Oktoberfest here I come!

Yep, I am going to the famed Oktoberfest tomorrow. This is the last communication many of you will have before I am changed forever. Try to remember what I was like and prepare yourself for what I am soon to become.

Actually, I am sick. It is the most perfect timing ever. I got sick today at about 2 pm and I start my trip to Munich at 10 am. Wunderbar. I've picked up some drugs and stuff and hope some sleep will help. I any case I still plan on having a good time and drinking.

In the last few days I have been liked by a cow, stood under a wind turbine, picked up an Italian girl in German at a party, cooked and ate Empanadas, and met my french friends in Brussels for the day. All in all a good weekend. Belgium waffles are good, they're the thick rectangular waffles like at home, but they put chocolate syrup and wipped cream all over them. Belgium chocolate is also really good. This store I went to had a chocolate fountain like Willy Wonka. I took a pic don't worry.

I'm doing good other than this cold. Work is good. Enjoying it. Found out some important info todat that saved me a lot of heartache. Not working as much as I would like with this German course, which is a little to fast paced since I don't feel I'm actually learning nearly as much as I am simply being exposed to. But I think it is helping.

If you ever wondered what I cow's tongue feels like (if you think that's gross, realize that many people in the US eat coe's tongue quite often), it's really rough! I never expected that. Far rougher than that of a cat. And these bastards are big. I was riding my bike around the outskirts of Aachen, where there are a lot of farms and wind turbines. I'm on this road and I see a farmer closing all the openings to intersecting roads. Then behind me he opens the gate to the grazing field and about 50 cows start, really slowly coming towards me. They walk only on the sides of the road where there is still grass. So I think, no prob, I'll just stand in the middle of the raod and they'll walk by me (I have my bike with me remember). Unfortunately, I grossly overestimated the intelligence of these animals (it's not you see them often in NJ or NY). When the first two at the front of the two lines of cows got within 5 feet of me and my bike, then stopped cold. Staring at me and mooing and basically on the verge of freaking out. It then occurred to me that I was no longer in Germany but in Pamplona, except there was no one else there running with me (and they were cows, with some bulls mixed in). So then I thought it best to walk in the same direction as them, which was totally cool with the cows. Then there were comfortable walking past me, still not without taking a really hard look at me to see that I was kosher.

I also decided to walk through a corn field since you see it only in movies. I went in a little bit but not so much to actually get lost, which, like it seems in the movies, would be extraordinarily easy.

Anyway, be good. I'm done for now. Need to rest and be lazy.

sooo tired

not really, but I was.....ever so much shit to do. But things are good, just crazy. I need to back up a little and shove some shit off my plate. First things first, Sam, thanks for being one of the few people to continuously post on the site. Appreciate it. Similarly, thanks to Nate, who I know is struggling but pokes his head out from time to time.

So what have I done in the last two weeks? I don't even remember. Last week I went to a engineering conference in Nuernberg. The info was good, interested and raised more questions than answers, but that's good. Nuernberg is really nice, altough again unfortunately tainted by 60 years ago (Nuernberg Laws und so weiter). Didn't really focus on that too much and just enjoyed my time while I was there. Got drunk with my labmates and sang pretty awfully in a karoke bar. Pics will come later. Then I immediately started a german class which I have for 3.5 hours every morning for a month. The class is mostly filled with ERASMUS students, who are basically kids from all over Europe spending a year studying in Germany. All of which really means is they have an excuse to travel and party basically every day (like me in Aussie-land). I've got sucked into that a little, but I'm pulling back. One, I just don't have time to party all the time, with my job. Two, I don't want to anymore, I had my fun doing that and actually want to have a few more responsibilities than passing classes (like making a useful valve). Three, I wasn't looking for that type of experience. I wanted to have a normal life in germany and be with germans, which is not what these kids are up to. But shit, I've met some hot Brazilians, Spaniards, Irish, Swedish, etc.

Anyway, between work, german and partying, I'm busier than Michael Jackson at an orphanage. One interesting note: Viewing the world from Germany is quite interesting. I am also starting to feel less American and part of the group here. So my own sense of nationalism is fading. I don't really know what's going on in the States, other than there's hurricanes. And the election in Germany is a total fuckup - damn, quite embarrasing. I imagine that most of you have heard something about it, but basically after all this campaigning, there wasn't enough of a majority of any party elected in parliament to chose a chancellor. So now germany basically has no future chancellor and if they don't agree to something (which is sort of likely), they may have to go through elections again. It's all rather amusing, but understandably frustrating if I were german. By the way, Bavaria is Germany's version of Texas (at least what it's stereotyped as) - conservative and religious. I'll be going there next weekend for Oktoberfest (def pics to come).

So, done for now. till whenever I have a chance. miss all those who read this. keep in touch (MSN screen name spence_sz3@yahoo.com).

Und jetzt einige Deutsch. Ich bin nicht sicher, warum ich das schreibe, aber ich muss ueben und vielleicht wollt ihr wie viel sehen, wass ich scheiben kann. John, ich wurde mich freuen, wenn du die groesste Fehlere korrigierst, aber nur wenn du Zeit hast (und Interesse). Die naechste Saetze werden kein Sinn haben. Ich denke immer an dich, da deine Haare so gut riecht. Superman brach seinen Hals, waehrend er eines Pferdes reitete. Darum habe ich Angst ein Pferd zu reiten. Bitte, erzaehl mir von deinem langen Leben. Ich unterhalte mich mit einer Freundin ueber was ist zwischen ihre Beinen. :) Meine Rechnung fuer mein Handy war sehr teuer letzte Monat. Deswegen muss ich mehr SMS schicken, und weniger Anrufen machen, besonders wenn es Geschaeftszeit ist. Als ich 10 Jahre alt war, spielte ich Fussball mit einer Mannschaft. Ich freue mich auf den Fussballspiel in Koeln. Ich schlage vor, dass du Seeed hoerst an. Er ist ein sehr gut Musiker, aber ich vermute, dass du nicht unter Zwang anhoeren.

Okay, endlich bin ich los.

If a week passes and no one notices, does it make a sound?

So rather than continuosly apologize about missing a week, I'd rather be honest and say that it will most likely happen again (maybe even become the norm). It makes it easier on me, although I don't remember as much when I let too weeks pass by. So for now I will still try and write every week, but we'll see.

By the way, there are new pics, so check them out.

Anywhere, where to start? The past two weeks have been like a vacation. As I said, Noemie visited me in Aachen for two and a half days. "Doing this and that" included seeing the town, going to sites, eating, relazing and visiting Bonn and Cologne. I took a boat ride along the Rhine River from Bonn to Cologne, which was nice. No castles along the way but relaxing.

Then on Monday, Noemie missed the train and also discovered how annoying the German-to-France by trian experience can be. She left (sniff sniff) and then I pretended to work. Actually, I got a lot done before I met Sylvain and his girlfriend Carole in Cologne. They came back with me to Aachen and then we did a lot of the same stuff I did with Noemie (which is cool, you see something different each time). We traveled to Maastricht and had a real good time there. Then, after a really relaxing and also engaging week (we talked a lot about all sorts of things), they sadly left.

I again tried to get some work done. This proved to be difficult as I had become so lazy from not working and the weather here has gotten "hot" and humid. Hot now means like 85 for me; Europe is more temperate than the eastern US (cooler in summer and warmer in winter).

Oh, and like I said, I met an Iranian guy along the way. So all in all a good week. This weekend I think I will maybe travel to the point where Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands meet with a Venezuelan, Greek and Syrian. Two very nice things about Aachen: (1) It is close to many different cool places that I can easily travel to and see in a day, and (2) I have met so many people from so many different places, especially ones that I never thought of. Plus, the work is good and the life-style is starting to rebalance me (I think).

Recently, I've remembered that it's sometimes alright to cut corners and not take things (work but everything in general so seriously). I think MIT and my own personality have led to me, for a couple years now, to have too high expectations. I've been pushing myself a little too hard, in everything I do, whether that be work, traveling, meeting people, German, this blog. Lately, I've been taking a little more chill and remembered that it's fun.

By the way, if you haven't already you must download Google Earth at earth.google.com and some patches for it at www.googleearthhacks.com. It's amazing, I won't bother explaning it cause there's too many things to say about it. But trust me, it's worth checking out. Just play with it (hint: you can zoom in really close within the US and some places in the world).

Finally, again look at the pics. In case you are curious about other things I've learned from my recent international exposure: My Iranian friend is a power engineer and was hired to work on the Iranian nuclear power development. However, he decided to pass it down and leave the country since (1) he can, (2) if he worked on nuclear power they wouldn't ever let him leave and most importantly, (3) he has assured me that they will build a bomb. Totally different topic: Because of my complete ignorance about the Kyoto Treaty and enviormental things, I did a little research on global warming. The National Academy of Science, on the request of the White House, took a look at the current (2001) scientific knowledge about global warming http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/climateuncertainties.html. What they said was four things: (1) gases that are known to trap heat and raise the temp of the atmosphere (greenhouse gases) are higher than they have been for the past 400,000 years and that is directly due to the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities, (2) scientists confidently believe that this has resulted in a 0.7 to 1.5 deg F raise in the global average temperature over the past 100 years, (3) the most conservative estimate (read: least like chicken little) predicts that after the next 100 years, the global average temp will rise by another 2.5 deg F (ya it will accelerate), and (4) there are many theores but no one really knows what consequences this will have on the Earth or how severe they will be.

I purposely used the words in bold to show what is known and uncertain by scientists. So basically, they know that we are causing the temp of the earth to rise, slowly of course for anyone's individual lifetime. But they don't know at all what that will do to us, if anything. Should the US sign the Kyoto Treaty, that's up to you. But I thought the info might be interesting. If your interested in reading some of the stuff, let me know and I'll send it to you.

Remember pics!

What a World, what a world.....

I'm still here and still checking the blog. I haven't forgotten everyone, although it may seem so. I've just been really busy this last week, mostly with things entirely unrelated with work. :)

I plan on giving a longer update later, maybe tomorrow, with pics and everything. For now I just wanted to say hi, show that I am still alive, and give a brief recap.

Last weekend, Noemie was here from Frankreich. Had a great time! thanks again Noemie for coming, and hope to see you soon. Then I frantically worked to make up for the days off I would take when two more friends from France visited on Wed. Sylvain and his girlfriend Carole came and spent nearly a week with me in Aachen. I again had a great time and was sad to see them leave. So thanks! Also, for those of you who haven't visited yet, remember that you are all invited, so please see if you can make it.

Higlights included: Visiting Bonn, which has the birthplace of Beethoven. Going to the thermal spring baths in Aachen twice. Eating much ice cream and cake. Visiting Maastricht in the Netherlands. Learning some French words and much about French culture. Recognizing the absurd level of globilization in the world: An American was drinking water from a bottle bought in Croatia by a French friend while eating Thai food in Germany. Befriended a Kurdish Iranian and learned a shit load about Iran. For example, about one-third of Kurds are JEWISH!!! What?

Ya so I am busy working again and relearning German. I spoke so much Enlgish in the past week that I have lost some German skills. But I have an instensive german class starting next week, so I'm sure it will come back quickly. I'll have pics for you soon.