Saarbruecken

My weekend trip to Saarbruecken had a rough start.

At 6:15am I got to my Bahn stop.  Our group's train was scheduled to leave at 6:35am- I thought I had plenty of time. But, in the next 15 minutes not a single train came (normally 4 would of passed by then).  I called my friends waiting at the train station and told them what was happening- it was suggested I should run.

So, at 6:30am I ran in full sprint the 1.3 km to the station. I flew up the stairs 3 steps at a time and ran to the platform, pouring with sweat.  It was then that I noticed the crowd visibly disgruntled people and my group and the lack of trains in the station. It turns out the trains were on a "warning" strike from 6-9am - we were out of luck for the first train we had planned on taking. 

The rest of our train trip went as smoothly as the first half hour.  At our first connection, while still in our first train, we saw a "rapid" train directly to Saarbruecken sitting at a platform across the station.  It was supposed to of left ten minutes ago- so we ran to it thinking we had gotten lucky.  We opened the doors of the train and sat down to catch our breath- and then we realized we were the only ones on the train.  I looked outside and noticed people laughing at us.

We sent a scout outside of the train; he quickly realized that every sign in the area said "Do not board train"- oops!

"Bitte nicht einsteigen"

 We waited on the platform for an hour or two for the strike to end and train business to return to normal.  We were entertained when two other groups of international students made the same mistake as us by running onto the train and sitting down.

River Mosel:

Best 50 Euro cents ever spent (her name is Jewel):

In Saarbruecken we met up with the 15 CBYX students living there. The city is pretty small and looks much older (and prettier) than Cologne.  The streets are very wide and the buildings aren't as tall.  We went to a festival taking place on one of the main streets:

This picture sums up Saarbruecken pretty well (relaxed and pretty):

The Saar cuts the city in two.  The second boat is a rental boat that has a grill in the middle.  I'd like to one day rent one and have a picnic on the river- it looked really fun.

Kevin, Sam and I thought about playing some beach volleyball. And then we found these chairs:

Around 5pm we all met back up again to play cards and cook a huge dinner at someone's host family's home.

observe and report, Jewel

broken camera scare and Macro check.

I like German kitchens more than I should

I like German hinges more than I should

but seriously that is awesome.

Look how then the stove is!!!!!!! The drawer below it is real.

Sunday: 

The Saarbrucken CBYXrs had to participate in LernFest this weekend. Lernfest is a Saarbruecken festival where clubs and orginazations meet in a park to teach visitors about themselves or whatever their passion is. For example, the local Technical school held science experiments for kids, the agriculture club had information on processed food, and CBYXrs had a tent about America.

We decided to walk, in order to see the city:

 After 25 minutes, we started to lose faith in Google.  This wasn't even the weirdest road it had us take:

Random forest road

 But it was awesome when we arrived in the Deutsch-Franzosischer Gardens. The park is about 1 km long and has a miniature train as well as a ski tram to take you across its length.  The festival bordered the main trail for the whole length of the park.

The CBYX booth hosted a Smore sampling station, an area with information about our National Park system, baseball batting practice, and baseball trivia.  People enjoyed it; the Saarland Minister of Education minister came by for a photo-op with the bat.

I used the rest of Sunday afternoon to meet my host brothers for the next year.  On Friday, I received a letter with the family's name and number.  Unfortunately, the parents and daughter were out of town- but the brothers gladly met me in the city.

The family lives 15 mins south of Saarbruecken in Kleinsblittersdorf. It is an awesome location and the village seems quaint.  I will be staying in the grandfathers old apartment, which is the lower floor of the house.  As we were leaving I thought to take a picture (2 mins from house):

The brothers were very nice and great hosts. The 20 year old brother is in medical school in Romania, and the 17 year old is in high school still.  The daughter is around 12, which is why she was with the parents on their out-of-town excursion. I'm very excited to move to Saarbruecken!

A Friday

After class on Friday I went and got Sushi at my friend Ian's favorite spot.  It was great.

 At night, Manuel and I went to go check out a traveling beer festival by our house (Bierborse). But first, we had to stop by his bank. His bank happened to be next to a boutique movie theater which was hosting a premier:

If only we were a part of the "in" crowd!

The bier festival featured around 30 different breweries which were set up in a park.  We both met up with friends and hung out for the last hour until it closed.

I used my computers default program to try and lighten the photo.

One of the breweries from Hamburg served their beer out of a ship:

full moon

Free Museum Day for Residents

All museums in Cologne are free on the first Thursday of the month.  This past Thursday I went to the big three: the Romische-Germanic Musuem, the Ludwig Musuem (MoMA), and the Wallraf-Richart Musuem. I took a few pictures at each.

Disclaimer:  I called the Romische and Wallraf musuems and confirmed posting photos is allowed.  I will call the Ludwig when it is open tomorrow just to double check.  While I was there I didn't see signs forbidding photography and the security staff didn't stop me or other people in the exhibits.

Roman Musuem

I was able to see up close the awesome floor that was found next to the Dom:

It was fun reading about the different pieces.  The next photo was for the tomb of a 25 year Roman general.  It said it was notable that he chose to be portrayed as a statesman in this peace rather than a warrior:

Because it was free museum day, there were classes of middle and high-schoolers being led around at each museum by their teachers.

My lasting impression from the museum is that I am very happy to not have been a stone carver for the Romans.  Nothing was simple and everything was very precise geometrically.

Another thing that was very surprising was the amound of intricate glass work.  I never associated Romans with glass.

Side story:
At Auburn, people do very clever things to sneak liquor into football games. People bring flasks of alcohol disguised as fake binoculars, cell phones, and much more. Apparently, the idea is as old as Rome itself.  I'll admit I couldn't understand the German for this exhibit, but I'm pretty sure the description would have translated to "Colosseum Flask Slippers".

 More Glass:

 A map of Colonia in its heyday. The wall from my earlier blog post is the wall near the river on the far right:

Map of pertinent Roman towns; all roads lead to Cologne.  It was interesting to see how similar the old names are to the current German towns in the same location.

Ludwig Museum:

The Ludwig Musuem had a lot of great pop art. Overall, I liked seeing more Warhol and Lichtenstein, as well as some different Picassos.

 There was also a great patio on the roof:

I WILL NEVER GET OVER THE DOM

 Sometimes modern art is weird. Consider, for example, a 10 minute film of a cat drinking milk:

But a lot of time it just makes me want to get out old paint set:

After hour 4 of museums it was time for some extra energy:

Alternative spelling of Jourdan

 Wallraf-Richart Musuem:

This was my favorite musuem. It had a lot of religious paintings and interesting stories about relics and artists related to Cologne. The best part, in my opinion, was the Baroque and Impressionist art in the basement.

The following are a few paintings that I thought did well playing with light:

I'll admit this is a building, not a painting. But a cool view.

 

The artist so accurately represented the location of the sun, moon, stars, and his position within the Venetian plaza, that astronomers could determine the painting was made on September 19th, 1842m at 7:30 pm.

The paintings made me want to visit Italy:

And lastly, there was a giant pinhole camera on the Dom platz.  We were able to walk into the box and see an upside down image of the Dom cast on a white screen (to make a picture, the screen would of needed to be film).

Mexican Food

     A group of us got together for some much needed Mexican food.  I told myself to have low expectations, which worked out well.  All of the Mexican food dishes I wanted started over 20 euro, so I had empanadas instead- and they were awesome.  I am going to do some cooking this week in order to get my Mexican food fix.

My friend Erin and I. A little bean dip got stuck on my upper lip.

Afterwards we chose to walk home instead of take the train.  We found a cool park and sat around for some time.

Organ Concert

For the past 50 summers, the Kolner Dom has hosted an organ concert series to help fund improvements for the massive instrument. Famous organists from around the world are invited. This past Tuesday I went with my friends to the Summer's last concert.

 We arrived an hour early and were able to get the last open bench in the cathedral.  I was extremely impressed by how much interest there was in the concert series as well as the diversity of the audience-- people from middle-school age to retirement seemed equally interested.

click to make big

I tried to take a night picture once it ended to show how impressive the height and scale of the cathedral is.

The above picture shows where the organist was sitting.  I think that there are around 4000 pipes contained by three separate organ systems in the church. The organist can play all three from the same seat.

Above is a better view of where the organist sits.

The organ has a few distinct noises that were unfamiliar to me.  I was very suprised by a certain register that sounded exactly like flutes.  Another register sounded like tubas and trombones. And of course, it often (and loudly) made the traditional organ sound I had heard in churches before.

Recording attempt:

The picture above shows the newest of the organs. It is called the Swallow's Nest because of its looks and location.  It weighs over 30 tonnes.  It's impressive a 600 year old church can hold something like that up.  Not to mention the fact that it is also holding the worlds largest swinging bell, which weighs 28 tonnes by itself.

And then there was an awesome 5 story ladder I found in the corner. It looked like something DaVinci could have sketched up:

Amersfoort

Ryan saw on Trip Adviser that the number 1 rated restaurant was on the way home. It boasted the best french fries in the world. We decided to give it a try. 

Step 1 was to drive through one of the Amersfoort gates:

Then park next to one of the tranquil canals:

Walk down the deserted (Sunday) street:

And then find out they are out of french fries!!!!!!!  There was a crowd of people outside eating huge cones of gourmet fries- they looked like they had never been happier! It was a big disappointment, so we walked back to the car and tried to stop at the city festival:

Add caption

 The city festival ended 5 minutes before we got there as well.  For all future Netherlands travelers- remember that 7pm is when everything ends.  Despite missing food and fun, it was great to see the beautiful city.  Here is the best picture I got of Amersfoort and the breakdown of the festival:

Sound Barriers

I like the sound-deflectors I saw in the Netherlands. Around Amsterdam they were all see through and nice to look at: