views from train stations in marburg and frankfurt respectfully

it's the start of another extended stay in germany, this time 10 months in hamburg, studying two semesters at the HafenCity University. it's been a great introduction to hamburg, even though i've been here before, it's large enough to feel like you're in a new area every time, at least at first, we'll see how long that lasts. certainly it's smaller than new york, but many places are, and i don't feel like i'd need to be in such a large city anyway.

the old city from kennedybrücke, the außeralstersee

whatever, here's some pictures of hamburg, and of the first few days. there have been some interesting events happening here. this week there's a climate conference of sorts in the city, today was car-free sunday, friday was park(ing) day, etc... i can't find an english version of the site, but you can tell it's pretty big anyway, just from the five or so floors it covers at the convention center.

car-free sunday from Kennedybrücke to the Schanze

i even tried to do a babel fish translation and i'm not sure it was actually english that came out. reading over the blogs with matt, andy and mike i realize i don't have any stories to tell at the moment that would match anything we had then. certainly different to travel by onesself, though not without its excitement.

i showed up in frankfurt and immediately felt at home, no need to wonder at that. the trip was air india, which is apparently owned by the indian government. the flight was half full and i had the most leg room ever in the history of leg room, thanks to the quick reflexes of heather at the airport, where she got me an emergency row, isle seat. perfect. it turns out i could have switched to whatever seat i wanted anyway, there were so few people on board, but i was happy with my seat.

same little french cafe that matt and i visited first off last time, good coffee and torts, among other things that go along with that.
on my way over i had picked up a paper and while at the cafe i read about germany's chancellor angela merkel coming to frankfurt that afternoon around one pm. she made a brief tour of some sights in germany in honor of a few of the germany's previous chancellors. her stop in frankfurt was in commemoration of the second chancellor from the cdu (her political party,) who had something to do with the financial sector. i decided it wouldn't be often that i would get to see such a political figure speak so i went. the tour was prompted really by the fact that there's an election next week, and she's running for reelection. overall it was interesting, i understood most of it but nobody really seemed to impressed with what she was saying so i got bored. the only interesting character was this guy with a poster for die linken, a left-leaning political party. he took it upon himself to start a loud argument with some poor lady who stood on this step stool in order to see better. the step stool had another political party's message on it and i guess this guy assumed she was with that party and he didn't take too kindly to that. she walked away.

checked in at the hostel, room in a 10 bed dorm. the hostel was great except for having no one to keep you awake long enough to adjust to the time difference so i fell asleep already at around five thirty. slept four hours or so before some roomies woke me up with their chatter. they were at least nice people and we chatted. one was from new zealand, but he hadn't seen the tv show 'flight of the conchords' so i didn't know what else to talk about and tried to go back to bed. didn't work. but breakfast was good.

marburg, a college town in the north of the state of hessen

walked around frankfurt again, read the paper, drank a coffee, walked past the nostalgic beer garden of trips past. train to marburg, visiting my friend michi. forgot just how awesome marbug is. tiny but worth it. spent two days at michi's. six hours on the regional trains to hamburg to keep within budget and a stomach ache (bad cheese?) and now in hamburg...