"The boulevard is not that bad."

Hello everyone.

Last Friday after work I went to the Schlossgrabenfest, a free music festival here in Darmstadt. Since I went so early in the evening, there wasn't yet much of a crowd so it wasn't all that interesting, but on the upside I was able to take some pictures (of a really cool building here, for example), eat dinner, and pick up groceries.

After sleeping in on Saturday, I went running in the forest which is right next to campus (seen in the distance here). As it had rained a few hours earlier and was nice and cool, I was flying. For better or worse, I did not bring a watch or a compass with me, so after a while (although I still felt good), I realized that I had lost my sense of direction and had no idea how long I had been running. So, I stopped in order to get my bearings, only to realize that I still had no idea where I was and that I was actually pretty tired. But, I had no choice but to keep moving (albeit at a slower pace) in the hopes of running into someone who could give me directions. Eventually, I chanced across an elderly German couple and was able to ascertain the general direction of campus. I made it back to my room, ate some lunch, and did my laundry.

By the time I had finished those activities, the time was drawing near for me to head to the trolley stop at Schloss where I was to meet another North American student (who is working in Darmstadt through the RISE program) and her coworkers and go once again to the Schlossgrabenfest. While I was waiting for the others to arrive, I ate dinner a place called "Ye Babam Ye", but I am not really sure of what ethnicity it was. For my meal, I ordered something (I can't remember the name exactly, but the picture of it is here) and it was delicious! Here is a picture of one of the workers preparing it for me.

Unlike the department I am working in where everyone is German and therefore primarily speaks German, Ola's (my North American counterpart's) department has individuals from Italy, France, Iran, and China in addition to Germany. Because of their diversity, the common language was English, which was extremely convenient for me. Here is a shot of some of the group. I failed to get one of everybody, but you live and learn, I guess. In any case, they were warm to me and were and fun group to be around despite the short period of rain (here and here). We listened to a few bands, the best of which was a German-Reggae group that played a number of fun songs including covers of Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal", U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday", Bob Marley, and The Killers. Also, I had my first Mojito (in honor of my days as a vice cop in Miami) from a Brazilian beverage hut, and once again needed to use Spanish to sort things out.

Overall, I had a very good Saturday, but the highlight of my weekend occurred on Sunday which will be described in the following post. Until then, tschüs!