...

So, two unusual things happened today.

During lunch, I bumped into an Indian guy, who for some reason, reminded me of an Indian friend Jaya, who I hadn't seen in a long time, and who I thought had graduated at least a year ago. Then, 20 minutes later, I bumped into Jaya on the street.

Then, today I read a fascinating blog post by an alumnus from my same highschool, about refugees, and recieving kindness from poor people. This reminded me of a Sudanese refugee named Abraham, that I had heard about at SPU, my senior year. His story had been in the paper, about how he basically had walked across a desert, and survived on a couple corn-kernels a day (or something like that), to get to a refugee camp. I sent him an email asking about the story, and the response was of overwhelming gratefullness that someone showed interest.

I couldn't figure this out, because he had suffered a great deal, and had kept the faith, in fact, it seems to have made him stronger. Sending an email to him felt like interacting with someone on a higher level in spiritual hierarchy. But, he was really grateful that someone showed personal interest. In light of the linked post, and remembering this extremely short conversation with Abraham, I wish I had gotten to know the guy. Well, I just visited the SPU page, and ironically, there is an "outstanding graduate" article on him posted right now. He did very well there.

Cologne Cathedral

***
This took me several hours to write, I decided to finish it up all at once so it is pretty long. I don't really want to grammar check right now [12:40...], so there will probably be all sorts of errors, over used words, etc. But, I hope it is enjoyable!
***

So, Hilary and mom and dad and I all piled into the train from Bonn to Cologne, where we were going to catch the fast train to Paris. We had about an hour and a half, so Hilary and I decided to dash up one of the towers [I already showed this pic]:


The staircase was a little, winding, stone staircase that seemed to go up forever. There is a lot of graffiti on things, it is a little sad that people would do that. The first stop is at a giant bell, but we could keep going all the way to the base of the main spire at the top of the tower. Unfortunately, there is mesh covering all the openings (probably to keep people from throwing things), so you can't get that clear of a view out. But it is really high up, and all the surrounding spires make it look like some sort of stone forest.



I can't imagine what it must have been like, to have climbed the tower, before modern architecture enabled us to make buildings as tall as they are now. It must have been awe inspiring, back then (it still is...). I bet people became monks just so they could go to the top of those towers.

Oh yeah, almost forgot... Hilary actually managed to find a way to climb upside-down on the cage surrounding the walk-way at the top of the tower, heh heh heh I should have gotten a photo of that.

Then we went back down into the church. It felt kind of irreverent to snap photos, but other people were doing a lot less reverent things. It is really amazing that out of stone you can build something that seems so light.





[I could go on for a long time about Cathedrals. They are pretty much my favorite form of artistic expression. It baffles me that at one point people had the foresight and perseverance to build something that would take generations to complete. We don't build anything that takes longer than a couple years to build, anymore.]

Then we got on a train back to Paris. It took a while, by the time we got back it was getting dark, which meant things looked really cool from our balcony:

[Hilary took this photo...]

At the base of our apartment was that really good Turkish food place, so we went down and bought a couple really good sandwiches and some "Turkish Delight" because it sounded really C.S. Lewisian. Actually, our consensus was that the applets and cotlets from central washington were a lot better... but the sandwiches were pretty much unbeatable.

Then, next morning [Tuesday] we got, to go into the conference, which was in kind of the opposite corner of the city. We headed to the subway, and as soon as we transfered to the major line that goes to the conference location, we saw massive, massive crowds of people oozing in impenetrable blobs around the subs.

Essentially, what you had was waaay to many people trying to get into the subway. You couldn't have shoved it tighter with an earth-mover. But because of the people stuck in the door-way, the doors wouldn't close. Which would delay the trains. Which made the crowds get bigger. So, you had this unstable loop-effect, which resulted in sort of a catastrophic metro failure. The reason?

strike.

Some other major rail-line was closed so everyone was trying to take the one we otherwise would have taken to the conference. What we did is walk a few blocks to a more obscure line, take it in a little closer, then just walk the last half mile or so.

Hmm... I don't remember what else happened that day, I'm not sure if it was the most interesting day of the time there, but I made several observations that I will now insert.

There are a million different types of people in Paris. I would bet that only about 1/3 of the people actually in Paris are French. Everybody is really skinny, some girls are frightfully skinny. Like, you-look-like-you-might-die-do-you-want-my-granola-bar-? type skinny. They are generally well dressed, but actually Japanese people seemed to be far more "style-conscious" than French people. There are NO DRINKING FOUNTAINS ANYWHERE, and this drove me insane. People were rarely in help-booths. Most foreigners could speak French. I'll probably interject more small observations like this in the blog, elsewhere.

So, I think it was the next day, I woke up really early with dad, because we were worried about the Metro clogging, and dad had a talk at the very beginning of the conference day. Dad's talk was really interesting, I wish I could have understood more of it. Unfortunately, to understand 100% of dad's talks puts you into a company of 1 - dad. Not because dad isn't clear, it is very obvious that he takes great pains to make his presentations as clear as possible. It's just because, well, no one can touch him, heh heh heh.

But, I got out early to go to the Louvre with Hilary and mom. So, they said to meet me by the "Michaelangelo sculpture." I battled my way through the crowds and eventually found the sculpture, a naked person unsurprisingly. Actually, to be honest, it wasn't all that impressive of a sculpture. I mean, it was great, but compared to some of the amazing things Michaelangelo has done, it was sort of like, "... oh. That's all?"

Anyway, we met up there, and went walking around to see some of the other statues, and that is when, from a distance, we caught a glimps of what was truly one of the most amazing works of art I have ever seen:



The statue of Nike. I never knew a) how large this statue was, or b) how graceful and well done it was. I mean, how can a statue that is missing an arms and the head be beautiful? And, unfortunately, its not something that you can capture with a camera, because the picture is small, and this this is just large and imposing, but graceful at the same time. It seriously made going to the Louvre worth it.





We then trekked off to find the Mona Lisa, thinking it would be some great crime against... something... to go to the Louvre and not see the Mona Lisa. When we finally got there, unfortunately, the daunting crowd surrounding the painting prevented us from getting all that close to it:



pretty popular painting, I guess. But, that is ok, because that meant there were less people shoving there way around more interesting paintings, like the Botticelli's. Botticelli is one of the only artists from days of old that painted women that I actually find really, honestly beautiful. They are actually less realistic, more stylized looking, but they have this sort of shimmer to them, and the way he does the hair and the eyes I find very incredible.


Hilary really enjoys impressionism, and one of her favorites (favorite(?)) is Van Gogh, so we headed off to the Dutch section to search for some. They didn't have any!! We found that kind of odd. I mean, it's the Louvre, how can it not have something. But, oh well. We found some Vermeer, and I forgot how much I liked his paintings. I like them because they look like what you'd see if you were to observe someone through a cracked, misty pane of glass.

[Actually, I take back what I said about Botticelli being the only one who draws beautiful women. Vermeer has this incredible ability to take anything common and make an undeniably beautiful image out of it. I liked this painting of his the most.]

Also, Hilary's blood sugar got way low, so we ducked into a corner and started stuffing bread down her, (or, mom did anyway). I was in the hallway, trying to cover for us, when people walked by wondering what we were doing, munching on that illegal lump of bread (the horrors!!).

Eventually, we needed to exit the Louvre, so we could eat a legit lunch and meet up with dad. The exit was actually the hardest thing to find, in the Louvre.

We eventually found it, but it was raining hard outside, so we sat on the steps of the exit, and munched on a really, really, really good lunch of bread, cheese, and tomatoes. I can't remember bread cheese and tomatoes tasting so good, it was actually so good that thinking of it makes me a lot more hungry than I already am. Here is mom and Hilary sitting on the steps munching.


Outside it was raining. The rain stopped at a good time, and didn't interfere with meeting up with dad.

[umm... a subway photo taken about this time. I didn't know where else to put it.]

Earlier, Hilary and mom had been shopping, and they had found a dress for Hilary that looked really nice. Hilary wanted to buy it, so we all set out to try and find the store again. We started walking down this main road for a long ways, and finally got to a place that nobody recognized. We realized we had been going down the wrong way (!) so, we backtracked the opposite direction, and finally found the store. Hilary got her dress and we got to see a bit more of Paris, so it worked out ;)

The sky cleared up a bit, so we decided to walk along the river and head to a park that I had discovered in my previous wanderings while waiting for mom and dad on our very first day. The riverside was... interesting. There were piles of garbage everywhere, like no-one had taken out the trash in a week. Non-sensical or perverted modern art sculptures lined the trash littered banks in sort of an uncomplimentary but befitting way. The good thing that came out of it was I got this shot of Hilary with a great expression on her face.



Anyway, then we got to the park, and it was cool because it had this long, narrow corridor of trees.



Also, red pandas.



And, mountain goats with huge horns, and kangaroos, but for some reason I didn't take photos. At this point, I am sort of forgetting the details of what we did (I should have written things down earlier, like I did in China!), so I'll just start skipping chunks.

The next day, there was a big session on thermo-acoustics. This was important, because I got to see Biwa-sensei. (Biwa-sensei was my very generous and good adviser while in Japan). I hadn't seen him for almost a whole year, so that was great. We talked in Japanese for a while, then switched to English because his English is superb, a lot better than my Japanese. (Though, it was really funny watching the expression out of the Japanese professor next to Dr. Biwa when I started conversing with him in nihon-go, heh heh heh). Argh, I really wish I knew what it is like to know a second language so well.

Anyway, I invited Dr. Biwa and his wife to dinner. The ever hard-working Dr. Biwa had already made some plans with his wife. It was sad not to be able to eat with him, but I was very glad that he was able to take this short break to enjoy some time with his wife!

[Dr. Biwa, and his presentation on non-linear standing waves in thermo-acoustic engines]

So, after the infrasonic session, which got out at 3:00, I ducked out early again to meet up with mom and Hilary at what they said was a very beautiful church.

Now, I had made a short visit to Notre Dam, the day before. I was itching to go, because it is so famous. And, yeah, it was pretty amazing. It was unbelievably huge, and massive. But... it didn't have the grace of the Cologne cathedral. The Cologne cathedral was light, full of arches and peaked with spires, but somehow maintained a sense of severity to it when you enter. Notre Dam, while perhaps bigger, was blockier, less elegant, and heavier looking. The giant rose windows were impressive, but it seemed less churchy, less reverent inside than in Cologne. So over-all, I was a bit disappointed.

But, the church that Hilary and Mom met me at was far, far more beautiful, and in an entirely different style. It was called the "Sacre Coeur." Something that immediately stood out was the beautiful white color.




It kind of looked fairy-tale ish, if you were to imagine it on the top of a mountain, or above clouds. This church was an actual, functioning church, and inside you were not allowed to take pictures. That is too bad, because on each corner of the dome, at the ceiling, were four incredible statues of angels, and I can't even find a good picture of them doing a google image search [sorry]. But if you go to Paris, go inside the Sacre-Coeur!

Though... inside, I could honestly see how it would be difficult for someone coming from Asia to see anything fundamentally different between Christianity and any other religion where you bow down to, and pay homage to, a statue, and earn salvation by chanting or saying any number of prayers in a particular order.

The Sacre-Coeur is on the top of a tall hill, and gave a good view of the rest of the city. It was windy outside, but I got some good pictures of Hilary and Mom, Hilary has the dress on that she bought the day before:



It was getting later and we had arranged with dad. We had been eating at home, (eating very good things that mom and Hilary had gotten at markets) but we decided to try going out to an interesting place to eat. In typical Marston manner, we looked through the guides for a place known more for it's character than for it's fine dining. We found an interesting place, and after a few interesting mistakes, met up with dad there.

Of course, everything was in French, and nobody spoke English, but we just sort of figured things out. There were boatloads and boatloads of people there, and we sort of had to fight for attention, but in the end we got our food, and it was really, really good.


Mom and I got Lamb, Hilary got chicken, and dad got... Spaghetti!! [go dad!]. Then, cause it's France and all, we decided to go for a little [just a little...] wine. But, I can't remember why, for some reason one of us didn't want red wine, so we ended up getting white. The waiter asked us twice about this, in sort of a cross-lingual, "am I really understanding you right" kind of way, but we got our little bit of white wine, and toasted. Looking each-other directly in the eyes, as is befitting of someone who has visited Germany.




So, after that, mom and dad were really tired, but Hilary and I still had some umph, so we went to the Eiffel Tower, which had a bunch of glittering lights on it.


You didn't have to worry about not speaking English, at the Eiffel tower, because everyone there was speaking English. The lines to the top were way to long, and we didn't want to go so bad that we couldn't see other stuff. So we headed towards what was supposed to be a really busy, interesting street after dark.

We managed to find our way all the way down to the Triumphal Arch:


The picture is kind of deceptive, this thing is huge. We got there at the perfect time, the sky was a perfect Parrish blue, and the lights on the arch cast a complimentary/contrasting orange on the structure. It was really gorgeous, and I spent a long time trying to adjust the settings of my camera to catch both of the hues correctly... but I don't think I quite got it.

Also, some guy came up and asked us in French where the Eiffel tower was. He didn't speak English well, so we just sort of pointed towards the river. Then, it was really late, so we headed back... it was very enjoyable though.

The next day was Friday, the last day of the conference. This was the day when I was to present my poster. Also, the big session on infra-sound was happening, so I was duty-bound to attend from morning, to like... 6:00 or something like that. So I got there at 8:30, attended sessions, and presented my poster at 10:40. I was actually very happy to be presenting a poster instead of giving a talk, because it reduced the stress, and gave me a higher level of person-person interaction on my area of research. I had some stimulating discussions with people who could directly use my research and who were very interested, so I was grateful for that. Also, I got to talk with some guys who had built infrasonic sensors. This is really cool because I have also built infrasonic sensors, and... you don't really run into people who do that. Theirs was more sensitive and had a wider dynamic range. And it was... MOVING COIL ??? (How do you make a highly sensitive moving coil infrasonic sensor? beats me... but they did it). However, mine had a wider bandwidth, and could sense lower frequencies. So... you know, take your pick. To be honest, theirs was better. And... moving coil... wow, I never would have tried that.

So, anyway, after the very interesting infrasound forum, that ended at 6:00 or so, I went off to see Notre Dam with mom and Hilary again. This time I spent a little more time there than I did the first time.




But we also had another goal... FIREWORKS!! It was July 4th, and the 4th just isn't right without fireworks. Why Notre Dam? Well, lining Notre Dam are a whole bunch of small shops. And some of them, coincidentally the ones run by slightly seedier looking fellows, carried Fire-crackers! They looked like small dynamite sticks. But... you know, whatever. You use a lighter, light the fuse, and it makes a bang. So we bought a couple packs, and rushed off to find a place to set them off.

We thought that we could go back to the trashy part of the river. We figured that, if fireworks were illegal, they would undoubtedly be less illegal than the other types of things that probably normally occurred there. However, when we headed to the part of the river near the Notre Dam, we found it entirely unlike the other portion. It was really really nice, and furthermore, there were tons and tons of people there! They were all sitting down on blankets and eating cheese and wine! It was very French, seeming. Most of them looked college age, but you also would see older people, too. And people playing music.

A word about street musicians in Paris. They are all good. Good good. You probably bet booed off the sidewalk in Paris if you are a bad street musician. In the metro one day I saw mini (~12 person) orchestra playing at a junction in the tunnels. They were very good.

So, we wandered along the river until we came to the bridge that crosses the point of the island on which the Notre Dam cathedral is built. We made our way through the crowds of people on the bridge enjoying their cheese and wine.




On the other side, we found a couple from Seattle, that was kind of funny. We finally decided to head home, where the Ratatoui that mom and Hilary had prepared earlier was finishing up. Ratatoui is a traditional French dish that has various vegetables, meat, and spices, thrown into a pot and left to simmer for a long time. Once again, I am getting very hungry thinking of the food I ate there. It was really good. We also ate some bread that almost qualified as the platonic form of the stuff, and some very artfully arranged vegetables.



Hungry, with good food, good company, and everyone thankful to the One who gave us the blessings, it really couldn't have been much better. So, that was the last evening in Paris.


The next morning, we (once again) woke up really early, and headed back to the airport. Hilary was leaving Paris later in the afternoon, so she came to the airport with us to see us off. My plane was going to leave a bit earlier than mom and dads. For international flights, I try to get there at least 2, normally 3 hours in advance, so I don't have to worry once about being late. Unfortunately, we were about 1 and a half hours earlier than my flight. I was really worried. I have an irrational fear of missing flights... so when we first got to the airport, I wasn't even sure which terminal my flight was leaving from, so I dashed into a nearby hotel to find someone who could tell me the appropriate location (incidentally, there is a large hotel near the airport called the "Pullman Hotel."). I was in the right spot, but because of French timing, the parents and I had to split up at this point. So we hugged each other, and mom and dad sent Hilary with me, because I was going to be more pressed for time. I was also getting sick that day, and at this point I felt really nauseated. Hilary has this great habit - if anything is ever going wrong, she insists on stopping everything else, and standing there and praying about it. So, she prayed that I would get better, and I would make my plane flight. She stuck it out, in line with me, the whole way through check-in, until the passport-required section.

Then, I said goodbye to Hilary, and passed through into the high security section. Once I got through, I walked up to a kiosk and tried scanning my passport. It didn't read. I tried it again. It didn't read. What??? So I asked one of the helper ladies standing there. She took her time walking over there, examined me suspiciously, and tried my passport. It didn't work. Tried it again. Didn't work.

She motioned to a long line, and said "wait here please" and walked off very unconcerned looking. It was the line for checking in luggage, and I didn't have any check-in luggage. Time was ticking down, and I was feeling rather impatient. The person checking the luggage didn't seem in any hurry, stopping to chat about things with the various people in the line. AAAAagh! So my tension was rising. But I figured this had to be the last line, and then I'd be able to get on!

Heh heh. I finally, [finally] got my boarding passes, and had to figure out where to go. Unfortunately, there was an even HUGER, LONGER line that I had to go through after that, which was second wave of security. So I waited the agonizing half hour, 45 minutes to get through that, and right before my turn, a lady with a child begged me to go in front of me. Well... why not. It's a lady and a child, "women and children first" right? Well, I don't regret it, but it was still more stress when the kid darted past security and got lost in the crowd on the other side, which caused more havoc and still further loss in time.

Finally, got through that. I started running, because the only way to get to the place my plane left from was by train. Once through the pass-port check, in which the person barely glance at me or my passport, I started racing to get to the train. I got there just as the gates were closing, and slipped inside. Victory!

But when I got to the other end of the train, I was dismayed to find... yet another line. This was the "take your shoes and belt off, change out of your pockets, laptop out of your bag [but I didn't have mine] etc, and show us your passport, for the 3rd time" line. Meanwhile, a bunch of people flying to New York were all going to be late as well, and the tension in the line was unbelievable. Their flight was leaving five minutes before mine, so I let this very worried looking man go in front of me. We ended up having an interesting conversation, because both of us thought we were going to miss our flights.

So, once through that, I took off running to the gate. It should be finishing boarding at this point. However, I get there and find out that the plane has been delayed for 45 minutes, and everything is fine... I really didn't even need to worry

But, story is not over yet. I am sick that day, and feel like I'm going to throw up. So, the whole first part of the plane ride I feel terribly sick. Then, that starts to leave, and I drink a whole ton of pop. I really dislike using toilettes on planes, though, so I just hold it for... 8 hours or however long I need to. The last 3 hours were pretty brutal because of this. By the time we got there, I had to pee so bad that I could barely stand up strait. We got out of the plane in Detroit, and walked what seemed like a thousand mile long corridor, with no bathroom. "JESUS! I REALLY REALLY NEED A BATHROOM ABOUT NOW!" We finally arrive at the big room. There are like... 10 long lines in front of security check point. But... there is a bathroom! "THANK YOU JESUS!" That was probably the closest I've ever been to popping.

Anyway, after that, I come out and look for the shortest of the lines. I get in it. I get all the way to the front, when the last guy in front of me looks middle-eastern. Poor guy. The man in the security checks something in his pass-port. For some reason, and I don't know why, the whole procedure, composed of the man looking confused, going to talk to some senior person 3 or 4 times, and occasionally asking the man questions, takes like half an hour. But, I keep telling myself that it is almost done, and I don't want to get into any of the other lines because they are so long. Meanwhile I watch people who started at the end of the other lines when I was at the front of this one make their entire way through security before I budge. I get a little irritated.

So, I finally get through that, and into customs. Now, when I look at customs, I try to be very honest. So when it asks me if I'm taking fruit, or vegetables, or nuts, or meat in, I felt duty bound to declare the beef sticks in my backpack, that they never would have known about otherwise, the lettuce on my sandwich, and the nuts dried nuts I have in a bag. I make it through another blisteringly long line, where a plump and jovial fellow looks at it and says I'll need to go stand in this other line, in another room. So I walk to this other line, where they eventually ask me to pull out all my meat, etc. products. I pull out a "Bifi" beef stick I picked up in Germany, and my flavor soaked sandwich that mom and Hil made in Paris. And the pecans, etc. They confiscate the bifi stick. Meanwhile, my backpack sets alarms blazing.

They pull my backpack out of the system and ask me to pull out the contents, which I do. Out falls a pile of 3 or 4 more "Bifi" sticks that I forgot about. Oops. "There's no problem! No problem!" The huge security man says very seriously, "because you declared it." And he takes my "Bifi sticks." Another security lady hands me my sandwich and says "here's your sandwich."

Behind me I hear a woman and her husband wailing "It's just a sandwich! We don't care! Take it! We want to make our flight!!"

I grab my stuff and head over to a North West help counter. A little old asian woman is working the desk. Great! Little old asian ladies. They are always nice, right? I tell her that in Paris they didn't give me my boarding pass to State College, and I needed to get it here.

"Ok sir, may I see your ID?"

I hand her my ID. She looks disgruntled.

"What is your flight sir??"

I tell her my flight. She looks more disgruntled, but in a way similar to the lady in Paris who was slightly disgruntled that she couldn't get my passport to work in the kiosk but unconcerned that this guy might miss his flight.

"You are not registered for the flight, sir."

"Uh, wait, no, what? I mean, uh..."

"It doesn't show you on here."

"How...? um... uh... wha...? But, I um, so, Orbitz, I bought a ticket, it said I have a ticket, and, um..."

At this point I was tired, sick, and not at the best of my wits. Some crazy reason, she didn't ask me any more about it. She punches a few more buttons, thinks, punches some more buttons.

"Would you like a window seat?"

So, I got finally made it through all security, and had my boarding pass, and entered the otherwise very nice Detroit airport. The first thing I did was find a chair, sit down, and eat my really, really good, fully declared bread, cheese, vegetable and salad dressing sandwich. I also got a text message from Hilary on my phone, asking if I made it there alright. After all that, it was really nice to get that. The rest of the trip home went really smoothly. I was really sick the next day, but I recovered in the following 2, and I think that is a record recovery time for me, for this kind of sickness.

So, I have been really blessed to have had, in the last year, 2 really really good international trips - China and Paris. They were so entirely different from each other, but also, some of the most enjoyable things I've ever done. I wasn't initially convinced I was going to like Europe all that much, but I found out that I really do. Germany was absolutely wonderful, and Paris was enjoyable as well. I have to admit that if it weren't for everyone who was with me, Paris wouldn't have been as enjoyable. But the company makes or breaks everything, and in this case, it really made it perfect. Couldn't have asked for better. I'm just sorry I didn't take more pictures than I did...

And this post took me about 4 hours to write. So I hope you enjoyed ;)

Germany/Paris, Monday - however far I get in half an hour

So, Monday morning, in the Von-Bibras house, I wake up with the real cool experience of being under a skylight:


Every upstairs room in the Von-Bibras' house has a skylight like this.

I headed downstairs, where I heard the noise. Everyone was eating a very delicious breakfast of sliced sausage, cheese, and bread with quark or nutella. Nutella is this really good chocolate and nut sauce that everyone seems to talk about when they come back from somewhere not the US, because it really is quite good.


I then found out that the shower has no warm water. The Von Bibras have warm hearts, but everything else is apparently made of steel because that was a COOOLD shower. You probably would have laughed to have seen the contortions my face went through as I sprayed gallons of freezing water all over myself. But I was REALLY awake afterwards! It was also my first good sleep since coming to Europe.

Then, I went to walk up and down the street Hilary lives on.

This is the Von Bibras':


But there are also a lot of other interesting houses up and down the same road. They actually look like this.



Hilary needs to go to school, so Kristoph plans on taking us to a famous guest-house at the top of a mountain:
Mom and dad take a walk around the mountaintop, while Felicitas, the kids, and I go to the stone patio below the building to eat lunch.
There is a good view, and you can see ruins of an ancient castle on a nearby hill:
I let Amelie grab my camera:
Mom and dad and Kristoph came back:

and after we ate lunch, Felicitas drove us to the train-station, where we were to find Hilary. But, I got to go now. After leaving Bonn we went to Cologne. Hilary and I climbed to the top of the towers in the cathedral. It was amazing. Actually, the cathedral in general was jaw-dropping. I'll post about it next time.

Paris, Saturday - Sunday

Ok! So the trip deserves more than a single post, so I'll start off with the first couple days, which were predominately spent in Germany, not France.

This will probably be more detail than you wanted. And I don't have hardly any pictures for the first day, because I was wandering around like a Zombie. And for most of the first 3 days I was taking video, not pictures.

The grammar is horrible. My apologies.

***
Friday, June 27 & Saturday, June 28

The airplane left at 4:30 PM, so for once in my life I was able to fly with more than 4 hours of sleep the night before. This was good, though, because I wouldn't be sleeping for a long time. Yada, true blue, cheerfully volunteered to drive me to the airport, which was really nice. I actually remembered my passport before this international flight, which was nice.

I've been real keen on packing light for trips less than 2 weeks. I lived out of a single school-sized backpack for 2 weeks in China (granted I smelled a little odd by the end) but I figured I could do 2 weeks in China out of 1 backpack, I could certainly do that for Paris. I managed to get more than enough in there, the major bonus being that I didn't pack a laptop. Laptop's do several terrible things to the traveling experience:

a) cause a major hassle at the security checkpoints because they always insist you take your laptop out of your backpack, and if it is really jammed in there, this can mean frustrating re-packing. In a line of grumpy people, and late for a plane, this can be stressful.

b) mean you can't be rough with your luggage. Or other people can't be rough with your luggage.

c) mean you will be constantly checking your email, just like normal, when you are supposed to be having fun. Or attending a conference.

Unfortunately, this didn't mean a lighter load because an object of the exact same size and weight (the conference program) occupied the laptop-shaped hole in my backpack. The flight to Detroit was uneventful, so I'm not going to say anything about it. Once I was in Detroit, I ate at McDonalds. I would be eating much, blissfully much better the entire following week. I sat down and waited for about 3 hours for my flight to board, which would leave around 10 pm and get to Charles-de-gaul sometime around 11 am.

I felt really artsy/cool with my totally hip poster/sketch roll-up canister thing slung over my back. Until boarding the flight for Paris, when I saw a bunch of other un-unmistakably post-hoc or grad student types wearing the exact same artsy canister things boarding and talking about ultrasound. These same acousticians would aid me in my quest to sort of understand the workings of the French automatic ticket machine.

The flight was ok. The movies weren't all that interesting, actually what was more interesting was that I was sitting next to someone who was flying for only the second time of her life (the first had been her flight to Detroit earlier in the day). She was white knuckle gripping the armrests.

Then, we got to France. It seemed kind of a short flight, maybe it's because it was shorter than to Japan. Since I got there before mom and dad, I was given the following quest:

1) Get the key to our apartment from a place called... uh... I forget. But it was near the Cadet stop on one of the Metro lines running out of Gare-du-Nord.

2) Get to our apartment on Ru-de-Ecole, in the Latin quarter.

3) Explore the surrounding region, and see what the fastest way to get to the appropriate Metro stations is.

4) Wait outside the door to the stairwell, because without the access code mom and dad don't come in.

5) Don't fall asleep.

So, first order of business was to get some sort of usable currency. Headed over to the exchange booth at the airport, and bought 130$ worth of Euros. The cut of the top meant it was more like 100$ of Euros, and that is a very small number of Euros unfortunately. Then, I headed over to the ticket place. It was here I found my fellow poster-wielding acousticians in a semi-circle around the ticket dispenser. For the only time in Paris, I was actually able to get my debit card to work, and bought a ticket to Gare-du-Nord. We sat in a clump discussing acoustics until my stop to get off.

First impression of Gare-Du-Nord: run down, dirty, and covered with graffiti. Seedy types milling around, speaking a million languages but English. Not yet familiar with the Metro system I wander for ages trying to find the correct one of the millions of lines going through Gare-du-Nord that stops at Cadet. Can't find it. I was fairly sleep deprived [like right now], which didn't help things. Finally, I decide to head out the exit and onto the street, hoping that I can find a street map and walk there.

I find a big street map, and see where I am supposed to go. Unfortunately, it is rather difficult to figure out which street you are on, and I walked down the wrong one for about 45 minutes. I figured this out when I walked by a metro stop that I was confident wasn't in the direction I was supposed to going. However, given two points, I could at least figure out the appropriate direction, so I sort of triangulated(?) biangulated (?) my way to Cadet.

I finally got the the Apartment place, and the blessed lady who worked there spoke English and didn't require me to do anything. After working out the details, she called a cab for me that would take me to our apartment. I asked her how much the cab cost, and she said, like, some extremely large number of euros. I started to sweat, but she laughed and said the company was paying for the cab, not us.

The cab driver was very suave, I felt like a bum next to him, all polished like that. The French pop music playing in the car was very catchy. Not big on pop, normally, but it was really good. I should do some sleuthing and see if I can dig up the more interesting songs on youtube. Youtube has everything. [except the video clips I mention in this post, because of "policy violation" or something like that.]

Anyway, after touring around the Louvre and telling me all sorts of things I could never understand, he dropped me off at our apartment. I punched the key code, walked up the stairwell, and was amazingly blown away (see video-clip #1). The room was really nice, and at the very top of the apartment complex (7th floor). It had a whole room for mom and dad, a nice shower and bathroom, and kitchen, plus a living room. Everything was kind of small, but really great, and the best part was the balcony:


Ok, job #1&2 down. I was really tired, and so I decided to lie on the bed for 20 minutes. NOT fall asleep ;). Something very strange happened when I did this. The room started to shake, I could feel the floor lift, and the beam in the center of the room bent. This seriously happened! I was trying to figure out why this happened, and I figured a subway must have gone under the apartment. But it never happened again all week...

So then I went downstairs and walked around. I just sort of wandered, found this really cool park, and concluded that there was only 1 station (Jussieu) that was nearby. I couldn't remember when mom or dad were getting back, sometime around 5:00 pm I thought, so I spent the rest of the time waiting on the doorstep. French timing struck again though, and because of various things happening at the airport, they didn't get in until 8:00.

That evening, we ate at the [really, incredibly tasty] Turkish restaurant at the foot of our apartment complex. I got "kebab" meat, which was some very flavorful lamb rotating on a spit, in a 5 euro sandwich. Very worth it. Then, as far as I remember, we went to sleep because we were going to have to wake up at 5:00 AM the next day to go to Germany and visit Hilary.

***
Sunday June 29

We got up at some ridiculous hour of the morning, but since I was already so tired the day before it didn't feel much different to wake up then. I videotaped dad shaving. Then, we headed off to the metro, to get to Gare-du-Nord again, where our train would depart. In the Jussieu metro station, I see a group of interesting sorts standing around, and a very animated girl playing the Digeridoo (see video clip).

We get to Gare-du-Nord and spend a stress-filled 45 minutes trying to figure out where the train will be leaving. Nobody is in the information booths anywhere (this was sort of a reoccurring trend, we noticed,) and we were on our own. I wondered how many travelers unfamiliar with the system-less system of French train schedules fell pray to the disorganization of the stations and missed their hundred Euro connections. After some wandering, I spotted some interesting looking kids, and asked them for help:

The were delighted to help, but gave the wrong directions. Dad ran into some gentleman who took us to the appropriate spot, but when we saw the list of trains, the platform number wasn't listed next to the train. Once again, massive stress and panic, however we eventually found out this was just because they don't list the platform number until like 15 minutes before the train leaves.

We eventually managed to find our train, and get on, and sit down. the ride to Germany was extremely relaxing and very interesting. One of the greatest things about Europe is the architecture, and we got to see a lot of villages and churches and the like on the train ride (got some video clips). We traveled from Paris, through Belgium, and arrived at Cologne. One of the things that shocked me was how gorgeous Germany was. Someone told me once, but I can't remember who, that Germany was flat, and sort of featureless. But it was forested, green, and mountainous, with a lot of beautiful rivers in it.

So, we got off at the Cologne station, and were expecting Hilary to meet us on the platform. We looked around but couldn't see her! So we went down below the platforms, and thought of a plan. I decided to run up and do a more thorough search of the platform, which was, in all honesty, extremely long, and a person could easily be missed on it. I got to the top just in time to see Hilary and Amalie descending another staircase (see video clip. Hilary was really good natured about that one). We learned an interesting fact about the German language, from her, that when telling the time, the ones digit is spoken before the tens digit. This can lead for some complications when switching between languages...

Stepping out of the train station, we are met by an amazing, amazing sight - the Cologne cathedral. It is absolutely immense, and one of the more awe inspiring creations of humankind that I have scene. It is one of these structures that you just can't take a picture of, because it is too big. Video clips do even a worse job, but I got one. We didn't have time to go inside it, that would be later on Monday. I just sat there with my mouth gaping for a few minutes, then we boarded our train to Bonn.

Oh, yeah, the weather was pretty much perfect.

Then, in Bonn, we walked to the church from the station. Hilary's church was extremely enjoyable. The greeter, a black man, shook my hand with an incredible enthusiasm. The church is international, and in the back were a whole bunch of headsets, where you can listen to the sermon in your own language. The translators were working real time in the back, and we had a sub-translator from England translating for us. He was really good, and I got to talk with him afterwards. Also, the music was really great. And I practiced my unfortunately bad Chinese with a man in the back. Anyway, I just had a really good time there.

Then, afterwards we went to the Von Bibras' house. The Von Bibras are the family Hilary lives with, and they are absolutely wonderful. They are the type of Christian family that you feel really clean, being around. Kristoph, the head of the family, is extremely generous, and liberal with his house and belongings. He came by and picked us up and drove us home. At home Felicitas greeted us, she is Kristophs wife, a very gracious woman who works magic (kind of like my own mother) in the kitchen. She greeted me by name, which was really cool I thought. They both speak English very well. Then, there are the children. Amelie came and met us at the station, but Vincens is the oldest, Leonard is... 2nd youngest I think, and Amadeus (I call him "child terror" in the video, but it is affectionate, I really liked him) is the youngest, and a real handful.

[Amadeus]

Also, living with the Von Bibras is Meng Ni, a Chinese exchange student who rooms with Hilary. This was the first time I got to talk with a clear-accented Chinese person who didn't want to default to English when my Chinese was failing. It was great! I didn't realize how far my very poor Chinese could take me.

At their house we relaxed, and I let Amadeus play with my camera. I put some of his clips in there). We also went to what was the summer palace of one of the princes of Germany, or something, back in the day.




We went to the Rhine and barbecued in the evening. It was a surprisingly gorgeous river, I had a different idea in my head of what it would look like. We took a short ferry ride:



and stopped at a park. We gathered fire-wood for the barbecue, and Kristoph and Felicitas started cooking. The rest of us waded in the river and skipped rocks. I taunted some angry swans.

[Leonard, Amelie, Amadeus, Mengni]

[Leonard]
[Mengni and Amelie][Hilary][Dad, mom, and Hilary]


[The Rhine]

On the way back, Amelie and I climbed onto some sort of spinning circular disk thing, and tried to make each other fall off. I fell off.

Impossible to miss in the city were all the German flags hanging out the windows. I learned this was because that very evening, the Soccer championship would take place, and it was Spain vs. Germany. Soccer means a whole lot to just about every one in the world but US citizens, and a whole lot of German happiness was at stake. Not wanting to miss the game, we busted back to the house. The Von Bibras don't own a TV but some out of town neighbors did, and these neighbors generously let us use their house. My job was to get the TV working. When the game finally flickered onto the screen, the entire house of children + Meng Ni erupted in cheers, and glued their eyes to the screen. Kristoph offered me a beer, which I accepted. I asked him about the Christian German view of drinking (in Japan, Christians find it taboo to drink & smoke, so I was curious). Kristoph smiled and said that there are places in Germany where Christians consider it a sin to drink, smoke, drink and smoke, or ok to do either. He said that we were in the region where it was ok to drink, but not smoke. He said it like a man with Christian liberty.

At this point I was so tired I could barely stay awake. I told them I needed to turn in early, and left the house. However, the sun was this amazing red/pink color, and I ran into Hilary, mom and Felicitas walking towards the house I just left. I asked them where I could get a better look, and Felicitas gave me instructions on how to get to Sportzplatz. I ran up the hill and found a very nice forest/pasture area, and she was right, it was a good place (see video).

[Sportzplatz]

Another interesting note - you could hear the progress of the game through cheers or boos, resounding through the valley at this time.

I wandered through SportzPlatz then headed back to the house, where I conked out on my bed in Vincens room. I hazily remember waking to the sounds of bawling and wailing, and Kristoph trying to comfort his children. "Germany lost" I mumbled to myself, before falling asleep again.



***
Guess I'd better stop for the day... Here's a video with video clips from these posts. Never mind, it got removed for "terms of use violation." ???? maybe it was the short clip of the Germany vs. Spain game. Sorry, I will have to post it another day. Anyway, this first part, in Germany, was very refreshing

Comprehensive examination

Sorry - still can't write about Paris. It's coming soon, though, for reals. This morning I went through shock after shock, first from finding out that I was supposed to be registered as a student over summer semester, to take the Comprehensive Examination (critical step towards getting the degree) scheduled for next week.

I was told however, that I could probably get around that if I payed for the test (~$1000).
reaction: AAaaghhh!

Then I was told that the department would actually pay for it.
reaction: Horrayyy!

Then right after that i was told instead of getting the test on Monday of next week, like I had planned, I was going to get it on FRIDAY of THIS week.
reaction: Aaaaaaaggghhhhh!!

Then, Hilary told me the pictures and stuff finally arrived and she liked them(!!)
reaction: Hoorraaaaayyyyy!!

Then I found out I still needed to do one more ridiculously long and mind-numbingly boring microphone calibration this evening, so I couldn't write up about Paris.
reaction: Aaagh! (<-notice it's a bit smaller.)

So yeah, a bit of a roller coaster day. But I just got the cal finished, and I need to go home before the grocery store closes so I can get more food of the 9 essential vitamins and minerals type. But, hopefully tomorrow!

Paris (up and coming)

For anyone keeping track,
I did go and come back from Paris. I'll be posting pics & storyline maybe next week. Sorry for the wait, this week is a bit stressfull. But it'll be worth your while to check back, I think.