Weigh In

It just occurred to me that because I have no scale here, I have gone for a whole year without a clue as to how much I weigh. This is not so remarkable, but I also suddenly realize that this hasn't happened to me since I was... three years of age? Hehe. Just one of those little things, I guess. Nothing special.

Oh! As it was the last day of class for one of my seminars, the professor had suggested last week that we all meet at a beer garden this evening at around 7:00pm for a final nice chat all together. Not too many were able to show up because it's basically exam week right now, but I took a break from my Hausarbeiten (final essays) and went right at 19:00 . I think the professor was really glad that I did. Everyone else had to get there late and the poor professor would have had to, so to speak, hold the fort and keep our table for 15 or so by himself for a good while.

At any rate, I love, LOVE meeting up with professors outside of class. Every professor is his or her own person too, and I feel that as students, we frequently either forget that or ignore it and don't try to mingle with professors on a casual and personal level outside the class. That's a shame, I find. It's simply developed this way, or perhaps stayed this way from olden traditions. Even professors themselves are often hesitant, of course, though I do know a few who are also of the above mentality and would love for students to talk to them more on a personal basis. But I could go on on that tangent for ages. It's this final essay's topic that I need to go on about for a few ages longer... *sigh* .

Flash-Mob on Haidplatz

WHAT?!

This flash-mob took place RIGHT on the street of my dorm, while I was HERE, in Regensburg, and I missed it?!?


*FAINTS*

I would have just loved to participate! Flash-mobs are so fascinating! I'm just a little bummed that I missed it. But it's kind of cool that one took place right here in Regensburg, and so close by. I wonder where exactly I was at that time...

EDIT: Argh, I just checked my Google Calendar. I was out walking on the other side of the Danube with a few people I don't even really like. Pity :D .

When in Germany (Bavaria)...

Last night, I went to the official inauguration, I suppose you would say, of the new director of the University. The event started at 18:00 (on the spot, naturally) and was three-or-so hours of me alternately listening to one of two things. The first was endless streams of advanced German vocabulary that made me sit there and nod quietly with a sniffle to accept the obvious, massive futility of taking on the endeavor that is the German language. The second was listening to the fine university concert orchestra unfortunately struggling to keep up with the frenzied soloist who either has horrendous stage nervousness, or needs to lock himself in a room with nothing but his violin and a metronome for a fortnight. At least the orchestra put on a well-executed performance. (Mendelssohn rolls in his grave, Mr. Soloist! While you might enjoy diddling out all those 32nd-note runs as fast as your little fingers can manage, your plan to stun is going to backfire when you play with all the emotion of a wooden chair and your orchestra can't follow you!!)

ANYWAY.

The actual point of this post is to share with you, my readers, the lovely fact that at this semi-formal event, there was none other than beer and pretzels served at the reception following. Oh, Bavaria! You never cease to amaze.

Der Besuch der Alten Dame

So! Tonight I went to see my first Schauspiel ("play", as in theatrical) - Der Besuch der Alten Dame ("The Visit of the Old Lady," but I think it's just translated as "The Visit" in English) by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. There's really no other significance, besides that it was good and I rather enjoyed it, it just felt slightly landmark-esque. But I'm not really sure why. They clapped in between acts (years of majoring in a performance art trains you not to do that), but at least they didn't do the default, "polite" staaanding ovaaaaation like I see bloody everywhere in the States. Performed at the University of Regensburg, student tickets €5,00 .

(On that note, commas and periods are swapped for price markings here in Germany. So what we would write as €1,234.56 , the Germans write €1.234,56 . You might or might not have known that.)

And happy First Post in the Three Digit Figures on The Deutschland Blog to me. By the way, how was America today? I didn't see the inauguration and all that. I'm sure I'll feel the surging tsunami soon here in land-locked Bavaria from the gargantuan gush of emotion that the entire country is probably spewing today. Calm down, half of you will be ridiculing his every move in a few months before you even know it.

Oh! But I guess one more thing, since I'm on the topic, and I've watched this video a dozen times because I find it so amusing (and made with a lot of time and hard effort):

The Barack Roll

Contact in Zwiebelmarkt

As I mentioned, I was in the cities of Erfurt and Weimar this weekend, which are not far from each other and lie around central Germany.

Weimar is famous for the Zwiebelmarkt, or "Onion Market." It's a big street festival that's held every year, this year being Zwiebelmarkt #355. The most common wares at the hundreds of stands lining the streets are, of course, food and Zwiebeln -- onions.


It's all very autumnal and aesthetically appealing and cute. In addition to sprigs and sprigs of onions, there are also other onion-based goods, like onion marmalade/jelly (I kid you not. But I heard it was actually rather good).

Later in the afternoon, I split off from our small group and took to wandering the Zwiebelmarkt streets until dinner. Lo and behold, I found a fellow contact juggler. I was excited.

From Erfurt, Weimar, and Buchenwald

I watched him for a while... most probably because I suddenly realized that I can do exactly what he does. And... he was earning oolongs per hour just performing simple contact juggling! (You have to remember -- The €1 and €2 are coins here, so... Seeing as it's easier to toss coins, AND the Euro is worth more, there is obvious appeal for me here...)

After about a whole hour of watching what he does to earn street performance money, I went up to him when he took a break and swapped e-mails with him so that I could send him these pictures that I took of him. At first, I didn't talk, because he didn't talk in his performance, so I thought I'd follow suit.

C-juggler: "Er, you speak English?"
Me: "Of course. English and German, both."

I explained sending the pictures to him and we swapped e-mails.

C-juggler: "So you can do some of this, too?"
Me: "Yes, a little, though I'm better at juggling and poi. You know what I'm talking about?"
C-juggler: "Ah, yeah, with these things on strings..."
Me: "Exactly."
C-juggler: "Do you live here?"
Me: "No, I'm from the States. I'm an exchange student."
C-juggler: "Aha. But are you staying in Weimar?"
Me: "No, I'm staying in Regensburg. By the way, how often is it that you come here, to Zwiebelmarkt, for example, to street perform?"
C-juggler: "Well, I live here in Weimar, you see. Oh, but I'm not from Weimar originally, I just live here now. I'm actually from Mexico."

Wow. You don't see many Mexicans in Germany. Much less Mexicans swathed in desert-dune cloth and chalky costume make-up who are standing on boxes and contact juggling in the street.

He smiled and said farewell as I wished him luck and went back to the youth hostel. I sent him the photos I took when I got back to Regensburg.

Oktoberfest: Last Reflections

Alright, so I do admittedly think that if you've never been to Oktoberfest, you should go at least once (and hopefully only once), because it is, after all, world-famous, quite the event, good opportunity if you're around, blah blah etc. But just for the record, a single 1-liter beer there costs €8.30 (that's $12.14. Typically, you can get that much for about €3-5 in restaurants/bars, and €1-2 in supermarkets). To even get a seat in one of the 8 Biergarten tents, if you're even lucky enough to shove in or made a reservation, is about €65 (that's about $95.00).

From personal experience, I had to wash my pants immediately upon arrival home tonight because of aforementioned vomit flecks, and general Oktoberfest nastiness -- which includes, but is not limited to: the scum from trash thrown on the ground, unavoidable fogs of cigarette ash, spilled beer, splashed bits of beer and sausage vomit, plus the germs from the other 28370572375025 people you bumped, shoved, squeezed past, and nearly got trampled by on your way in, plus the germs from the other 240723753027527302 people you bumped, shoved, squeezed past, and nearly go trampled by on your way out.

Oh god.... if you're the Oktoberfest-going kind of person, fine. By all means, go hit three birds with one stone: your Time, your Money, and your Dignity enjoy yourself. If you happen to dislike the larger crowds and noise like myself, follow these simple steps:

1) Go to Oktoberfest if you have not been.
2) Walk in.
3) Look around. Only 5 minutes are necessary for overall effect.
4) Leave and explore München instead.
4a) Leave and explore München and visit the beautiful church close by like I did instead.

Uach, I missed dinner, too.... I need to go find something light to eat this late.

Will post pictures up when I don't have to wake up early the next morning, so keep on the lookout later.

Oktoberfest: Alternate Recommendations

Now I really don't like to be negative, and I know that I'm in a minority here who happen to dislike loud partying events and making a dumb sh*t of yourself drinking beer.

But here's the thing. If you want Oktoberfest without all the overwhelming DUMB, go to local/regional beer festivals, such as Herbstdult/Dultfest in Regensburg, or Gillamoos Fest in Abensberg. These are smaller-scale beerfests with all the beer, all the rides, all the food, all the souvenirs, all for cheaper, cleaner atmosphere, less stressful, and with much less of the feeling that you're a salmon fighting your way upstream with a million other salmon who have all likewise lost their mind and are blindly following some primitive instinct to get to the goal, spew things from their innards, and FLOP OVER LIKE A STUPID, BRAINLESS FISH.

Oktoberfest in München: Negative Reports First

Today, we had an excursion to München (Munich), as mentioned previously. To sum some things up, by the time I finally got on the train back to Regensburg, I was overall tired, not amused, cold, and had yellow flecks of vomit on the back of my pant legs.

Thanks, Oktoberfest.

I'll start out earlier in the day. We met at the Bahnhof (train station) early this morning, and got to München at around 10:30. The morning was saved for a small tour of the Deutsches Museum, which is famous for being the largest technical museum in the world. Very high quality stuff. The museum really is huge. The tour lasted about two hours, but though the guide was very knowledgeable, it still somehow felt rushed, despite that we'd probably only covered about 1/8th of the museum. Once the tour was over, we were allowed all the free time we wanted until we felt like taking the train back. I was so excited to now be able to explore the rest of the museum on my own, and I set out immediately with a new target exhibit in mind.

But then my "group" called. We have to travel together under one "Bayernticket." It's a much cheaper ticket (€27 as opposed to €18 singles) that covers 5 people, and you can use it for the subway, train, anything, etc. for a whole day for those 5 people. A nice and recommended deal, but also comes with some inflexibility when it comes to situations like this. At any rate, we all have to stick together to get anywhere, and the ticket is held only under one name (which, today, was mine).

We had all this time to hit up awesome exhibits in a top-notch museum, and where did everyone else want to go? Bloody Oktober-freaking-fest. Yes, somehow that smelly, loud, crowded, cramped, beer-sloshing, vomit-hurling Stew of Disgusting was the far more attractive prospect.

You have to understand this about me. First, I am no fan of alcohol in any form. Oktoberfest is infamously fueled by beer in the thousands of liters. Secondly, I hate crowds. The more pressing, loud and clustered the crowd, the more I will hate it. Thus, Oktoberfest faced no obstacle in earning a place on my distaste list.

Oh, and last of all, don't ever give me the, "But drunk people are funny!" counter-argument. I will not be pleased with you. I enjoy watching drunk people to the same degree that I enjoy watching a group of schoolboys surrounding a frog and slowly killing it with sharp sticks just for the hell of it and giggling like morons about it. That is to say, I don't. I don't like watching someone ingesting poison by the liter-full and destroying mind and body for it while others watch and laugh. If we took that sentence out of context, would you enjoy it, too?

World Record One Wheelers!

If you noticed the entry two posts ago, then you'll know where I was today. However, because uploading and detailing so many pictures onto blog posts is a real pain in the rear, I've just put them all up on my Picasa web album (which incidentally also holds a great amount of other pictures that I've taken since being here). Here's the direct link to the album of just today's pictures:

2008 World Record Unicycling!
Gewerbepark, Regensburg
Here's the scoop. In 2005, there was a big unicycling get-together event held in order to attempt the largest number of unicyclists riding 500 meters with no falls or crashes. The turn out was huger than expected, with over 1400 participants in the final successful count.

Today, this even was held once again in Gewerbepark, Regensburg, to try and beat that old record. Apparently, these unicyclists today managed 800 meters for a count of over 1600 riders.

.... I WAS IN THE SAME PLACE AS 1600 OTHER PEOPLE WHO CAN UNICYCLE TOO!!!

*faints in delight*

Today was just marvelous. That's all the detail that I need to cover in the blog for now, so go sofort ("immediately") to the link above to see the pictures and further details of the event. Also, I took some video while walking around. I'm hoping to assemble the clips together and perhaps upload it on YouTube sometime.

Ohhhhh, I was so pleased today.

Einradfahrer!

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh my goodness. THIS is happening tomorrow, in MY CITY:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRMraUbXv00&feature=related
But I'm not sure yet if I should go. It will be really cold tomorrow. It's also not a very close walk, and I don't have a bike yet. And there's a ticket price to attend. But that's so cool... And never in my life would I have been around that many other unicyclists at the same time in the same place... That's part of what would be so awesome.

WAIT, scratch that, I just very much pinpointed a bus with a route to Gewerbepark!... Ohh, efficient public transportation is a beautiful thing... Aghh, I must contain my excitement, and I must go!