CHRISTMAS MARKET WOES & GETTING MY PARTY ON

Right, so Daniela and I will be leaving tomorrow morning to go back to St. Charles, so this is my last post from Europe in 2006. Surprisingly, I have not been too stressed in the time leading up till leaving, so consequently, I do not have a whole lot to talk about, but I will give it a shot anyway.

Last Saturday I went to Dresden to see the Christmas market. Germany is full of Christmas markets and though they are a nice tradition, I do not see much reason to go to one more than once in one's life. In fact, I think just reading about them and maybe seeing a couple of pictures would be infintely better than subjecting yourself to the torture of witnessing such an experience.

To be perfectly honest, I knew that I would not like going to the thing, but I had agreed to go to Dresden anyway before with the understanding that on Sunday we would go hiking, but this was cancelled so I was just stuck going since my friends were going. Right, so bearing this in mind, I went to the train station with Daniela and packed sardine style for the 2 hour journey into the car reserved for bicycles and managing to somehow find a spot on the floor to sit. We arrived there just in time for the constant rain to start and keep us company the whole day. We shortly met up with Louis from California and Sarah from Australia, and went out in search of Kate and Cathy (seeing pic below). After succeding in this, we started to mingle around, wedging ourselves between the masses to look at cheesy crap and buy expensive food. It was just a mess of people, the same gaudy items in every row, the rain and loosing everyone. Thank God for alcohol, without it, I would never have made it.

This turned a bit better later in the week though, as last night the World Heritage profram celebrated our Holiday Party. It was good fun, but the turn out was a bit small and there was not a whole lot of grooving and shaking on the dance floor. Still good times.

Well, I have to get going, I am absolutly exhausted, and need to finish up some things before I leave. Take care!

Here is me and the girls on Thanksgiving!

Fußball, Nearly Free Health System and Thanksgiving

Right sportsfans, so last Wednesday while I was dying of boredom in my office, I updated my blog only to have everything deleted, so I was a little frustrated. I am over it now, so I am back with full force to let you know what is happening. I appreciated all the comments that I got, and I too look back on those memories...we had a great time!

I will back track a bit, and start with Thanksgiving. Those who have seen my other entries for this joyous feast know that this is bar none my favorite excuse to see family and eat like a pig, and this year was no different on the second count. I had an enormous feeding frenzy with my fellow American Kate, Cathy from Ireland and Daniela from Horba. We made a little turkey, mashed potatoes and even authentic tasting stuffing. To top it off we find the nearly impossible to get sweet potatoes, and Kate made a special treat: Homemade pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin. It was to die for.

In other less satisfying news, my immune system decided to crap out on me for awhile, after having gorgeous weather around that turned cold, and I guess the old body couldn't take much more of it. So, I went to the on campus clinic expecting some dive, but it turned out to be a normal style little thing, with old people and everything (here I was thinking it was for students). So I went in there, found the word in my dictionary for "Disgusting yellow crap coming out of my nose" and that I had a throat that felt like I had been jugging moonshine the night before. I understood the doctor and somehow she got what I was saying, and filled out some forms. Germans love forms, maybe more than the French, just with less stamps, and the doctors office is no different. I was given one form explaining the medicine that I was given including dosage and whatnot, and two others for the prescription. The conversation that ensued went a little something like this:
Me - "What is the pink sheet for?"
Doctor Whatsherface - "That is for your anti-biotic. The insurance will pay for that."
Me - " Oh great. Well what is that blue slightly longer sheet for?"
Doctor - "Those are the three other medicines that your insurance will not pay for?"
Me - (Thinking: "Holy crap, I pay 50 euros a month for insurance, paid 10 euros for a consultation fee, and you are expecting me to fork over more money)
Doctor - (Thinking: "Why is the American glaring at me? Is it true that they are allowed to carry sidearms?")
Me - (Clearing my throat) "Why do I have insurance then?"
Doctor - "Didn't you see my new Mercedes?"

Well, it did not go that badly, actually she was quite friendly, and the woman at the front desk thought that the system was crap too.

Anyway, braving the cold and with a diseased body I still went through with plans to go to my first soccer game in Europe. That's right loyal readers, I went to an exciting Energie Cottbus game! Well, it was not that exciting, and they lost 1-0, but it was still a fun time. I went with a Canadian guy Paul who is in my program. Paul is an interesting fellow to hang around with. A former banker, he gave it all up one day and lived in the Canadian wild for a couple of months, then packed up ship for Germany. He is very interesting to talk with, and can speak German, French and Hungarian. We had a good old time.

Well, that is all for now, the weather is not too bad, but getting cooler, hope all is well with you!

HOWDY FOLKS!

Well, I hope that you enjoyed the last update as much as I enjoyed your comments. Good to hear from all of you! Things are going pretty alright here. Daniela and I went last weekend to the Spreewald Therma, which is a super duper bad ass spa that is offered here. It is with natural mineral water and features several baths with salt content from a refreshing 2.5% to a floatable 8%. They had this whole system there whereby you could follow this plan that was basically like a Roman bath; i.e. mild, hot, hotter, cold, hot, cold, etc. There were even steam and sauna rooms, but as Daniela and I soon discovered after entering, there were a bunch of naked people, in every possible European sauna way. Yikes.

Last week I ran into a bit of a surprise, as I got comments back from my extra important symposium paper stating that I had completely miswritten it. Well, after a good 45 minute semi-heated discussion it was revealed that I indeed did not write according to the standard my teacher, as well as discovering that she had not told the class before. Hmmm... Well, Daniela and I had already booked tickets to go back to Horba and see her family one last time before we go to the states (leaving 12/15!!!), so reluctantly enough I had to work on that most of the weekend (though it went especially well thanks to some editing from the parents, thanks guys!). The worst part of the whole experience was having to sit in the library on Thursday doing research for four hours, while I missed the gorgeous weather. It was in the 60's here and sunny. Not cool on the not cool scale.

Well, that is all for now, not much else to report, hope all is well!

Here's my Dad and I knocking back some homemade moonshine with some relatives at the wedding in Poland.

Greetings once more dear readers! After giving you (and myself) a break in the life of Justin, I have decided once more to take up the old blog, and give it the technical university try at attempting to write on a semi-regular basis. I have a bit more free time (theortically) this semester, so I hope that I will be able to set aside a bit of time now to update you on my wanderings and random thoughts in my life.

So, what have I done since May? A lot actually. Here is a brief update on what has been happening:

1. Finished up classes which went alright except that I had two papers to write, drastically after the semester ended. I had one due in the middle of August and the other October 31st. The latter paper is quite important actually, based upon an International Symposium that we hosted here at the university on World Heritage Education and Capacity Building, and hopefully will be published in a book containing articles like mine.

2. Managed to finally explore the greater Cottbus area with my Dutch friend Sam on our bikes for a few days in June. We didn't get too lost on our three day excursion, but we certainly got really sore and over heated. It was pretty grueling, averaging about 50 kilometers (35 miles) a day. Oh yeah, I have just been reminded by a bitter third party, that I also managed to lose a frisbee.

3. I spent about two months at Daniela's house over the summer, which was nice to relax and save a bit of money, but a bit stressful at times since you would be surprised at how little there is to do in a town, I mean village, of 200 inhabitants. Even I was getting excited when a car went through the "center". Oh yeah, it got that bad. But I still managed to get out a little bit, as Daniela and I went to visit our American friend Kate who spent the summer with her boyfriend Tobias in Ulm (south of Germany), which was great fun. I also went hiking in the mountains around Daniela's on a famous trail called Der Reinsteig. I was gone for six days, covering on average of 20 kilometers (15 miles) a day with a 45 pound backpack. I walked from Daniela's all the way to Eisenach, a beautiful town. There were a lot of adventures in this, but maybe if questioned, will provide details later on.

4. My parents came out here a month ago, and first came to Horba and met Daniela's parents and grandparents. It went over much better than Daniela and I thought it would, not that we thought it would go bad, just that we were worried about the language and a whole lot of whatnot. So we were there for the weekend, went to Weimar, and then were off to Cottbus for the week. My Dad got sick, so Daniela and I and my Mom only went to Berlin for a day, and all of us went around the Spreewald (Sorbish minority area around Cottbus) for a boat tour on the canals, and to Dresden with a personal tour by Kate who wrote a book about the town. Then The parents and I went to Poland to visit some step-relatives. Holy crap. I think that I will have to devote an entire day to conveying the events that transpired at this wedding. Let me just leave you with this: A lot of food, a lot of dancing, a lot of singing, a lot of vodka and moonshine, and a lot of fun. After this, we flew back to the west of Germany and found my Grandfathers grave, something we never thought we would see. It was great to find the spot, though there was no headstone, it was a moving experience. Then we went on to Cologne where we were deeply disapointed, and then to Frankfort, which was surprisingly nice.

5. Classes started up again a couple of weeks ago, and it was a little hairy in the beginning to get my schedule worked out. It seems to be OK now, and surprisingly sparse. I am only taking four classes now, three of which I have to take (almost nothing compared to the 12 classes I took this time last year). But, I am hardly just sitting around. I also have a job with the language center on campus and am helping out with English classes as well as some private things I have on the side. Also, I am helping Kate with French, and she is helping me with German, and on my own I am learning Irish Gaelic, in preparation for my internship I am planning on having in Ireland in March.

SO, I hope that whet's your appetite for more to come, and I promise to update more often than ever few months!

VENEZIA!
Before I write to you about my fantastic trip, I have a grudge to settle. Phrase books are the single worst expense that one can waste their money on when travelling for the basic reason that no matter how hard you try, the damn idiots you are speaking with will not respond to you in the language you have just spoken with them in. All the time I tried my Italian, which I admit is not particular fluent nor beautiful, yet nevertheless it is like they tried to be pushy morons with me. Probably my favorite example of a week of being treated like a child was when I went into a store and the following conversation took place: Me: "Scusi, lei ha francobolli?" Dumb ass clerk behind the counter: "Uh yes, we have stamps." Me: "Do you also have a shotgun that I could use to rearrange the store with?" Same idiot with horrible English accent: "Uh, I will check."

Anyway, here is a picture of me from Venice, and despite the communcation annoyance, a fantastic time. I just got back last night after a very long week. I had little time to rest since we were so busy the whole time doing excursions, lectures, interviews, surveys, research and just walking everywhere. We had a couple of important interviews with UNESCO in Venice and the local government people, which were great. Unfortunately, my inept teacher that is about as competent as an earthworm to teach showed up on Monday for three days. She skipped the morning visit on Tuesday and attended NOTHING on Wednesday and was off again to go be a moron somewhere else. We had a meeting Monday night as a group to understand why we were there, and what the end goal was (seriously). I was so frustrated with what she was saying that I felt like quiting the whole thing, but luckily several of us had a meeting with the architecture teacher in charge of everything the next day for two hours, and then everything was sorted out. So, what was I doing then besides working on my tan, you might ask? This was my first trip some where new when I wasn't a tourist, as we went into super work mode after this great meeting and started to do everything. We as a group really began to take this project seriously, and talked non-stop about basically just our project till the end. So, our project is basically highlighting the problems and opportunities with Venice, a big job indeed, I can tell you. My focus, besides being the official ice cream taster, is to anaylize the renovation and reutilization of buildings in Venice specifically to benefit residents. Fun stuff, eh?

This week back will certainly be a pain though, as I have another study project to worry about, a final on Wednesday of which the contents are still a mystery, a weekend seminar with a presentation that I am equally unprepared for and a host of other crappy activities. Wish me luck, as I would love to have a comment or two!!!

Ciao da Venezia!!!

Hey everybody, I am now writing you from Venice....

It is very beautiful here, soooooo many tourists, and gorgeous weather. There is not much that I can write now, since there are others waiting, but just a quick update. I arrived in Milan Thursday, which turned out to be a more beautiful city than I thought it would be (very industrial city), but I was barely there, and had to take the train to Venice. It was an interesting train ride, as I sat with two French people and an Italian, and ended up speaking to them in their languages, which made for quite the headache, and showed me how horrible my Italian is.

I spent all of today with architecture students, doing architecture tours, which was all right, but there is only a certain extent of my interest in this particular topic, after which Justin's brain goes on vacation. Regardless, it was great to see the city, and I think that I am still moving around from riding the boats....

That's all for now, ciao ciao!!!!

Yet another year, Czech Adventures and Vienna

So loyal readers, I am back, and I am sure like usual you are wondering where the hell has Justin been. I have to apoligize for not being more up to date, yet I am taking a crap ton of courses this semester, and in general have been busy with this that and the other thing. So, I will attempt to update you on my goings on, but it may be a bit long winded.....

First, as some of you may have heard on TV or in the newspaper, today is my birthday, so I am know another year older, deeper in debt, and possibly wiser. Last night I had some of my friends over for a little drink, and we partied till 4:30 am, including much beer, good conversation and even some wrestling. Today was a little rough on the old body, and I spent a good chunk of it laying in bed. I didn't feel much older yesterday, but my God, it's amazing the difference a year'll make.

In other news, I got to use my new train discount card and gave Daniela an early birthday gift. To wit, a trip to Vienna. We left last weekend on Thursday, and I had three trains ahead of us. I did not tell Daniela where we were going, so for about two weeks she was haranguing me on the topic, guessing that we were going to visit people in Dublin, France, Spain, and a distant fourth, Vienna. So, in order to keep the surprise going, when we got to the train station in Cottbus, I had her look at the ground and wear headphones to keep her from reading the direction of the train to Dresden, or hearing annoucements. Once we arrived in Dresden, we had a train to Prague and I managed to get her on that train without her knowing the direction either, but then on the train they made an annoucement and at the excate moment where they said "Prague" her radio was changing tracks and there was a pause, and therefore she heard it. It was OK though, since she still didn't know the final destination. Right, so we were on the train, lovely lovely, and then at the border to Czech Republic, the customs came on the train. They boarded and asked where Daniela was going to. There was a pause as we exchanged looks, and I said to the police "Wien" (Vienna). Daniela was shell shocked, as she had no idea that that was really were we were going, but her excitment did not even have the chance to come to an ounce of fruition at first. It turns out, that her identity card was expired by a month, and the customs said we had to get off at the next station. The Czech and German customs guys looked at each other, exchanged smiles and then said, "Just kidding, make sure you get it taken care of." What a relief. Yet, our adventure had just started.

We arrived at Prague around 11:30 pm Thursday, and wouldn't you believe it, they really do speak Czech there. Signs, notice boards, people, this crazy language with a bunch of hats on their letters is something that can be communicated between people. I was certainly impressed. This ordinarily would be really cool, and I was very interested in how it all worked, but I had a more pressing problem, on the departure board Vienna, Wien, Vienne, basically every language that I know how to say this city in was not on it. So, I looked at my print out, and found the time that we were supposed to leave, and went to the platform with the corresponding time. Sure enough, on a sign below some random city "Wien" was printed. This was a night train though, and wouldn't arrive there till 6:00am, so having a sleeper car would have been nice, but it turned out to be an extra 90 euros, so no thanks, and we sat in a cramped compartment with Czechs. Without going into too much detail, Czech is an old Soviet republic, and there is no doubt as you are on their trains They are old, uncomfortable, unventalated and in general, the sort of thing you'd expect from an old communist regime. The people also have a sort of attitude that my Ukraine friends call typical Soviet: a laziness at work and little care if you are in good hands. So it was for us, as the first ticket controller checked our tickets and said nothing. What she failed to communicate at all, was that the train split into three parts, one going to Slovakia, one to Russia and the third to Vienna. We were on the wrong one. Though it wasn't till we got to nearly the Slovakian border, hundreds of kilometers east of where we were supposed to be, and at 3:30 am till we were told this by another conductor checking tickets. After getting a translation from a German speaker in our car, we got out at the next station, and had to wait for a train to double us back.

I'd never been to Czech. This was only the second time in my life I had been to a country where I didn't know the language or know someone who knew one I knew. I wasn't so much scared being lost in the middle of East Europe so much as I was dazed. I mean, I really hadn't travelled far, perhaps the distance from Chicago to Springfield, yet I was a world away. The information desk at the station opened at 5:00 and Daniela went there to find out how to get back on track. I was dumbfounded. Daniela asked if she spoke German. No. English? No. French? No. Italien? No. I was this close to asking if she spoke Polish, but I am afraid that she would have said yes, and then I would have attempted to communicate my broken, month long study of the language would basically be hello, good bye, Can I help you?, I'm sorry, Where's the bathroom?, and several other basic expressions that were of no help. So with a lot of arm movements, and pointing at the Czech word for Vienna that was kindly written down for us on the train by the German speaker, we got a plan. We got on our trains, and it worked out fine, making it to Vienna only a couple hours later than expected. It was a relief to hear German again, and a world away from the last country. Pretty wild stuff....

Right, so we got to see our friend Caroline who was in Hirson with us, and it had been nearly a year, though you wouldn't know it as we got right back in the swing of things like it'd been a week. Vienna is gorgeous, and very charming, though too many tourists, and it rained the whole weekend. We went to a flea market that was quite something. There was a surprising amount of Jewish religious paraphinalia for sale including an arm band that they were forced to wear during the Nazi period. Even more unnerving was when we went to the synagogue in Vienna. It's on a very short street, yet both sides were heavily guarded by police with machine guns, and there were men in suits as well with ear pieces. To enter you had to show ID. Not what I expected from a very warm and friendly place. Regardless, Vienna is great, and I saw many lovely buildings, saw Good Night and Good Luck (fantastic), visited with Caroline and got caught up with her. All in all, great times......

Baverian Crap, Raucherfrei my ass and the World Cup

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, my God, why the hell hasn't Justin been updating this thing? I mean, is he so busy that he cannot find 15 minutes in his easy life just to inform his lonely public of his wanderings and doings and goings on and whatnot? Well, the short answer is no, and the slightly longer answer is I have not felt like it. With this in mind, let me try to update you on what has been going on. Well, first of all, Daniela and I are now officially settled and moved in to our new apartment. It was a devastingly long move for me down the hall way (about 50 feet away) and took forever to complete. We have it all decorate and crap, and I will provide photos later.

What else is new? I was in good old Horba last weekend for Easter, which was a good time, as we went to two birthday parties, and I got to practice my drunken German a bit more, and eat a bunch. Good times. One time after having some coffee in the afternoon, there was some crappy ass Baverian music that some kids were seeing. You see this kind of pathetic attempt at entertainment all the time on TV, as these little lederhosen bastards sing historic ballades that idoligize such earth shatteringly important subjects as how cute baby chickens are and the purty mountains. There has been some call from Baverians to seperate from Germany in the past, and I hope that they are still persuing this, as I would be in favor if nothing else to get this off the damn television.

In other stupid German news, all of the train stations are Raucherfrei (No Smoking) except in designated areas, but to Germans, this matters not. People smoke everywhere, and since most stations are quite open it is usually not an issue of annoyance, but there is a point of priniciple that I hate. The most common place to see people smoking is near the signs that say NO smoking!!!! There are little ashtrays to put out your cigarettes, as if they would pay attention and throw their precious cancer sticks away, and they like to congregate there, and smoke away. Ah, a nice law abiding society.....

In other train news, Daniela and I each recently bought World Cup discount train cards, that were only 19 euros and good for four months. However, if Germany wins a round in the games, then we get the card for another month, and if they win the whole thing, then we get it till the end of the year. The purpose of the card is to encourage people to travel to the cities were games are played, but I do not even care about going to the city, I just want them to win so I can get my card longer, so, Go Germany!!!!

SCHOOL.....AGAIN

Classes started this week, well, to be more specific, the semester started as I only had a couple of classes. Most of them have been postponed till next week, which is cool because that just means one less week of classes, and from extensive experiments I have been conducting also means less work. Before the excitement of nearly almost one class a day, I had a special treat last Saturday night, as Daniela and I were invited over to Erisa's house, for some traditional food from her native land, Japan. Everything was most excellent, and we had a good time chatting the night away, though she became utterly confused when I explained to her that Americans don't really use the metric system, which she still cannot fathom. Also last weekend was the moving in process by Daniela and I into our new apartment together. It was not a bad move (down the hallway from my old place), but still a pain to get everything organized, which is still a work in progress. We have much more space now than before, and the best part no matter how busy our days are, we are guaranteed to see each other at night and complain about our days.

What can I say about my classes so far? Well, I have barely seen them, and learned about as much as one does about healthy eating from George Forman. Otherwise not a whole lot is going on.....

SPRING HAS FINALLY ARRIVED!

As I sit here, I am proud to report the return of nice weather. After changing our clocks on Saturday, Mother Nature has also decided to cooperate with the new sense of action, and provide temperatures of up to 60°F (15°C) today, with only slight cloud cover. It certainly makes for more interesting things to do outside besides avoiding ice and falling from my bike. Though, since my semester has not started yet and will not finish until the middle of July, I cannot say how happy I will be about sitting in class during a gorgeous summer day. I guess free education does indeed have its price.....

So, to recap to all those people that are now making a comeback into my life, my last post featured a photo with my parents and I and Daniela (yes Daisy my lovely girlfriend!), in front of the White House in Washington. You see, Daniela and I decided to go to the USA for our holidays in February and March, and said hello to the old parents, museum people, friends and we tried with George W., but I am afraid that we were not graced with his company. Though we did not see our fair president, we did see just about everything possible in just under a month. Coming to my house, we did the tour of St. Charles, went into Chicago for day trips four times, went to St. Louis for Mardi Gras which was a very interesting experience, and a week long road trip with the parents to Virginia and D.C. All in all it was a great time, but we were so busy the whole time, I really did need a vacation from our vacation.

Though, I did not grant myself such leisure, and was soon back in a plane within a week. Three students and friends of mine from my program Zhu from China, Irina from Ukraine and Sam from Holland were given awards from UNESCO to do research in China, Scotland and India, respectively, and I decided to attend the ceremony in Paris. I also took this opportunity to have a meeting with a gentleman from UNESCO for a possible internship there this summer, which went OK, actually not too bad considering the fact that I was wholly unprepared. Anyway, I also got to go to Normandy and visit Guillaume and Emilie which was excellent.

Right, so there you go, a brief update of what transpired in my life recently. Nothing too much to report now, except that Daniela and I will move in together this weekend (I guess that is actually pretty big news) and I have a paper due this week from the previous semester, not too bad, huh? That is all for now.....

RETURN FROM AMERICA

After a hiatus of rather a long time, I have decided to once again update you on what I happen to be doing in my fair little city. After going home for a month, I have once again return to Cottbus (not without a little side journey in there to Paris and Caen) and am awaiting the start to the Summer Semester. I am really excited to start now, and am completely bored out of my mind as to what to do now. I will unfortunately be unable to write much today, since the weather is gorgeous and I have no desire to sit around here for another half an hour. Instead, I will slowly tempt you with this photo and provide details later...

Despite the rumors, I am still alive. I am sure that all of you that some how cling to the hope that I will write something one of these after a two week hiatus, will not only be pleased to know that I am doing so write now, but also that I did not suffer some horrible set back. Nor did I get bird flu or injured in some hate crime riot, so please, no worries. Right, so what have I done the past couple of weeks? Probably a lot, but I am afraid that I do not remember a whole lot. I have just been wrapping up school, preparing to come back to St. Charles on Monday with Daniela, working on papers, doing presentations and the like. In fact, I have nothing of any real importance to say, so instead, let's hear some questions from you. What are you dying to know about my goings-on here? I await your inquiries.

The weather in Cottbus has certainly started to make an interesting impact in my daily life. On Saturday it heated up quite a bit, making everything wet and creating deep puddles on all the sidewalks. Then, just to make things interesting, it decided to plunge into sub zero temperatures, for no apparent reason other than a deep seeded desire to see everything freeze. Well, Sunday I had an excursion to Berlin to visit several museums with my archaeology class, and I had to be at the train station before 8:30. I went outside at about 8:15 to unlock my bike, and discovered that not only was it freaking freezing, but my lock was no exception. I could not even get my key in the lock. OK, so this is usually a five minute at most trip by bike, and about a 20 minute walk, so at about 8:23, I decided to run. I started off well, but it was just too cold, and my pace was greatly slowed. After reaching the bridge over the train tracks, I received a call from Ona saying that the train had just left, and that I was screwed. I made it into the train station, breathing hard and spitting, and found out that the trains were running extra slow, an additional near an hour and a half in time. I decided to go back home, and said enough archaeology for today, coughing along the way, and nearly freezing.

Today, I woke up to temperatures around -2 F (-19 C) with the wind, again my lock was frozen, and went to archaeology for my presentation on slave archaeology in the USA for the class. We had to move to a different building, but had to move again half way through. So, during the four hour class we got through barely more than half of the presentations, and I will go in two weeks. Fun stuff.

Though a week has gone by since my last posting, things have been pretty quite around here and there is little to say. I have started working out again in full swing, since I have a really expensive gym membership and I intend to look like He-Man soon. I still have a little bit more to go, and when I mean a little I mean I will probably never get there.

The weather is freaking cold, and it's dark by 5 p.m. everyday, but luckily the sun has been out nearly this whole time, with cloudless skies, so it makes things a bit more bareable.

This past weekend I had nothing to do for the first time in Cottbus since, actually, I really cannot remember how long it has been. Too long. Anyway, I took advantage of such nothiness to do nothing. Literally, I slept in, finished the book 1776, and just caught up on forming pointless thoughts in my mind. I had a bit of the sniffles because of the cold weather, but have felt in general quite healthy.

On Friday, I did the most exciting thing of the week, namely a dancing ball. Daniela is in a dance class here and they hosted a formal ball in the town. The first couple of hours I just sat around and drank beer, while nearly everyone there danced things they had learned in class. Then they had two seperate information sessions on the merangue and salsa dancing, which was really fun.

Right, so I hope to have some other things to comment on soon!

....and I guess in the end we had to just dump the bodies.

Sorry about that, wrong posting....

Anyway, I am back in Cottbus after quite the adventure, so I will do my best to summarize...

Daniela and I made it to Holland with no problems and made it to my friend Sams house, with my friend Mike from America waiting for us there. It was great to see him again, and hang out with both an American and a familiar face. We spent the time before New Years in the south of Holland and Sams parents drove us to random places in the area, and we saw the gorgeous scenery. We even got to go into the local windmill which is still used to mill flour for local bakeries....sweeeet. The food was also amazing, and each meal was some how better than the last. Though I guess I had a little too much at one point....let me explain. We had eaten a rasperry dessert one night, then the next night we had a dessert that incorporate what looked like the same previous dessert. Unfortunately, as I started to get redder and redder and my chest and back got splotchy, I inquired whether or not there were strawberries in the dessert, which it turned out there were. We called the hotline for such things and they recommended going to the local clinic, but as we were leaving I started shaking and I think an early form of shock. We got to the place and they gave me some shot, but then I got really tired, and I was rushed back in for a fun little shot of adrenaline which made my heart race. After this fun adventure, they rushed me to the hospital attached to the clinic and I was hooked up to a bunch of fun machines. After some time they said everything except my racing heart was normal, and I could go, which I did and retired to a nice warm bed. Thank God for my EU health care.

Anyway, the next day Daniela, Mike and I were off to Amsterdam for the day, but we did not leave till late thanks to my little mishap. Still we were able to walk around a bit, which for the most part was a major tourist trap, but after getting out of the center was quite beautiful. H0lland is famous for their canals, and like Sams town, Amsterdam is no different. It was quite nice, but even in January, too full.

The next day, Daniela flew back to Germany and Mike and I were off to Paris. We arrived and got to my friends Stefie and Noah and stayed in their apartment in the south of Paris. We walked everywhere through town, ate more terrific food, saw my friends Guillaum and Julien, and finally got some of money from France.

After walking all over Paris and engaging in many fantastic and engaging conversations, we flew back to Berlin and took the train to Cottbus. Unfortunatly I had a weekend seminar, but Mike enjoyed the wonders of Cottbus. On Sunday, Mike, Daniela and I went to Berlin and saw the Brandenburg gate and what not, and saw Mike off back to the USA.

Classes have started again, and I am back in the norm....