Going to Amsterdam in the new year, top gear there...

I amste-(me)-rdam

From Muenster I took a train to Amsterdam. My plan was to meet up with another intern from the Transatlantic Program who was coincidentally there at the same time. He had already booked a hotel room for himself and two visiting American friends, and I was planning on crashing on their floor. The problem was that I had just found out about his travel and housing situations that daz, and I had just emailed him my travel info just a few hours before I was set to arrive. I didn't know if he was going to get the email that I had sent him, and he didn't have a cell phone, so I was a bit worried that I wasn't going to be able to meet up with him and that I was going to have to go hunting for something on my own, at 9:00 pm during the high season. I just crossed and assumed everything would work out... It did.

I arrrived and set out fin the direction of the hotel. As I was making my way there, but still quite a ways away, I suddenly heard my name shouted from across the street. It was my friend. By complete chance he and his party were returning at the same time as I was arriving.

Dam Square and Koninklijk Paleis.

I had planned on just crashing on his floor, but the hotel was such that the guests had to leave their keys at the front desk when departing, and they had to be buzzed back into the building when returning, with video surveillance monitoring the front door. (I suppose to discourage guests from bringing in prostitutes, and to keep the potentially drugged-up riff-raff out). Anyways, so I wasn't able to just stroll in as I had planned, and insted had to argue my way into the room and pay an extra fee to make it official. It turned out to be more expensive than if I would have just stayed in a hostel, but it was well worth it, as the place was nice and I was able to explore and experience the city and its legalities with friends rather than alone.

Not only did they spell 'brewery' incorrectly, but they misspelled 'Budweiser'!

I was only in Amsterdam for one full day, but I was able to see quite a lot. We went to the Rembrandt house, which houses many of his and his contemporaries' works, to the Van Gogh museum, to many cathedrals and palaces, and generally strolled along the winding streets and canals. Pretty city. We tried to visit Anne Frank's house, but we would've spent the whole day in line.

My friend outside the Van Gogh museum.

At night we hit the town and made a point to walk through the red light district. The district literally glows red. Every street within the district is lined with windowed doors framed with red fluorescent lights. Inside the doors are scantily-clad sirens seductively soliciting sex. The environment was really interesting, with the crowd a mixture of drunken/drugged groups of guys, curious tourists (including guided tours, elderly grandparents and all), and lone stags on the prowl. They were few girls (outside the prostitutes), and the girl that with us, my friend's friend from the US, was none to thrilled with the district's goings-on and frequently voiced her disgust with the male gender. I found it interesting. The district was completely non-intrusive and free from touts and harrassment, the women just sold themselves. To me, I guess it was like visiting a zoo. We walked through the streets in long processions and stared at the women, many of which weren't bad, through the glass. The district is lined with bars and coffee shops, adding a background of music and marijuana smoke to the proceedings.

Images from the red light district.

I really only had time for a quick, touristy, superficial glimpse of the city, but from what I saw Amsterdam city is really nice.

Canal by night.

Muenster

On Monday the 6th I traveled from Budapest to Muenster, Germany. There I visited a German friend who was one of my classmates in China. It was really nice seeing him again, and the city itself was pretty nice too.

Muenster's town hall.

Muenster is a smaller town in Nordrhein-Westfahlen and is about 1300 years old and the site of the signing of the Treaty of Westfhalia ending the Thirty Years' War in 1648. It is one of the only German cities destroyed during WWII that elected to rebuild itself completely true to its antebellum form. Due to this decision, Muenster lacks the 50s' cookie-cutter office and residential buildings ubiquitous throughout the rest of the Germany. Laughed at at the time, the city is now lauded for the decision, as the downtown is consequently quite stunning. The university there, with approximately 50,000 students, is the 3rd largest in Germany. Party due to the student presence, the city has a 2:1 bike to person ratio, the largest in the nation.

Chillida's "Toleranz durch Dialog" (Tolerance through discourse) at the site where the Treaty of Westphalia was signed.

The first night we just spent at his apartment: we grilled, drank, and caught up on what had been going on for the past four months.

As my friend wasn't too confident in his Muenster-expertise, the next day we went on a professional city tour. The tour was nice, and informative (see info above). We saw where the Treaty was signed, the townhall, and the city's many churches/cathedrals, and we heard interesting anecdotes, one concerning the Anabaptists' takeover of the city in the 16th Century. When the city was recaptured by the Bishop's forces, the leader, who had 16 wives, was killed and his boy was suspended in a still-hanging cage from the tower of the church so that his remains would not be buried and his spirit would never find peace.

Later on that day we traveled to nearby Essen and visited Zollverein, a World Culture Site and the home to the once-largest coal mine in the world. The facility was constructed from about 1910-1930 and was used throughout most of the 20th century. The coal supply has since dried up and the mine is no longer in use. The main buildings on the site have been converted into a museum and the periphery buildings house an art gallery and traveling exhibits. We toured the facility and everything was pretty interesting. One of the most interesting things is that the facility is still intact. As an energy producing plant, I would have thought that it would have been a prime bombing target during WWII, but apparently it was spared due to two factors: 1) the mine was the largest and most modern of it's kind at the time and was used, and was wanted to be continued to be used, as a template, 2) its construction had been financed by American capital, and its capital investors weren't too keen on seeing it leveled.

Zollverein

That night, more of the same: met up with a few of his friends for dinner and drinks. Much good food, much alcohol.

The next day we did as the Muensterans do and took a quick bike tour of the city before I caught my train. All in all, great trip.

Budapest

So I'm in Dortmund right now, killing time until I catch a train to Münster in an hour or so.

Budapest (Pest side)

I just spent the last weekend in Budapest, which was really nice. I took a train there from Schwaigern on Friday, 10 hours of pure joy, and arrived around 9. I stayed there with an American friend that I met in Tokyo. She is working there as a financial analyst and has been there since May. I arrived, dropped off my stuff at her place, and then we hit the town. First we went over to one of her co-workers places and pre-partied a bit. Her co-workers/friends were all really nice. There were two Americans there, a co-worker who had been in Budapest for about 6 months and his girlfriend who was working in Budapest as a free-lance journalist, one French co-worker, and then three Hungarian co-workers. We just sat there and drank, conversed, chilled. It was nice. We discussed the merits or Neil Diamond, the philosophy of Ann Rand, Hungarian economy and history, and the color and versatility of Hungarian swear words. From there we all jumped into one of her co-worker's nine-seater vans, and whizzed down the streets jamming to the Rolling Stones. There is a German movie called Sonnenallee which deals with East Berlin youths in the 1970s who rebel against the DDR by listening to "dissident, Western" music, and in one scene the a 15 year old is overjoyed when he finally recieves a copy of "Exile on Main Street" (a joy that is shortlived as the album is destroyed by a Russian soldier in the following scene). The van was straight out of the seventies and on the streets there in Budapest there are a lot of old Soviet cars, I couldn't help but recall that movie as we raced down the streets listening to "Rocks Off." We parked and walked to a packed outdoor club. The club was rocking, rocking with really bad 70s, 80s and 90s pop/dance hits. Ok, that's unfair, the music wasn't bad, just really, really, played out. Someone explained to me "imagine that in 1989, after the fall of the Soviet Union, someone just gave Hungary a box with all of the music that they had missed out on for the last 40 years and said, 'here, have fun' " So now they're still reliving for the first time all of the music that they missed. I found the explanation both humorous and insightful. The atmosphere in the club was great though. At about two we left the club and walked to a themal bath that was next door. That was amazing. It was 2am and we left a club to go relax in mineral baths, ice baths, steam rooms, and saunas. The baths had been around since the 15th century. We stayed there until the place closed at four. Amazing.

The city of Budapest was formed in 1873 through the amalgamation of the three cities of Buda, Obuda, and Pest. The Buda side of the city lies on the West bank of the Danube river and Pest lies to the East.

On Saturday we walked around the Pest side of the city all day. We saw the Parliament, a towering Gothic structure modeled after the UK's and standing 96m tall, a number that symbolizes Hungary's millenial aniversary. We saw St. Stephen's basilica, the largest church in Budapest and the home of St. Stephen's mumified right hand. We also checked out the Great Synagogue, which is the largest synagogue in Europe and the second largest in the world. The entrance costs $8 though, so I just admired it from the outside.

Millenium Monument in Heroes' Square

That night we once again met up with her friends and we went out for an authentic Hungarian dinner topped off with shots of Palinka, Hungary's treasured 100 proof schnaps. It's basically a national drink, so culturally I was glad that I tried it, but physically.... Whew, it tasted like really, really cheap/bad vodka, and as it was the end of the meal and I had nothing to chase it down with, the taste lingered with me for about the next half hour. I guess there are many ypes of Palinka though. Ours was of the straight variety, but there are others flavored with honey or fruits which are supposedly much better.

Alongside the Danube, with the Buda Castle in the background.

After dinner we bought some beers from a convienience store and just walked alongside the Danube. The view from the river is beautiful at night. Everything is lit up: the castle, the Parliament, the many churches, and many impressive bridges. It's really spectacular.

One of the best parts of the night was when we were buying our drinks. The American guy in our group picked up a bottle, a jug actually, of $3 sangria, twist-off cap and all, and as he was checking out he asked the cashier, jokingly, if the bottle "was a good year?" The cashier just stared at him somewhat bewildered for a few awkward seconds, then explained to him "that's not wine." His girlfriend immediately told him to stop making jokes in English because no one ever gets them, but I really appreciated it. We drank the sangria warm, against the label's recommendation, and it was splendid, something like a really sugary Hi-C with a kick. The funniest part was that the next night we went out to a club that supposedly had great sangrias, and when we ordered them the bartender pulled out the same bottle. Hilarious. Although I must admit that served chilled and garneshed with fruit it was somewhat of a completely different drink.

Chain Bridge as viewed from the Castle District.

On Sunday I crossed over to the Buda side and explored the 800 yr. old Castle District, a World Heritage site, which contains the Buda Castle, three museums, the Matthias Church, the Fisherman's Bastion, and about three million other things. The district is situated on the Vorhegy Hill and offers an incredible panoramic of the city in its entirity.

Understandably, the city really reminded me of Vienna, with its majestic opera house, its plethora of cafes and churches, and similar stately boulevards and architecture. Although the capital may not be as clean or well-maintained as its Western counterpart, it is still quite impressive, and as it doesn't yet use the Euro and is still somewhat off Europe's beaten path, its both a bargain and relatively absent of the tourist droves.

As the heart of the country and home to about 2 million people, the city is bustling. There seemed to always be something going on. At four, when we left the Turkish bath my first night, the streets were still crowded. It can be peaceful though too. There are beautiful parks round the city, and earlier today I relaced in both the soothing waters of the Szechenyi thermal bath as well as amid the lush greens of the City Park.

Outside of the Szechenyi thermal baths.

Tonight I am going to be traveling to visit a German friend who was one of my classmates in Beijing. I haven't seen him since the beginning of April, so I'm excited about it...

Travel Plans

As I wrote in the last update, right now I am in Schwaigern visiting my Au-pair from my childhood. It’s been fantastic seeing her and her family again, they’re all so nice. She is married and has two kids, in 2nd grade and kindergarten, respectively, and her whole family lives here. Her parents live next door, her sister lives across the street, and all her aunts, uncles, cousins, live a couple of blocks away. There is always a lot going on, it's like a family reunion everyday. This is actually the 6th time I have visited her here. Wow! The first time I came was in 2003 before my study abroad semester in Spain, and I could speak about 2 words of German. It's really neat now, especially in comparison, because I’ve reached a point where we just speak the entire time in German. The German spoken here is really a dialect though, so often when I speak to her parents or relatives my Au-pair has to translate things into High German for me. It’s funny.

Tomorrow I’m going to leave here though and begin traveling around Europe. My itinerary, for now, is Budapest, then Münster (a university city in Germany), then Amsterdam, then London, then Zürich, then Spain (Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona), then Istanbul, and then Athens. Should be great!

Auf Wiedersehen

So right now I am in Schwaigern, a small town in Southern Germany, visiting my Au-pair and her family. I finished my internship in Frankfurt on July 31st and traveled here early yesterday morning.

Frankfurt am Main

My experience in Frankfurt, in Germany, was really great. The internship maybe wasn’t as challenging as I would have liked, and as far as engineering goes, I really didn’t learn too much, but I worked with great people, I definitely improved my German, and I gained international working experience, so all in all it was nice.

Cathedral in Frankfurt.

As I wrote before, part of my job dealt with working with apprentices and interns. The age range was about 17-21, and some had traveled to, or spent time in, the US, but most hadn’t. Most were really curious about the US and asked a lot of questions, many of which were really funny. Their view of the US, aside from politics, seemed to be completely based on the American movies, TV shows, and music that make it across the Atlantic. These media are everywhere too. Most all of the movies in theaters are American, 75% of the music on the radio is American (I bought a portable radio to listen to German on my way to work, and was extremely disappointed when I couldn’t find a single station that wasn’t playing music in English), half of the sitcoms on TV are American, and MTV, with NEXT, Flavor of Love, and My Super Sweet 16, is just as popular here as in the US. The thing is, the apprentices that I worked with, granted they’re young, but they watch movies with gratuitous violence, or hear a rap song about gangs, guns, and police brutality, and they think that is how it is in the US. I hate to think of the wonders that Flava Flav and 16 year-old spoiled brats are doing for the world’s perception of American culture.

Michael Moore documentaries and ‘Supersize Me’ are also really popular. I was asked many times ‘Is everyone in the US really so fat?’ or ‘Is it weird seeing so many thin people here?’ Ha! Our ranking as the fattest country in the world is definitely a well-known fact, a fact that ‘Supersize Me’ added visible, albeit one-sided, credibility to. I hadn’t really thought about it, but I guess I’d say that in comparison to the US the German population is generally thinner/in better shape, although Germany is the fattest country in Europe, so the difference isn’t as stark as say it is with Spain. I was also asked constantly about guns: Do I have one? Do my friends all have one/two/twelve? Can 10 year olds really buy them? My boss would even joke about these things. My first week he said ‘no, you can’t be American, you’re too thin!’, and he jokingly asked me a few times ‘Did you bring your gun to work today?’

Frankfurt am Main

I was also asked, ‘is it strange not really seeing any black people here?’ I guess if you watch American movies or TV shows, most of which take place in urban areas like NY or LA, every 2nd person is black, and if you watch rap videos on MTV, every person is black. I hadn’t really though about it, though as hailing from Broken Arrow, OK and Columbia, MO I never really found myself surrounded by color. Compared to Germany though, America is really a racially diverse place. I looked it up, and the US is about 65% Caucasian, 13% African American, 13% Hispanic, and 3% Asian American. Germany is pretty white. There are blacks of course, but few, and I’d say probably about 75% of the ones that are here weren’t born here, but rather emigrated from Africa to find work. The largest minority group by far are the Turks. WWII greatly reduced the male population of Germany and after the war many Turks entered the country as guest workers. The families of these workers stayed, and then more came, to where now there is a large Turkish community in basically every city in Germany. The thing is though, these communities are basically autonomous, as the Turks really haven’t assimilated. The communities are Turkish communities within Germany, not really integrated into the German society. Many don’t speak German, or at least not well, and, partly due to this, many are poorly educated. Many also retain traditional Muslim/Turkish societal/cultural values, which sometimes conflict with those values held by both the traditional and the progressive sides of German society. That's not to say it's totally their fault, in a lot of ways it is really hard for integration to happen, but that's just what is going on, and conflicts do tend to arise. I haven’t personally experienced anything, but I know that there is definitely tension, and you hear it expressed.

None of that is to say that the Germans are racists though. Far from. In almost all of my experience here I’ve found the Germans to be incredibly open-minded, progressive, and tolerant. There are still ‘Nazis’ of course, but these are a very small minority. There is a Nationalist Party here in Germany (as Germany is an open democracy), and although it is illegal for them to officially use the word Nazi, everyone knows that that is what the party is. This party had a political rally outside of Frankfurt a few weeks ago, and there were actually far more protestors than there were demonstrators.

Since WWII Germany is really wary of showing national pride. If someone were to say, ‘I’m proud to be German’, he’d probably be labeled as a Nazi. That is why the World Cup was so great last year, and its lingering effects are still so great. People could/can be proud of their country without being labeled as Nazis. They could/can brandish flags and show national pride without being labeled national socialists.

Frankfurt is really an international city though. It’s the financial capital of Germany and people travel from all over the world to live and work here. Sitting in the subway you can hear, alongside German, English, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, various African tongues, and a myriad of other languages.

I went to a few clubs here, some HUGE, some small, all pretty nice. All of the clubs play mainly house and techno though, which takes some getting used to.

The weather hasn’t been too hot here pretty much all summer, with rain just about every day, and the last few weeks in the 60s. Last week though, one day when the weather was really nice, I went to a beach club with a friend after work. It was great. The club is a peninsula that extends out into the Main river, and the ground is covered with sand, there are volleyball courts, cabanas, lounge chairs... it is a beach in the heart of the city. Half of the people were wearing swim- the other half were wearing business-suits. We just ordered a few hefe-weizen beers, kicked off our shoes, laid back and went on a mini-vacation.

I’m definitely going to miss Frankfurt. It’s a great city, I had a great experience, and I made some great friends.

Random: I am so very impressed with Germany’s recycling and environmental protection programs. They're incredible. I guess the environment is one of Bundeskanzlerin Merkel’s big issues in international politics, so she’s really pushing reform.

Kurze Reise

Tonight I am going to take a night train to Prague, Czech Republic, and then from there I will travel to Vienna, Austria and then spend the day in Salzburg, Austria on my way back to Frankfurt next Tuesday. Should be fun!

You've got to love the German work schedule. I work 35 hour weeks, and I'm only working for 2 months but I get 5 vacation days. Awesome!

Deutschland

On the roof of the Reichtag, Berlin

So right now I'm in Germany, I've actually been here for about 2 months now, yeah, I've been slacking a bit about updating this...

Kitschy David statue, art museum, and Kölner Dom (from behind), Köln

Right now I am in Köln, Cologne, for a mid-term seminar for the Transatlantic Program that I am participating in. I arrived last night and met up with one of my classmates from my language school in Argentina. He is in his mid-thirties and works for a bank here in Köln, and was in Buenos Aires to improve his Spanish as he has clients in Nicaragua and Panama. It was great to see him again. He lives right in the heart of the city and he showed me around a bit and then we went out to a typical "Kölnisches" restraurant and ate way too much and drank quite a lot of Kölsch (the beer here in Cologne).

At 6:00pm today I am going to meet with the rest of the students from my program. I'm pretty excited about it actually. They are all really nice and I'm interested to find out how they've all spent the last month here.

My roommate from Alicante, to my left, and I in a bar in Berlin.

I arrived in Germany from India (tangent: I tried to give blood two days ago, for the first time in my life, but couldn't because I had traveled to India in the last 6 months. That sucked. I was nervous about giving blood, so I guess that got me out of it, but it was disappointing. I stole some stickers though, so I can lie and say I did...) Anyways... I arrived in Berlin on May 16th and stayed with my German roommate from my study abroad semester in Alicante for a few days. It was awesome to see him again. The last time I had seen him was a year and a half ago when I traveled to Germany with my sister, and I hadn't really spoken to him since then, but it really seemed like no time had passed at all. He took me around the city a bit, showing me some of the more off-the-beaten-path sights. Over the course of the three days we played a few heated games of chess in a cafe, played a few drunken games of pool in a bar, and played some fast-paced, 9-player, running-around-the-table games of ping pong with some of his friends in a park. (I found out later that he was a member of a table tennis team when he was younger, yeah, he was good).

Tour of the Reichtag with the TA Program.

On the 19th I started the Transatlantic Program. The program is F-ing awesome. I still question why I'm here taking part in it, I think my German professor paid someone off. Our schedule for that first immersion seminar is as follows: Schedule for the visit of the U.S. student delegation to Germany It basically consisted of language training, inter-cultural training, presentations about working in Germany, educational presentations about German politics, economy, history, and culture, and we met with various businesses and government agencies. We also took day trips to Hamburg and Rostock, which were cool. I hadn't taken a German course or really spoken German in over a year, so at first everything was a bit overwhelming, but it was fun. I am really enjoying speaking the language again.

I'm working right now at Continental Teves in Frankfurt. The company is great, huge and world-recognized as a leader in its field, so it'll look great on my resume, and my bosses and "co-workers" are really nice, but my job isn't really anything to brag about. I'm working in the technical training department, so I'm just working with apprentices who are going through something like a vocational high school program to become mechanics, mechatronicians, or electricians, and with interns who are studying either electrical or mechanical engineering. What I'm doing is translating a bunch of documents, helping the apprentices/interns with their English, or with math, or questions about their assignments, random odd jobs (for instance yesterday I built a cabinet), and just playing with the machines in my spare time: drilling, milling, and turning. My boss really believes that a big component of the apprentices' education is English, so he has them give presentations in English every week, write monthly English reports, and he hired me to help them with their speaking proficiency. He's planning on sending some of them to one of Continental's branches in England for a bit in the future, so he's really preparing them for that. Continental's training program is really incredible, I'm so impressed with how much these kids know. It's actually a really prestigious apprenticeship though, as my boss told me that this year over 500 students applied, and only 16 were chosen.

Römer Platz in Frankfurt.

Frankfurt from the Main river.

Frankfurt as a city is great. Some people told me before I arrived that the city was ugly, just an industrial, working city. The city, as most cities in Germany, was destroyed during WWII and was subsequently quickly rebuilt with practical, functional buildings, many just cookie-cutter, which sacrifice aesthetics for practicality. Then later on a lot of sky scrapers were built, something unique for Germany, prompting some to nickname the city Main-hatten (as Frankfurt is on the Main river). I really like the city though. The skyline I find magnificent and the view from the river, especially at night, is breathtaking. Also, a lot of the buildings that were destroyed during the war were rebuilt in the same style, so although they are not authentic in age, they still give the city a classic feel and really give the impression that you're walking through a centuries-old city.

Old opera house in Frankfurt.

I don't actually live in the city proper, but rather in a suburb called Eschborn. It's a suburb, but you wouldn't really know it as everything in Germany is so close together that you can't really tell where one city ends and the other begins (Germany is about the size of New Mexico and has a population of over 80 million).

Having a beer at my friend's place.

My German friend from Beijing, he of "Dude Where's my Car" fame, lives in Frankfurt and I emailed him when I arrived and gave him my cell # here. He called me up and asked me where I lived. I told him "yeah, well, I don't really live in Frankfurt proper, but a little outside the city, in Eschborn, actually in Niederhöchstatt." "No way," he said. I figured he was going to say "Come on, what are you doing living there, that's so far away!," but he said "No way, I live in Niederhöchstadt!" "Yeah, where do you live?" "On the street Schöne Aussicht." Now it was my turn, "No way, I live on Schöne Aussicht!" It turns out we're neighbors. Pure coincidence. I met him in China, hadn't talked with him in two months, moved to a metropolitan area of over a million people, and now we live right down the street from eachother. The world can be a small place sometimes.

At the opera, Mozart's Zauberflöte

I've done a lot since I've been here in Germany. I've been to two operas: Mozart's Zauberflöte, and Der Tod in Venidig (Death in Venice). I went to the NFL Europe's World Bowl between Hamburg and Frankfurt with Meat Loaf as the the half-time show. "I would do anything for love, yes I would do anything for love, I would do anything for love, but I won't do that, no no, NO I WON'T DO THAT!" It was great. Incidentally the NFL Europe has lost about 50 million euros each year since it was founded 10 years ago, so the NFL in the U.S. has decided to pull the plug on the league. That means that I saw the last game ever. Wow. I saw Bright Eyes in concert in Wiesbaden, which was amazing. He played almost entirely new songs, which I didn't know as I don't have his new CD, but it was a great concert in a Blue Note-type venue and I drank, danced, and sung my heart out. Connor was as sexy as ever. Last weekend I went to a museum called Dialog im Dunkeln (Dialogue in the Dark), which simulates the experience of being blind. It was an hour and a half long tour through different rooms that simulated being in the city, the forest, on a boat, in a cafe, etc., all in complete darkness. It's amazing how much everything changes without sight. It was really interesting. A couple of weeks ago I took a trip to Baden-Württemberg and visited my German Au-pair from my childhood. She took care of me and my siblings for a year when she was in her 20s and I was 6. She is now married and has two children, which are growing up so fast! She and her family are so sweet and it was nice to see them all again.

World Bowl in Frankfurt.

I work about half the time in German, have a lot of German friends, and am taking a German course in the evening, so my German is getting a lot better. Das freut mich!

Random: UFC 73 is this weekend and is an awesome card: Marquardt-Silva, Nogueira-Herring, Ortiz-Evans, Sherk-Franca, etc. The event is titled "Stacked" and it really is...