EuroLife: Day 18

Well, the first eighteen days have passed without a record for posterity. They are behind us now, so I won't not bore you with a long summary or a blow-by-blow account. And there were some blows. We landed a few good punches ourselves, though.

Instead, I'll give you the picture of the day. Actually, there is more than one picture for today. In the future, I'll try to stick to one.


This is our stationary bike. It is old, but it has become a dear friend. It helps us in many ways. For instance, we use the handles as a drying rack for our towels. It was left to us by the previous tenet, who also left us the somewhat ugly but very comfortable couch you can see at the bottom of the photo.

In this next picture, you can see some of the other things our benefactor provided for us -- an Ikea entertainment center, a small TV, the couch, again, here washed out from the flash, and at the right and the left of the photo, two chairs that match the couch. We have a brown motif. There are many different shades of brown, and we've tried to bring them all together here in this one room. You can also see the flowers in the window, courtesy of Dolores. Lest you be depressed at our ugly couch and chairs, I should mention again that the couch is really quite comfortable, far more comfortable than our old, otherwise more attractive futon. What you see in this picture comprises about half of our living space. If I had turned around and taken another picture, you would have seen our kitchen-wall. I'll save that lovely sight for another day.

I will, however, show you the wonderful view from our window. Dolores took the picture this morning. She took the camera out to take a picture of a Great Spotted Woodpecker, a rather exotic looking bird that turns out to be quite common in Europe. The picture of the bird was blurry, but this one turned out well. We live in a "Hinterhous," a small apartment in a courtyard set of from the street. In the morning, if it is sunny, the sun comes up over this wall sometime around ten o'clock.


Facts, Factoids, and Observations

• I saw a man today riding a bike and smoking a cigarette. I've been told this is much harder than walking and chewing gum. On a similar note, Dolores told me that a number of the members of her choir used the short break in their two hour practice to smoke a cigarette.
  
• We live in a part of Jena known as the "Damenviertel" -- the Lady or Queen Quarter. This quarter boasts the largest continuous section of Jugendstil architecture that wasn't destroyed in the war. Jugendstil is something like a Viennese approach to Art Nouveau.
• One of our neighbors has lived in the building for fifty-one years. They got married and moved into the apartment in 1956. At that time, they shared it with some other people, since much of the city still lay in ruins from the war.
• I'm currently reading a book on the history of Germany from 1945 until reunification in 1991. The book says that in 1943, at a meeting in Casablanca, the allies decided they would only accept Germany's unconditional surrender. So in surrender, Germany had to accept any conditions the allies put forth -- occupation, reparations, division, etc. As a matter of fact, Germany lost about a fourth of its prewar territory to Poland, who received it in return for the land Russia swiped from them in the original Hitler-Stalin pact. In any case, this insistence on unconditional surrender makes me wonder. We often use the tenacity of the Germans as an excuse for our bombing of civilians in Dresden, Berlin, Munich, etc. Would the Germans have accepted a conditional surrender earlier? If so, should we have offered it? This isn't just a rhetorical question. I don't know the answer. What about Japan? Did we also demand an unconditional surrender from them?
• On a lighter note, though sticking with the battle motif, there are large plains on the hills above Jena where, in 1806, the Germans defeated Napoleon. Somehow, the citizens of Jena refer to this year, 2007, as the bicentennial of that grand victory. In celebration, the students plan to reenact the battle, Gettysburg style. I plan to be in attendance, though my allegiance, as always, will be with the Emperor. He'll get them one of these days.