"Public Viewing"

For those of you following the Euro 2008, the European soccer championship, you already know what a fantastic game it was last night as Germany beat Portugal 3:2. For those who aren't, I'd like to let you know that my (second) favorite national team played brilliantly in the win against the favored Portugese national team.

I watched the game at a "Public Viewing", which is a German term using English words to describe a mass of fans watching a game on a public square. This is a brilliant solution to the German problem of having 30-40 million soccer fans (in a nation of 82 million) who all want to experience the stadium atomsphere but don't fit into the stadium.

In the small city of Gütersloh (pop: 96,000), more than 5,500 fans packed themselves into a small area to cheer on their national team from afar.



A picture of the "Public Viewing Area". You can see the giant screen in front of the old courthouse.



Celebration after the first goal.


After the game, as is popular with the Turkish, Russian and Croation minorities after a win in this tournament, fans got in their cars and hit the streets. They drove through the city for hours honking, waving flags and cheering. A line of cars full of boisterous fans was still crawling by an hour and a half after the end of the game.

I had a great time at the game, and I know I'm pretty lucky to be in Germany during a tournament like this. The only people I'm jealous of are those who got to experience the World Cup here in 2006.

In other news, today was my last day of school. I got my report card, which turned out to be a very good one, and said goodbye to teachers and some classmates. On Sunday I'll be going to Austria with my host parents and one of my host siblings for a week of hiking in the Alps. After that, I'll come back and say goodbye to all of my friends here before embarking on my travels around Europe. Until next time!

Catching up

A whole lot has happened since my last significant post. A brief update to try to catch up:

Last month, I took a trip to Dresden on a long weekend with my host family. During my first trip into former East Germany (other than brief time spent in the Eastern part of Berlin), I got to experience Dresden, which is a beautiful Saxon city that was a cultural, musical, and architectual center before heavy bombing during World War II flattened cultural landmarks and crippled the city. During 40 years under East German rule, very little was rebuilt and dozens of a type of building called a Plattenbau were erected. The Plattenbau, which was an especially popular method of construction in East Germany, is a cheap apartment building made out of prefabricated concrete slabs.

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An example of Communist-era cookie-cutter apartment buildings.


An example of a beautification project.



The Zwinger, an example of the beautiful architecture that was destroyed during the war but rebuilt afterwards.

The end-of-year seminar in Berlin was a great weekend. We reflected on our year, visited the Bundestag to tour the Bundestag and meet with the respresentatives who organize the government side of the program and prepared ourselves for arriving in the United States and the possibility of "reverse culture shock". Angela Merkel even stopped by and said a few words to all of the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange participants.


One of the highlights of the weekend was definitely our thank-you presentation. We sang a spoof of the '80s German hit 99 Luftballoons in front of cameras, a couple hundred other exchange students and the American ambassador to Germany.

Another exciting part of the last few weeks has been the Euro 2008. Every day there's world-class soccer on TV, and there's always something fun to do when Germany is playing. This whole country is absolutely crazy for soccer and it's a great time to be here. Hopefully I'll have another more detailed update about the Fussballfieber here.

May 1st

May 1st, also known as May Day or International Worker's Day, is a national holiday in Germany. In the name of cultural research, I decided to accompany my classmates and friends during the Tag der Arbeit. This holiday corresponds to Labor Day in the United States.

May 1st is celebrated in different ways around Germany. In bigger cities, May 1st is marked by demonstrations and parades organized by worker's unions. Where I live, people ride their bikes on a Maitour to a meadow or park and celebrate there.


I first met up with two friends from my town to bike over to a friend's house in Gütersloh, where we met other friends for breakfast and started celebrating the "Day of Work".


After a hearty breakfast and a few glasses of Weizen, we set off to meet some other friends in the middle of Gütersloh.


The troop is getting bigger...


After meeting up with yet another group, we left the city in a band of about 40 people. As you can imagine, this requires frequent stops to reorganize the group. In this picture you can see the wagon with some of the supplies for the tour.


Messing around at the Wappelbad, a park next to a river. Here we lounged, chilled and hung out with many other kids we know.

All in all, the "1. Mai" was a lot of fun. I still can't find a connection between the history and the tradition in this area, but there are some things you don't have to question.

Trip to Berlin

I'm back with some pictures and thoughts about my trip to Berlin. I spent four days the week before last on a Bildungsreise, an "educational trip" in Berlin with Nick, another exchange student, and Wolfgang and Birgit, his host parents.

I was actually really lucky to get to go along on the trip. Every exchange student from my program has a sponsor in the Bundestag, the German Parliament. Nick's sponsor invited him and his family to go on the trip, but Nick's host brother couldn't afford to miss so much school. So, I got to visit a wonderful family in Düsseldorf for a weekend and spend four days in Berlin.



The Jäkels and Nick

The trip turned out to be very interesting. Most of what we saw was focused on the eastern part of the divided Berlin during the socialist East German regime. One thing that stands out on a visit to Berlin is that it has been shaped by its recent history--World War II, the Holocaust, the division of Germany, and the reunification. If you know what to look for, you can see history everywhere in this city.


A row of bricks traces sections where the wall used to be.


Almost all of the wall was torn down immediately after the reunification. A few sections, however, remain standing and have been painted over, most famously the East Side Gallery.

Another aspect of Berlin's history that has left its mark on the city was World War II. Traces of this time are found all over Berlin today, be it the over 1,000 Stolpersteine, which stand in front of houses in which Jews killed during the Holocaust used to live, or be it the scars remaining from World War II.


Picture from Stern magazine

This shows the Reichstag, where the German Parliament meets, at the end of World War II.



This picture shows the Reichstag as it looks today.



Not all of Berlin has been restored. The Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche was left a standing ruin as a reminder of the war. Another building was built next to it, but the damaged tower, called der Hohle Zahn (the hollow tooth) is still a landmark in Berlin today.



We then visited the former headquarters of the Staatssicherheit (state security), the East German secret police whose tens of thousands of employees spied on, question, and imprisoned East German citizens. All of the files they kept laid end-to-end would be about 100 miles long. Ever since the reunification, more and more of the files are being made available to those who were spied upon. Some find that friends, coworkers, and even spouses were informants for the secret police.


We also visited a former prison of the Stasi. Here prisoners were tortured psychologically, being questioned every day and not being allowed human contact other than with the interrogators.



The prison grounds.


An example of a van with which the secret police would inconspicuously take captors. Painted on the side of the van are the words "Obst und Gemüse", making it look like a delivery van for fruits and vegetables. Inside are four tiny cells and a seat for a guard.


After a lot of walking and soaking up information and a several pleasant evenings in Berlin, we hopped back in the train to Düsseldorf. Here you can see Birgit and Wolfgang sitting comfortably in the ICE with the display in the background indicating a speed of 250 km/h (155 mi/h).

I'll be back soon with a report from my favorite holiday so far, May 1st.

Has anyone else been to Berlin? What were your impressions?

Trip to Bavaria

Hello and welcome back! I hope everyone had a great spring break. Mine was excellent. After a very nice trip to Bavaria in the first week, I spent the second week relaxing and hanging out with friends here.

Just a quick recap of my trip, centered around a select few of the pictures I took.

I started off the 350 mile trip at the train station in Rheda-Wiedenbrück, my host town. This is a view across the tracks of a train station in small town Germany. I've become very fond of traveling by train since I got here, and I'm especially fascinated by the high-speed trains in Europe. The German high-speed train is called the ICE, which stands for "Inter City Express". Deutsche Bahn, the German rail service, has this really terrible habit of naming things with English words.


Picture by Dennis Schollbach

On the route I took to Augsburg, the train reaches a top speed of 250 km/h (155 mi/h). If you're sitting in your seat looking forward, you barely notice anything. Once you look out the window, you realize how fast you're truly going.

The over 2000 year-old city of Augsburg, founded by the Roman emperor Augustus, has, like any other somewhat large German city, a beautiful, historical city center, good public transportation, like the streetcar below, and a huge church.



A streetcar in Augsburg


Downtown Augsburg

The next day, two other exchange students, their host families, and I went to visit a castle in Harburg. The castle is one of the oldest and best-preserved castles in the region, and we had a very interesting tour there.

A view of the Innenhof (courtyard) of the castle


The castle dragon guarding the valuables.


After one of the heartiest meals of my life at a restaurant in Oettingen, we went on to walk off all of the Spätzle, Weizen, and Schnitzel in the nearby town of Nördlingen. The town is one of the few towns in Germany with the historical wall still completely standing. This house is actually partially built into the wall.

The next day it was off to Munich, the 3rd biggest city in Germany and an incredibly popular tourist destination, best known for Oktoberfest, basically one of the biggest parties in the world.


The new city hall in Munich. I walked around a corner and this view just stunned me. So, I took a picture.


The German Museum, which is kind of like the Air and Space Museum, but it focuses on all kinds of science and technology. It does really come across in the picture, but this building is massive.


This is a sign I saw near the University of Munich (which is beautiful, by the way). It's basically advocating the abolishment of the Euro. As I wrote in a previous post, the introduction of the Euro was very controversial and led to a huge increase in the cost of living in Germany.

The text of the poster, loosely translated:
"Yes to a united Europe, but with national currencies!"
"The German mark stood by our sides."
(illegible)
"We demand a referendum for the re-introduction of the German mark!"
"Vote for List 18 at the European elections!"


Ben (one of my good friends here and another exchange student I was traveling with) at the monument dedicate to "die Weiße Rose" a resistance group in Munich during the days of Nazi rule. The leading members of the group were arrested and executed for their anti-Nazi political actions.


A demonstration in Munich against the oppression of Tibetans and the violence in Tibet right now.


A really strange basketball court. The surface is exactly like a normal basketball court, but the court itself is hilly. This was in front of a school in Munich. I wonder if kids actually play there and what kind of basketball results from a court like that.


Every trip to Munich has to stop by BMW Welt and the BMW Museum. OK, the museum doesn't open for another 2 months, so we just gaped in awe at the gorgeous cars in BMW world.


This pretty much sums up the biggest complaint I have about my year here in Germany: the weather isn't so fantastic. That's Ben making his way through wind and snow at the end of March.

All in all, I had a great trip to Bavaria. I got to hang out and travel some with my good friend Ben, meet his wonderful host family, and learn about a new region of Germany. Bavaria is a very charming place with strong traditions, beautiful landscape, friendly people, and great beer. The many different dialects and cultures add to the intrigue of Bavaria. I learned that it's a much more complicated picture than just Bavaria, that Bavaria actually consists of Swabians, Franconians, and Bavarians, all of whom speak different dialects and have some of their own traditions. Furthermore, larger cities like Munich have transcended regional cultures and developed personalities of their own. I would definitely recommend a visit to Bavaria to anyone traveling to Europe.

Paris on Wheels

Hey all, just going to report a little bit of this and that from my trip to Paris.

Last weekend I went to Paris with my host brother to vist my host sister. She is studying abroad there through ERASMUS, a program from the European Union that coordinates study abroad inside of the EU. The program guarantees that the students won't have to pay more tuition to study abroad and that the credits earned abroad will be recognized by their home university.

The post is called "Paris on Wheels" because we toured Paris with my host sister in a wheelchair. She tore her Achilles tendon in December and had gotten her cast off the day before we got there.


So we walked (and rolled and crutched) through the streets of Paris like this and took turns pushing the wheelchair. In this picture we're on our way to the Notre Dame cathedral, where we had a picnic.



But being with a handicapped person had its advantages. We got to cut the lines at museums and ride the cool elevator in the Louvre.

The Louvre is, by the way, one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. The building itself was actually a lot more impressive to me than many of the paintings. It's so massive that to actually see all of the 35,000 paintings in its collection, you would need over 9 months.


Famous Moulin Rouge, typical touristy picture.


The view from Montmartre, a large hill in the middle of Paris. Fabian is squinting because of the sun. There's a beautiful church behind me and a festive feeling all around. We had a picnic there and enjoyed the atmosphere.


This is a picture of the line outside of the Musee d'Orsay that we didn't have to wait in.


Verena sitting in the wheelchair and Fabian playing with the crutches inside the Musee d'Orsay. I actually liked the art in this museum a lot better than that in the Louvre. The impressionist paintings on the third floor were the most interesting.


The Tuileries Gardens, where we had our third picnic of the weekend. It was just beautiful.

All in all, it was a great weekend in Paris. We got to see a lot of culture, art, breathtaking buildings, and eat a lot of delicious baguettes. Seriously, enjoying a baguette with delicious cheese in the Tuileries Gardens is really something.

What really struck me about Paris as far as the language goes was the lack of English. Although Paris is probably the most popular tourist destination in Europe, there was very little English. Even in the Louvre, the most visited museum in the world, the displays were not very non-native-speaker-friendly. In contrast, many attractions in Germany also have English text under the German text. Is printing the text again in English a sellout to tourism or a hospitable gesture making museums and train stations more available to everyone?

I can really recommend Paris to anyone coming to Europe. The city really does have a charm of its own, even through rampant mass tourism. I guess I can't complain about tourism too much, being a tourist there myself...

PS: If you look to the right, you'll see that my blog has now been visited by people (or bots) from all six permanently inhabited continents! Woohoo!

Münster

Over the break I've been unterwegs a lot, because I've been taking advantage of a special offer from the Deutsche Bahn. This offer allows me to travel with all forms of public transportation within the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen for just 18€ during the entire winter break, which is a wonderful two weeks long here.

So this is just a recap of my day in Münster last Friday and some (hopefully) interesting things about Münster.

Münster is a city in northern Nordrhein-Westfalen with a population of about 270,000 people, about 50,000 of whom are college students. Next to rich historical and cultural offerings, Münster is famous for being the bike capital of Germany. Special lanes for bikers and special traffic laws make for a very bike-friendly city. College students and businesspeople alike make up the bike-riding population. There are actually far more bikes than people in the city, with about 500,000 bikes at the last survey.


In the bike garage next to the train station. 3,300 bikes fit in this building, with sections marked off just like they are in a parking garage.


More bike stands in the back of the train station.

We started with a visit to the Picasso Museum, where there was an exhibit about real paintings in comparison to forged paintings and had the visitor try to discern real paintings from attempts to copy them.


In front of the St. Paul's Cathedral in Münster. Just inside the door was a stone from a cathedral in Coventry, England. The two cathedrals are part of a partner program for cathedrals unnecessarily and brutally destroyed during World War II in England and Germany.


A picture from the marketplace in front of St. Paul's Cathedral.

After eating some Chinese food (which is unfortunately just not as good here in Germany) we went for a long walk on the promenade in town. Afterwards we went to a bar in the old town and tried a local specialty, but had to leave a little bit earlier than usual to get back home for the night.



In the train station, while waiting for our train home, we played with the toy train set and met a few people doing it. We happened to run across another exchange student, who is from South Africa, and ended up having a very interesting discussion about national pride with another group of Germans, all because of the toy train set.

So, that's a very brief look at Münster. It's actually my favorite city that I've visited so far. The old town is very pretty, and there's a good combination of history, culture, and nightlife. The city is very accessible by foot or on a bike and is great to just visit.