On Saturday, because it was nice weather, I went to Luxembourg. I figured I could do my uni reading on the train. Went for a stroll through the city, saw the medieval fortifications (or the remnants thereof), the cathedrals, the town hall, and the Grand Duke’s Palais, with the heavily armed guard (assault rifle with bayonet) in his Buckingham-Palace-Beefeater-esque box, and then spent an hour in the Musée d’Historie de la Ville de Luxembourg. Rather interesting; I could have spent 4 hours in there. But it was nice weather outside, and there was a flea market in the plaza outside the town hall, and they were closing. Much fun all round.

Sunday, for a lark, I wandered down to the part of Saarbrücken called Römerkastell (literally, “Roman Castle”) to have a look at the actual Roman Ruins after which the area is named. They’re there, hiding behind the Grand Market Place (think Queen Vic market, but much more downmarket - or perhaps the Corio Saturday Market at the greyhound course, for anyone who is familiar with that), overgrown by grass: just a few mostly-prismic stones, revealing the shape of where a few houses (from probably a much bigger village) stood. This was the crossing of the Roman roads from Trier to Strasbourg and from Metz to Worms, so Saarbrücken grew up here as a trading town. I also found the “Mithras Grotto”, where apparently in Christian Roman times the local barbarians/heathens secretly worshipped the Persian sun god Mithras. So that’s my really-really-old-stuff fix for this week.

Uni has started in earnest, and I’m starting to get past the stage of going-to-as-many-lectures-as-possible-in-order-to-select-subjects, and a subject selection is beginning to crystallise itself. There’s still the “initial meetings” for two more seminars tomorrow and Thursday, of which I will probably take one this semester (whichever one I get a place in - places in seminars are restricted and can be hard to come by), and that completes my subject selection. I might post the exact subjects at the end of the week when it’s finally decided… I’m not superstitious, I swear, but I’m not planning on jinxing my chances of getting into one of the seminars

This morning I got some rather big news… one of the shared apartments I had looked at in the last few weeks want me as their housemate. Yay I can move out of this temporary motel-like (albeit architect-designed) guesthouse, and into something more permanent. That also means next weekend will be filled with moving house (and perhaps finding some furniture).

And tonight I went down to frisbee training. There were about 20 of us, so we did some throwing for a warm up, a few drills, and then split into two teams for a short-ish game. ‘Twas fun; I’ll be doing that again. But man, am I unfit! I guess that’s hardly surprising, given the amount of physical exercise I’ve done in the past, oh, 16 months…

The first roll (of three) of photos of (mainly) Luxembourg is at http://www.ockle.org/photos (where else!). The reason there’s one roll rather than three is that one of the three rolls is black and white, which means it needs to be sent away for processing, they can’t do it in the lab, so that takes longer; and due to a misunderstanding only one of the two colour rolls was scanned onto CD. (I wondered why it was so cheap. I probably should have asked why I only got one CD, but silly trusting me just assumed they were saving the environment, since you don’t really need two CDs for 2 x 60Mb of photos. Meh.) The other two rolls will be added as they are finished, probably in the next day or two.

Questions by juventus:

1. Why the Saarland? Have they got something we don’t (like that Aussie-themed restaurant)?
Ah, well, hem. Many reasons. They include: I wanted to do postgrad and/or research. I wanted to travel. I wanted to live somewhere other than Melbourne. I speak German. Uni-des-Saarlandes have lots of research groups in areas that interest me, including the automated debugging work of the software engineering group, and the intelligent user interfaces group at DFKI (the German research centre for Artificial Intelligence). Uni-des-Saarlandes have the Max-Planck-Institut for Computer Science on campus, and they offer scholarships. (No scholarship means Martin can’t afford to travel.) The Ormond Choir visited Saarbrücken last tour, so I got to visit the university and talk to some people there. So, many reasons.

2. What have you been up to, of late, in the Saarland (ran into any of the Total Vocal (grr) troupe? Visited said restaurant - what’s the deep fried wombat nose like?)? When do you start studying?
Haven’t found Total Vocal yet. Have walked past said restaurant, but I haven’t dared enter. They use a curious variation of the Australian flag which replaces the Union Jack with the Boxing Kangaroo. They’re using the typical German blindness for clashing colours to display an Australian republicanism. Heh.

I start studying yesterday. Subject selections don’t have to be finalised until next week or so, so at the moment “studying” consists of attending as many lectures as possible so I can decide which ones I want to do. Of course, not all subjects are equal: there’s “lectures” and “seminars”, and the number of credit points varies depending on how advanced the subject is, and how much work it’s supposed to require. And I need to put together a semester that has enough credit points, but also the right number of points in “Basic”, “Advanced”, “Specialised”, etc. So I’m not so much studying as getting my head around the German uni system. No lectures today, not because I have no lectures on Wednesday, but because the lecturer for the subject that could have started today had a paper due this week, so the subject starts next Wed. Heh.

3. How’s the apartment hunt going?
Hmm, ’tis interesting. I’m looking at heaps of apartments at the moment, mostly share apartments with randoms. This is because in Germany apartments aren’t “single” or “double” or… (meaning one or two or… bedrooms, a kitchen, a lounge, perhaps a balcony), they’re “one room” or “two room” or… (meaning literally one or two or … rooms, containing perhaps two hotplates and a sink, and barely space for a bed and a desk). And I can’t survive on just a hotplate for a kitchen Besides, living in a share house with randoms might help me meet people here. And I’m already in a slightly adventurous mood, having travelled halfway across the world on my own, so I should probably take advantage of that before I lapse back into my normal shy-of-strangers self. (J, stop laughing. :-P)

4. What’s in your CD player at the moment… bitch? :p (I’m in a mood.)
Nothing, bitch! In fact, my CDs stayed at home. Luggage weight restrictions and all that. And of course, in a couple of hours’ (okay, weeks) continuous work, the music is all on my iPod anyway. Which is about half as big as a single CD. So if the question was really “what’s coming out your speakers at the moment”, then the answer is “Fats Waller: Handful of Keys” (some random “best-of” album).

5. You are going to see Architecture in Helsinki when the reach your shores, aren’t you? (BTW, that’s less a question & more of a statement.)
Statement, well, yes, indeedy. I want to go visit Luxembourg anyway

For those confuzzled, here’s the meme:
1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions of a somewhat questionable nature.
3. Update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. Include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Further to the previous two posts: I have updated the old (out of focus) photos with new (in focus) photos. They also happen to have rather more vivid colour than the old ones did.

For those of you who like to be able to make out what’s in the photos you’re looking at, here’s the links again: http://www.ockle.org/photos, more specifically: Amess Street housewarming, and breakfast with Richard; the first film in Saarbrücken and Sarreguemines; and the second film from Sarreguemines and Saarbrücken.

And mundane photos, of where I live and what I see around me, etc (click for the album):

Just a quick one: I got some of these photos reprinted at a different place, and they’re a million times nicer, more colourful, and most noticeably, delightfully in focus! So now that I know it’s the developer’s fault and not mine, I no longer feel obliged to hide their name: don’t take your photos to Saturn for developing. S’no good.

In other news, today I went and joined the queue outside the Ausländerbehörde at 8am (opening time), and then waited inside for another hour, and then upon handing over and photocopying of the relevant papers, received my shiny new German Aufenthaltserlaubnis. Bureaucracy all complete! (Until I find an apartment, and need to move house of course…)

Photo-y goodness. Unfortunately they all seem somewhat out of focus… I hope it’s the fact that I took them to El Cheapo ™ Photo Developing, rather than that my camera has fscked three whole films… they seem uniformly out-of-focus, so here’s hoping it’s the developing. I might take my favourite photos to another place for reprinting, to see if they do it any better; if it’s better I’ll get a better place to scan them to a CD and put sharper photos online. Meanwhile, I’ve processed them a bit to make them bearable.

As always: http://www.ockle.org/photos.
More specifically: Amess Street housewarming, and breakfast with Richard; the first film in Saarbrücken and Sarreguemines; and the second film from Sarreguemines and Saarbrücken.

And of course you want to see some more mundane photos, of where I live and what I see around me, etc, so here they are (click for the album):

In other news, I cooked chili con carne yesterday. From a packet, alas; although one day I will succumb to the temptation to just “take a fresh and ripe tomato”… and of course I sang while I was cooking

Also bought a German cookbook today, because I didn’t take any of my Australian ones with me (weight considerations!!), and I’d rather not rely on stir-frys, spaghetti bolognese, and packet meals. And so that I have something to read other than my Lonely Planet, I invested in “Sakrileg” by Dan Brown (er, that was called “The Da Vinci Code” before it got translated.) I also ventured into the Ausländerbehörde and marvelled at the queues, I think I’ll try going there again early in the morning, with my book, and a lot more patience.

I have also begun another scarf, although I suspect I will finish it just in time for the weather to warm up and me not to need it any more. But oh well. Photo:

I’d better get back to actually knitting that.

Caught the tram to France today.

(I like the sound of that.)

(I also didn’t pay a cent because Sarreguemine is inside the SaarVerkehrsVerbund region covered by my semester student ticket. Woohoo!)

You know you’re in France because the tram announcement is no longer “Nächste halt: Kleinblittersdorf” and instead it’s “Prochain arret: Sarreguemine”; because the signs are in French; because people are speaking French instead of German (including the people on the tram…); and because there’s dogshit all over the footpaths.

Also, rather unexpectedly, because every second store is a “chocolatier” or a “boulangier”. One was the size of a small supermarket. (Well, a big 7-11, perhaps.) Yum. Unfortunately my dream of popping over the border for un café et un croissant under an umbrella in the sun was not realised, since I couldn’t find an establishment that seemed to offer this service. Instead I bought a pan aux chocolat in a paper bag and ate it on the grass opposite the Palais du Justice.

While I was waiting for the tram in Saarbrücken (and snapping photos to while the time), a young lady (well, my age) approached me and asked why I was taking photos in this part of town, it was ugly and boring, and I should go to X and Y because the people were much more interesting there. And had I ever held eine “ausstellung” of my photos (the English word slips my mind here), because one of her friends does that every so often and it’s so cool! To which I answered, um, er. In fact I think she probably has a point, my photos of today are probably going to be dreadfully boring, due to the lack of people. But then, I’m not completely comfortable taking photos of complete strangers. They might not like it. And at the end of the day, I’m left with photos of people I don’t know. I guess I could at least have taken a photo of this young lady, as a reminder of the (somewhat bizarre) experience of meeting someone at a tram stop who took an immediate interest in my work, just cos I was pointing my camera at the surrounding buildings…

Speaking of photos, I took three rolls in to be developed today. Unfortunately I picked a relatively cheap place, which means they don’t do it on-site, so I have to wait 3 or 4 business days. Poo. Well, patience is a virtue, they say…

(who are “they”??)

Oh, by the way: a bottom update. I think all the bum posters are advertising underpants. That might explain the lack of anything else on the posters but a bum and a witty slogan. (Saw another one today that said “why not walk past again?”)

Today was the first day of the Saarbrücken Spring Festival. Which means, lots of stalls and street entertainers in town. Instead of cooking dinner, I bought a Schwenker (mmm, barbecued pork slab) from a hut that was basically a small barbecue and a huge serving-lots-of-customers-sized schwenker in the very center. Now all my clothes smell of wood smoke. T’was very yum, but very fatty.

This morning I completed all my paperwork for IMPRS.

Hmm, I’m getting tired. Perhaps it’s time to see what dubbed entertainment the idiot box is bringing me tonight. (Watched Star Wars last night. That was rather entertaining. “Dass hier ist Err-zwo-dii-zwo, und ich bin Zee-drei-pe-oh!” “Obi-van! Den Name hab’ ich schon lange nicht mer gehört…” The “Rasender Falken”… “Die Macht sei bei dir, Luke!” Oh dear! Once again, profound apologies on the lack of photos…

I have decided it’s not worth re-writing last night’s effort into narrative form. I think it makes enough sense as it stands. And I started taking photos with my real camera rather than the webcam, so rather than duplicating the effort I think I’m just going to make you all wait until I get the film developed.

Also Irina (my buddy) asks me to add that while she did mis-type both of her phone numbers to me, she subsequently stayed at the station waiting for every train to arrive, and asked the public if they had seen me, and even put an announcement over the PA speaker saying “if MS is around could you please come and find me”. Of which I am quite in awe. (Particularly since I seem to be taking up her time between exams…)

I have made a few further observations about the town. Again since I have no storytelling talent, I shall just list them.

Most stores accept only cash. This is remarkably inconvenient for someone used to paying for things with EFTPOS or credit. Alternatively, one transfers money via your bank. (Which is of course not helpful while I only have an Australian bank account. This situation will of course improve shortly.)

I have a german mobile phone now. It should be “activated” by tomorrow. Ask me for the number if you want it. (I’m not putting it on a public website!!)

My apartment is not only named “Kandinsky”, it’s themed. All the art on the walls (that I was too tired to notice yesterday!) are Kandinsky prints. Heh.

Re bums on billboards, there’s quite a few billboards around town featuring a scantily-clad shapely bottom, and the caption “nothing to see here, move along”. And nothing else. Not entirely sure what that’s advertising…

I found the German world-cup strip in a store. And the French one. Both are very cool designs. Why is it that the Australian one is so drearily boring? (Well, Germany and France wear Adidas, while Australia wears Nike… although I’m sure that has absolutely nothing to do with it. Hm.)

Law & Order, CSI, Monk, etc, dubbed into German is considerably less successful than MythBusters dubbed into German. At least it’s properly dubbed, not the “commentary” sort of thing we saw in Poland last year. Ick.

Razor cartridges are remarkably expensive. Perhaps I’ll grow a beard.

Just some random disconnected thoughts, because I’m still jetlagged.

Being on a University LAN is blindingly fast Internet compared to Australian commercial ADSL. Weee!

The guesthouse apartments are quite nice, they consist of a large room with double bed and huge desk and lots of space and TV and sideboard and etc, plus a bathroom, plus a corridor joining the two (and containing more wardrobe space and a mirror). They’re named after people. Mine is named after Wassily Kandinsky. It also has a little sign on the door saying “Herr Strauss”. Cool.

I needn’t have worried about missing the people-diversity of Melbourne. Saarbrücken is a university town, and is also near the border with France and Luxembourg and near Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands (and, well, for any Australian definition of “near”, it’s near Spain and Poland too, but anyway…). And so there’s a wide variety of people, skin colours, languages, clothing walking down the street. It’s very cool.

It’s cold. The snow has all thawed away, and the lake that they were apparently ice skating on a few weeks ago is all liquid again now, but the thermometer definitely is pointing to brrrr. The rain, interrupted by periods of beautiful sunshine, is remarkably Melbourne.

For a town that according to that infallible source of facts, Wikipedia, has less population than Geelong, the CBD-y shopping-y bit of town is huge, has enormous variety and choice, and is humming with people on a random Monday afternoon. All of which makes Martin happy. I found an asian grocer (admittedly, only one, but I was afraid there might be zero), and they stock woks for €6.99. I shall purchase one once I have found slightly more permanent accomodation. Also, it is nice to see book- and music-stores with an actual variety of stock, not just heaps and heaps of copies of the latest chart toppers. Also nice to see is H & M, for all my european-fashion, australian-budget clothing needs (how nice to have those two concepts coincide!), and Saturn, for discount electrical: particularly useful at that horrid moment when I realise that my ethernet cables are not in the suitcase, but in one of the boxes I mailed last week. Not sure which. (€4.99 later, problem solved.)

I have leet guess-the-correct-german-phone-number skillz. The email my “buddy” sent me containing her mobile and home phone numbers, to call her on when I arrived at the station, contained 2 (that’s 100%) incorrect numbers. Luckily the error was “too many digits” rather than “wrong digits”, so after one “er, no, don’t know what you’re talking about, bugger off” (sorry mate, just a wrong number, happens to the best of us!) and lots of “the number you have dialled is not valid”, I finally found my buddy. Big grin.

A few things I need to get used to in Germany: Cars drive on the other side of the road. Before you say “well, duh”, yes, I have worked this out at some point during my last few visits to Europe. But you still get caught out occasionally, with a “hey, nobody’s driving that car!” moment, or finding yourself waiting on the wrong side of the road for the bus. Oops. Also, Tobacco is everywhere. Not just that everybody is smoking, but that there’s vending machines on street corners, and ads on billboards. You don’t appreciate how nice Australia’s ban on _advertising_ is until you don’t have it any more! Speaking of advertising, the other thing that I need to get used to is the enormous amount of boobs and bum that Europeans consider appropriate for public billboards. Um er.

For those of you whom I have previously told about my two official “babysitters”, I have learnt today that the correct (if not necessarily official) term is “mummy”. That’s what the older students call them. Speaking of older students, the lingua franca seems to be English. (In fact, the lingua franca around the MPI seems to be English, although at the Mensa [food hall] for lunch, I overheard English, German, French, Japanese, etc…) And of the 6 or 7 students I met today, 2 were male. (not counting me). Which is about the opposite of what I would have expected in a computer science faculty. Good to see that somewhere in the world, things are different.

The noticeboards in the faculty and the institute are groaning with the weight of “apartment for rent”, “flatmate wanted”, “bike for sale”, etc ads. I should rip off some phone numbers and hit the tellyfones, once I’m a bit more settled.

And now I’m going to munch on my dinner - a “Döner kebap” from town. Because I haven’t picked up my “starter kit” yet, so cooking would be somewhat difficult. Thinking of cooking, maybe I won’t wait until I’ve found a more permanent place before picking up one of those woks…

I promise to edit some of these thoughts into something slightly more readable tomorrow. I should also add some photos of my surroundings, since I bought a slightly capable webcam for precisely that purpose. Possibly that might produce something worth emailing to all those people who told me they refuse to read blogs so could I email them anything I write here. Hmmm.