So, I just experienced this strange event that I'm going to call 'the Dichotomy of Big Kim and Little Kim.' I was at the the train station nearest my house, recently returned from the weekend's adventures, which I'll get to in a minute. I had actually been at the train station for several hours. When I first arrived at the train station around 5pm I realized that their bookstore was still open. Since everything closes really early hear (generally around 8pm), and I'm usually buying groceries or at the gym or traveling or something until then, this was unusual. I went in and sought out the new Harry Potter book. And it was sooo tempting to buy it. The pages were all soft and new and the cover art was much better than I expected, since everyone I talk to seems to think that the American versions always have the better cover art (being in Europe, we of course have the British version.) But I already don't know how I'm going to fit everything in my suitcases for the trip home; Even though I haven't bought that much, they were essentially full when I came. And the book cost 20 Euros. So, I abashedly asked the clerk if I could just please read the first part. (The book wasn't on the regular shelves, it was at the counter.) And she said yes. So I sat there and read until the place closed. [I am going to pointedly refrain from saying anything about reading the book here, as a courtesy for everyone who doesn't want anything spoiled.] By this point I really really had to go to the bathroom.

And a paragraph of background later, we're finally going to get to the dichotomy part! Part of me wanted to find a public bathroom, despite the fact that I was reasonably sure there wasn't one in the area. And part of me was thinking about taking out the trash and repacking and posting a journal entry for the first time in a week to assure everyone that I'm alive and well. And I swear this part said to the other part, "Come on, we have to go home now, and won't that be nice." I don't recall the actual words, although they were distint. What I do remember is the ridiculously stereotypical motherly tone of voice I used with myself. I was amused at myself.

I suppose that while I'm being reflective (as opposed to narrative, as I usually am in this journal) I might as well talk a bit about how I've changed since I've come here. There are some things that I've learned to do as a matter of course because they are common sense. I make sure that I'll have enough food until I get to the store again, and that I have garbage bags, and clean clothing (hey, it's more of a chore than it sounds like) I consciously attempt to plan everything such that I get enough sleep. I watch how much I spend and where. I'm more aware of my own safety, now that I can't flippantly pass the buck to concerned friends and family. Stand in the corner of a subway car, and avoid crowded escalators. (preventing pickpocketing) Order your drink yourself, or see where it comes from. Hold it with fingers around the edge and palm over the top. (preventing date rape) Don't be excessively stupid, generally speaking. (preventing the negative consequences of being excessively stupid)

I suppose in general I feel older. This adult thing has sort of been sneaking up on me for a while. But now I'm accepting and enjoying it, with less of a tendency to defiantly act immaturely in a futile attempt at forestalling it. I'm not saying that I'm no longer impetuous or that I've outgrown Disney movies and hide-and-go-seek. I don't ever intend to do that. :D I am, however, starting to enjoy living independently. I got back to my apartment tonight and said, "Home." And was surprised to realize that I that I meant it more than I meant to mean it. There are still things (well, primarily people) that I miss almost constantly. Nevertheless, life goes on, as it tends to do. I am actually quite pleased at how quickly and completely I've adapted to living here.

So, you may be wondering, what exactly did the new "mature and safety-conscious" Kim do this this weekend? I went home with an (almost) complete stranger, of course! Er... I mean, I managed arranged an excellent homestay for myself, through a fortuitous combination of charisma, the goodness of man, and luck. A homestay with a woman who has hosted many exchange students in the past and is quite friendly and trustworthy. I met Inge on a train two weeks ago, the morning that I was traveling to Paris. She's a social worker who lives near Treysa. Like me, she loves to travel. She spent a while in Mexico. In the course of her journeying she encountered many people who kindly took her in and showed her around, which is really the best way to learn about a place. (Tourist attractions tend to have (surprise! (yes, I am ok with parentheses that are several layers deep :D)) high concentrations of tourists.) Seeing the Eiffel tower tells you almost nothing about the lives or mentality of the current inhabitants of Paris. I'm not saying that being a tourist isn't fun or worthwhile. It just is what it is.) Anyways, as I was saying, Inge was lucky enough to meet and get to know people in Mexico. So after talking for a bit on the train, she gave me an open invitation to spend time with her and to see part of Germany from a local perspective. And this weekend I took her up on it.

I took a train in to Treysa, and then Inge and a friend of hers and I went to breakfast. We had a very nice, german breakfast. Germans have these things called brotchen, I think I've mentioned them before. They're very specific little bread rolls. Anyways, we got a basket of brotchen and an assortment of meat, cheese, lettuce, cucumber slices, tomato slices, butter, jelly, and boiled eggs. You cut the brotchen in half and put whatever you want on the halves and eat them. It's delicious! And, as I said, very german.

Then Inge and I drove to nearby Alsfeld and walked around the Altstadt (literally OldCity ... so the picturesque part with buildings older than the United States.) Such as this church from the 12th century:

And this little avenue. Notice how the building always used to be built: with stones as the bottom layer and then the familiar lattice pattern. Also notice the cobblestone street. These have advantages and disadvantages that become more apparent when it rains. On the one hand, you don't run into puddles of water so much, because the walking surface is an inch or so above where the water is. On the other hand, the stones tend to get a little slippery when wet.

Below is a picture taken from inside a doorway off the street. It apparently used to be common to have a door off the street, then an entrance and courtyard area, and then houses. See? :

Another common thing to do was build successive stories wider and wider. Because you're only allotted so much space on the street, but if you are a story higher than your neighbor, why not take some of the extra space? I still think the practice of making top-heavy buildings seems a bit sketchy. This practice is, incidentally, the opposite of what they do at places like Disneyworld. At Disneyworld, successive stories of buildings are scaled down to create a false perspective effect and the illusion of greater height!

We took a break in a restaurant. Inge had some tea and I had a Windbeutel and milk. Windbeutel is particular to the small region of Germany I was in. It's a light bread puff with delicious cream and fruit. I wanted strawberries, but Inge said that the most traditional way to eat it is with hot cherries. So I ordered that. But, they just happened to be out of cherries. So I got my strawberries after all! And it was delicious.

Just as I was finishing my Windbeutel (My capitalization here is intentional ... german nouns are always capitalized...), we heard the sweet (er, to me) sound of a marching band. Getting louder! Getting the bill takes a bit in Germany, and so I had to spend a few excruciting minutes trying to wait patiently. And then we went out to see what was up. And found this:

Inge says they were playing typical german music. I swear I've played one of the songs I heard, in high school. Right around then we saw the second bride of the day just randomly walking around in her dress. This one had a small girl trailing behind her, carrying the train of the dress. It was kind of amusing. And then we saw more old buildings, these with turrets. Alsfeld was not bombed in WWII and so was able to preserve a lot of architecture that was lost in much of Germany. The germans tend to think that rebuilt cities are not as pretty. Sometimes things are rebuilt to look like the old buildings, but it's relatively expensive.

As we walked around, we stopped at different shops. The majority were fairly modern, but there were also some cute little places like this one:

That place was crazy! There were all these little side hollows and pockets of space you could get to, all just filled with pretty things to buy. Eventually we met our goal of finding me a purse. Yep, I told you I was getting old. Purses are such an adult thing. In my opinion.

Then we went back to Inge's place. She lives in a tiny village, maybe 150 people. She invited her sister's kids over, and one brought a friend. They were 13, 11, 9, and 7 years old, and we played games. It was a lot of fun! The first game was a card game, sort of like a mix between "liar, liar" and "uno." With vegetables. This meant that I had to learn the word for cucumber (Gurke). The second game was called "6 nimmt." Inge cut up some apples for us and we sat around and played games and talked and and fun. It's been a while since I did something like that ... it was nice :) Later the kids' mother came over and we went over to their house to meet their dad and grandmother and see their pets (2 cats, 2 dogs, 2 rabbits). Then we went for a walk. They have so much land! I think they said they have 5 ponds? We walked through (their!) woods, and then coming out I took this picture. All that shadow in the picture is coming from the woods from which we had just emerged!

There were a lot of slugs around ... apparently they can be quite a problem for crops. Here is a slug:

Later that night we walked down the road to a neighbor's birthday get-together. There were friends and family and coworkers. It was a nice, relaxed atmosphere. All the kids ran off to play and the adults sat around socializing, eating, drinking, smoking, relaxing... Whoever says that germans are standoffish has not met these people. I mean, withing hours of meeting them I was included in a discussion between women about the changes in breasts due to nursing children. It just seems like something one might deem too personal to discuss with a stranger. I also drank Schnaps there for the first time. Note that there is a slight difference between german Schnaps and american Schnapps. The former being fruit brandy with no sugar or flavoring and the latter a liquer that commonly has added sugar, among other things. Also, the german one has twice as much alcohol content. For more info, see Wikipedia, which was my source for the preceding three sentences. The Schnaps was delicious! Incidentally, I have also discovered in germany that I enjoy many types of alcohol, and that I'm pretty good at handling drinking. Yay!

Last night Inge gave me a selection of reading materials before we each each retired to our bedrooms. I read from Calvin und Hobbes, and could understand almost all of it. Which was great!

Today we had a nice german breakfast and listened to some german music. And we went over to Inge's sister's house for a delicious lunch cooked by their mother. Those were possibly the best potatoes I have ever had. There was also a soup and cucumber salad (with and without mustard) and meat. And ice cream for desert. One of them had what translates to egg-liquer, which I expected to be new and unusual. But it tasted familiar. And then I realized that it tasted like eggnog, and that that makes a lot of sense. But was unexpected anyway. Later the kids came over to Inge's again and we played some more games. One of them was called Labyrinth. It was fun! And the other one was called 'Stadt, Land, Fluss.' It was hard! Especially for me. So, there's a method for choosing a letter and then everyone has to write down a bunch of words starting with that letter. The words must be a city, a country, a river, an animal, a name, and a fruit/vegetable. Then you compare answers and tally points, getting more points for answers that are unique. Easy? Not in a foreign language! There were lots of times when I would just sit there trying as hard as I could to think of a vegetable starting with the letter g, for example, in german. It was really good for learning german though! I wish I could play with those kids more often. Here's my completed game sheet: (note all the scribbled out parts where I asked how to correctly spell things)

And then I took the train back, and succumbed to the call of the Harry Potter book, and discovered the dichotomy of me, and wrote this! In the morning I'm going to Minden for the day, to see tests of some of the stuff we designed. Which I swear I'm going to get around to writing about! And from there I'm taking a train to Bremen, where I'll be working for the remainder of the week! I have no idea what my internet situation will be. So, we'll see! Have a great day! (+ write me emails!!)

I'm now back in Kassel, since I had work today (Monday). But here is an account of yesterday, heavy on the pictures! Lucy and I hung out at her place a little bit in the morning while Jingwen packed up for China. Then we all took the same bus out. A few stops later Jingwen headed for the airport and Lucy and I headed into Berlin. It was sort of rainy in the morning. The first thing we visited was the Kaiser Wilhelm Church. It's pretty cool because it was partially destroyed in WWII, and they didn't completely rebuild it. I really like the way the top of it looks, actually. There used to be two towers, and the black tower to the left of the part that looks like a church was built instead of a new tower in the original style. It has bells in it.

Lucy was patient enough to play photographer for me. And I, of course, just plain played! Because that's how I am. Berlin's mascot, as you may or may not be aware, is a bear. So, there are lots of them around in various poses and color schemes. For instance this one in the mall. The person imitating it is, of course, me.

Here are Lucy and I in front of another bear:

We also saw the Brandenburger Tor:

And the Reichstag. Try to figure out which person waiting in line is me!

The inscription on the Reichstag, which you probably can't make out, is "Dem deutschen Volke," which means "for the people." It was the architect's initial idea, but due to the crazy political climate at the time (late 1800s) it took a while to go up. The inscription was cast by the prestigious company S. A. Loevy. Many of the Loevy family later died in the Holocaust.

Er, moving on to something less heavy, I'm still a dork! (As Mr. Brownell always used to tell me.) Proof:

The above picture is in an elevator with a large pair of parallel mirrors. The person being waaay too amused by the effect and holding up the camera in the middle is me!

And here I am on the main roof of the Reichstag. The dome behind me is so cool! Here Lucy and I are reflected in the mirrors in the middle of the dome:

And here's a shot from near the top (you can walk up in a spiral around the outer edge of the inside of the dome.)

See all the people around the bottom? They are looking at lots of pictures and info about the history of the Reichstag which are displayed around that edge. I read the whole thing!

Berlin has a whole island in the middle of the city dedicated to museums! It is named, appropriately enough, Museum Island. That river's name is apparently Spree. There are 5 museums, as far as I can tell. Alex really highly recommends the Pergamon, which I unfortunately didn't have time to go to. Apparently it has original-size, reconstructed monumental buildings such as the Pergamon Altar, the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, and the market gate of Miletus, consisting of parts taken from the original excavation sites. Sounds like Preeya needs to visit! Ok, so here's a shot of Museum Island:

Outside were this pair of musicians. The guy on the left was (rapidly) playing all those glasses with water, and it was really pretty!

Here's a shot of Berlin's Cathedral (unfortunately that crane is not attached...).

And I got in at 11:30 and went to sleep shortly thereafter. Which I should do now, because the security guys just came to see what I was up to sitting out at the University so late at night (slightly after 12)! Goodnight!