Last Night

I spill my guts at my travel blog.

For every season, turn turn turn.

Remember this picture of Rothenburg from January?

This is from the same location last week.

Both are beautiful. I'm going to miss Germany.

ICE Blogging

So, I was on the ICE this morning on my way back from dropping off Jake at the airport (pictures forthcoming) and the cool mirrored digital display on the train flashed that wireless was available on select tracks. So, I thought I'd give it a shot, and sure enough, my computer found a T-Mobile hotspot on a train traveling at 100+ mph through Germany! Unfortunately, because it was T-Mobile, it was extremely expensive (2€ for 15 minutes); I didn't bother logging on. But, for free, I could pull up a map on my computer that showed me where I was (in the below picture, between Aschaffenburg and Würzburg). I don't know exactly how the technology works, but it was very cool. And of course, I couldn't resist taking a picture of myself with my Mac. Good times.

New Post

at my Travel Blog. Enjoy.

GOOOAAAALLLL!

I saw this yesterday at a Starbucks in München. Apparently, these were all over the place during the World Cup. The ball is made out of urinal cake and the objective is to push it into the goal. I'll let you guess as to how you're supposed to do it. (Hint: it does not involve your nose.)

Of course

it would be AFTER I leave. Deutsche Bahn (the German train system) will ban ALL smoking on trains on 1. September 2007. German Joys (which is a decent blog, but its header disturbs me) wonders is Smoky here is a man or a woman cigarette. And why s/he is partaking in cannibalism. Both are good questions that don't waste our time.

Berlin Pictures

Well, you heard the man. Hop to it!

Berlin

was a blast. Took tons of pictures. Will post some later.

Vanille Eis

Met a friend in Köln today. Very good times. More later.

Break Time

Well, I've been working (?!) for most of the morning on lesson plans and I decided I needed a break. One can only read about the Holocaust and develop appropriate ways to teach it for so long. During my break, however, I will make it look like I'm working by typing feverishly away on this post. Woot woot.

This last weekend was disappointingly uneventful. The weather prevented me from doing anything extremely exciting. I did find a new (to me, anyway) and very good wine bar downtown. I'm afraid I'll be spending more money there. The wine is outstanding and the atmosphere is great. A nice place to wind down. The aforementioned jazz club was not playing jazz on Saturday, so that was a bust. And there are not a lot of good bars in downtown Wuerzburg -- that is, unless you enjoy being smoked out and listening to LOUD 80s "hard" "rock." The 80s never died. They just moved to Germany.

But, Susan and I did get our trip to London all hashed out. We have our plane tickets, hotel room booked, tickets for our "flight" on the London Eye, and tickets to The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre! Out of all those, the Phantom tickets were the most expensive, but we're going to be in London and we HAVE to see a show. It was that or watch Harry Potter prance around naked. Should be a fun and busy weekend. Naturally, I will take lots of pictures (or "snaps" as the British call them). It's going to be weird to go someplace where everyone speaks English.

As far as school goes, it's going well. I think I am doing a decent job, but it's difficult to be enthusiastic about it. It's not an easy job and it's so tempting to go out and about in Germany rather than work on lesson plans or grade endless papers. That said, I love the actual teaching part. I really enjoy teaching. It's all the planning and politics and other crap that makes up 85% of the profession. So, it can be frustrating at times. But overall, I enjoy it.

Speaking of planning and other crap, I should get back to work. Catch you later.

PS: I haven't talked about my MacBook in a while. I still love it and am doing my part to convince others here that they need to get one. One student came in this morning and was VERY excited to tell me that she had convinced her mom to get her a MacBook when she goes to college next semester. HA! One down. Many more to go. OK, now back to work.

Protest

Remember the protest I ran into in Frankfurt? You don't? Then you haven't been reading my Travel Blog. For shame! Anyway, it looks like it's a good thing I left when I did. Looks like it turned ugly later.

Hat tip to Tanis for taking the initiative to find the article about the protest. I didn't even think to do that!

Jesus loves me.

Yes, I know. For the weather tells me so.

Frankfurt

New post and pictures over at my Travel Blog.

München

I posted pictures and a video Podcast on my Travel Blog about Munich. Check it out.

TobyCast

I posted a new video-blog entry on my Travel Blog. It's not all that great, but it's my first one and I had more important things to do tonight! But, it's a start. Let me know what you think! Word.

Oh, and if you're on dial-up, don't bother. It's a fairly big file. And why do you still have dial-up?! Get in the now!

Nürnberg

I just posted some pictures of my trip to Nürnberg on my Travel Blog. It's my new favorite German city! The captions leave something to be desired, but I promise a long, excruciating entertaining post describing my time in the city. Needless to say, I liked it a lot. In the meantime, you can find more information about some of the sites I visited here.

Tschau!

Oh yeah.

I started teaching today. The day went well, with only a few bumps. I had two sections of US Government today; one with 4 students, the other with 20. So, at the very least, I'll gain some valuable experience teaching the same material to two very different classes. Looks like it's going to be a fun semester, as I get to really do my part in corrupting enriching our country's youth. Good times.

Rothenburg

I went to Rothenburg today. It was good times. Check out the pictures at my Travel Blog.

Last weather post

...promise. The DoDDS commander (superintendent) sent everyone home early yesterday. Good thing, too. This happened yesterday afternoon about 500 feet from the school! An entire section of the roof blew off of this building.

More on the weather

From Stars and Stripes.