Zürich!

Let me start of this blog by saying that until the past week, Jenny and I were the oldest people in the lab. So we've been attempting to prove that we're not old and lame for a while now. Mostly this endeavor has taken the form of staying out all night (in Jena or, as mentioned two blogs ago, in Erfurt). But over coffee one day Kristina looked up and asked "Do you want to go to Zürich this weekend?" She had planned to go with her boyfriend, but since he couldn't she was trying to unload the tickets. And since we're still young and fun, Jenny and I agreed to go.

For the most part, Zürich was a lot of fun. Here's a picture tour of the things we did. First, we visited the Grossmünster and Fraumünster churches.

We went up in the tower in the Grossmünster. Here's the view:

We took a boat ride around the lake. Here's the back of the boat, and a Swiss flag (as an aside - the Swiss are at least as proud of their flag as the Americans).

We hopped off the boat to go buy some Lindt chocolate. The factory is in Zürich but the don't give tours anymore. Here are some pictures from the walk to the chocolate, when Jenny was forcing me to take 90 bazillion pictures because she forgot her camera.

Here are some pictures that sort of prove that we saw the Lindt factory. They're hard to make out, I know. But look on the top of the building.

The next day we went to the botanical garden, the museum of skin diseases, and the coffee museum. It turns out that while skin diseases may sound fascinating, they're really quite disgusting. Especially when they've been recreated in detail on wax models. Just a tip: Syphilis should really be avoided if at all possible. In the coffee museum we tasted substitute coffees. You know, for times when coffee was rationed or too expensive for the common man. Here's a second tip: avoid substitute coffees. They taste like dirt, and they don't have caffeine. So really, what's the point? We couldn't take pictures in the museum, but here's me with a fly on my head in the botanical gardens.

I should point out that I woke up that morning feeling like death, and pretty much unable to speak above a whisper. But I bought some magical Swiss cold medicine, which didn't restore my voice, but did enable me to function for the rest of the day. That evening Sven (formerly of this lab) met up with us. I tried to stay out and not be old and lame, but I was sick. And, after an hour in a smoky bar, could no longer speak at all. I was mouthing the words for Jenny to translate to Sven (because English lip-reading was hard for him). This isn't as much fun as you might think, unless you thought it was no fun. It's hard for me to be quiet for an evening. So I decided to go back to the hostel and sleep. Negative fun points for Emily. But when I heard Jenny come in at 4 a.m., I was incredibly grateful for my warm bed.

The next day was nature day. We went on a hike outside of the city. It looked like this.

I think if you look in the background you can see an Alp. But it was pretty overcast the whole day, so they're hard to make out.

Also, Jenny likes to touch any animal that will hold still (she pet a hedgehog - I'm pretty sure this will end in rabies someday). So, here's when she was licked by a cow.

We finally got to a big tower that overlooks Zürich. Here it is! And here's a picture of some people on the tower so I can prove that I climbed 178 steps to get to the top, even though I was deathly ill. Jenny refused to go.

I'm going to wrap this up.... Zürich is a lovely city. The pictures don't do it justice. Shortly after the hike (and a trip by Starbucks - I'm sorry okay. I just wanted it) we boarded the train back to Jena.

The Bradley Effect

I went to Zürich this weekend, and I promise I'll post some pictures soon. It's a lovely city, but unfortunately I caught I cold and currently feel like my head might explode. Anyway, I'm not feeling funny, so I'm going back to politics.

Right now it seems like we might have an Obama landslide. States that I never thought would be go Democrat are being discussed as toss-ups. That's right - I'm talking to you North Carolina. I occasionally hear Georgia mentioned, but I think it's unlikely. I'm just happy that it's a light red in some maps.

So that's all good. But there's talk about something called "The Bradly Effect." This is basically the idea that people lie about who they plan to vote for in order to give a more socially acceptable answer. Here's a link to the NY Times article about it. The name comes from the African-American mayor of L.A. who was predicted to win by a wide margin, but actually lost by a narrow margin.

I'm not really sure what to say about it, except that I hope that it's not gonna be a factor. And really, I think that it's probably not. But I can imagine lying to a pollster to produce a more PC answer. Because this one time I got asked to record my radio listening and send it in for some national polling company. Those of you who know me know that I pretty much listen to NPR all the time. But at the time I was also carpooling to work with people who listened to 96 Rock (and it was while "The Regular Guys" was on - few things in this world are more horrible). I was tempted to lie - because I didn't want the ratings of 96 rock to go up because of me. I also considered lying and including radio that I don't usually listen to, but probably should - like "Democracy Now."

I tell this story because I like to talk about myself, but also to illustrate my point about how a person might lie to a pollster. Because it's not really gonna make that much of a difference, right? And if you were asked by a person who you thought might want some particular answer it would be really easy to tell them what you think they'd like to hear.

So should you get called by a pollster, you should probably tell them who you're really going to vote for. Also, don't say that you're going to vote if you're not. And, in case you were wondering, I ended up being honest about my Radio listening habits.

I'm a Georgia Voter

Do you know who I think is funny? Sarah Silverman. I mean, I feel bad about it, but it's true. Anyway, I saw that she made a video in support of Obama, so I thought I'd share it with you. By my calculation I have zero Jewish readers, so it's mostly for entertainment value.



Also, I thought I'd share with you that I voted! Yay! And the nice thing about the whole absentee ballot thing is that I can share this moment with you.


Here's the thing about voting: Usually I end up being surprised by some of the things on the ballot. I mean sure, I know who is running for president, but I rarely know what I think about the constitutional amendment to create tax allocation districts. If you find that you have the same problem, you can go here and fill out a sample ballot. It's pretty nice, because a lot of times the candidates have submitted information about themselves and you can read about it. For some reason it didn't have any information about the Georgia Court of Appeals race, but if you go to this website you can find interviews with each of the candidates (on the sidebar on the right).

I'm a little sad that I wont get to go to the poll on election day, but I'll probably survive. But if anyone wants to send me a GA Voter sticker, I'd be really grateful.

UPDATE: I just walked down to the post office and mailed my ballot. It cost 4 euros. I hope Obama appreciates that. Crap! I gave away who I vote for...

German Unity Day

Friday was German Unity Day, so it was an official holiday. Because I worked on the 4th of July, I felt totally justified in not working. I wanted to celebrate in the traditional German manner, but as far as I can tell there's no activity associated with the day. I mean, the holiday was first celebrated in 1990, and I guess it takes time for these customs to evolve.

Because there wasn't anything official to do, Kristina, Jenny and I hiked up to this tower on a mountain near Jena, had some coffee at the restaurant there, then headed back to my place to make little animals out of chestnuts (and matches) and watch the Gilmore Girls. So, pictures!


Here are a few from the hike. And here are some of those little chestnut animals things. These are Kristina's creations. I made some more yesterday, but I haven't taken pictures of them yet. But they have ears, so that's pretty exciting.


Kristina was also going to make a crown out of leaves, but it turned out to be sort of tricky to make it round, so it became a table decoration.


Then we tried to watch a rebroadcast of the U.S. vice-presidential debate, but CNN interrupted it to show us the final vote on the bail-out plan. I'm glad it passed, but I wanted to see the debate. Overall I was impressed with Sarah Palin. After watching her interviews it didn't take too much to impress me, but still. She's learned a lot in a short period of time.

Saturday Jenny and I took the train to Erfurt to go shopping for Halloween costumes and decorations. I haven't seen any Halloween stuff in Jena, but Erfurt is a bigger city, and apparently the holiday is starting to catch on. We got some stuff, and were about to head home when we saw that Erfurt was having some sort of Oktoberfest. Strange, since it's mostly a Bavarian thing, but we went into the beer tent and made some friends who spoke very little English. Here's one of them with Jenny.

The night got sort of strange after the beer tent closed. We went to Burger King (we were hungry, okay!) and met some guys wearing Lederhosen. Unfortunately, at this point I'd lost interest in taking pictures - but we hung out with them, I swear! We went to some club that played a bizarre mixture of music and danced with the Lederhosen men for a while, realized that we'd missed the last train back, then hung out in a bakery until the next train left of Jena (at 4 am). Part of the idea here was to prove that we're not old, and can still go out and have fun. Which is true, except that I fell asleep at the bakery, and again on the train to Jena.

Of Dreams and Donuts

I'm supposed to meet Jenny at a bar (to hear a rockabilly band) at 10, and I needed to do a thing in the lab at 8:30. So in the meantime I'm drinking some coffee to try and stay away past 11, and trying not to get freaked out by how dark and creepy it is alone in the lab at night. I could also do something productive, but I realize that it's been a while since I told you about my dreams, so here's the one I had last night:

I was back at GT walking from the lobby to my office. Gathered around the elevator were a bunch of current grad students speaking to each other in German. I stood there for a while listening to them and trying to figure out what they were saying, but no luck. I felt really left out. But the dream got better because when I went down the hall there were three dozen Krispy Kreme donuts. At first I thought that they were for everyone to share, but then I realized that everyone got three dozen donuts. I ate one, but the dream donut didn't taste as good as the real thing.

That's it. I think I must be at home here. For the most part my dreams now take place in Germany, and clearly Germany infiltrates even my American dreams. Probably I can take two things away from this dream. First - I like donuts. Second - I should probably do my German homework.

Rügen: Part III

This is definitely going to be the end of this story. Here goes: Kelly and I didn't want to go back to the country line dancing immediately after leaving the museum, so we decided to take the bus to the tourist town of Binz, eat dinner there, and take a nice walk back to Prora. One of the coolest things in Binz was not mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide. I also didn't take a picture of it. But along the shore was a series of sciencey sculptures. They were great - one of them involved turning a crank to make a tornado in a big plexiglass tube. The one called "The Storm" was the coolest, but it's also difficult to describe. But it did a good job of showing turbulence. Some of the statues I didn't understand - there were signs nearby, but as expected, they were in German. One of them looked like a giant raisin. I have no idea what it was supposed to demonstrate, but Kelly has a picture of me clinging to it. If she sends it to me I can post it.

Anyway, then Kelly and I sat together and stared at the water. It was romantic, but I'm not sure how she would have responded to gay chicken, so I kept my hands to myself. We ate dinner, then began the 3ish mile walk back to our campsite and the line dancing. I was really excited when I realized that the beach we were walking on was an FKK beach. I've been fascinated by this since Luise explained it to me. I took a picture to prove it.


One of the problems with walking along the beach is that it's hard to know when you've reached your destination. We couldn't tell, so every so often we'd walk up the paths leading away from the beach. At one point we started we heard voices in the woods, which was a bit creepy. So we scurried back to the beach, where a fireworks display was going on in the distance. I suggested that it might be coming from the linedancing, and Kelly didn't believe me - but now I realize that I was right. According to the flier about the festival, "Sonnabend etwa 22:00 Uhr dasFeuerwerk von Fred Feuerstein" were scheduled. But at the time it seemed impossible far away.

Eventually, we figured out where we were from the Nazi ghost buildings. The story is this: The Nazi originally planned to make Prora a major holiday destination. So they build several kilometers of these barrack-style buildings along the coast. I foolishly didn't take any pictures, but they're huge gray buildings that loom over everything. They're mostly unoccupied now, except for a few museums in the bottom floor of some of them. Apparently, the Soviets tried to blow them up and failed. So now they're just creepy, silent reminders of Germany's ugly past.

This picture, which I borrowed from the internet, was right across from the campsite.
Once we left the beach, we walked along the road with theses sinister buildings to our right for maybe 2 kilometers. I keep saying creepy. The thesaurus suggests "macabre, ghoulish, eerie, and ominous" as alternatives. This picture was in the daylight, but they're more eerie at night. Anyway, we made it back, but we were too tired to participate much in the festivities that evening.

The next morning we decided that we'd see the beach in the daylight as we walked back to Binz (before taking a train to Bergen and then on to Jena/Leipzig). The beach really is beautiful there - you can see why the Nazis chose this spot. Here are some pictures. Also, it turns out that everyone on the FKK beach was clothed. Maybe because it was too cold.


We made it back in time for our train, and Chinese food for lunch, but not much else. And, since we rode first class on the way back, we decided to have beers brought to us in our seats.



And that, my friends, is finally the end of the story.

Rügen: Part II

Okay, as promised, here's the story about the rest of the trip. I don't think that there are any other hilarious mishaps, but there is a ferry ride, a romantic walk down the beach, some lovely chalky cliffs, and a giant snail. Ready? Let's go.

So after the first night of line dancing, Kelly and I went to bed. And by bed, of course I mean sleeping bag on a cot in a tent. It was so cold. So cold. I wore my pajama pants under my cords. It wasn't comfortable, but it was warmer than a single pair of pants. Also, the bathroom was a long way away. So waking up at 5:30 and trekking over there wasn't fun. I managed to sleep for a while after that. When I woke up and saw that it was time for Früchstuck (breakfast) I was relieved.

The woman at the campsite check-in on Saturday morning did speak English, and she recommended that we take the bus to Königsstuhl to see the museum that went along with Jasmund National Park.

In order to do that we took a bus to Sassnitz, where we got distracted by the idea of a ferry ride around the island. We thought it would be a good way to see the chalky cliffs. It was. Here are your first pictures of this story.

We were hungry after the boat ride, so we got some fish at a restaurant nearby. Here's the thing: While you may know that the German word for "fish" is "Fisch," it's trickier to know what the words for specific kinds of fish are. In the end I guessed. Although I did guess that herring was probably herring, so I avoided it. It turned out well. I ended up with some sort of fish dish with tomatoes and cheese. I think it was quite good, but I was really hungry so it's hard to tell for sure.

Anyway, next we took the bus to Königsstuhl. We were actually the only ones on the bus, so it was sort of like taking a taxi. With very low fuel efficiency. We tried to go through the museum, but we got confused and gave up. We might have persevered, except that the last bus was in 2 hours and we really wanted to go down to the beach and look at the cliffs from below. However, since I did promise you a giant snail, I will say that the brochure of the museum promised a playground with a giant snail. I was determined to find said snail. When I did, I was a little disappointed. I'd say it was a largish snail, but giant might be stretching it a bit. Plus, his shell doesn't seem realistic at all.

So next we walked over to Victoria sight, which has something to do with some royal naming the view for his daughter. Sorry. I can't remember the details, but I can show you the view.

Here are some other views from the same overlook.

It really was beautiful. Next we walked down a really, really long staircase to the beach below. It was rocky, and filled with chalky stones. I took one home. It's my souvenir. Along with the hat. This is the view from below.



We walked for a while along the rocky beach, then realized that we needed to catch the last bus, and that it might take longer to walk up the staircase than down. So we headed back.

I know I promised that this post would finish the trip, but I can't justify continuing to not work. So you'll have to wait a while longer to find out about the romantic beach walk and the Nazi ghost buildings. I'm verbose. What can I say?