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...

last week my Hospitality Club friend Esther lent me her city bike, nickname: 'the old pickle', and we made the trek, roughly 30km to a small town a little north northeast from kassel called Hann. Münden. renowned for it's Fachwerk Häuser, half-timbered houses, the city was at one point a political center of germany. there's an interesting fella named Doktor Eisenbarth, who a long time ago was a roaming doctor who would set up a tent around the marketplace in different cities and heal the sick, apparently performing self-described miracles. at any rate, he would often visit Hann. Münden and in the end he passed away there. he would stay at an inn called 'zum wilden Mann', translated roughly to 'at the wild man'. restaurants and other businesses and houses didn't have numbers at the time but descriptions. they might have a wreath hanging outside or something and be called 'at the wreath'. in Ulm, matt and i, and the other fellas in 2006, ate at a place called 'zum wilden Mann' and i've often wondered if there was just some looney bearded dude that would always hang out outside and the place just became known as 'at the wild man.' anyway, there's a funny tradition in Hann. Münden, where every saturday during the summer someone dresses up like Doktor Eisenbarth, just like santa claus in the mall during the christmas holiday, and you can go up and tell him what illness you have and supposedly he says 'eureka' or something and you're cured. all doubts aside, it sounds like a fun thing for a little town in which not much else happens. though the old town is amazing to just walk around in. and the bike path along the Fulda river is beautiful and totally separate from the street. just watch out for all the bugs that make their way into your mouth. i'm no longer a vegetarian after all the flies i ate.

this is the way home at night. i'm not sure how to describe how quiet it is, but i feel like these pictures go a long way to emphasize that. and the sunsets (which are usually around 9:30 or 10:00) are really something. the walk home at night is almost right out of a movie. the streets look lit for a film shoot and it's actually a little twilight zone-ish but surprisingly relaxing. the little town is called Fuldatal and has a not very busy main street with a few stores, including a bio-laden or health food store. the church is small and very plain but it has a clock on it that keeps the time pretty well.

i finally did a little exploring around kassel. the first two pictures here are from the Löwenburg, which was used as a model for a disney film or the like. originally, however, it was the summer playground of the count of so-and-so a long time ago. he lived most of the year in the main residence in the city proper and then his mistress lived here in the Löwenburg. interestingly, the castle was built to look aged like a ruin. this aesthetic obviously was enhanced over time, but during the second world war a bomb landed kind of right next to or maybe a little on the castle and then the ruin really was a ruin. it's in the process, still, of being rebuilt. you can see (not in these pictures) the difference between the original weak stones, used intentionally to speed the aging process, and the current work which uses solid stone. the third picture is the Schloß Wilhemshöhe, the original residence of one of the wilhelms (i'm not a historian). it was taken over for about 6 years by napolean's brother, something of a womanizer and with a reputation for being completey incompetent. the fourth picture there is a beautiful Schloß right next to the city center. a Schloß is basically just a residence for the rich aristocracy, the ruling class families and such. this particular Schloß is now called the Orangerie and houses a museum and i think something of a planetarium something or other. might be wrong, the day i was walking around there was a wedding party there taking a lot of pictures. kassel originally had three Schloßes, but the third one, the residence of wilhelm something or other, was nearly completely destroyed during the second world war.


here the first picture is kassel, obviously in the evening. that's the silhouette of the dom and way in the background, just to the right of the two Turms, you can kind of see the Herkules. the other two pics are the Schloß Wilhelmshöhe.


there's an art university here and plenty of graffiti around. and then this yellow banana rocket-mobile.


and my two new friends i made walking home one day. they didn't have much to say but they did laugh at all my jokes.

tribute to those who came before...








matt, this is for you. a few things. first a tribute to the basic of functions. surely you understand. and second, you can always get closer to the construction site. thought i was done with those, but what do i see out the window upon arrival at my friend's house in marburg?? wow. super times. also, the main attraction here in kassel is the huge statue of Hercules. but guess what. yup. entirely covered by scaffolding. enjoy!

Marburg, Germany - Vegan (definitely) Gulasch (sort of)



i made this dish a few nights ago for my dear friends in the small but beautiful town of Marburg, in hessen. i'd chalk it up as a victory that these meat eaters thought it tasted yummy!

1/2 carrot
4 tomatoes
1 green pepper
1/2 yellow pepper
1 1/2 red peppers
1 small cucumber
3 cups textured vegetable protein
1 big onion
1 head garlic
8 sun dried tomatoes
1/2 cup capers
2T. olive oil
1/2 cup vinegar (apple-cider is best)
3 cloves
hungarian sharp paprika
handful fresh dill
1 T. dried dill
3 T. marjoran
1 T. oregano
1 cup vegetable broth

prep... dice the garlic. cut the onion into whatever kind of large chunks. slice the tomatoes nice and thin. dice the sun dried tomatoes. cut the carrot, cucumber, and some of the pepper into larger chunks, the rest of the pepper dice up fairly small.

1. heat up the oil in a large pot. when hot throw in the dried herbs, cloves, and some sharp paprika. cook for 30 seconds or so. toss in the onions and cook for about 1 minute. add the garlic and cook further about 30 seconds.
2. add the sun dried tomatoes and the other tomatoes and cook roughly 30 seconds. add the vinegar and put the top on the pot. cook further until the tomatoes are fairly cooked down.
3. add the small chunks of pepper and cook further 10 or so minutes keeping the pot covered.
4. add the rest of the vegies and the fresh dill. depending on spice tolerance you can add more sharp paprika here. salt and pepper to flavor. cook 5 minutes further.
5. add some of the vegetable broth. let cook a few minutes more.
6. add the vegetable protein. let it rehydrate.

you can always add more TVP as necessary. if it seems like the gulasch will be too watery, add more TVP. try variations on spiceyness or try simmering the tomatoes a bit in the beginning with red wine. try other herbs, too.
goes well with small noodles or try and find some egg free spätzle.

first impressions from Kassel, Germany...

i suppose it's called settling in, but as of yet, communicating solely with people in a foreign language, it'll be sometime before i'd consider myself 'settled in.' but my host here is one of a kind. i think if i was a bit more comfortable with the language we could be the best of friends. even still, we've had conversations about global warming, the size of the automobiles in the states, why i'm a vegetarian, herb gardens (she has a rockin one), the schooling systems in both the states and germany (totally different), favorite vacation destinations, and what life was like in germany before the wall came down. and then there's kassel. the city is a bit different than the rest of germany. it was totally destroyed during world war two. there's only a slim few buildings that made it through and for the most part the streets were totally anihilated. so the whole city was rebuilt. i'm not a historian or anything, but as someone from the states who's interested in city planning it was the first most outstanding feature upon arrival. it's immediately apparent that there was a western (specifically american) influence during the reconstruction. the streets are a bit wider, things a bit more spread out. there happens to be suburbs, too, something you don't really find throughout the rest of the country. at some point it became law that the cities had to absorb the surrounding communities. these then all became part of the city's structure: transportation, public works, etc... also the new cities are, for the most part, not allowed to build outside their boundaries. meaning you can't just say, it's too crowded here i'd like a house a little apart from the rest of my neighbors. to me, this makes a bit of sense. people are forced to deal with each other and find solutions for shared problems, mainly i guess transportation-wise. i wouldn't call it ideal, but it's a few steps ahead of the states. with people so close to their work, grocery stores, post, etc. it allows a greater emphasis on public and alternative forms of transportation (trams, bikes, teeny tiny cars...).
anyway, the surrounding communities of kassel had powerful mayors and nobody wanted to contest them. so when it came time to form one big city, as per law, somehow kassel was exempt. so now the tram only goes so far and the surrounding communities work together with the city of kassel to provide bus service past that.

talk about shooting yourself in the foot; albany has done us a lovely not a favor by losing out on 350 million dollars worth of transportation funds. consider that in light of this article here that talks about just how much ridership on MTA is increasing in light of the increased prices at the pump. but it's not all bad news, as May is BIKE MONTH! we've already had a great ride through brooklyn along the future Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway and i'm eagerly anticipating the Tour de Brooklyn on 25 may. this past weekend was a bit of fun as well, with the first annual LIC Bike Parade led by the Hungry March Band as well as the City Reliquary's Bicycle Fetish Day with five awards given out for the Best Crappiest Looking Bike, Best Homemade Bike, Most Family Friendly Bike, Best Track Bike, Best Vintage Bike. no pictures to show but i'm sure you can find some at the City Reliquary's web site. wish i had pictures of my bike to show, since i decorated it along with all the little kids that were attending the LIC bike parade with their parents. i had lovely gray tassels hanging off the ends of the handle bars and blue fridge hanging from the bar tape. maybe i'll get it together and get some pictures from this friday's bike to work day. i'll be volunteering at the 59th street bridge in the borough of queens handing out morning pastries and water to bicycle enthusiasts, and it will probably only be enthusiasts in light of the weather forecast. then again, there's plenty of construction on the Queensborough Bridge so i'm sure the workers will appreciate it. also, check out San Francisco's Bike to Work Day, my friend kati is one of the coordinators there for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition...

with the death-for-now of congestion pricing, a few questions remain. just how does one convince new yorkers that they are not dependent on an automobile? perhaps the congestion pricing plan was a bit harsh on commercial businesses but it was a step in the right direction. in order to get people out of their cars there needs to be an infrastructure that supports alternative modes of transportation, a point that the city would do well to work on. first of all, we lost out on 350 million dollars with which to build up public transportation and bicycle routes. but what we can still do is work on ways in which to encourage people to use alternative transportation. we could divert money from parking projects and road repairs and put that into bike lanes and increased subway services. transportation alternatives is still working on these exact things. likewise, the greenpoint/williamsburg waterfront greenway has been voted to move ahead. last week community board 1, covering our neighborhood (greenpoint) voted overwhelmingly in favor of this much needed project. especially in light of all the private, financially exclusive housing going up in the area - williamsburg/greenpoint - this project will help to ensure that the community retains access to its waterfront, instead of watching it go to the sole use of those who can afford it. thankfully, the project includes the calming of traffic along kent ave, notoriously dangerous for its high speeds. this will also connect us to the rest of the brooklyn waterfront greenway. and plenty of events coming up this bike month!
but on another note, just a thought. it's becoming increasingly obvious as transportation is becoming more talked about that we can't talk about what to do regarding transportation when not also dealing with housing. the areas whose train lines are the worst are only about to become more so. people can complain about the subways all they want and yell at the MTA for raising fares and not keeping up with the volume of ridership, but we have to also talk about what to do regarding all of the new housing go up around some of the most-used lines in new york. for example, the L and JMZ trains and all the ridiculously exclusive housing going up in williamsburg and greenpoint. long island city, as well, and the well-used 7 line, not to mention the EV trains. it would seem that private developers are putting up housing at a rate that the consistently-in-the-red MTA could never keep up with. and now we've lost millions of dollars that could have gone to deal with these exact issues. more later...

i finally remembered my password! posting again finally...
matt and i have been planning our german/austria/switzerland trip for a little while now. we've come up with our basic itinerary:
frankfurt
cologne
freiburg
basel
berne
zurich
uelm
munich
salzburg
frankfurt
pretty much in that order. what we're in the middle of putting together now is a bit of a beer tour of bayern, though not an extensive one. mostly we'll be trying weisses Bier though we're very excited to be heading to the city of Bamberg for a visit to the Aecht Schlenkerla beer tavern which has been around since 1405. you can view the full contents of our planning process at matt's yahoo travel page. if you've been to germany and have any tips for us on breweries and sights to see in bayern or baden-wuertenburg, switzerland, or austria please chime in.

well, this would be 2008. and supposedly i've not posted in quite a while, once again. again, things have been a little busy, but not so much that i shouldn't have been here at the computer typing away and uploading pictures and all those things that make people want to read blogs. why would you want to read this one??
well, for a while we were actually putting recipes up here, that was fun. and then maybe there was some talk of city planning and maybe public transportation...
now things might be a little different, and maybe at the same time a little more accessible for posting and things like that. we actually have the internet now. no more internet cafes or making time to go use the interweb... it actually exists right here in this room from which i'm currently writing.
so what's been happening?
i've gone back to college, that's the biggest thing i suppose. i've definitely been cooking a lot, making quite a few new recipes from an amazing recipe book put out by two girls from brooklyn and queens called "veganomicon", perhaps one of the best recipe books i've ever read. not only is it full of excellent recipes it's full of useful tips on equipment and nutrition as well. plus it seems to be very community oriented, and by that i mean that the authors have tried and tested all the recipes with their friends, and they make it known. even a few of the recipes have come from some of their friends. and community is something important here making the book extra special in this respect. perhaps if i keep this a little more up to date you might find some pictures of their recipes.
recently there's been a lot more german being spoken and hear around this apartment, since that's kinda what i'm learning at college. but there are also some good books being read and some excellent music being listened to:
books
cradle to cradle
moon palace
winning at all costs
nicht lustig vol3
television/movies
family guy
samurai champloo
wild style
music
der Plan
MIA
cave singers
or, the whale

all of these have found their way into the environment here. being home a lot more since working less, i've had a little more time for the plants around here, too. it would have to happen then that the rosemary would get a lovely case of the rosemary beetle. that pesky little beetle perhaps somehow related to the colorado beetle has taken quite fondly to my rosemary plants and already killed one of the two. careful watching over the one has for now saved it so hopefully as it warms up i'll be able to put it back outside, maybe repot it and we'll see some new growth. there's a been a little new growth of late, having finally succumbed to the liquid plant food after watching how pathetic the rosemary and thyme were becoming having stayed inside all winter.
on slightly more important matters, nyc has started to talk a lot about congestion pricing. it's up to albany now after hearing from advocates, neighborhoods, citizens and others their thoughts on the congestion pricing plan for manhattan and some various parking permit zoning for brooklyn neighborhoods. the state has until 31march to vote on the plan. for more information check out transportation alternatives. let's hope albany realizes just how much of an impact this plan could have on a city such as manhattan, completely clogged with personal automobile traffic to an extreme excess. this would encourage people who normally drive to utilize public transportation more, thus decreasing air and noise pollution. this would in turn create a more encouraging atmosphere for cycling and pedestrians, along with the city's slightly increased efforts on the bicycling front regarding new bike lines and a proposed new greenway in manhattan along with better signage, more bike parking and some interesting talk of a bike-share program, not unlike what has just been implemented in paris and has already been in use in other european cities such as vienna. apparently the city wants to try it out on governor's island, possibly to simultaneously push tourism to the old military island in new york harbor. while i don't think the city is giving the project ample experimentation time being so isolated there on the island it's still a great push for the city to be even considering such a communal project as a bike-share. it will be most interesting to see how our US individualism reacts to such a thing. and here's hoping! having utilized the bike share in vienna i feel it's a great plan and if people have the right mind set to appreciate how useful it is i think it could be an amazing thing for such a clogged city as new york. the bike-share would be best utilized if the state brings into effect the congestion pricing, further creating an encouraging environment for cyclists.
by the way, if you haven't yet seen the new bike lanes on the short strip of canal st. at the manhattan entrance to the northside manhattan bridge bike path it's a breath of fresh air. besides the westside greenway it's probably the only other place in manhattan that actually feels like the city cares about it's cyclists.
cheers