Vegas Photos!

Rejected From Michigan

This one actually kind of hurts. I thought I had a really good chance to get into Michigan, and I had some great conversations with the faculty members there (including the professor who signed my rejection letter). At this point I am still set on Wisconsin, but the main reason I wanted to get into Michigan was so I could use the guaranteed funding and stipend that Michigan provides as a bargaining chip for financial aid at Wisconsin (which is far from guaranteed).

In any event, there is a reason that I own a "MUCK FICHIGAN" shirt. And I wear it frequently.

Tomorrow morning I am off to Las Vegas (a city I have never visited) for some golf and random sightseeing until Friday. This should be the last leg of my extensive travels over the last month, which when I return will include nine states (ten if you count the stopover in the Detroit airport), three countries, and two hemispheres.

Bye, Foom Foom. I'll Miss You.

I went to my grandmother's funeral today (myself and all my brothers have called her Foom Foom her entire life, for reasons we have now forgotten. She loved the name). She was one month short of 92 years old, and in the least three years of her life, her mental state had deteriorated to such that she did not recognize any of us any more, even my father, who is her only child. I've never actually been to a funeral before, and I managed to hold it together until my father gave the eulogy. He was funny and serious at the same time, and at the end, when he described how she began to slip away this year, it was the first time I had ever seen him cry. I cried too. I realized I never really had a chance to say goodbye, so just before we left her gravesite, after I had helped carry her coffin up the hill to its final resting place next to her husband (who died in 1968), I rubbed the coffin and said, "Bye Bye Foom Foom. I'll Miss You."

I will.

Tales From Germany Part 5: Munich 2: Crazy Clothes on Crazy People

Our lunch at Prinz Myshkin was fantastic. The restaurant was hailed in our guidebook as the best in Munich, and it did not disappoint. My delicious and filling pasta dish cost only nine euros (really cheap for a European meal) and actually made me enjoy the mushrooms used in the pasta, which is a first for me. Shewara's pasta was equally savory.

After Prinz Myshkin, we headed further into the city to see the Residenz, the Royal Palace of the kings of Bavaria. The massive complex now houses a variety of museums and high-end antique and retail stores. Our experience there would have been more enjoyable if any of the museums had actually been open. The single map we found in the entire place didn't tell us how to get where we wanted to go, so we had to figure out for ourselves that to get to the museums in the middle of the palace you actually had to go back outside the palace grounds and then come back in through a very small door. Only then did we see that the museum was closed for renovations. You think they could have told us sooner.

Very disappointed, we decided to just meander around the city for a few hours. We happened upon some rather interesting sites. The first was a ridiculously oversized soccer ball in the middle of one of Munich's many squares, undoubtedly being used to advertise the upcoming 2006 FIFA World Cup which will be held in Germany. People everywhere are selling shirts for this event, featuring the rather creepy logo the Germans invented for it. I do not mean to be stereotypical, but I have never seen a German nearly as happy about anything as those little soccer balls are in that logo. Like seriously.

After the soccer ball encounter, we wandered back towards Munich's main shopping district where we encountered some mannequins clad in the most trendy European fashions. Fashions that apprently include aviator sunglasses, jean beltloop chains, emo hair, and Sylvester the Cat t-shirts. I think wearing an outfit like this in America would not get a hot girl to cling to you - it would get a hot girl to beat you up. Because she and her 100-pound frame could school you. You and your aviators.

Content in our fashions for the day, we walked further toward the Munich Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station) where we wandered into a very small, unsuspecting cafe on the second floor of an old building. Shewara and I sat down and hat two beautifully presented cups of Chai tea: each one came in a tall glass glass complete with a little spoon, saucer, doily for the saucer, and even a little box to place your used teabag into. We sipped our tea and had thought provoking conversation until we decided to splurge for dessert a great little ice cream dish for two. The best part about this particular establishment, however, were its bathrooms. Each stall contained a live, four-foot tall plant (something to look at while doing your business, I suppose). Even more interestingly, the bottom of each urinal contained one half of an orange, I assume for two reasons: 1) to improve the smell, but 2) to have something to aim at. Just for fun. But the best part was the poster on the bathroom wall:

APRIL 15: BOMBASTIC GAY AND LESBIAN DANCE PARTY
(featuring the musical stylings of DJane Skinny)

I really wished we could go back, just for that.

Satisfied and satiated from our small meal, we decided to make one last trek through the main shopping district before our train left. At one point during our walk, I turned to Shewara and said, "Do I hear Peruvian pipe music?" I naturally assumed it was a CD being played inside of a store, but I was shocked to find an actual group of Peruvian musicians playing in the middle of Munich! As an Andeanophile, I found this very exciting. Apparently the aforementioned love of Native American cultures in Germany extends to South America as well. We stayed there for a few minutes to listen to them play (their music was excellent, plus they were totally jammin' out and having a great time, which made them fun to watch). Satisfied from our long and eventful day, we walked back to the train station and slept all the way back to Tuebingen.

Oh. Snap.

"Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."

-Jamin Raskin, Professor of Law at American University, in a debate of a proposed amendment to the Maryland Constitution to prevent homosexual couples from having legal marriage rites (as quoted in the Chicago Tribune).

Tales From Germany Part 4: Munich 1: Glockenspiels and Churches

Every day at 11AM, in Munich's main square (the Marienplatz, so named for a golden statue of the Virgin Mary (Marien) that overlooks the square), the Glockenspiel (decorative clock) on Munich's Rathaus turns on its centuries-old gears, causing the ceramic statues below the clock to spin to life and perform a series of dances commemorating the Crusades and the end of Black Plague.

Munich may be known for its beer and its parties, but Shewara and I were fact that the interior wasthere for the cultural aspects, and we were not disappointed. Munich, the longtime capital of the Kingdom of Bavaria and now home to Germany's most successful soccer franchise, has some amazing churches and palaces. Our first stop after the Glockenspiel viewing was the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), the bi-towered, onion-domed cathedral that has become Munich's unofficial symbol. The cathedral's most interesting (and I thought visually appealing) aspect was the made of strikingly bright white plaster, a stark contrast to the somber dark stone used in most medieval cathedrals. The church houses multitudes of small chapels, each beautifully decorated, as well as the amazing tomb of a 14th-century Bavarian general. Munich is also the home of the Bavarian archdiocese, and thus the residence of all Bavarian archbishops. From the 13th century to the mid-1800s, the likenesses of these men were recorded in wooden statues that surround the main altar. Since then, their personal seals and names have been inscribed on gold tablets. The last entry read:

JOSEPH RATZINGER 1973-1982

(You may now known Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI).

After the Frauenkirche, we headed over to a much smaller, but much more dazzling church, the Asamkirche. The Asam Church has some ridiculously long official name that I cannot remember (and apparently neither can most people), so it was colloquially named for the two cracked-out architect-brothers who designed the thing back in the late Baroque period. The Asamkirche only has twleve rows of pews, but it is quite possibly the most visually overpowering place I've ever stepped inside. Every surface is covered with gaudy gold, pink, or green decorations, interspersed with white marble images of saints. To top it off, the front right section of the church houses an old tomb, where the body had been placed in a glass coffin on view and covered with nothing more than a shroud. You can see the body's skull through the shroud (check out the front right of the photo of the church's interior - you can just make out the skeleton. No less creepy is the golden skeleton teasing the figure of a young boy by the church's entrance; I can only assume that they are trying to say that death is always looming, even to the young. But really, they could have done it in a less creepy way. Maybe a sign or something.

Tired of churches and creepiness, Shewara and I then headed over to Prinz Myshkin, a highly recommended vegetarian restaurant only a block from the church. We would spend the rest of our day wandering around some more interesting parts of Munich, parts I will write about tomorrow.

Buddha Altar Closeup

Just a little photo from my room.

Tales From Germany Part 3: Heidelberg

Until World War II, when the Nazis took it over and started planting crazy ideas in the students' heads, the University of Heidelberg was the best institution of higher learning in the world. Today, the touristy south German town that houses the centuries-old school still manages to retain much of its romantic charm after Goethe and Mark Twain both fell in love with the place.

The day we visited Heidelberg was a stark contrast to our previous day's visit to Strasbourg. It was cold, rainy, and overcast; the ground still covered with intermittent splotches of slushy snow-ice that made walking perilous at worst and annoying at best. At the same time, it gave the sleepy medieval town a distinctivly somber, almost sad feel. Heidelberg is one of Germany's most popular (if not the most poular) tourist destination in the summertime, when thousands of tourists flock to Schloss Heidelberg, a slightly ruined 500-year old castle perched atop the city's highest point. But on this day, the city streets only accommodated the occasional tourist, and the castle was nearly empty.

The walk up to the castle gate takes the visitor up a long red brick path that winds through the castle's many walls and ante-gates, a journey that was surely meant to impress the visitor as well as protect the Schloss. Today, its hollow shell offering a mere glimpse of the grandeur of the mid-17th century, our cold and rainy walk up the path felt something like a macabre funeral march for the history of a place that once was but is no longer. It was kind of cool.

By far the Schloss' most interesting feature was the 220,000 liter wine keg located in the basement of one of the castle's many buildings. It probably hosted some excellent parties in its heyday, but now its function has been relegated to little more than a way for foreign travelers to carve their names into its 300-year-old wooden frame. Some chose to write their names in marker, which I suppose is less invasive, but still disappointing.

After leaving the castle, we walked down the hill to the Alte-Brucke, Heidelberg's ridiculously famous bridge that spans the banks of the Neckar River. Scores of famous poets, writers, thinkers, and travelers have stood on this bridge while they pondered their deep philosophical thoughts. Me, I just snapped a photo of raindrops falling from my umbrella with the river in the background. By this point Shewara and I (as well as Pat, our traveling companion), felt it was time to leave. We felt too cold and wet to continue on, so we headed to the train station for the 3-hour journey back to Tuebingen.

The next day we would travel to Munich.

Tales From Germany Part 2: Strasbourg

So my second installment of "Tales From Germany" doesn't even start in Germany - it starts in France. Strasbourg lies just over the German border on a small island surrounded by the Ill River. The city is primarily known for its absolutely spectacular Gothic cathedral, Notre Dame (not to be confused with the one in Paris), which also offers amazing cityscape views to anyone athletic enough to climb the 400-foot sprial staircase to the cathedral's observation platform at the base of its spire. Strasbourg is also one of the seats of the parliament of the European Union, which creates quite a few headaches for all the bigwigs that have to commute from Paris or somewhere in Benelux to attend to business that could just as easily be conducted in Brussels or Paris or the Hague. But I digress.

Strasbourg was a great trip for us for three major reasons: 1) Shewara speaks French, which made it really easy to get around in the city (neither of us speak any German). (Sidenote: even the train announcements changed language one we crossed the French-German border, which I thought was pretty cool). 2) French food is WAY better than German food. We had tea and crepes for lunch, instead of the usual German meat and potatoes mixture. We also purchased some really nice chocolates from a chocolatier on the Grande-Rue in the city center. But 3), and most important, the weather in Strasbourg was nice. For the first time (and as it would turn out, the only time on our trip) we were able to use words like "sunny" and "pleasant" and "not completely rainy and ass-cold" to describe the weather. This made walking around Strasbourg quite pleasant as we wandered through the old city streets, taking in the odd but yet sensical mixture of ultramodern department stores and shops in old French buildings.

The coolest part of Strasbourg is known as Petite-France, a small section of the main island separated by a fork in the Ill, known for its cute restaurants and shops that cater to tourists by presenting an authentic, romantic French experience. We would have bought into it if we had had enough money to buy into anything they were selling, which is when we headed back to the city center by the cathedral to pick up some 3-Euro crepes (with nutella!) and tea. (Note to all future visitors to France: Coco Tea does not mean chocolate, it means coconut. Please make note of this.)

So, I'd say that Strasbourg turned out to be the best day in our trip. It was relaxing, fun, and easy due to the lack of language barrier. Our next stop will be Heidelberg.

Osama's Homo-Bortion Pot & Commie Jizzporium

Be sure to watch the video!

(JS 4 Prez - Colbert can be the veep)

Rejected From Harvard!

My two favorite phrases from my rejection letter:

-[Harvard] "is unable to take favorable action on your application"
Favorable action! Ha!

-"I know that this decision comes as a disappointment."
Well, not really. I kind of didn't really want to go to Harvard. But thanks anyways :)


Be sure to check out the updated playoff standings. Harvard gets eliminated and heads to the loser bracket along with archrival Yale, while Maryland and Northwestern move up one spot each. Wisconsin remains alone in front by miles, with Michigan a distant second.

Tales From Germany Part 1: Tuebingen

The first thing I saw in Germany turned out to be my favorite thing.

After an eight-hour plane ride from Detroit to Frankfurt, and still looking ahead to three hours of trains in order to make the 100-mile journey south to Tuebingen, where we would be staying for a week, I felt the need to use the bathroom. And right next to the bathroom was one of Germany's ubiquitous and always entertaining exit signs, which take the form of a white running man bolting toward a white rectangle. Why he is running is beyond me - I've always been told one doesn't need to run in public spaces - but the exiting guy seems to run everywhere. That is until he gets to a train station, at which point he is killed by an oncoming train. Maybe he would have seen the train if he wasn't running so fast.

We were relieved when we finally arrived in Tuebingen, some 24 hours after leaving Detroit (and with no sleep in that time period). The city sits nestled in the southern Neckar River Valley, near the Neckar's source. The river grows to nearly ten times its Tuebingen size by the time it reaches another famous and romantic university town, Heidelberg, some seventy miles to the north. Tuebingen proper dates from the early Middle Ages, around the 6th or 7th centuries CE. But as previously mentioned, Tuebingen is best known for its Eberhard Karls University of Tuebingen, founded in 1477. The school's students (some 22,000) now make up 1/4 of the city's population.

Shewara and I were lucky enough to be staying with a friend who lived in the old student dormitory (as in 400 years old) in the center of the city (most students live in modern highrises outside of the town). The building originally functioned as a home for monks, and the architecture showed this with its visible wooden beams and white plaster walls. The rest of the town was equally historic - the entire city looked like a postcard photo from 1500 (it was actually a bunch of mid-20th century buildings constructed to make the city look historic, which it is). The winding, hilly city streets are seemingly always bordered by these pastel-colored, red-roofed stereotypical German houses, yet the scenery never seems to get old. In the center of town was the Marktplatz (Marketplace, the main city square) bordered by Tuebingen's cathedral and the Rathaus, Tuebingen's 500-year-old city hall, which is still in use today. But by far the most interesting thing about Tuebingen (and, as I would learn, about all of Germany) was the local population's seeming obsession with Native American cultures. Everywhere we went we saw tons of dreamcatchers for sale alongside traditional German beer steins and soccer jerseys. There were even a few Native American craft stores in town, as well as a large selection of Native American books for sale at the many local bookstores.


The last place we visited in Tuebingen was the Schloss (one of Germany's two words for castle, the other being "Berg," and I still do not really understand the distinction even after the Germans explained it to me). Schloss Tuebingen dates from the 15th century, and its remarkably preserved structure sits perched atop Tuebingen's highest point, offering great views of the city and the river valley below.

We spent our first two days exploring Tuebingen, and on Tuesday we decided to take our first side-trip - ironically, it wasn't even to a place in Germany. We went to Strasbourg, France.

First Trip To Madison

A large statue of Abraham Lincoln overlooks Bascom Hill on the University of Wisconsin campus. This came as something of a shock to me, since Illinois has always been known as the "Land of Lincoln," but apparently good ol' Abe had a lot to do with the university's establishment as a major institution of higher learning.
Here is Abe's permanent view from his perch, looking east toward the Wisconsin Capitol building. I am sure the view is a lot better in the absence of snow and the presence of leafy trees, but the February weather suited me just fine on my first visit to Madison.

My future in Madison seems more and more certain as the days and weeks pass without acceptance letters from any other schools while I have more and more great and firendly conversations with the staff and faculty in Madison. The school suits my interests perfectly, the city and campus are beautiful, and best of all you can go ice fishing on Lakes Mendota and Monona in the winter, apparently.

My first day in Madison was spent wandering around campus, just getting a feel for the place. I walked through the student union and Bascom Hall; ate at an Italian restaurant in the heart of campus, and checked out the UW-Madison bookstore (which had an apparel selection seemingly geared more toward hoodies and polo shirts rather than the usual t-shirts and hats). In the place of a cap I purchased a crazily theoretical art history book which has now become one of my all-time favorites. At the end of the day I attended a lecture in the Chazen Museum of Art and ran in to one of my future professors. "It is great to finally meet you!" she said.

Really? It is great to meet me?

:)

I am going back for an official visit next week when I will be sitting in on classes, meeting more professors, and even attending an African Diaspora Studies conference, where all the bigwigs will be in attendance. Yay.

Off To Germany

I am leaving for Germany tomorrow morning and will not be back until March 11. Shewara and I are going to do some major exploring.

Things I need to write about when I get back:

-Andeanist Conference in Nashville (with Khipus)
-First trip to UW-Madison campus
-The End of Poverty (I must read this book)
-Trip to Germany (with photos!)

Auf Wiedersehen!

Trip To Philadelphia

Shewara turned 22 this month, so I went to visit her in Philly so we can have a fun birthday bash. We went out into the city for a classy evening of crepes and drag queens. The restaurant we went too (see previous link) served us a fantastic fruit and cheese plate, followed by our authentic French crepes. Shewara had a savory one filled with cheese and broccoli; mine was more dessert-esque being filled with chocolate, lemon curd, fresh berries, and topped with whipped cream.

After our dinner we went walking around South Street where we noticed that one of our favorite bands, Pink Martini, had a concert on that very evening. We might have gone had we not had a previous engagement with some of Shewara's friends at this little hole-in-the-wall bar where at 11PM every Friday and Saturday you can see the best drag show in all of Philadelphia. Before the show, the hostess queen called all the birthday people up on stage one-by-one to dance solo for the crowd. I didn't out Shewara to make her suffer such a fate, but I really wanted too ;)

The next evening we went to Trader Joe's to purchase foodstuffs for that night's dinner. We bought spinach gnocchis with vodka sauce, good sourdough bread (my favorite), white cheddar cheese for nibbling, and key lime chessecake for dessert. The dinner took longer to make than to eat, but it was well worth it. After dinner we managed to catch Brokeback Mountain at an artsy theater. We had both been wanting to see the film for some time, and I can honestly say it lived up to the hype. Brilliant cinematography, excellent story, and a breath of fresh air in the fact that it made its point very subtly without forcing it down your throat like most socially progressive films do. I recommend it highly. After the movie, we walked a few blocks over to the only American location of Maoz, a vegetarian falafel restauarant with some really good and cheap food. I got two falafels in a pita, topped with cucumbers, tomatoes, and tasty white sauce whose name I can never recall. We also had Belgian fries, which were very hot and savory.

Lastly, Shewara will kill me if I forget to mention that we played a five-game series of 9-ball pool. I have been playing pool for nearly a decade, Shewara just started a few months ago. I pulled out the series victory 3-2. This was a huge moral victory for her, and she played very very well to win the two games, but I still have the bragging rights. She was very proud of herself, and I was happy because it means my teaching techniques actually just might work.

Our next trip?

To Tuebingen, Germany: March 3-11. Lots of photos when I get back!