Yay, internet!!

Today at work was really cool. I got to go on a test run of this train (a VT612) that was in for its regularly scheduled servicing. 5 of us went to Warburg and back. When we got there we just parked the train in the middle of a railyard and went out for coffee! Then, when we were almost back to DB Kassel, the driver asked if I had seen everything, and I said yes and thanked him for showing me. And then he said, 'good, then you're ready to drive.' I wasn't sure if he was kidding or not. The answer was not! So, I got to drive a train today. Needless to say, it was fun :D Working for Deutsche Bahn, at least as an intern, is really cool. So, I am just going to quickly put up these past few posts, pack, get a few hours sleep, and go to Paris in the morning! My life is sort of awesome.

(I'm not taking my computer with me this time, but you will definitely get to hear about Paris next week.)

Hi! Wow, week 6! I'm kindof confused about how exactly that happened... Ok, so it's been a few days since I wrote a post. And many more since any actually made it online where you can see them. But I'm working on it, really! I sent an email to someone today, which will hopefully result in my being able to get wireless on the University campus. Maybe. Anyways, by the time you read this it will be fixed, I promise :)

Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday, via facebook, email, etc. Also, to everyone who has emailed me in general; it's always great to hear from home. It was especially welcome in the first few weeks, which were a bit of an adjustment for me (though I sortof shied away from writing about that on this blog). I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of this self-sufficiency thing though and really starting to enjoy myself. Ok, on to the pictures!

He set his drink and cigarettes on the table and slumped back in his seat. "Call me Mac." 'Mac' proceeded to tell his story, beginning with meeting some batty old dames in the woods... it was the most concise and amusing relation of Macbeth I have seen :) The whole thing was only about 5 minutes long, and he did all of it in the manner of a gangster in a bar. Last Wednesday I went to "The Red Brick Theater Company Goes Black." It was a bunch of German university students putting on 22 dark/humouous plays/performances in English(!) in 88 minutes. When each performance started, a large clock on the wall did as well, and when it was over the clock was stopped. The acts were predetermined, but the order was not. After each the host asked the audience for the number of the next (of course I requested number 17. It turned out to be a skit poking fun at Germans with poor English). There were some Shakespeare, some skits, some music (including "He Had It Coming," from Chicago), a Vagina Monologue, a how-to-act tutorial, a how to interrogate tutorial, improv, and the longest, most dramatic death scene I have ever witnessed. The how to interrogate tutorial was given by this actress who strongly reminded me of Edna, the seamstress from The Incredibles. ("Many people like to break bones at this point. But we're not in the dark ages, darling! We have electricity.") Almost all the actors had excellent English (only two had strong accents). They were all strong performers. And, it was great to completely understand all of the details of the plays and the humor; most of the audience had to work hard to keep up with it. I definitely enjoyed the evening!

Now we're going to jump ahead to this past weekend. After work on Friday I rushed to the train station and took a series of 4 trains to Minden (which shouldn't really take that many connections to get to, but the ticket was cheaper that way.) Then I walked to Alex's apartment. (Alex, as you'll recall, is another MIT student working for DB in Germany this summer. I met her a couple of weeks ago when she was in Kassel on business and we went out to dinner and a Discotheque.) At her apartment I met Thiemo, a friend of hers who's a student in the area and wants to be a cook. His minor is nutrition, so he works at a hospital. He doesn't like it though, because sick people's food can't be all that interesting. Anyways, the three of us went out the this amazing club in the next town over. Each room is themed and has its own music genre. We spent some time in the traditional German disco/club room, which was fun. We were also in a room that seemed more latin-y and one that was more traditional rock. There's even a beach area! Anyways, we only stayed for a few hours there, since we all had to be up early in the morning. Thiemo had work in the morning, and Alex and I had to be on a train at 5-something in the morning! So, we got a couple hours of sleep, and then walked to the train station.

Here we are on a train, looking remarkably awake for only having a couple hours of sleep. We took a series of trains to Hamburg. Once there we found our hotel, which amazingly enough let us check in at 10ish in the morning! We went back downtown and checked out the shopping area for half an hour, then travelled to the HSH Nordbank Arena. We went to Hamburg's Live Earth concert, which was amazing! Live Earth was a series of 8 concerts around the world (Sydney, Japan, Hamburg, London, Africa, Brazil, New York ... hmm, I'm missing one...) organized by Al Gore to bring attention to the issue of global warming. Lots of really awesome performers got involved. Which meant that in just one afternoon and evening I got to see Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, and Snoop Dogg. Also, many artists famous here but not in the US, like Silbermond, Julia, and Mia. And there was this really cool Norwegian singer, Katie Melua (I think), who did these really beautiful arpeggios. The whole experience was kindof surreal. Enrique (as well as several others) actually moved down off the stage and right up to the crowd. At one point the security guys were holding on to his belt from behind as he leaned his whole upper body into the crowd. Below is a picture of Enrique while he was still on the stage:

Outside the arena were lots of booths set up fair-style with all sorts of food and also souveniers. There were also free apples and little kits to grow sunflowers from. And these little cars were on display:

On the side is written 'open your mind,' sort of the motto of the concerts. These cars are actually illegal in the US, because it's dangerous for them to be driving around among the big SUVs. At least that's what I heard; I may be wrong. Tiny, efficient cars like this are popular in Europe.

After the concert we went back to our nice comfortable hotel room and finally got some sleep. In the morning, this guy (sorry, I forgot his name) called. So, Alex had recently met him at a train station, and in the course of conversation discovered that his was from Hamburg and was going to be back in town for this weekend. So, we met up with him at the train station and got an insider's tour of Hamburg! Those are definitely the best.

Hamburg is the 3rd largest city in Germany. They apparently decided that early capitulation was the way to go in WWII, so they still have a lot of the nice old architecture, unlike many cities which were destroyed by air raids. So, Hamburg is beautiful. Even the Burger Kings are pretty! (see below...)

Hamburg is sort of Venetian, with canals running through the city. This is one of the larger ones.

The awesome building above is the Rathaus, the main government building. There was some sort of public concert going on under the yellow umbrellas. Also, all the white things on the water are swans!

Most cities in Germany seem to have some sort of mascot. Berlin has bears, Kassel has the Hercules, and somewhere, I think it's Dresden, has winged pigs. I think. Anyways, Hamburg's maskot is Hans Hummel the water carrier. There are statues of him all over the city. They're all identical in form but have unique paint jobs. Here's Alex with a Hans we saw.

The three of us saw the governement area, the shopping areas, and then a park and some nice gartens. One in particular had lots of pretty flowers and trellises.

Below you see our guide and Alex walking into a Japanese garten. Note that he insisted on carrying my backpack and water bottle for me for a while; most tour guides wouldn't do that! In exchange, I carried his coat and umbrella. He has one of the really snazzy long umbrellas which can be used as classy walking sticks!

I sort of did it accidentally the first time, then sprayed it out and put the ball in again intentionally. It was a lot of fun. I think Alex and I were the biggest kids there :)

After that the three of us went to this really good italian place. When our guide was young his piano teacher would bring him there and he always loved eating the home-made bread. The meal was delicious. I ordered a mushroom pizza, Alex got a salad, and our host got pasta. We all had some of each, and it was all amazing. The salad was the best I've ever had (granted, I haven't had many salads, as I only relatively recently realized that they are not, in fact, uniformly bland and terrible. But this one was exquisite.)

Then we went to a sort of concrete beach around a big lake with a fountain in the middle. Our guide left us, and Alex and I sunned ourselves for about an hour. It's been really rainy in general for the last month (apparently we're having an atypical summer for Germany), so this was only the second truly warm and sunny day I've had (the first being in Barcelona). After that we walked around the lake. There were restaurant and flower shop boats docked along the side. Then we headed to the train station.

Getting home was more of an adventure than we expected. We made it to our first train, which was sort of crowded, and found seats. Then there was this big commotion behind us. This guy wanted to sit in a seat, but this lady's stuff was on it and she told him to go find another seat. So, using excellent problem solving skills, he called her a whore (she was wearing a strappy top.) She slapped him, he took the seat next to her, and a loud argument ensued. She claims he hit her, and at any rate he was harassing her. So, they got taken off to talk to the police, along with a bunch of other people as witnesses. Then, there was an announcement that the train was indefinitely delayed. It turned out that there was a brush fire along some tracks to the southwest. So, most trains going in our direction were indefinitely delayed. We took public transportation to another train stop, and lined up along track 3, along with about a huge crowd of other people. We waited for a while, and then the announcement came: the train is now arriving... on track 4. The crowd groaned in shock; it was exactly as though their football teams's reciever had just dropped a touchdown pass. And a second later there was a mad rush for track 4. There was no mercy; I'm sure several little old ladies were knocked aside. When the train came in I caught a glimpse of the expression on the conductor's face when he noticed the mob waiting for his train. It was quite funny!

We eventually ended up in Bremen with about half an hour to wait. Alex had told me that in Germany they make spaghetti ice cream, and we had been looking for it all day. So, we decided to go find an ice cream cafe. And we did find one. They actually have all sort of crazy things there; when I am in Bremen again I intend to eat the lasagna ice cream. Oh, I guess I should explain; spaghetti ice cream is not spaghetti flavored; it just looks like spaghetti. Same idea for the lasagna and all the other crazy ice creams. So, I had a spaghetti Eis and Alex had a banana split (which she had never had before). The only thing is by the time we found the place, ordered, and got the ice cream, we had under 10 minutes to eat it. So we snapped a pair of hurried pictures and commenced eating as though we were participating in one of those high school spirit week eating contests! Me and my spaghetti, right before I gulped it all down, pictured below.

We finished all our ice cream, paid, and ran back to the train station. I love running against time! (Especially when you win, which we did.) I ran in the rain in Kassel, Devin and I ran to rendezvous with his friends in Barcelona, and now I got to run in Bremen! So then we took a few more trains. Along the way we met some drunk but harmless soccer players, one of whom did magic tricks for us. And then when we finally got back to Minden around 11:30 pm, there were no trains running again until 5am. So I got a few hours sleep at Alex's apartment, then caught 4 trains back to Kassel, finally getting in to the station at 8:01. I biked directly to work, and wasn't too late.

Ok, speaking of work, I have to be there again in about 6 hours. Darn, I wanted to tell you about my day today, 'cuz it was really cool. But I guess the stories will wait until tomorrow. (Which also promises to be really fun.) Well... maybe I can just really quickly write about today. Actually I should briefly mention yesterday.

Right, so yesterday I successfully was part of a meeting with 6 other people about this project. 'Successfully' here meaning that I understood what was said and spoke when necessary. I get to do some more work on the first project that I did, which means that I'll probably have to push my trip to Bremen back a week. Later in the afternoon, the trains and lack of sleep caught up to me and I started to nod off at my computer. Which was bad. Walter made me some capucchino, which helped some. Anyways, that's all of note from yesterday. TODAY was really cool. Walter and I went to the shop and actually made the part that we designed yesterday. We made a couple of similar parts. The first one we did together and the second he made me do alone. It was so much fun! And then we went and checked them in the train. I got to wear my own work coat, which I was given (lent? not clear.) yesterday. And they don't make you wear silly safety glasses. And making things is so much fun! I did cut my finger a little bit, but it was really minor; I saw it rather than felt it. Later I worked on more 3D modelling... Now that I mostly know what I'm doing, it's fun. And tomorrow I might get to go on a test run of a train!

Ok, next post I should really explain the different projects I've been on. So, note to myself: Klappsitz, KKE Decke, Leigetechnik, LED Zeichen.

Oh, and before I forget to mention it: The Germans use 'Frau' for the US's 'Ms.' and 'Mrs.' So when people try to address me or refer to me in English, I'm almost invariably "Mrs. Dietz." My guess is that whoever taught them English was married, so 'Mrs.' is the title they learned. One exception to my being a 'Mrs.' occured at the gym last week. One of the guys, not knowing my name, addressed me as 'Miss America.' I was amused.

Ok, now I really, really have to go. Goodnight!