So, the 25th was a public holiday. And since Thursday public holidays tend to mean that Friday’s lectures are cancelled, and since I don’t have any classes on Mondays anyway, that meant I got a super-duper long weekend. And since we’re getting towards the business-end of semester now, I thought I’d take the opportunity of a bit of a trip, before I could no longer afford to take the time away from study, and while I had a 5-day weekend.

The destination? Well, it was pretty obvious – there was one city which houses a rather large proportion of all the people I’d promised to visit, one city for which, I must admit, I have developed somewhat of an affection over my past few visits: Berlin. So, armed with my brand new (in fact, still “provisional – present this receipt with some photo ID”) BahnCard, I trundled down to the Bahn “service centre” at the station to put together some travel plans. Of course, these days that could all happen automatically over the Internet, but I wanted actual advice from a human, because I wanted to try something different – night trains! Yes sirree, the plan was to leave Saarbrücken Thursday evening (leaving Thursday free to do all the uni work I would otherwise have done on the weekend), and arrive in Berlin Friday morning, then leave Berlin Monday evening and return to Saarbrücken Tuesday morning, just in time for class. The nice service center person worked it all out for me, reserved seats on trains that required reservations, printed out the itinerary, and off I went.

Several days later (on the Thursday evening, to be precise), I discovered a few things about night trains. The first is that you don’t actually get all that much Ruhe in a Ruhesessel. (Meh. Next time I’ll go with a bed.) The second is that Berlin is not really far enough away to make a night train worthwhile – a day train would take around 6 or 7 hours, and although the night train travels somewhat more slowly and even spends some time just standing still (to help you sleep, i believe), what with changing trains and etc there were still only 6 or 7 hours during which I could have slept (ignoring the discomfort of the Unruhesessel).

Never mind, I’m young, the ol’ body’s been through worse, it’ll recover. (It did.)

Regarding catching up with people: I successfully made my way through the entire list. Stayed with J and U (such generous people!); had a fun dinner with J, U and K, and also a great night out with K and her somewhat-local friends (even if I piked on the dancing); saw the Da Vinci Code (Originalversion! such new-fangled amazement has yet to come to Saarbrücken), and later had brunch, with C and his various local and somewhat-local friends; and had coffee and a good yarn with T.

Regarding sightseeing: well, you know, there’s no end of things to do in Berlin. Highlights include: the Helmut Newton exhibition at the Museum for Photography (thanks I for the tip); finally making it inside the Reichstag building (the rain drove the crowds away); and lots of just random wandering. Photos here, here, and here.

The reason why I’m only blogging this more than a week later: I’ve had the sniffles the past week or so. Well, more than the sniffles – a decent, full-blown cold. This past weekend was spent almost entirely on trying to avoid any exertion, to try and recover as quickly as possible. I’m much better now, but not quite 100% yet. So that’s my excuse. Now, I should head back to the aforementioned business end of semester. Tschau!

Just briefly, before I get stuck into next week’s uni work so I can scoot to Berlin for the uber-long weekend to visit J, K and C (and conveniently miss the Catholic-fest that is currently in Saarbrücken):

Caught the bus to Luxembourg last night to see a concert in the Philharmonie. Performers: Martha Argerich and Alexandre Rabinovitch. Program: Brahms – Variations on a theme of Haydn; Mozart – Sonata for 2 pianos K448; Rabinovitch – “Liebliches Lied”; (interval); Rachmaninov – Fantaisie-Tableaux (Suite no 1) pour deux pianos; Rachmaninov – Suite no 2 pour deux pianos. I’m floating on a happy cloud. Even though I got caught in the rain walking to the youth hostel after the concert. (Unfortunately the last bus back to Saarbrücken is not all that late. On the other hand, at a student ticket price of EUR8 – for B reserve, mind you – I could afford to stay overnight.)

(Yes, that’s row B in the orchestra pit – second row from the front. Not a bad view!)

The Philharmonie Luxembourg is Europe’s answer to the Sydney Opera House. Except that they let the original genius finish building it. Lots of white, lots of columns (which are lit with various colours, depending on the mood of, I assume, the house manager), and a little smaller than the Melbourne Concert Hall (sorry, Hamer Hall), minus the Circle. (Warning, their website is not particularly Safari-compatible. Urp. Use Firefox.)

Now, to work, Martin!

Today was pay day. Coincidentally, but fortuitously; because today was visiting Ikea day (courtesy of A, who lived in this room before me, and his station wagon). I had budgeted “around 250€” and walked out with everything on my list and a receipt for 250,73€. So I was pretty chuffed (particularly since that estimate was based on about as much hard fact and prior experience as the cost of a software project at tender time. heh).

Now my clothes have a more respectable home than a co-opted laundry rack, my books and papers no longer need to lie in piles on the scavenged corner table, I have a real desk, not just a trestle table, and a real bin rather than just a shopping bag. Photographic evidence follows. Apologies for the quality, but I figured that I could save myself some film costs by using the webcam for its intended purpose (instead of just a paperweight).

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Ikea Where’s Wally! Find: a bin, a desk, a small set of drawers, a rolling set of drawers + filing cabinet

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The wardrobe. I picked a cloth/metal poles one instead of a wooden/Narnia one for two reasons: it was cheaper, and I thought it would be easier to transport (also for possible future moving of house). I didn’t reckon with just how enormously heavy those metal poles are – this was the heaviest thing I bought today!

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The bookshelf. I found a bookshelf I was quite happy with, and wrote it on my little Ikea notepad with my little Ikea pencil. Then around the corner I found an almost identical one, for 5€ cheaper, so I crossed off the first bookshelf and wrote this one instead. And around the next corner, again a very similar, yet cheaper one, so another edit to my notepad. And the next corner again. In the end, I found this for 13,50€. The red box is also from today’s Ikea haul.

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The mirror. I would have preferred a straight mirror, but that would have involved a large jump in price, and that wasn’t going to happen. The mirror is in fact hanging straight; it just looks crooked due to a combination of optical illusion from the ladder and the fact that I can’t hold the tiny webcam upright.

I must confess that although I expected any Ikea to be rather like any other, I was rather astonished to find that (true to the McDonalds principle of “never surprise your customer”) this Ikea was practically _identical_ to the Melbourne store – right down to the food in the restaurant! I mean, obviously it’s the same furniture, but the same menu?? (Well, if it works for McDonalds…)

[For the benefit of T. and others who object to Ikea Swedish Minimalism, be assured that I did manage to find things that were not aesthetically offensive, even within my primary constraint of it-must-be-incredibly-cheap. Which nowhere does as well as Ikea.]

To add to the pleasures of today, when I got home from Ikea, there was a DHL “we tried delivering but you weren’t home” note in the mail for me… that’ll be my 10€ Ebay ricecooker. Happily, the post office is open Saturday mornings too, so I can go pick it up tomorrow, just in time for me to cook something for lunch. Yum, rice.

I am now rather exhausted from the effort of carrying all that furniture up two flights of stairs, and putting it all together. But I’m rather pleased that my room is now much neater than it was before. After all that excitement, it’s probably well-deserved time for bed.

Well, now that I’ve been in this apartment over a week, I probably owe my distant friends some kind of description of where I live. Because I’m lazy, and a picture tells a thousand words, I’ll just link to 20,000 words of description. (I wonder if that trick will work for my Masters thesis…)

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I had some other funny stories to tell, mainly involving me being embarrassingly Australian and trying to walk up the lefthand escalator at the station; or finally discovering the German word for “conditioner” (“spülung” – now I’ve bought some, and my hair is incredibly grateful), but I had frisbee tonight and I’m tired. So I’m going to bed instead. Good night.

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. )

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.

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):

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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:

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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.