Germany 2008: Part 1

Hello All,

I hope everyones' dreams came true on their respective winter holidays -- if not there is always drinking tonight to forget about all that and to begin to think about winter term!!!!(for the 90% of you on this list who go to Oberlin and know what I'm talking about)!!! My winter term started a tad early as I am already in Germany and have been for the last week. I brought all you guys' emails together (and no doubt I forgot many good peoples) because I know that I can send emails about my life to you guys and not feel like a totally sketchball. This list can be used as a way to keep in touch, just to email me, to email me that you don't want to be on this list (no hurt feelings:)), or not. My plan is to use it to tell you about my adventures and for you to tell me about yours during this wintery month of January (in a few hours that is).

I flew into Frankfurt on the 26th and landed very jetlagged. Germany is 6 hours ahead of EST so right now it is 4:30 pm (10:30 am EST). After we got our rental we (my family came over with me) drove to Harsewinkel, the town were I am living for the month. It took awhile to do this however because for some reason the GSP thought we were driving from Paris to Harsewinkel (as opposed to where we really were which was frankfurt). So it kept telling us we were 600 miles away and wouldnt reset. Eventually it decided to reset itself and all was fine. Germany is quite a pretty place. It is very similar to Wisconsin. It is easy to see why so many German settlers (like my family) settled in WIS because the land is identical. It is sort of similar to Ohio -- Harsewinkel is completely flat, surrounded by farms and is a very small town -- but much prettier. There are lots of trees and farms and winding roads. Germany seems to have a lot of beer, wurst (sausage), wind energy and circuses. I've seen spinning towers and ads for circuses in every town I've driven through so far and a few day ago a saw a bunch of unicyclists.

I took advantage of my parents being here with a car to see some of the country. I went to kz (german acronym for concentration camp) Bergen-Belson -- where Anne Frank died. Wow what a powerful place. All the buildings were burned down when the camp was liberated because of the rampant typhoid in the place. You walk around these huge empty fields surrounded by beautiful, thick forest and see no birds and hear nothing but the wind whipping through the trees. A very heartbreaking place to visit.

On a brighter note, I made it to a German Christmas market. Yes it is true -- Germany does make better sausage. They also make this hot, spiced red wine called Gluvine which is very tasty. My parents left today so finally FREEDOM.

Well I hope everyone New Year's is excellent, Ray p.s. - American History X is a wonderful movie and everyone should see it :)