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....