Versprochenen Bilder

 Err.. ummm... Well, yes. Writing again. Here are some pictures as promised (finally).

The Friday before Christmas I went with a group of students to Duesseldorf to see their Christmas Market and the Rhine. I thought this stall with all of the puppets was neat.
 

 All sorts of food, some presents, and rides for kids.

 Here is the group! Yep. Even in Germany, the Engineering ratio is the same as at Tech.

 This was a really pretty Weihnachtspyramide.

 Apple cakes with sugar and cinnamon were delicious.

And Duesseldorf's Weihnachtsbaum. Well... just wait...

This is a picture from the inside of an Irish pub --there is one in every town, except the one I new in dortmund is closed-- were we stopped for a drink. Everyone ordered, and then, after a few minutes, the waiter came back and asked me what I ordered again. So I told him. And he started bringing drinks. Few more minutes and the Irishman at the bar came over, said the other guy could not understand me, and asked what I ordered. The only native English speaker in the group, and I was the only one not understood. Thankfully the Irishman had no problem understanding me.

 Off to the Rhine.

Okay, these kind of trees are just the creepiest trees ever without leaves. Here it looks like it has a hundred skinny fingers just waiting to grab you. Some of them are free of the little twigs, but then their limbs end in these bald bulges.

The TV tower! Last time I was in Germany, I spent the night in Duesseldorf before leaving. I saw the TV tower from a distance and noticed changing lights going up and down it. I tried and guessed and conjectured, but I could not figure out what the lights were for. This time going inside the tower, there was a simple explanation of the lights making a clock.
  

 Looking towards where I took the panorama picture. See the two docks and the whitish building? Somewhere around there.

This building looked weird when we walked past it, and, from above, it makes me think sci-fi.

We did not get over there to see why there were red, blue, and yellow people crawling over the building. I am guessing some art-preserve.

A statue at one end of Koenigsallee, a street divided by a canal in Duesseldorf.

 Walking along Koenigsallee, there are a lot of fancy shops, showrooms, etc.. Not really anyplace I would by something, but some fun places to look in.

 Back to Dortmund, with a larger Weihnachtspyramide.

 And a larger Weihnachtsbaum (the largest in Germany), with a replica in lights of the shield trophy that the Germany Bundesliga Champions (BVB this past year) recieve. I actually saw the original shield a week or two before this. I had gone to the Christmas market with friends, and, as we made our way back to the Hauptbahnhof, we noticed it in the window of a jewelry store along the main shopping street. Unfortunately, I think I had no camera with me.

Food and drink.

And lights!

Well the other thing I got up to recently was re-flooring the apartment.

 Apparently I got started at a slight angle or the walls are not perfectly perpendicular anymore causing too large of a gap at the edge.

 But I can cover that.

Before and after working down the hallway.

I noticed there was this bug on one of the boards. Closer inspection showed it was actually compressed into the board during the manufacturing. So now I get to see who notices the little black spot in the middle of the hallway.

 Hallway finished with transitions into Kitchen and Bathroom.

 On to my room.

 A bit of work to get the laminate into this joining piece, but I am happy with the results.

 And finished with everything, but the base board. I do have the plastic clips for it put up. Now I have finished with cutting and placing those, but I didn't take a picture yet.
The hallway measuring about 10 m^2 took over 9 hours to do with all the cutouts for doorways.
My room measuring about 18 m^2 took only 5 hours. That was so nice and easy.

 And this afternoon, I finally got stocking stuffers! Though, how I am supposed to eat Pez without a Pez dispenser?

And a new hat! Man that guy should learn to smile.

Frohes Neues Jahre!
Nic

Glühwein

So a few weeks without a post and what have I been up to? 175 cm. Well normally I tell somethings about and to go along with the picture I have taken, but I have not remembered to take many pictures.

What can I say? Being a student is tiring.

I have been to the Weihnachtsmarkt few times with friends, they have the largest Christmas tree in Germany (or so I have been told) here and tried Glühwein, but I never got my camera out. I may see about going on a visit this week just to take pictures.

There has been a stand for Waffeln und Glühwein outside the Mensa for a while. I never associated waffels with Christmas before. Oh, and there was also a Weihnachtsmann in blue (or was it green?) costume. Through which I learned that this used to be common, but thanks to Coca-Cola St. Nicholas is dressed in red.

Did you know he delivers goodies on the 6th of December, which is St. Nicholas day? I am learning so much! At least here in Germany, Poland, and Romania. I think it is for most of Europe, but those ones I am sure about.  

Christmas and some Birthday presents arrived almost two weeks ago. By chance, I was at home to receive some of them, but I ended up making a trip to Herne to pick up a package from the UPS. Not a trip I will make again, out to the industrial portion of Herne. Next time I will just redirect it to the offices of my program at the Universität. I did get to walk throught the Weihnachtsmarkt  in Herne; it is much smaller.

Last Monday, the international office had its Second-Monday Party hosted by the Mathematics Fakultät. They had us make Christmas cookies. They had cookie cutters of each continent, and, after I showed were NM lies on North America, I got bored. I made some stars, ate some dough, and then decided that South America looked like a raptor tail.

 So South America made up the main body and tail, the rest came from cutting the dough with Africa.

 There was lots of fun to be had. Waffeln to eat, Kakao to drink, and dough to play with.

Sadly for Australia cat, there were casualties. But really from the first look at him, you knew he was a blood thirsty killer like every other raptor.

Last night Heidi had a Christmas party at her apartment. Everyone brought presents, white elephant style, and  we played a fun game with them. For the first part, the presents were put on the table in the center there, and we had two dice passing around the circle. If someone rolled a six, they got to choose a present off the table, but not unwrap it. Once all the presents were gone, Heidi set a timer with no one else knowing how much time it was set for. We then started rolling again, but when you rolled a six you got to steal a present from someone. It was great. Presents kept getting stolen back and forth (one in-particular had such focus as to become IT), some people had a large pile for a few minutes only to become the target of all thieves, and lots of laughs were heard in the room with a few groans. Finally after an hour or so the timer went off, and those who had some presents went around opening them in turn.

Now one more week before the break. And nothing large planned yet, so we will see when I write again...

Auf Wiederlesen,

Nic

Thanksgiving (oder Hüttenkäse)

So last week was Thanksgiving, and true to form, I decided to have friends over for a meal. This means the week before Thanksgiving I finally got around to inviting people. And then the Monday before my roommate (flatmate?) and I went to Ikea to get kitchen ware so I could actually cook the Thanksgiving meal.

 Mixing bowls, wooden spoons, plates for everyone, rubber spatula/scraper (what is the proper name for it?), glass pans to cook in the oven (9"x13" -ish), and all the other odds and ends that were needed. Well once we got it all home, I got excited looking through my recipe box and decided to make my sister's Manicotti recipe that night --not really having the equipment to cook had been limiting my culinary possibilities. Off to the store I went, on a harrowing 300m journey (not really, but as most will have no sense for how far 300m is I can play around).

Garlic, noodles, spaghetti sauce, and mozzarella (still in water) were all easy to find, but for the life of me I could not find cottage cheese. I wandered up and down the milch products, but I could not find it. Finally, I broke down and decided to ask at the "Cheese Counter".

 --Now while I now there are deli and butchers counters in american grocery stores, I have never approached them before, and I always remember them looking empty, maybe one attendant. Now in this German grocery store, there is a butcher's counter, with vast displays of jelled meats, ground meats, sausages, and cuts, and a cheese counter, with large wheels of different cheeses, with a couple of happy looking attendants just waiting to help. And I, worried about making a fool of myself with my scant knowledge of German, had avoided them up to this point.--

So, with not a little apprehension, I approached and asked the lady at the "Cheese Counter". Not having looked up the German term for cottage cheese, I first tried to see if she new it by its English name. No luck. Then to describe it. Hmm... how does one describe cottage cheese? I tried to explain it was little pieces. She took me back to the milch row were again we looked without finding it. Oh well. Then I asked her about parmesan. "Ah. Parmesan. Ja genau. komm." she said. So, I got myself a nice chunk of aged parmesan and grabbed a bag of random grated cheese to substitute for cottage cheese.

Then I started looking for hamburger, but I couldn't find any packaged hamburger. I knew I had seen it, and made another round of the store. That is when I realized I had seen in the discounter next door, which had no butcher, cheese, or fish counter. So happy with my interaction at the "Cheese Counter", I headed for the butcher's counter. There I did not see just ground beef. I did see a beef and schweine mix which looked just like what I would expect for hamburger, which brought to mind a dream like memory that the hamburger in the US is also a pork and beef mix, so I got a half kilo, payed for all and headed home.

 Fear of food counters = CONQUERED!!!

It took a while to stuff the noodles, but my dinner was delicious. Thank you Martha!
I looked up cottage cheese, it is Hüttenkäse, and now, armed with its proper name, I am able to find it in stores.

So that began my week of "huh, I guess that is an American thing".
 Campbell's Condensed Cream of Mushroom for green bean casserole I substituted with a can of Eraco (Campbell Germany) Cream of Phillinger (probably spelled wrong; a kind of mushroom) soup and a packet of the same.
 Cool-Whip for the Jello salad was substituted with spray whipped cream. I was a little surprised at how little is really in a can.
 Not having made a pie -- which are a foreign concept for Germans, I have been told it is impossible to find a pie tin-- this year, I talked with friends about traditional Thanksgiving pies and they did not know what pecans  were. Gulp. While the German name is easy, Pekannuss, I have not found them. Even the guy at the Turkish(?) nut shop did not know it.

The Thanksgiving dinner was very good, seating being procured for everyone the day before. We ate, we drank, we told jokes.

Left to Right is Luiza, Domiki, Mehdi (my roommate), Anna, and Alex. All in Mehdi's room as the kitchen is small.

Also, Sedillo Park has been 1-uped.

Time for Christmas!!!

Nic

Eislaufen

Wow, das Wetter ist kalt. Last week I got up early on Thursday to get to the Stadhaus to apply for a residents permit.

Walking to the U-Bahn station near my apartment, it was very foggy around seven.

I don't remember if this was once I was finished with registration around eleven or before I got in line.

Good news is I have submitted all the paperwork and I should be able to pick up my resident registration card in mid-January. Because I have a scholarship, I did not even have to pay for the application or visa extension. YYYAAAAA!!!!

And then last Friday the eleventh, Will Reiser came to visit. He had entered into a competition in Holland for a greenhouse run-off water storage system, and, of course, being the creative and precise engineer that he is, he won first prize, for which they gave him a travel stipend to come to their conference. He used extra money from the stipend to travel around Europe some, visiting Natasha and me.

The date being elf elf elf (11.11.11) it was both Christmassy and nerdy; a perfect day to have Will visit. We went to the Mitte and saw the preperations for the Weihnachsmarkt. It is now open, so I will have to visit soon.

Then we rented some bikes and rode to the Universität.

Stopping on a bridge, we were able to take some pictures.

I do not remember the name for these little gardens, maybe Heydon would know.

Here you can see the stadion, Westfallenparkturm, und die Autobahn.

Will posing with his oscillo-scarf, because no trip to campus would be complete without a ride on the H-Bahn (TU Dortmund's hanging monorail system, designed and built by doctoral students in 1984).

The most important part of Will's trip was back at my apartment were he gave me a care package of used-to-be-frozen green chile, Frontier tortillas, and some red chile powder.

THANK YOU MOLLY, ALYSSA, AND HEYDON!!! Breakfast burritos and quesadillas have been delicious.

Sunday I went eislaufen in the afternoon, instead of working on the control theory assignment, which I did not yet know about having missed Friday's class for Will's visit, but which many used as an excuse not to come.

The ice rink we went to had two circle areas joined with paths tangentially. The larger circle was a meter or so lower in elevation, so you could pick up some speed coming into it, if there was not a traffic jam. In the empty area between the circles was a small snack stand, with the usual sort of overpriced food (Bretzel, pommes, currywurst,...) and drink (kakao, tee, bier,...).

I don't remember all of the names, but Pavel is in the middle (he is in the same language course as I), Gabriela (another student in the A&R program) is to the right of him, and Hector(a friend of Miguel) is to the left of him.

Taking pictures while skating backwards did not work, too blurry, but taking slightly turned worked. It was Miguel's first time ice skating, so he was shaky and fell a lot, but by the end he was doing much better. It did not help to have so many people crowding the rink, and lots of little kids weaving in and out. I am not sure how they turn like that. Lots of practice.

And this week has been less eventful, except for the cold.

Nic

Alles in Butter

So, one might not at first think that writing once a week would be such a daunting task, but here I am again, finally getting myself sat down and I am wondering "what should I write about?" Nachtflohmarkt? Salsa? Iserlohn? Medieval Markt?

Well, I can start out with Halloween. It being such a major holiday in my life{,} I was reminded of it at the end of the previous week. So, Alex and I decided we would dress up as Batman and Robin if we could find the costumes. Well, we didn't find a costume store on Friday or Saturday, but we did find somethings at the Nachtflohmarkt (midnight flea market).

Alex claimed Batman, and they had no Robin, so I went as Spiderman! It drew a few laughs, and then, as I kept on my costume during class, Dr. Furlan commented "So, you have brought a friend to class today?" Having left it on, what could I say but "Yes"? And since I was sitting in the back of class, what would happen but fifty or sixty faces should turn and look. That seemed to give me two choices: shrink down and be embarrassed or sit and smile. Guess what I did? :-p

Fun times for Halloween. I finished the day not with a party, but with going to Salsa lessons for the first time. I am so glad that I did go. I did not realize how much I have missed dancing this past month, but hearing some music and learning some basics set me in the mood. Different from swing dance, yet some of the turns and hand motions I see are exactly the same. I can't wait to learn more.

Most girls who have danced with me will attest that I constantly make sound effects as I dance. What is better a spin or a spin with a "sshhhuuuoooo" or "zoooofff"? The world is better with sound effects. Anyways, I rarely notice that make sound effects any more, until it happens, like last night, that a girl comments on it. So, I just had to laugh at myself, and explain how much better the world is with sound effect and how any boy uses sound effects when he plays.

What be these glowing lights on a Halloween night? The same lights that give light to campus on any other night.


That brings me to November 1st, or All Saints' Day, a regional holiday, so in Nord-Rhine Westphalia we had no school and the shops were closed, but the DAAD scholars from Berlin still had school. Alex and I ventured down to Iserlohn were Anna had done her Bachelors and she showed us around.

Off we went into the forest in search of wild pigs.

(Oooooooo!!! Look! Look! FACES!)
Unfortunately we found no wild pigs, but we did see some small deer.

And we found a lookout tower. Quite the view of town. It is good to know there is a forest I can get away.

This was a neat looking house we walked by. I love the curvy stone drive.

Leaves.

They had a Medieval Market in Dortmund Mitte (City center) most of last week, and I finally went on Sunday. It was fun to see a real steam engine, my first Flea-circus, and a mock sword fight.

This is probably the best picture I took. "Man of God distracted by Little Red Riding Hood"

And here they are! They wild pigs we searched for in Iserlohn were at the Medieval Markt in Dortmund all along.

Oh, and I am learning some German phrases. My favorite so far is "Alles in Butter" which literally means "all in butter" but idiomatically means "all is good". If all is in butter then of course all is good. :-)

Yesterday my bed from Ikea (visiting that store is a whole 'nother story) was delivered. I have a meeting with a professor on Thursday.

Alles in Butter.

Nic