reduce the data we just collected on a galaxy AND I'm slowly getting through the 300ish new posts on my google reader that I collected for the long nights. It's already 330 back in alabama so I'm doing pretty amazing in beating my bedtime.


we've finally gotten some good images. and we've invented our own Rorschach inkblot test...with galaxies.


here is the chicken nebula (ok so we didn't make this one up, but try to look at this and NOT laugh!)















this one is a fried egg and sausage, but what kind of sausage is this color?? a german sausage. and it's also got the random lumps and spots like this galaxy.











we've decided this could either be a black widow or a waving blue bird.

















here is a crab with one claw and a broken leg.












and now it's 4:30am and we're finishing up and then it is def time for bed...assuming the coffee doesn't keep me awake!

"That sounds like a Frenchman!"

so basically the owner of the hotel I stayed in hated me. when I checked in, he said he didn't know any english, so we did the whole hand guestures and fragmented language to get across what we needed to say. the first morning I was in the hotel, I go to breakfast and he wouldn't let me choose where to sit. I had to sit at the table for 1 since I was by myself...and I was totally sensitive about being by myself. mealtimes aren't really fun alone. I was at breakfast at 7:45am and I was the only person there. 10 more people would have had to come to breakfast for it to be a problem that I was sitting at a table set for 2 people. grr.

so the next day, I have to change rooms. from 7 to 9, no big deal. his wife comes and changes front door keys with me, from the one labeled 7 to labeled 9. I guess so I remember which room I'm supposed to sleep in. and frau hotel lady tells me that I can leave my bag on the floor because the room is not ready yet (told to me in half german, half english). so I go and grab the #9 key to put my bag on the floor and all hell breaks loose. she starts fussing in german and so I stop what I'm doing...and then the mean hotel owner yells at me in english! ENGLISH. did you manage to learn a new vocabulary overnight? I don't think so....you're just a jerk! this same morning I also used the telephone in the "lobby" of the bed & breakfast. I used the german toll free number to use my phone card just like in every other place I've stayed in europe. all's well, I have to leave my bag in the hallway (because that's the safest place for it, not to mention, anyone could pick up any key they wanted) when I came back downstairs I was fussed at again! and in english fyi, because the phone didn't say how long I had been on it, so he didn't know how much to charge me. I tried to explain that it was a free call and that it was toll free, but that didn't mean anything to him. "there's no free calls! I have to pay for it!" grr.

so check-out day: I turn in my key and it's like he's trying to talk as little as possible. my bill is for 3 nights, with no phone calls. I decide not to question it because I think he's a stingy whack-o. but I know that he's not the type to forget when someone owes him money, so I think that he called the phone company to see what phone calls were made from his b&b. and surprise surprise my call didn't cost a thing. and while he didn't charge me, I didn't get an apology either...


traveling alone is supposed to teach you about yourself....mine was more of a smack in the face reminder of what I already knew. I know I don't like being alone in general, so traveling alone in a new place definitely wasn't the best thing for me to do, but I'm really glad I did. a little bit of personal annoyance and the bad luck of the hotel owner was majorly better than sitting alone in tautenburg with my computer or sitting in my hotel because I'd managed to at least get away from the telescope. besides, I know I'll come back at least to italy and probably won't make it all the way north to france.

if you can't trust the tourist information center, you can you trust?

so I was off again in Heidelberg. I wanted to take a boat tour at 11:30 so that it would be done in time for me to walk around a bit by the river and still make it to the train station in time to meet Christina after her conference. so around 10:20 I make my way down Hauptstrasse to Bismarckplatz to catch the bus to the Altesbruecke. well, as usual, I miss the bus every time by about a minute, so I decide to walk. yikes. after an entire day of walking around france, my feet were not keen to walk around germany as well. so I walk to the river and then along it for for-ev-er, limping a bit from the gi-normous blister on the ball of my foot. I get to the platform for the boat tour around 11:15 but I ended up not taking the tour afterall becuase it just wasn't up to the standard that I expected after the boat tour in france. it was lacking...lacking a boat. I arrive with my brochure to have a nice seated relaxing ride on the river and getting to see all the famous parts of Heidelberg and hear about the city, but no. bad information/incorrect brochure from the lady in tourist information. strike 2 against her. I had fun in heidelberg, just a bit of bad luck with the people I met. then I decided that I would walk around in that section of town because I hadn't been this far yet. coincidentally, a few blocks straight from the river, put me in about the place I had been when I started out for Bismarckplatz. so I went the opposite direction in hopes of finding *something* new, and I totally stumbled across the big church and Dem Rot Ochsen, both places Christina and I were supposed to go after we met. I made it back to the Bismarckplatz to catch a bus to the Hauptbahnhof, but as usual, just missed the busses that went there, so opted to wait for the 1:29 even though I was supposed to meet Christina at 1:30, but I figured she would understand since her blisters had recently healed from Berlin 2 weeks prior. Christina arrived about 5 minutes later than I did and we both had the complaint that the busses just took forever to go anywhere so no harm done in being late.

we dropped her backpack off at my hotel and got an extra room, because the hostel in heidelburg is NOT good, and this was fortunately done with hotel owner guy's son-in-law. we hopped back on the bus and headed to Bismarckplatz and walked all the way down to the Heidelberg Church. We went inside and sat down to admire the architecture and the stained glass. this building was truely unique because of the stained glass. the windows on the right were done in traditional stained glass, save the one in the very back which was traditional except that is said E=mc^2 which we guessed to represent the unification of theology and physical science. (we didn't go as far to assume that they were trying to represent the church accepted all science....) the windows on the left side of the church were done in a style of modern art. pieces of broken glass and computer images on cellophance were placed between two sheets of clear glass. One window was a stack of books with a laptop and a comet. evesdropping on the tour that was sitting nearby told us that the window was supposed to represent the advances in technology and the comet for how the wisemen found the baby jesus.

since we're in germany, everything has to close by 6:30, so we head on over to dinner at the Red Ox Inn. we didn't get the whole college tavern feel I was hoping for, but it was still a really cool place. there were drinking songs and these ladies were taking shots and so there were all sorts of screams and such, but basically yay for german drunk people.


new food:
jagersnitzel
spaezle
pfefferlingen

Where to today? Miles (kilometers) away.

ahhhh....public transportation.

Christina and I took the 5 hour train ride to Heidelberg because she had a conference there, and I'm just about up for anything. we arrive at the Hauptbahnhof, grab maps from the service desk and head off to find the hostel for Christina and the hotel for me. now, I can handle hostels, but the one in Heidelberg was supposedly kinda gross, and it turned out to be true. so I check in and head out to spend the evening in heidelberg. I went to the tourist information booth first thing because I didn't know really where to go for anything yet. I mean, I had a map, but street names can only help so much. the "sights" of heidelberg are pretty much the castle and the river for all practical purposes, so I enquired about those at the tourist information center and got brochures for tours and such....and now off to the castle. the lady said I could take either the 11 or the 33 and that they would say castle in english on the bus. yeah right, I knew right away that there would be absolutely no english and figured they would say schloss instead and got on bus 11. well, I don't hear anything of the sort, and actually the bus I was on didn't have announcements over the loud speaker, just a sign at the front of the bus giving the next stop name. so I get off the bus at what looks like the closest bus station to the castle on the map and look for the train that goes up the mountian. no luck. ok, well I'll just get back on #11 or #33 and go a couple more stops. I took 11 the first time, and 33 just happened to be the first of the two back to the train station. well a couple more stops on 33 just happened to take me off of my map, and number 33 reappeared again on the map down by the castle so I figured I'd wait a few more stops. as it turns out, bus 33 also reappears on the map up in the mountains which is where I ended up. apparently 11 goes to the castle after the s-bahn and 33 goes before that station. great. so realizing that I'm on this bus in pretty much the middle of nowhere with no more bus stops that could help me get anywhere, I got up and asked a family if the bus turned around and went back down at the end. there response was "you want to go back down to heidelberg?" like we were really far away which equals bad situation for me. I explained the whole situation and they didn't know, and then the man went and talked to the bus driver for me because we didn't know if he would speak english. 35 or so is kinda the cut off for assuming that someone knows english. (which is why I don't like to give money to the beggers here because they all know english and could get a job, but that's and entirely different story.) so I ride the bus to the end, sit on the bus for 10 minutes for his break or whatever and head back down to heidelberg. I try again to make it to the train up to the castle. I get off the bus and head up the road towards where the train is supposed to be. I'm walking and I see a tunnel with train tracks....ok, they hid the station. back down and eventually find it. basically a bigger ordeal than it has to be, but it's ok because I made it there and it wasn't even near sunset yet. the castle was pretty cool at night/evening/late afternoon/whenever I was there. it's bigger than I thought it would be and they were able to restore a lot of it. One of the towers actually collapsed from an explosion. turns out they kept the gun powder in that particular tower. it blew half of the tower off, but the two pieces stayed practically intact. then in trying to get back down the mountain, the door to the train station was locked. how annoying.

"so the sticky part is sticky, you say..."

the last day in berlin. we dropped our bags in the trainstation and then headed out on the subway to checkpoint charlie. first we went to the museum. the exibits were of people who escaped or tried to escape east germany to west germany. some examples:
~they would hide people in cars in a metal box lined with plywood with the engine of the car (the plywood was so that they didn't get burnt)
~since a car with a person hidden in it looks heavy/weighs more, those cars would pass through the gate between two even more heavily packed cars so that they didn't seem as heavy.
~they hid 3 people inside a welding machine. the people got inside without even knowing what it actually was, because honestly, it would be difficult to talk yourself into getting inside a welding machine.
~a lady rode on top of a car between two hollowed out surfboards.
~a little boy went on a train across the boarder in a rolling suitcase. his mother had permission to go the west, but she was ordered to leave her son.
~they would use these 3 piece ladders that could be hidden in shopping bags and then hidden close to the wall. they would build it up really fast and get over and in most cases swim away from east germany.
~a family were going to escape in a hot air balloon, but something went wrong and they went down earlier than they were supposed to and when they landed, soldiers came up to them and told them that they had made it to the west and hugged them. yay.
~tons of people crossed over in tunnels. there was a group of older people that wanted to leave and they were told that they would never make it through the tunnel they knew of, because they would have to crouch down and kinda run. so, they built their own tunnel that was tall enough for them to stand up in and helped many people across as well.

there is also a memorial at checkpoint charlie for all the people that died while trying to escape east germany. each person has a cross with a description of how they died, and most have a picture. next, we headed to the pergamonmuseum, which is basically an archiologist's dream. there was a roman temple inside. I'm not kidding. it has a giant staircase into the courtyard that tells the story of a classical hero that fufills the prophesy that he will kill his father and become a king. he also almost gets involved with his mother since his dad had him sent away, but he found out about his mother in time. they also had a model of ancient Babylon and an ancient islamic exhibit.

this was totally the weekend of bad news and bandaids. I was almost arrested on the subway, and christina and autum suffer from massive blisters. not to mention that east german people in berlin just really aren't that nice...

Live 8

We started out the morning at an art gallery to see some matisse and van goh. the gallery was right at the charlottenburg schloss so we got to see that too as an added bonus. we met Dr. Manson at the gallery and he took us to lunch at this little outdoor cafe down the street. I think this was my favorite area of berlin. I'm not exactly sure what side of the wall it'son, but it kinda felt like carytown in richmond. I was getting anxious at this point because I really wanted to get to the live 8 concert because I knew that we wouldn't be able to stay for the whole thing....but we had to head back to staatsoper for the 2nd time of the day to try and get our opera tickets. we went there early in the morning, but they hadn't opened...contrary to rick steeves...liar. anyway we get to the operhaus and they say we have to come back an hour before it starts to buy student tickets...ugh. it really wasn't as bad as I make it out to be. Dr. Manson took us on the scenic routes on our way...and by scenic we took the bus that goes by all the famous building so we would see them before we left berlin. we got to our stop at the brandonburg gate and we were at the live 8! it was really weird because at first we couldn't hear anything, and I figured there would be at least a couple stages since there were so many artists, but no. the concert area was so huge they didn't have enough speakers to fill it. we got about halfway to the stage so that we can see a screen and hear. they weren't singing in english, so you're welcome to read my shirt and take your own guess. Dr. Manson basically just wanted to see it I guess and he decided to peace, but not before we got some blackmail...(if you know how to make it let me put it not at the top, let me know...I don't have time to fight with it right now). we had to leave the concert at 5 so that we could get home to change for the opera, but we get there and people are in jeans and t-shirts....from live 8. I would have loved to have chilled at live 8 until we had to leave to be on time for the opera...but it takes like 20 min each way on the subway, and then we're girls so *occasionally* we use a little extra time to get ready. oh well, it was still absolutely amazing and we got to be all sorts of cultural and classy. we saw La Boeme at the Staatsoper and it was really good. I know I didn't quite get everything to the story though. while it was in italian, understanding someone speak italian and understanding someone opera singing italian are completely different...plus it was supertitled in german, and we all know I'm not gonna understand that. but it turned out that I was the way dressed up one. why? you ask? because I was wearing black pants and Autumn and Christina wore jeans. slackers. and they were the ones who wanted extra time...well Autumn...in the hotel.

All in all, you're just another brick in the wall....

this morning we got up and went to the berlin wall to see the east side gallery. it's almost a mile of the wall that houses mostly political/historical art and some grafitti too. it was kinda a good day to see the wall. it was rainy and gross and since the wall's kind of a negative thing anyway, it worked out. we walked along the wall taking pictures and we found a place to sign the wall...yay! at the end of the wall we took the train to brandenburger tor to see the Brandenburg Gate. the one that that is cool about east germany is the crosswalk light. it's a fun little dude with a hat. and when it's ok to cross the street, he's all happy and jolly and walking...but when it's time to stop, he's like hella enforcer with his little arms out. We found the brandenburg gate amidst the construction (east germany is one giant construction site). they had a giant picture of what the gate looked like when the wall came down, and then a big timeline on the back of when the wall went up and came down and everything in between. leaving the gate was a bit difficult...we couldn't exactly find the way out on the other side at first so it was kinda weird how the wall came down, but there's another wall now...hmmm.... we could see the Reichstag and the Siegessaule from the gate. we went to the holocaust memorial instead. it is brand new. it was built in may and is a bunch of blocks at different heights, and we're not exactly sure what they represent because the little bronze plate was in german and we're pretty sure it didn't say anything important anyway. the memorial is for everyone who died in the holocaust, not just the jews: gays, gypsies, random killings, everyone. when I saw the memorial it wasn't even two months old, but thanks so some east jerkman schwine, there is graffitti on it. hey retard, your country was trying to apologize for idiots like you following Hitler and you had to go and ruin it. beyond tragic. I'm going to go back there and write "dear graffitti artist, you suck. love, anna" in spray paint next to it.
Our next adventure was to find the birkenstocks that Autumn wants. we've been to stores in Munich, Jena, and now Berlin, yet no luck. so we headed to potsdamerplatz to the sony center for dinner. basically it's the newest part in berlin and it was the coolest until we found out why it was the newest place in Berlin. we were totally in Hitler's Berlin Bunker. excuse me! that should be posted somewhere thank you very much! because we took the sunway there which means that we were in it. we had dinner in the bad place and then chilled at the hotel.

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...