Kassel

Sorry about the discombobulated and generally lame nature of the last post. The pictures were downloading very slowly and I was kind of in a hurry.
These photos are all from a little excursion I took to a city called Kassel last Thursday. Its about an hour away by train. The weather was gorgeous and I very much enjoyed just strolling around.
In general things are going well. My class schedule and study burden aren't too heavy. I have plenty of free time to expend as I wish. Unfortunately my dorm building is going to be renovated this summer and in preparation many people who will be hear next semester have to move out as rooms in other buildings become available. I get to stay since I will be leaving at the beginning of June. The result is that there are fewer people to hang out with in the kitchen and it will probably only get worse in May. Its not all that bad yet, but a little sad.
On Saturday Cha (dude from China) and Quan-Ou (also from China) had a party in here for their language class. They made some fantastic food and invited me to join. It was an interesting mix of folks. There was an older gentleman from the Middle East, a girl from Romania, two people from Russia, a girl from South Korea, of course Cha and Quan-Ou, and their teacher, a German lady. They were all speaking German so it was good for me to sit back and listen and try to improve my comprehension. Man, that food sure was amazing.
This Thursday through Sunday my group will be taking a trip to Berlin. I'm excited about that and will hopefully have many pictures to share with you all when I get back.


The "Konigs-Platz" (King's Square) in KasselVanilla gelato
Very Chic-looking mall
Painfully obvious, unavoidably vain self-portrait
Again, this is the Konigs-Platz where I hung out for a bit


Some sort of important, official building
The flowers are coming out in full force now with the weather heating up
Bye for now!

Guten Morgen

This is in a city called KasselThis is our kitchen

Zaid, Adrienne, and Chris
Chris is quite the chef

Me and Zaid

He let me have some of this; its was noodles and chicken cooked Yemen style.

Double or Nothing

Okay, so I decided that since I hadn't posted in a while, I'd do two rounds today. Most of these are from the end of this week when Bron, a friend from Lancaster, was here visiting (actually just dropping by from visiting his brother in Luxembourg). It was great to see a familiar face and hang out with a friend from home (thanks for coming Bron). Laura, a girl in my program, also happened to have a friend visiting, so we joined up with them on Thursday and explored Marburg a bit.

The man himself

Deutsch cat
Tender moment

creepy tunnel near the castle

Kara, Laura, and me

Marktplatz

It was a beautiful day to eat lunch outside (I save up all week for such occasions)

"Here lived Dr. Martin Luther 1529"

easy parking

steeples

That appears to be me by the door there

cool old door

Frankfurt

I went to Frankfurt last Saturday. One of the many blessings I'm experiencing over here is the fact that my student ID doubles as a free pass on public transportation anywhere in the state of Hessen. I was actually only planning to go to a small town called Geissen, just fifteen minutes away, but when I was up on the platform waiting for the train I saw Jim, a friend from the program. He was going to Frankfurt, so I tagged along. It only takes about an hour to get there and the train ride is nice and smooth.
Went just spent a few hours walking around admiring the sights. Frankfurt is a financial hub and the airline gateway to Europe, which is a big change from the medieval aura of Marburg. I did notice, however, that the pace of life didn't seem to match the modern feel of the towering skyscrapers. Even the proverbial suited businessmen didn't seem to be in any particular hurry to get anywhere and the streets weren't as crowded as I would have expected. At any rate, I was a nice visit.
The last few days here have actually felt a little bit like spring. Its so much nicer when the sun's out, so I hope it stays that way.

Der April machst was er will

Hello friends.

Sorry I haven't posted in over a week. I was having trouble loading photos.
Well, I am relieved and grateful to have passed my German course. Nothing throughout the class was graded, our entire mark for the course is our score on the final. We had our written exam last Wednesday and oral exam on Friday. It was a bit intense because for me it will transfer back as 8 credits. That would be the equivalent of a year of German at my college - all boiled down to ten minutes of oral exam (you only got to take the oral if you passed the written). It was pass or fail, triumph or defeat, life or death, greatness or oblivion - all wrapped up in one dramatic German conversation. So, God is good and now I'm done with that and I have two regular courses at the university, one in German and one in English. The regular semester here goes into July, so since we're leaving at the end of May we have four additional hours of tutorial (in English) each week for each class to make up the contact hours. I'm taking 'Intro to international relations' and 'Justice as a key concept.' I think they'll be interesting. One of the coolest things is that my 'Justice' course meets in the old university building; the one founded in 1527, visited by Martin Luther and known as the oldest protestant university in the world. So thats kind of cool. You know, me and Martin just mixing it up at Uni-Marburg.
So it snowed here...again! I think it was on Monday, which would have been April 6th. There were actually like three or four inches on the ground when I woke up. Crazy! They keep assuring me that this is not normal here, however, there is an old saying: "Der April machst was er will" (April does what it wants). Here are a few miscellaneous pictures and some of the snow as well:

The river Lahn
tiny Auto
The 'Old University building' (I'll post some pictures from inside sometime)
Monday morning was rather wintry
That was the bus I planned on taking, but it was stuck.
The 'hauptbahnhof' (train station)
breakfast of champions

Did you know: the Bunsen Burner was allegedly invented by Robert Bunsen, former professor at the University of Marburg.

Some Friends

Aiman {"eye-mann"} and Zaid {"sigh-eed"} from YemenRicardo "Ric"
Did you know: they have Mercedes UPS trucks here?