DDR Stamps

No, not Dance Dance Revolution. It was miserable outside today. Cold and rainy. I got myself out of the house anyway since I figured it would be a crime to just sit around when I only have 3 weekends left in Germany. So I got a döner kebab for lunch. It was good except that they used normal bread instead of pita. But the bread was toasted so it was good anyway.

After this, I really wanted to just go back since the weather was so bad. But I decided to go to a flea market to hunt for some cool stamps. I went to the one near the museums and tried to juggle my umbrella in one hand while trying to look through stamps with the other. I stayed at one of the stands for a while but the lady didn't seem to mind. I guess they're used to collectors coming and looking through stuff. Anyway, I found a nice package of 100 DDR stamps for 5 Euros. The stamps are in pretty good condition so I thought they were worth it. I really like this one with the ships.

I started walking to the nearest S-Bahn station, which is a 10 minute walk. I think the BVG is building a new U-Bahn line that will have a stop at the Museum Island. I think this is very good investment. Anyhow, I discovered a chain of antique stores. They're like a permanent flea market. They're so awesome. They're all connected and some of the stores had really cool things like old typewriters, sextants, silverware, and of course more stamps. I was really happy.

I know, these pictures are kinda useless but I won't get to upload anymore pictures for a while. Not unless I smuggle my camera into the office and upload there...

Lübeck

We went to Lübeck on Saturday. We being my roommate Hua-Chen, two of her friends (Anna and Wei-Ming), Carolyn, and me. It's a nice place. The center of the city is an island and is very small. Only about 1.5 km from tip to tip. It took us about 4 hours to get there on the Regional Express. Our first train was late but we were able to make the connection anyway.

I had torn pages out of my guidebook on Lübeck and Anna had a Lonely Planet Germany guidebook with her. But even between the two of us, we were still a little disoriented when we got out of the train station. That's when we saw a group of elementary school kids on a field trip. They were all wearing yellow hats. So we decided to go in the same direction as they were. This turned out to be a pretty good decision since they lead us right to one of the gates of the city. I'm not sure if the city center is actually an island or just surrounded by a moat. All the streets leading to the island had gates that once actually defended the place.

We walked around a bit and saw a church or two before we stopped for lunch by the Rathaus (Town Hall). We all had sausages and such. It was pretty nice out at the time. We also saw this pool thing with hand powered paddle boats. The kids look like they're having so much fun. We were all very jealous.

After lunch we walked around some more. We went to St. Peter's, St. Mary's, and St. Jacob's church. We also went to a cathedral and a medieval hospital that looked really depressing. The picture with the people on the slide of Hua-Chen and Wei-Ming on Noah's Ark. Very cute play structure.

Since the place was so small, we also got to walk around some of the residential streets too. It was pretty quiet once we got off the main streets. We met a cat sitting by a door. It was definitely not a stray and came towards us. We pet it and then Anna gave it a small piece of ham. It was very happy and followed us for a little while.

Lübeck is the marzipan capital of the world. We went to the most famous store and got some marzipan. They had them in every shape imaginable. Carolyn and I also got marzipan ice cream. It was all very good except that at this point it started to rain really hard and got cold. It's too bad I didn't take any pictures of the store. But I got souvenirs!

Here's a model of the island. For those of you who are into city planning or have taken 11.001, you can pretend that's Le Corbusier's hand. Except of course, this place was nothing like anything Le Corbusier would've built.

It was a fun trip. Pretty relaxing since we didn't do too much. It was a good day trip.

Civil Engineering at Work

Speaking of work, I've actually been doing stuff. Turns out that they really DO want me to make real calculations. The company wants to a couple of train stations and I'm calculating the new loads on some concrete columns. Now that I've taught myself enough German to comprehend engineering reference books (I'm very proud of this), I've made a lot of progress in these calculations. Earlier this week, I was so confused. But now I'm actually pretty sure about the numbers that I've been getting. I'm sure that my calculations will not be the final calculations. They're just estimates. But the architects need to know the information before they can continue with their design work. So yeah, I'm pretty excited about this. I hope I'll actually get to see the new Essen Hauptbahnhof someday when all the new buildings are built. That would be awesome. I can go there and say I helped build this thing.

Upcoming Events

Nevermind, I lied. I think I have wireless until the end of this month! Yay! So some updates. Tomorrow, I'm going to Lubeck. Horray for weekend ticket. We managed to get 5 people to go so it'll only cost 6 Euros roundtrip for each of us. Next weekend I will be visiting my penpal in Bonn. I'm hoping to take Friday off. The weekend after I will be going to Munich with Jingwen.

Next week will be a quiet week at work. All the guys are going on a camping trip. So I knew that Oli was going somewhere and I had asked him about it yesterday. I was pointing to their holiday calendar and asking if he was going on vacation. He thought I was pointing out the window and was like, "there's a restaurant and uh". Yeah, anyway, he Google Earth the place where he's going for me. It's an island in the very northeastern tip of Germany. There's a 10 mile stretch of nice beach. I informed him that it wasn't going to be very warm and he agreed and said it would be cold. Beach + Cold = I'm confused.

So today one of the other guys, Andreas, brought some ice cream sandwiches and gave one to everyone. Christina, my other officemate, informed me that he's giving us ice cream because all the men are going on a camping trip. I'm so jealous. I want to go camping. Sounds like so much fun. I really wish I knew German and can chat with these people. They're so cool. They're definitely more than just coworkers. They make fun of each other, share stories, and probably hang out after work too since they have each other's numbers in their cell phones. *Sigh.

Potsdam again

This will probably be the last time I get to upload pictures for a while. Probably until I get back to the States. Won't have wireless after tonight I think. Sad. So yeah, enjoy the pictures. They're from my second trip to Potsdam.

Hydrogen Bus

I saw a bus powered by hydrogen today in Berlin! Yes, H2. It's new and it was circling around the Zoologischer Garten station. And I had a camera handy! I'll bet you it says something along the lines of "with water as byproduct" on it. Germans are really onto this CO2 emissions thing. A lot more than they are about recycling.

UK Visa

Ahhhhh!!! Help!! I think I've really messed up this time. Arg! So I got everything I needed to apply for this visa: passport, letters, address, etc. and started filling out the online application. I selected Germany as my current location. Everything was going well. And then on the very last screen, they ask if I wanted to pay online or in person. Since paying online with my credit card means I'll have to pay 3% extra, I chose to pay in person. And then the confirmation screen kindly informed me that since I did not pay online, I must go to the UK Embassy in Dusseldorf. There are three places where you can go and get UK visas in Germany: Berlin, Munich, and Dusseldorf. For those of you unfamiliar with German geography, Dusseldorf is near Cologne, on the other side of the country, 4 hours away, and 100 Euros roundtrip. I literally felt sick.

After i calmed down a bit, I checked the available appointment times. It turns out that for Berlin, the soonest available appointment is August 15th. So I guess it would've been bad if I had paid online because that's not enough time. I'm leaving the country on August 23rd. The website wasn't very clear but I think for in person appointments, I get the visa right there. But the website didn't seem to be very sure of itself. So I emailed MIT's Study Aboard office. I've already spammed every person involved in CME at MIT so what's a few more panic emails... Jen Cook directed me to an online form and told me to ask if I can reapply but through the New York office this time. I really hope they'll be okay with this. I really don't want to go to Dusseldorf. And with New York, all I have to do is to mail everything in. If I apply in Germany, they want to collect biometric data from me. Scary... Why is life so complicated!