The strangest thing....

The strangest thing happened to me this morning. I woke up and thought about how good it would be to be home in Muskoka (Ontario) again with my car and computer and parents house for a few days before heading to Tennessee. I thought about driving to Huntsville to the Independent Grocery Store to print off a few hundred pictures from the last 4 months. You know that song by the Canadian Michael Buble, called "Home" (or something like that), I was sure I would never think like that again! But as I my time is running down here and although I have learned so much and do indeed feel welcome here, I still like the feeling of being back where I grew up and seeing family around Christmas time!

I was talking to Katerina comparing my first time living in Germany (2001-2002) to this time. The last time I was greedy for lots of new knowledge and sightes and tastes that I had never even heard of before. This time, I came all this way to speak a language I have come to love and visit friends (as many as I could) that for me are each one in a million. The last time I came for things or ideas or dead people (i.e. history). This time I came for friendships and, as before an adventure!

I leave my reader with two quotes to ponder...

"Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."
Jesus as per Dr. Luke

"If you live out what is inside of you, what is inside of you will save you.
If you do not live out what is inside of you, what is inside of you will destroy you."
Anonymous

Visiting the Midieval town of Bamberg, Nürnberg and a Farmers Theatre in small town Frankonia.

Eckersmülen, deep in the heart of Frankonia and the village of Rainer

Rainer and his dad at the Christmas supply outlet and factory

At LGB in Nürnberg

We were lucky enough to meet the personal manager from LGB who gave us a quick tour through the show room. My dad is a dealer of LGB model trains, manufactured in Nürnberg.

Railroad in the Old-West

Little Austrian Town

Messing around on the full scale trolley

This place is amazing. What a cool job! Making model trains all day!

The Pignik River through Nürnberg

The fortress in the centre of Nürnberg is high on a hill in the centre of the city. Much of the height of the outer walls is made up of sandstone bedrock that the people carved out hundreds of years ago.

Fachwerk (Half-timbered) Houses inside the fortress.

Nürnberg is a very old city and was a very important trade centre between the east and west when Munich was just a little village (can you tell I was getting a tour from a proud local). This house is the oldest in Nürnberg still standing and is 700 years old, that's good German engineering!

The Lawrence Church. This church was destroyed along with 70% of the rest of the city at the end of WWII. Inside there are many plaques dedicating this church as a monument of peace.

In the background is a Catholic Church. In the foreground is a 600 year old wedding present from a blacksmith apprentice trying to win the heart (and convince the father) of a girl from a higher class. Her father was a master blacksmith and the family was out of the wooer's league. By the laws of the time the boy was not allowed to marry outside of his class.

2 generations of UW Germanistic exchange students from Bamberg, Katerina and Beatte (pronounced Bee-a-ta)

The old town hall in Bamberg, now a museum.

Hiking to the Fortress high above Bamberg

Going into the fortress

The Palace square

View of the Closter from the Palace gardens

Going home to Stuttgart saying goodbye over "little venice"

Latest Production from the Knappett School of Arts and Sciences

Virus Injected

There once was a little old virus
Who was so small he didn’t even have a pilus
But along came a big old E. coli
And the virus thought ‘my oh my’
He thought to himself ‘now if I can get my DNA inside,
200 of me would become alive’
You see its all about the genetic material
It’s really concrete it aint nothin’ like ethereal
Once our virus has his DNA injected
Consider that bacteria infected
That nucleic acid floats in a dormant state
Until with the help of enzymes starts to replicate
This new genetic code will then be made
As blue prints to create another phage
Until after all the viruses have been assembled
The cell bursts and this cycle has been ended
And so little virus is no more, let’s call him michael
And that my friend is the lysogenic cycle

Written by P (flee-diddy) and Beth-dog Knappett

The Critical Difference of Life in Germany

Charlie and the Angels (and Bosley)

at the Christmas Market (Weihnachtsmarkt) in Stuttgart

Karlsruhe Christian and Stuttgart Pete at a cafe in Stuttgart

After almost a year and a half living in Germany I don’t normally notice much outward differences between myself and Germans, however, I believe there to be an imaginary line that you could draw down the Atlantic Coast of France and up through the English Channel that separates continental Europeans from us Anglo-Saxon Islanders. On the continental European side of this line a significant proportion of people enjoy participating in public nudity. This might be a stroll in the English Gardens in Munich or a spa where people enjoy being naked together in a hot sweaty sauna. In Canada we might call this exhibitionism. In Germany this is a respected tradition, not practiced by all, but still widely practiced from Leipzig, in eastern Germany to Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg in the south west.

To be clear, this is far from exhibitionism, the Germans have that too, where some crazed fan will run across the soccer field wearing nothing but his birthday suit, we have that at Toronto Blue Jays games every once and a while. In fact in 8 years of post strike Major League baseball (94 – 2002) the only time I remember noticing a Blue Jays game on TV was watching the spectacle of a nude fan being chased by security guards across a field. Hilarious!

So if you come to Germany, don’t worry, people look basically the same as Canadians, but are in better shape and paradoxically, more of them smoke. Just don’t be surprised when a German friend invites you to a nude Sauna. And Germans, don’t be surprised when the prude North American, like me, says no. My first instinct was either to say “no” or “can I bring a date?”. I think that last statement will appal people on both sides of the Atlantic so I will stop here. And in true Canadian form I apologize.

Where has my heart gone? An uneven trade for the real world...I want to go back to believing in everything and knowing nothing at all. Evanescence

Ska Concert in Weinheim. Spent some time in the Mosh Pit, it was awesome!

The Fort Knox of Shoes, Melanie's extensive shoe collection

Melanie and Fred, one of the surviving Columbia Lake Townhouses couples from 2003-2004

Fred is from Sweden which means he likes Hockey (and in his case even baseball) too!

Bismark was the dude that united Germany for the first time in 1866. He had to fight off the Hapsburgs (Austia-Hungary) to do this. Even Baden-Württemberg fought against him. He was Prussian like my Great Grandfather Gottlieb Kühl, who incidentaly emmigrated from Prussia to Canada the same year.

Fred, Annette and Peter in Heidelberg

Annette and Mel along the Neckar River

Castle Heidelberg

The Castle Walls

Castle Tower, destroyed by lightning or french troops

Castle Heidelberg by night

Musings Along The Long Road to the Completion of my Masters Thesis

I have been told that a master’s thesis should be a reference. I think it should read like an adventure, because that's what applied scientific inquiry is. There is a risk and you don't know the outcome at the beginning, but you have a goal: finding an application for your discoveries. You try to learn as much as you can from other’s experiences before making a move and expending resources, but at some point you make a plan and follow your nose, take a chance, believing that there is genius in the process of just trying something, anything and watching carefully what happens. So why can't a thesis be that? And why can't it be personal, emotional and colloquial? Why can’t it read like people talk? Such a thesis could reach a much wider audience of people and students. It could inspire new students to go into masters programs too. Instead of writing as if you worked for the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) and were recording mundane, impersonal facts.

The Ballad of the Master Thesis

(sung to the first part of the Black Eyed Peas' "Where is the Love")

I once wrote masters thesis
Although I didn’t have a clue what to write
I knew it would be something about feces
So I played baseball to keep my sanity
For the same reason I then went to Germany
But soon after arriving I heard
That my thesis was for the birds
So I waited for the terrible news
Of all the work I would soon have to do
But sadly the news never came
And once again I was waiting to start this game
You see my thesis was more like a puck
And I’m trying to score a goal and not get stuck
By the numerous referees
Making rules here and there as they please

“Skate backwards in a line
Now you have to stop on a dime
Now change into the colour blue”
I had to sign 3 forms before I could go to the loo!
Father, Father, Father help me
Send some guidance from above
Because this has got me got me questioning
Where is the Love

So I tried to have fun with my friends
And forget about the project that I alone could not end
Until those corrections arrived
And I could pick up my pen once more and try
To get this old puck in the net
So no further would I go into debt!

GO LEAFS GO!