Monday, May 12, 2008

Weekend o' fun

Bad news gentle readers: my camera seems to be broken. Hopefully I'll be able to get someone else's pictures of this weekend, but until then you'll have to just read the story. I'll see what I can find on the internet to make it more visually appealing.

Okay, because it's Pentecost this weekend is a holiday for Germans (again!). As an aside, I find it interesting that most of the holidays here a religious. No one is religious, and many people didn't know what Pentecost was (the day the holy spirit came to the disciples, in case you were wondering). Anyway, I might be annoyed if I were Jewish or Muslim and had to work on my religious holidays while the Christians got them off, but I'm not sure that many Jews of Muslims live in East Germany.

So I did two things for fun this weekend. First, I went to Erfurt to a middle ages festival. Except that it wasn't actually in Erfurt, so Jenny, Sebastian, and I just walked around the city. It was fun, except that I think Sebastian wanted to be alone with Jenny. Or maybe I was imagining things. Anyway, we ate what was Sebastian claimed was the best ice cream in Germany. It was quite good. I made Jenny take a picture, so hopefully I can post it tomorrow.
We also went to the cathedral.


Here's the picture from wikipedia. Sorry, folks. Hopefully I'll get a new camera soon.

I also bought some bedding, but I'm not really sure about it. If I get a camera I'll let you see what you think.

Then, on Sunday, most of the lab went on a bike ride to a castle nearby. And by "nearby" I mean 18 kilometers of hills away. Holy Crap. It was hard. Actually, the first 16 km or so were quite nice. I had to walk the last bit up to the castle (and frankly - it sort of amazes me that everyone on the lab, except for the Americans, can bike up a hill that's several kilometers long). But that was okay. The castle was historic, the view was nice, and Jenny and I debated on taking the train home. Unfortunately I thought that I could make it back. Bad decision. Let's just say that I'm glad guns aren't readily available in Germany. Because if I had a gun when I heard someone say "You know, when you feel completely exhausted, you've really only reached 70% of your capacity" I might have killed him. Same goes for every time someone said "No, really, this is the last hill."

I'm worried that as time goes by I'll start to think it was fun, and then I'll be persuaded to do it again. But, on the other hand, I may have been unpleasant enough that I won't be invited to any future bike rides.

4 comments:

anaeromyxo said...

You? Unpleasant? Impossible!

Anonymous said...

Hi Emily,
I give you mad props for doing the bike ride in the first place. Bike riding 'up hill'- not my idea of fun. Have you decided on a color for the bedroom?

Reforming Soccer Mom said...

so, you should point out to the person who make the exhaustion comment that the other 30% is for sudden adrenaline rushes--like if a bear showed up or your children were pinned under a car while running from ______________ (insert bad guy here...I'm afraid all of my examples are offensive in Germany). Basically an evolutionary leftover from when we hunted sabre-tooth tigers. Also, I am really impressed with your perseverance. I think another time I was glad you didn't have a gun was when the keys were in the car off I-81, in the flurry of snow, and dude said, "this is the tool it calls for". . . Next time I want to quit school I'll think, "Emily rode up the mountain!"

biophd said...

I should point out that I didn't actually ride up the mountain. Eventually I walked up the mountain holding my bike. But was still moving forward, so perhaps I get partial credit for that.