all about chemistry

One Week

A pleasant Sunday afternoon finds me finally with enough time - and the necessary resources - to update you all.

I am indeed in Munich, finally, after forty-eight hours in Cologne with the best bunch of linguistic (and otherwise) geniuses I could have possibly hoped to meet. Roll call was fifteen names long, including seven from the University of Michigan, two from Yale, two from Cornell, and one each from Michigan State, Iowa, Texas-Austin, and Toledo (or, the "real U-T", as Scott insisted). Too many highlights exist to list them all now, a week stale. Learned that a invalid S-Bahn ticket is a 40-. Euro offence. Learned also that fifteen people huddled together in a foreign country will very quickly find friendship in each other (aww).

Cologne is a nice city with a homeless population that has taken to finding companionship in dogs, usually enormous in proportion. The Dom dominates the skyline from pretty much any direction; climbing the tower (as we did, in a drizzling rain no less) places one at a dizzying height above street level, and affording a luxurious view of the Rhein, also the central train station. The interior of the cathedral is beautiful as well, sporting a jaunty set of tapestries, several organs (one of which hangs - yes, hangs - from the roof, at a height of what must be at least eighty feet above the paritioners below), and the tomb of what I collect is a Pope, of name I could not decipher; I noticed it while observing Gottensdienst one morning, and could obviously not simply stroll on over for a closer look.

Another fantastic quality of the city is the fact that it is in Germany, and thus the local beer (much of which is of the Koelsch variety, a light pale lager) is fantastic. This is enjoyed with a bowl of goulash on the first evening, with an audience of five fabulous ladies of the orientation group. Note: goulash = not the sexiest of the food varieties.

Pictures from this part of the trip will be posted, but only by a link (and you all are perfectly welcome to romp around my UMich AFS space). This will be done later as well, once 1.) I can post the pictures to said AFS space, and 2.) I can resize them all so that it does not take forever to do so - I doubt many of you want desktop-plus sized pictures of, for example, my first step on British soil (or tarmac, anyways).

Coming soon: "Venturing to Munich", or "Where the hell did everybody go?"

As always, do enjoy.

BHK

posted by Ben @ 12:21 AM