EuroLife: Day25

Well there's good news and bad news today. The good news is, Michael does not seem to have a cold. For the record, it was not so much the rain as the recent outing with a sick friend that caused the threatening symptoms...though the rain does make a better story. The bad news is, we think the elephants have moved in upstairs and are now here to stay. The semester starts this week, which could explain why there's rarely been anyone up there since we moved in. Here's hoping that the "football" matches are few and far between :)

The music scene in Jena: Yes, I suppose we have not mentioned that. I can't speak for Berlin, but Jena is all about death metal and punk rock. (Picture posters and T-shirts with angry English phrases like: "born in misery" and "Agnostics: Love to be Hated" and others, which will not be repeated here.) I would guess that the average person in Jena has at least one facial piercing. This is not because most of them have one piercing, but rather because many of them have a great deal more than one facial piercing. So, I'm not sure how a singer/songwriter will fare in the local music clubs. Still, there seem to be a number of places in the region--and some in Jena--that do have performances by songwriters. I think they're concert halls rather than clubs, but frankly I'd prefer that. It's just a matter of figuring out how to get gigs at those places.

Two striking things about the pierced (read: pierce-ed) people of Jena: they have many many babies. Babies everywhere, more than anywhere I've ever lived. (This has been confirmed by numerous people, German and otherwise.) Also, they are astonishingly obedient when it comes to traffic signals. It doesn't matter if the street light has turned red, such that the cars may no longer drive. Until the little green man appears, not a soul steps off the curb. (Can souls step off the curb? Perhaps this should go into the dissertation...) I mean it--my friend was astonished when I made a play for the street in one such situation. She put her arm out and said "It hasn't turned!". Before she'd finished the sentence, it HAD turned and everyone leaped off the sidewalk. This is very difficult behavior for a New Yorker to tolerate, much less comply with.

It's particularly funny to see a group of mohawked, pierced teenage boys stop at the light when there are no cars as far as the eye can see, and simply wait politely for the little green man.

The two pictures today have nothing to do with anything I've said so far. Sorry about that. We haven't taken any new pictures for a while--except for the ones we took today which Michael will post tomorrow...a little teaser for you. Both of today's pictures come from the mountain closest to us, Landgrafen. If you look closely you can see just how different the terrain is. We had been walking among giant Oak, Maple and Birch trees; we turned onto a new path and it was all evergreens. It's really so beautiful up there.