Hi! Major apologies for slacking on my bloggage. I've been quite busy, as you will now find out...

On the weekend of November the 14th-16th, I got to do some traveling. This weekend was spent with some of my Fulbright friends in Amsterdam. It was my first time there and I was totally blown away by it. For starters, it really is one of the more beautiful cities that I've ever seen. The architecture is great. Many of the buildings/houses are painted a variety of colors, and looking at them in pictures online just doesn't do them justice. And bicycles rule that city. By the looks of it, the people on bikes outnumbered those in cars like 10 to 1. It was just insane to see so many bikes, everywhere. Every single place that we went had accommodations for our rented bikes. And pretty much every single street has a bike lane, so getting around is very easy and safe. It's funny how much things can change when you go only a couple of hours by train out of Germany. Alex, Ian, Ashley, and I pretty much went and saw all of the usual tourist spots in our 1.5 days there. It was a very fun weekend after a fairly busy week of work. Here are a few pictures from the weekend: In order of appearance: Ian and I just after renting our bikes - this was taken while riding, A pretty little neighborhood square, Getting food and drinks at a nice restaurant - Alex and Ashley are opposite of us, A small pond in the middle of Vondel Park, And me on the Heineken Brewery Tour (which was only average).

On Monday, the 17th of November, I got the day off from school to attend a meeting in Lueneburg, which is a little bit outside of Hamburg. This meeting was called, in German, "Begruessungsveranstaltung fuer die auslaendischen Fremdsprachenassistentinnen und assistenten im Schuljahr 2008/2009." German is such a fun and beautiful language, isn't it? For those of you who didn't understand that (probably most of you), it essentially was a meeting day for all of the foreign language teaching assistants in and around Bremen. And it wasn't just for English speakers, as I met nice people from France, Spain, and Italy. We spent the day talking (only in German of course) about our personal experiences so far assistant-ing (made that one up) in our respective schools. I found this incredibly helpful because now I know a bunch of people, with wide-ranging cultural backgrounds, that I can meet and have fun with in Bremen. Yay!

Two days later I got another day off from school. This time around it wasn't so fun. I had to go to the "Auslaenderbehoerde" to extend my Visa. I got to experience the wonderful world of sitting in a stuffy room with a lot of other non-Germans and waiting for my name to be called. I arrived at 8:15 (15 minutes after it opened) to find a line already 30 people deep. Then, after standing in that line for about 45 minutes, I got to take my seat among the others hoping for a Visa extension for another several hours or so. Despite the extreme amounts of uneventfulness, I was very happy at the end of the day because of two reason. One was because I got my Visa extended and now wont get kicked out of Germany. The second was because I was out of there in time to go meet Sara and Leah at the airport in Bremen! Boy it sure was good to see two of my best friends in the whole wide world. After picking them up, I gave them a very short tour of Bremen (they were, understandably, very tired), I took them back to my place so they could rest up for a very fun weekend in...

Berlin! That's right folks, my first of three weekend trips with the girls was to my favorite German city/Germany's capitol. We arrived on Friday the 21st and stayed until the 23rd, and what a fun weekend it was. Since I had recently been there, I was able to play a little "tour-guide" role for them. So, long story short, we basically saw all of the great and fun things I saw last time, but with a freezing cold/snowy/christmas twist on it. On the trainride over to Berlin, we got some snow. And then on Saturday night we got to witness our first ever German snowfall together! And snow it did. Unfortunately, the real snowing pretty much began after we had retired to our room for the evening, so we only really got to go out and play for a little bit (plus it was insanely freezing!). But we had enough time to toss a bunch of snowballs, write "OBAMA" on the top of a car, and just about get frostbite in our fingers. Also going this weekend was a miniature Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) at Potsdamer Platz. This little markt had a really big fake-snow inner-tubing hill. Leah and Sara took a go on it and loved it (I opted to pass, as the combination of steepness and iciness looked too perilous for my accident-prone self), even after they smashed into the back retaining wall at what looked like about 60 MPH...alright it was probably more like 10. Other than the normal touristy stuff, our weekend was filled with lots of laughter, my attempts at Usher dance moves (if you don't know what I'm referring to, you will have to look him up on youtube), and good food and drinks. I think it was a wonderful start to what should be a very fun and exciting 3 weeks with those two girls. Pictures in order of appearance: The three of us at the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, The girls in front of the Brandenburg Gate, The huge, icy hill that the girls tubed down. They're at the top in this picture. The three of us in the Sony Center after getting dinner, The OBAMA Car! Sara and I at a random/interesting club, Leah and I at the same club.

Aaaand, after all of that fun, I returned to school today (the 24th) by making my usual 40 minute bike-commute. Only this time I had the pleasure of doing it in near freezing temperatures and icy/snowy streets and sidewalks. :) But it wasn't so bad, it definitely beats getting poured on by a bunch of rain!

Hello friends!

I haven't done much since my return from the Mosel River trip, so I thought I would do a small commentary.

Three days ago Barack Obama was elected by the people of the United States as its 44th president. As you all probably are aware of, this instantly goes down as one of the single most monumental things in the history of our country. I took several history courses in my days in school, so when I look back on our nation's history it is simply remarkable to think about how far we have come in such a short period of time. To put it (very) briefly: We, as a people, have come from fighting a war against one another over the issue of slavery. Thinking about slavery now, it just seems utterly ludicrous to force a race of people into slavery. And yet, many of our forefathers were willing enough to kill their own countrymen in order to preserve it. We have come from the Jim Crow Laws, which essentially earmarked black people as an "inferior race," taking away simple civil rights that many of us take for granted today. We have come from listening to people like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and countless others standing up for what is right and what they believe in only to be knocked right back down. Now, we have Barack Obama as our next president. I think that president-elect Obama said it best himself when he talked about that 100+ year old woman in (I believe) Georgia, who has lived to see just about everything - now that includes the first black president of the United States.

What an exciting and pride-provoking time that we get to be live in. I think that I will be saying this many times throughout the rest of my life: This is one of, if not THE, proudest moments of my life thus far. Way to go America!

The reaction here in Germany has been great. I arrived at school on Wednesday and was immediately congratulated by one colleague after another. I knew that they, too, sensed the gravity of what had just happened in my home country. I could tell that they were elated as well.

The election of Mr. Obama gives a glimmer of hope to the entire world, and the reaction I received from my colleagues and students told me that they realize that. It's funny, living abroad has enabled me to gather a whole different perspective of the States and the world in general. And, after reading various newspapers here, I am 100% convinced that the United States is one of the only countries in the entire world where John McCain would have stood even the slightest chance against Barack Obama. Go figure.

However, with all of that being said, the work does not end here. In fact, it has barely begun. With the state our country is in, I think it will take quite some time to "right the ship," so to speak. Too much has gone array in our great country to be complacent with what we have achieved.


Moving on to a whole different topic. I want to say something about a side of athletics that too often goes unnoticed. In this day and age when statistics, fame, and fortune are the measure of greatness in sports many other, more important, stories go unnoticed.

After reading these two articles, I was reminded of the special place athletics holds in many people's lives. Many times there is much more to sports than simply winning and losing and getting good stats, and these two stories go to show you that. Go ahead and check them out.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=3683219&sportCat=ncf

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=clemmons/0811107&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab5pos1

Well, I hope you enjoyed my once-in-a-while serious talk about things. I think the news back in the States warranted such a post. Hope all is well where ever you are reading this from.

Ciao!

Russ w.