Finally!

Okay, I've got about five minutes before I fall asleep in my computer chair, slide back on the chair mat and hit my nose on my desk. We went to a water park today—my favorite, so of course I wore myself out swimming and going down slides.

Various things I did in Germany since my last entry:

Visit the Technische Universität at Darmstadt. I happened to mention to S that I wanted to major in Engineering and that I was considering studying abroad some in college. She and her mom were able to arrange a college tour of one of the five or six schools with Computer and Electrical Engineering in Germany for me. Oh man, I love that place. The school has great programs, great opportunities, and it is in a great location. Darmstadt has a medium-sized city feel, but it still feels German. When I visited Frankfurt (look down) I heard a lot of English…and a lot of other languages. All the tourist shops were a little distracting. It was in some ways a bit too international for my taste. I liked both cities, though.

Anyway. Darmstadt was beautiful. All of Germany is beautiful, actually. I enjoyed the parks I saw. One park had a little library in it. Since no one keeps track of the books in the library, people are free to take books out and keep them or to donate their own books. I have a book from the library inside the Prinz-Georg-Garten. Do you?

The Library in the Garden

I may write a more detailed trip log later. Right now I'll just say that we took a trip to the Rhine River (beautiful) and a trip to Frankfurt (beautiful in a different way).

Pictures:




A view of part of the Rhine from a nearby memorial




A beautiful view from the chair lift. Rhine, wine-grape fields, and pretty little houses. Ahh.





The Römer in Frankfurt. With stadium seats in front. (The Ironman was the day before. Grr. Stop messing up my picture, marathon runners!) = ) (And why is my finger in front of the lens? Drat!)



S and I about to eat our Americans. Americans (Amerikaner in German) are puffy sugar cookies with frosting on one side. They are surprisingly good. (By the way, if you say "Ich bin ein Amerikaner" you are saying you are one of these cookies. If you say "Ich bin Amerikaner" you are saying you are an American. It's the "Ich bin ein Berliner" thing. If he had just said "Ich bin Berliner" he would have said what he meant to say. Thankfully, all of the German people I have met are nice enough that, if I just happened to say that I was "ein Amerikaner," they wouldn't think I was about as smart as the cookie I mistakenly identified with. Such friendly people!)




Die alte Oper (The Old Opera). So pretty. I'll have to see the inside someday. Unfortunately, on Monday we were kind of rushed due to various reasons. Plus, it is nearly impossible to see an entire city properly in only one day. I guess that means I have to go back someday. <irony>What a pity.</irony> Until then, I have a t-shirt with this building on it.

That's all for the moment. Hopefully the next time I try to blog, I will be used to American keyboards again. I keep typing z's instead of y's and double quotes instead of apostrophes. Ugh.

I will get to that meme eventually. It might help for me to be awake when I write it!