Day 5 - Germany, land of dyed red hair


I feel really bad about not updating my blog last night. I got home and pretty much fell right asleep. So here's how my Day 5 went.

My jet lag is slowly working itself out. I woke up at 4 am in the morning, which isn't too bad, really. So I killed time by watching the special features on Dave Chapelle's block party and a few episodes of arrested development season 3. All funny stuff.

So I go through my normal morning routine. shower, shave, and go to mcdonalds for some breakfast across the street. Let me just say this right now...

Everyone says, "oh all germans now how to speak english. it's really no problem." This is SO not true on some days. This day was one of those.

I get to mcdonalds and the person doesn't speak english so i end up getting double of what i don't order. I mean, i'm not TO'd or anything about it. After all, I'm the one not speaking the native language. So I eat my huge portion of food, orange juice, and coffee. I then head on over to the old part of town for some sight seeing.

I mainly spent my time at that courtyard in the middle of that museum i was writing about a couple days back. This place was magnificent! It was huge and full of sculpture. Here are some pics and commentary:


This courtyard was huge. This is looking from one end to another.


Another view from another angle.


This was an amazing mini-courtyard in the building. They have concerts in this little nook that's accompanied by this superb fountain. The sound of it was amazing.


This is a woman's face on the side of one of the sculptures on the roof of the museum. There's a stairway that allows you to walk next to all of the sculptures. It was really amazing.

After this i decided to run over to the conference centre. I finally ran into everyone from my school (profs and students) that is attending. There was a big panel going on in the morning for Information Systems (my division) which contained 4 papers. 3 of them were from my department. One of them, authored by my friends Seung-Jo and Byungho, was announced to be the division's top paper. It was about emotional states and pop-up advertising.

After the session I enjoyed a very decent free lunch at the conference featuring ham, potatoes, green beans wrapped in bacon, and water (sparkling, GAH). I ate with James and Phil which was fun.

I ran into my undergraduate advisor from Washington State University, Rick Busselle. I think this is the first time i've seen him when i had shorter hair than him. It was really good seeing him and i'm planning to see him talk today and catch up.

Afterwards I decided to walk the town and take some pics of the architecture. I also found some places to shop. I can't tell you how many times people said, "Vas ist English?" to me. Here's some pics and commentary:


Here's another thing that used to be a building before it was bombed out. Saw a lot of these today. Even saw some holes in the ground from where bombs hit. I can't imagine what this place looked like before it was bombed.


This flower looked really beautiful to me. It was right outside of this museum that was featuring a Rodin (YUCK) exhibit. He's the guy that sculpted the "Thinker" and thousands of other sculptures that look like crap, in my opinion.

I'm starting to see why everyone has bicycles here. I walked at least 10 miles, literally. I'm feeling it today. It wouldn't have been such a long walk, but I stupidly got lost (again) and took a 3 mile detour. It's very easy to get lost over here because practically no streets run parallel to each other. Also, all of the street names are at least 10 letters long and hard to pronounce. I think i'm going to cave and actually try to use public transportation today. Now i just have to figure out how to do that whole thing.

I really wanted to make it back to my hotel in time to get ready for the Germany-Ecuador world cup match. I finally found my way back to my hotel after walking around for 5 hours with just 20 minutes to spare before the game. I caught my breath and changed out of my sweaty clothes.

There's a pub down the road called the "newtown bar" that I decided to attend during the match. This place has world cup fever! They set up this huge screen and actual bleachers inside the place for people to sit. It was packed with people wearing white "Germany" jerseys. Everyone had the german flag painted on them everywhere. They don't take this game lightly. They were drinking, singing, yelling. You don't see this kind of fandom in the states. I had a chance to try this local brew called "Rineberger." Very, very good stuff.

Germany won the match 3:0. Everyone went crazy. Sang the national anthem. Everyone has big German flags hanging from their windows. After the game people drove around with flags hanging from their cars and bicycles yelling in the streets. It was pandemoneum.

I decided to head to a small grocery store/bakery on the way back to my hotel. I picked up a baguette and some strawberry/raspberry jam to munch on. It was divine.

I was so exhausted from walking around all day that I didn't have enough energy to even blog about the day. I fell asleep almost immediately around 10 pm.

I just woke up from a 10 hour slumber and i'm still tired. I better get some coffee.

Oh yeah, I accidently deleted about 10 or so good pics i took yesterday. I'm really upset about that.

Anyways, I have to get around and head to the conference centre for a panel! I will blog tonight about the happenings of the day. Sorry about the delay!!

br