A recap

Back home again in Chicago!

Photos from the last week are (hopefully) forthcoming. Rest assured, I did see some Alps.

So, 7 weeks in Europe, and what have I got to show for it?

• 4 countries
• 17 cities
• 12 museums/exhibits (see below)
• countless churches, winding streets, pretzels, and spatzle (think mac & cheese)
  

Museums:

• Stadtgalerie, Stuttgart (art museum)
• Musical Instrument museum, Stuttgart
• Apothecary museum, Heidelberg
• Richard Wagner museum, Lucerne
• Picasso museum, Lucerne
• Rosengart Collection museum, Lucerne (more art)
• Peter Paul Rubens House, Antwerp (16th century belgian panter)
• Platnin-Moretus museum, Antwerp (book printing from the 15th century

Castles and other Sights

• Hohenzollern Castle, Hechingen
  
• Meersburg Castle, Meersburg
• Adoration of the Lamb, massive 15th century Flemish alterpiece
• Coudenburg, Brussels, buried street and chapel remnants from the 16th century

Whew! It's good to be home. Time to pack my bags for Thanksgiving!

Konstanz - early adventures

Adventures since yesterday:

• 9 hours on 6 different trains to get to Konstanz early, in avoidance of the train strike
• I am one of two guests in a 178-bed hostel
• It snowed today. Big time. Near blizzard there for a moment. Since the ground is warm enough here, it didn't stick though. A few inches were on the ground slightly further north in S Germany.

more soon!

Belgium! and, German train strikes :(

Hello from Belgium!

I have been here since Saturday afternoon, and just haven't been able to upload photos due to a limitation on use of bandwidth at my friend Ryan's apartment. Coming soon! I visited Brussels, Ghent, and Antwerp so far.

I haven't written much about the German rail strikes that have been going on since my trip began - for the first time in 15 years, the union is demanding an increase in pay and because they can't reach an agreement, they have been going on strike repeatedly since late summer. So far I was only affected by it in Berlin, when I had to take a bus rather than a train to get around the city.

Until now, that is. The union is on strike again for 48 hours - exactly when I was intending to leave Belgium and go back to Germany, and at first with uncertain ongoing implications - which would affect my ability to get my flight back to the US. After a few hours of anxious weighing of a bunch of imperfect and highly uncertain options, it looks like the only impact will be that I have to leave Belgium half a day early, and I'll still get to (hopefully) see the German alps.

More soon!

Tubingen Team

Last night I went out for dinner with the staff of the Tubingen office to celebrate my last day. Such a nice group:

Gesa, Ivo, and Christina

(Germans are nothing but serious, right?)

I have received an offer from the company I was partnering with to work with them back in the US! There's nothing official on the table yet- not even location - so there's much to discuss, and hopefully many more options to consider once I'm back as well.

Next week: Belgium for 4 days and then German Alps again (I'm giving them one more chance to materialize, otherwise I'm going to claim they are a sham).

Beginning of the end!

It's hard to believe that I'm already at a point where I am experiencing some things for the last time here in Tubingen. This weekend was my last full weekend, and likely last opportunity for exploration; it gets dark around 5p now.

However, with my last week of work also looming, I can't spend quite all my time frolicking, so I'm trying to balance project work with recreation - for one last time (in germany anyway. Isn't this balance a lifelong struggle?).

It's a good thing I suppose - as time has worn on, my feet have become less and less forgiving after long walks, and I can only expect a few hours at a time out of them these days.

Highlights from the weekend:

• Friday, I went out with some coworkers to celebrate my arrival in Tubingen (only a few weeks too late), and stumbled across some breakdancers on the way home.
  

• Saturday, I walked over to the hills just west of Tubingen, hoping for a sunset walk in the forest. My map led me a bit astray, however, and I ended up just following one of the extensive bike trails around the base of the hills. I've been seeing more unfamiliar birds since I got back from traveling - maybe migration season? The prize find for the weekend (a couple more available with the other photos):

• Sunday, I walked up to the Bebenhausen, an old monastery town. Beautiful day, gorgeous little place, nestled in the hills - for once I felt quite happy to just loiter at a cafe or a bench. Problem was, there were none. So I walked the 5km back to Tubingen and loitered there instead.

Photos from the weekend

My last week of work begins tomorrow, and then I'm off to some other (as of yet undetermined) mini-adventure before flying back to the US on Nov 19.

Back home again...

I got back from the London conference yesterday evening, after a delayed flight (and general poor planning on my part) forced me to cancel my Frankfurt meeting... Incidentally, Halloween seems to barely exist in Germany - I saw not a single costume or decoration yesterday. Today, All Saint's Day, however is a public holiday, and everything operates on Sunday hours (which means everything's closed)

So, 9 more days of the German-side of the project (ALREADY?), and they'll be pretty packed! I am presenting a draft of my final results next week, and still have about 10 interviews and articles to research, so I'll be working as though I was back in grad school.

The London conference was in a very charming castle - here are a few photos. The trip to London was relatively uneventful, not including the unexpectedly expensive train ticket because I was falsely relying on the ability to jump on just about any train you like without concern for how booked it might be. It was great to see Darcie and Bhaji (the cat that I started this whole journey with) too.

Myron and I spent a day in Tubingen before he left... some photos of our cheese-bread-and-figs picnic and more.

The whirlwind continues - UPDATE!

Since my last post, Myron and I have visited these cities:

• Stuttgart
• Heidelberg
• Nuremberg
• Lucerne

Whew!

Trip details coming soon.

Myron heads back to Chicago on Sunday, and I'm off to London again for a conference and side trip to Frankfurt for another meeting. Life returns to normal (that is, the Germany-adjusted 'normal') after Halloween.


UPDATE!

So, what on earth did we do in all those cities? Well, here're some highlights:

• ART: Picasso, Paul Klee, Impressionism, and more
• MUSIC: Two instrument museums and the former home of composer Richard Wagner
• NATURE: A spontaneous hike along the wanderweb in the Gutschwald forest of Switzerland
• CULTURE: German restaurants and cafes, wandering the streets
• HISTORY: Churches, architecture, bridges, and more!

Berlin! Hamburg!

Finally, some free internet! (but unfortunately, time is still at a premium)

A few photos from Berlin

Some pictures of Hamburg (more coming soon).

Tomorrow, MYRON comes to visit!!! We're going to Stuttgart, Heidelberg, Nuremberg, Lucerne, and Tubingen. What a whirlwind trip.

Closed on Sunday

Today was primarily a work day - I can justify spending a Sunday on research and annotation because I'll barely get a full day of work in anytime in the next 3 weeks...

But, I did take a break to go into the city - it's an absolutely gorgeous Fall day today. I walked past the old church, because I had never really noticed it before and finally read my guidebook's description of Tubingen. They happened to have their doors opened and a sign saying that the tower was open. So, I followed some cues from other Sunday day-trippers (to be sure I wasn't misreading the signs) and went up. After a series of dangerous staircases and unlit passageways, I finally found myself at an amazing lookout of the city!


More photos of the view and a few others from my excursion here

Oh, incidentally, I guess I was just in the wrong part of town at the wrong time last Sunday when I couldn't find a single place open. The downtown was all abuzz today with gelato shops, bakeries, and a ton of people.

A kingly trip

Today I took a day trip to Hechingen, 25 km southwest of Tubingen, to visit the Hohenzollern Castle, medieval home to Prussian emperors.

More photos here

UPDATE! A short summary of the trip:

• It was a bit of a challenge getting to the castle from the closest town, Hechingen. There was absolutely no signage about what bus to take, or how to get tickets to ride it.
• I did go in the castle, but you weren't supposed to take photos. I even double checked. But of course everyone else did. The outsides were more impressive anyway, though the hall displaying the family tree of every royal connection to the place was pretty cool. You can see the insides here if you'd like.
• The tour was completely in German. It's a very strange thing to be in a quiet crowd that suddenly bursts into laughter, but not catching even a word of the joke that was just told.
• According to the map, there were walking trails down from the castle to all the nearby cities, so I decided to be adventurous. I had trouble finding my trail, so I asked the attendant at the parking lot (in broken German, as always). Against my better judgment, I trusted the teenager instead of the sign that clearly said Hechingen, 3.5km ->. So, after reaching the highway and deciding not to try to walk along it, I hiked *back up* the hill. I eventually found the right trail (with no further assistance) and yes, I *was* correct the first time.
  
• I encountered a German woman and her daughter at the train station on the way home, who needed help with the automatic ticket/timetable machines. So I, the American, helped the local German navigate the train system (she had NEVER been on a German train!). She asked me if I liked it so far, and said she hates it. She's actively trying to move to Canada next year, even if her partner won't go with her. whoa!
• It was still relatively early when I got back to Tubingen, so I tried to find the Osterberg Tower. All these impressive sounding names! but the Tower was pretty uneventful, so I just enjoyed the view of the city at dusk.
  

Hence a few more photos of pretty Tubingen, starting here. (Click the right arrow to see the few pictures from this day, or Slideshow to see all Tubingen pictures to date)

End of Week 1

The end of my first week! The project is going well so far. I have conducted 8 (phone) interviews this week in 5 countries and assembled a wide variety of background research to orient myself on the European regulations governing the key issues in my project. It's a good foundation to now go 'on the road' for in-person interviews, as required (aw, poor me) by my fellowship. Lots of updates as I hit a different German city near every other day from now until the end of October!

Tonight I went walking through some new areas of the Altstadt, which is the old 'downtown', with medieval architecture and winding streets. I took a turn up a hill I'd never traveled before, and ended up at an overlook of the city! It was a beautiful walk and I look forward to going back with more time and sunlight. By the time I found my way back down the hill, I was walking along the Neckar at night. Very beautiful. This is a pretty pathetic visualization, but hey, what are pictures for if not to remind you of the experience!


You'll never guess what photos you'll see tomorrow. Stay tuned!

The Hills are Alive

I used my 1-hour of daylight this evening to visit the hills surrounding Tubingen.



At the top of this particular hill resides a few houses, a cemetery, and of course, a sheep farm (unfortunately, however, I just found out that the keepsake yarn I bought locally is from Sweden, not Germany).

Update from Tubingen

Life in Germany is good - I go to work, make dinner, knit, read, catch up on email...

I only have an hour of daylight after work, so I have been trying to explore a new part of the city every night before going back to my room to make dinner and do more work.

Yesterday I went to try to find an old tower that I had seen from a distance over the weekend, only to find it was a rather boring feature of some sort of public utility. When you have this much history in your architecture, some of it has to get used for pure function I guess.

I did stumble across another large park near the university. All of the green space is surrounded by several walking paths and bike paths. If I can find someone to rent me a bike I hope to get to explore where some of those paths lead.

A few recent highlights:

• Someone at work buys everyone a fresh German pretzel every day from a local bakery. Yum.
• I have seen at least 10 different children riding unicycles in my neighborhood since I've been here. Is this a new trend?
• Another tenant in my building puts their pet guinea pigs in a pen outside during the day when they're home. There's a local cat that spends its entire day within an inch of that pen, watching the guinea pigs, in case somehow the pen will miraculously disappear.
• I of course hear a lot of German around me all day every day, and often prepare short sentences to say in case someone should approach me for directions or to say hello, though I try to avoid engaging. I get really excited when I go through a checkout line at the store with Hallo and Danke only - they don't even know I can't speak German!

It's only Day 3 of the project, but I feel like it's nearly over! I have only about one day per week in the office for the rest of my project (not including the 10+ travel days at the end) - the rest is traveling for meetings, which will make time go very quickly. There will be much to tell as I travel to a new German city nearly every day, starting next Tuesday.

Bis spater!

Tubingen ist eine tolle Stadt!

The departure from London was smooth, if excessively early. And, a landmark was reached: Laura's first solo taxi trip! (lame accomplishment, eh?) I didn't get to 'hail' it, so that's a future adventure, but at least the intimidating stigma is removed from my never-having-taken-a-taxi-alone.

Saturday I took the train through Stuttgart to Tubingen, where my office is based. The trip was beautiful- Fall has already taken hold, and the hills are painted with the colors of Autumn. I met my host at the guesthouse, she introduced me to the space and all its accouterments, including a washing machine on site (no dryer - they don't exist in germany). After a grocery trip for some staples and some unpacking, I went out to explore. Ah, but can't forget the two language problems I encountered even in that first grocery trip - I was supposed to weigh my fruit before going to the cash register (turns out this is not a common thing in all German grocery stores, so at least it wasn't a cultural mistake), and then she wouldn't take my credit card, but I couldn't read the sign she pointed to for explanation; I can only assume it's because it was an American card.

Back to the adventure. It happened to be the day of the RegionalMarkt, which is like a farmer's/artisan's market for local food and goods producers. Very cute, but so crowded. Made it difficult to do anything than avoid the beautiful city center, which upon a much more calm viewing after work today promised a lot of delightful lollygagging in the future. Winding streets, medieval architecture, shops, restaurants, people-watching... so very charming.

Exhausted from the long day, I retired early for dinner.. the town bells sang at 6p, and not just your "hey, it's 6 o'clock" bells - we're talking full song. Hasn't been repeated since, so I guess it's specifically a Saturday at 6pm thing.

Sunday. Not much to say about Sunday, because EVERYTHING is closed. Grocery stores, cafes, you name it. I went on a desperate search for coffee and orange juice and ended up at a McDonald's and a gas station. I did finally find a cafe, and sat outside reading research for my project for awhile. Spent the rest of the evening inside, reading, flipping through German channels on my little TV, making dinner.

Today was my first day of work. In sum, my office is a 2-minute commute, the staff are very friendly and supportive, it took 2 hours to get my wireless connection to work, german pretzels are yum city, and this is going to be a challenging but interesting project.

Quick note about the office: it's located in an old military area from the French occupation after the war. After 1989, the City handed it over to The People for development, and they made this wonderful pedestrian-only mixed-use development with shops and offices on the ground level and apartments above. Some new architecture, some old; one of the places I had a meeting today was in the old army barracks or office.


More work tonight! Ich muss leider gehen (I must unfortunately go).

Tubingen photos posted here.

London Calling

Made it to London in one piece on Thursday morning! The flight was uneventful, minus the worry about the cat in cargo hold every time we hit even the tiniest bump of turbulence.

I was rewarded for my curiosity and willingness to be stuck having to climb over people to go to the bathroom - with a window of big black nothingness of night, just a short hour or so after take off. To make up for it, I did get to see the sunrise over the UK.

After 3 hours waiting for the cat to clear, a near-suicide walk down a London highway at the suggestion of an airport employee, and 1.5 hours in a cab (and $150) back to the city, the London adventure began! We took the Tube to Knightsbridge, walked through a wonderful city park, and headed toward a few sights.

Lots of walking and wandering, but the sights are all marvelously close together, and wonderfully integrated into daily life as a Londoner. We finished the night with 'dirty curry' from a greasy Bangladeshi spoon.

(for those wondering, the cat (Bhaji) did remarkably well with the transition to his new home. He's curious, affectionate, and adventurous. yay!)


DAY 2

After a late morning, breakfast, and wrestling with British Airways to try to push back my flight tomorrow (the wrestling because the entire UK service line was down for hours - I didn't postpone, as it cost $300), Darcie and I went meandering towards and down the South Bank of the Thames.

We saw London Bridge, the Tower of London, the Eye of London, Tower Bridge, the Tate Modern Museum, St Paul's Cathedral, the Millennium Bridge, Borough Market, the Gherkin, and more!

On our way home, we meandered through Spitalfields, where Darcie lives, and stopped for bangers and mash (sausage (mine were vegetarian) and mashed potatoes (I had 'bubble and squeak', which means with cabbage and peas)), and mushy peas (self explanatory).

See London photos here.


Up at 4:50am tomorrow to fly to Germany!

McCloy Environmental Affairs Fellowship

I am very excited to have been selected for a 2007 McCloy Environmental Affairs fellowship. The fellowship funds a months-worth of travel in Germany to allow fellows to conduct research for a project of their choice. I leave Chicago on October 3 and return on November 19.

I will be based in Tubingen, a small town near Stuttgart in SW Germany, in the offices of a consulting company called Five Winds. When not in Tubingen, I'll be traveling to Dusseldorf, Cologne, Berlin, Hamburg, Nurnberg, Frankfurt, and many other cities!

I will also be traveling to London twice (once to make a unique delivery - a cat - and once for a conference), and hopefully to Switzerland with Myron.

Photos and updates about Mein Wohnung (my apartment), Meine Reise (my trip), und Mein Arbetitet (my work) will be coming soon!