Ulm Pictures

Views of the Ulmer Munster (the cathedral) on the way toward it. The round white building on the right edge of the right-hand picture is the new community building or some such, which is very modern and caused some controversy. About half the people love it and the rest hate it. The architect (American) kept it low to the ground so as not to compete with the cathedral or block the view, and included a lot of windows to "mimic" the gothic style, though I don't really see that it helps the resemblance any, haha. Interesting contrast, though.

Inside the Munster.

There were figures like this on every column. The ones on the right are from the New Testament and the ones on the left from the Old Testament, if I remember correctly. This one is Paul.

This is the Rathaus (City Hall), and is pretty much the only picture of Ulm that I have that is not the cathedral or the view from it, as my camera's batteries died at this point. This just means I have to go back. ;)

View out of one of the beautiful Gothic windows on the way up to the top of the tower.

View of the back part of the cathedral from the top of the tower.

View from the top of the highest church tower in the world!

Again.

On the other side of the river you can see New Ulm which is in Bavaria (Deutsch: Bayern), the neighboring German state, where Munich is. This division was made by Napoleon.

The remaining height of the tower past where you can climb.

The super-modern community center juxtaposed with one of the gargoyles on the old Gothic cathedral.

If you look at the tiny people and trees you can kind of get a sense of how high up we were.

Me with the fabulous view of Ulm.

The staircase was really narrow and twisty!

Translation: Tower Climb
768 steps

Tickets at the Register across from here (but that's not important)
I did that!!!!

McDonald's had Schnitzel Nuggets. (Schnitzel is flat-pounded deep-fried pork that is very German) I could only think, oh my goodness, I am definately in Germany. Only here...

A nifty little lighted sculpture at the train station. (says "City train station Ulm")

Blaubeuren Pictures Part II

Amazing View #1 on the way up the mountain. I think we actually ended up going over 2 different peaks just so they could bring us to more viewspots, haha.





All Oklahomans note: The soil under the leaves is brown, almost black. Not red. I am told this is normal. ;)
















Viewpoint #2
Consisted of this rock, which was rather high.















Left, the rock as seen from the castle, so you can tell how much it sticks up off the mountain.
Right, me on top of said rock.






The castle ruins as seen from the rock. I think this is the main reason they took us to the rock.

The ruins of the castle entry arch.

Going up to the (ruins of the) castle itself.

I'm pretty sure the railings aren't original.

Viewpoint #3, aka The Castle Ruins













More of the castle ruins

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Apparently this tower-y place made a great gathering spot!

Me in the castle ruins, great view in the background.

The rock and the ruins as seen from a street near our dorm!

The group at a local "Kneipe" (kind of like a pub). We were the only ones there besides 3 older people -- the waitress and her two friends. The two friends were locals and spoke Schwabisch (local dialect) and also had an accent when speaking regular German. The waitress was from East Germany and had lived here for a number of years, and we had a blast talking about getting used to the local culture and dialect! When we as an international group speak German to each other, I think it encourages native Germans to come talk to us more.
(from left: Katherine, Ian, Todd, Chari, Adi [Adelaida] from Columbia, Me)

Blaubeuren Pictures Part I

Okay, so I guess I will start with actually posting the pictures I promised like 2 weeks ago.













The tiny, but well-arranged room that I shared with Katherine. This section is exactly as wide as the bed. The wardrobes are in the entryway, along with the door to the little bathroom, and the entryway is separated by that blue curtain.


They key to the room had a massive keyhanger thing with the number, which I'm pretty sure could double as a deadly weapon. It was heavy too!































Random pictures of around Blaubeuren, taken on the way to the monastery (which is now a boarding school).

The monastery

Left, view of the monastery from the courtyard. Right, looking out the window at the herb garden in the courtyard, which would be much more impressive if it were spring or summer, I'm sure.

The high alter in the monastery, which is quite famous as one of the most impressive in the style.

Some crazy carving at the top of the choir-chairs where the monks sat. It is all one piece.

Graffiti from 1694. There was also graffiti from the famous German poet Hoelderlin from when he went to school here.

A statue of "Die Schoene Lau", who, according to legend, was sent to live in the Blautopf (lit. Blue Pot), which is the natural spring in Blaubeuren and the source of a river, so she could learn how to laugh.

A rather picturesque "Germany" image. Foreground, Blautopf.

Some of the group I hung out with from the class: Me, Katherine, Chari [pronounced Harry] (Charalampos) from Greece, Marie from Denmark, Zsofia from Hungary, and Angelie from Sweden.

On the way to hike up to the castle ruins.

Overdue Update

Wow, it's been so long since I had a post I don't even know where to start.
Well, first of all, it's been so long (what, 3 weeks?) because my time at the Goethe Institut ended on February 26th. My dorm room here in Tubingen wasn't available until March 2nd, so I was fortunate enough to find a family to stay with for those 4 days. The Feederle's were nice enough to come pick me up at the Goethe Institut, so I didn't even have to buy a train ticket and mess with my luggage on a train again. Their daughter is a high-school exchange student at Ripley who lives with our neighbors, and rides with my parents to basketball games a lot, so that's how we got in contact. Anyway, they picked me up and drove me to their house in Esslingen (next to Stuttgart, like Edmond and OKC, practically the same city). In my time there I spoke all German to them (Mr. Feederle speaks a little bit of English, but Mrs. Feederle none), and Mrs. Feederle showed me around the city. We saw the Old Town, including the church, and under the church there's another church that's 1,300 years old. It was discovered in the 60s when they were looking at doing floor renovations. Now it's excavated and open for tours. We happened upon a tour getting ready to start and were able to add on at the last minute, which was neat, so we actually heard the history and stuff. She also took me up to the Fernsehturm (TV tower) in Stuttgart, which was the first one in the world, and has a fantastic view of the city. Then on Saturday we went and saw Dicker Turm (Thick Tower), so named because its walls are, by my estimate, 5-6 feet thick. There's also a wall attached to it, from the watch when it was a castle, which has another good view of the city and the vineyards covering the mountain below. On Sunday, they both took me to see Burg Hohenneuffen, a castle about halfway between Esslingen and Tubingen. If I remember correctly, it's about 700 years old.
Anyway, during this time I had limited internet access, so I couldn't post a blog.
Mrs. Feederle drove me to Tubingen, helped me get checked into my dorm, find my building, and buy sheets for my bed, and then she went back home. I had a meeting to fill out paperwork and stuff. I found out then that I didn't get internet until some paperwork got turned in and processed. We would be turning that paperwork in on the following Monday, and it would probably take several days to go through. So for 2 weeks I was stuck using Internet Cafes (not cool. I don't like them. They are not private, and they cost money. Bleh.). Not wanting to spend more money than necessary, I just stuck with some e-mails. I didn't get my password for internet before we left to spend a week in Blaubeuren (a little town about 1 1/2 hours away), so that meant another week before internet. It was waiting in my mailbox when I got back yesterday afternoon, so now I finally have internet. Yay!
The adjustment here has taken a little longer than in Schwabisch Hall, but I think I'm finally getting there. After the week in Blaubeuren I'm feeling like I have a group of friends from my class, though it took a while, and the weather finally looks like it might be clearing up. It has been cloudy, cold, and occasionally drizzly since I got to Tubingen, so that doesn't make for a very good picture of the city. Today was sunny though, even if it was still a little brisk.

During the week in Blaubeuren, we visited a monastery there (now a boarding school). It houses one of the best examples of a Catholic high alter (I guess that's what it's called in English), and another interesting feature was graffiti from the 1700s. Immediately after visiting that, we hiked up the mountain to some castle ruins, stopping twice along the way for a good view. Oh, we also saw Blautopf, which is a natural spring and the beginning of a river, that gushes out from under the mountain. Apparently it's normally an incredible deep blue, but unfortunately now, due to recent snowmelt, it's a murky green/brown. I will have to go back to see it when it's actually blue. There's a legend that a mermaid was sent to Blautopf to learn how to laugh, and there's a statue of her ("die Schoene Lau") by the spring.
The next day we took a trip to Ulm (a larger city only 10 minutes away by train). The highlight of that trip was the Ulmer Muenster, the gothic cathedral in the town. It's the second-largest gothic church building in the world, after the one in Cologne, and it's beautiful. Also, it is the world's tallest church tower. We climbed to the top of it, all 768 steps. That's a rather neat thing to be able to claim. Also, there was a great view of the city. Oh, and interesting fact, Ulm is in Baden-Wuerttemburg (the German state with Tubingen, Stuttgart, etc.), but New Ulm, on the other side of the river, is in Bavaria (German "Bayern", the German state with Munich). This division was made by Napoleon and has stuck ever since. So we were able to see across the border into Bavaria.
Today I went on a little mini-shopping spree, most of which involved simply walking around the old town in Tubingen. It was a sunny day, so everything looked much prettier, and I think it will be absolutely gorgeous come springtime and summertime when everything is blooming.
On a side note, I love street musicians. On the weekends especially, there are often street musicians playing guitar, violin, or accordian (what I heard today) on the street corners, and they are actually very talented. Having that music in the background really makes it feel like I'm in Europe; it's just so typical of what somebody would expect walking around in the city centers of Europe, and yet something that's still hard to believe is real.
One of the next things on my to-do list is planning my travelling during the break between April 4th and 20th. I would like to go to Spain, but I would rather travel somewhere else with people that go to Spain alone, so I need to ask what my friends from Schwabisch Hall are doing, and also find out what the poeple here are doing. A good possibility might be to go with Adi (from Colombia) and 1-2 other people to Berlin and then to some other as-of-yet-undetermined location. She has offered to help me practice my Spanish!

Anyway, I think that's quite enough reading for now, and I think I've hit the most important points in the last 3 weeks. There will be pictures soon!