PDA Got Fried

June 14th, 2004 • Comments Off Marshall Memorial Fellowship

My Palm T3 is on the fritz. If I can’t recover it, there may be very few entries for the next two weeks. I’ve got a flight to Bilbao today so that should give me time to mess with it. In addition, if I can’t get it to work, my access to email will be severely (if not totally) curtailed.

Hanging in Hamburg

June 13th, 2004 • Comments Off Marshall Memorial Fellowship

So today we were supposed to go to Lübeck for a walking tour of the city. Lübeck is a one hour train ride away from Hamburg. I was planning on going and just hanging out and not doing the walking tour. But I was given the option of skipping it entirely since I’m still hobbling about. So I decided to punt on Lübeck and now I’ve got a day to catch up on things and get some rest. My ankle is doing much better and I’m hoping to be near 100% by the time I hit Poland. I’ve also got a doctor appointment set up when I get back with the hopes of improving/fixing this ankle so that this either doesn’t happen again or isn’t as bad next time.

Last night we had a pretty good dinner because of the great company. The food wasn’t spectacular especially since I had asparagus in Germany for the gazillionth time. If you don’t know my asparagus story from Munich and you care, ask me sometime when you see me.

So anyways, I’m chillin’ today. I’ll probably read a book and I’ll most likely watch too much of the only two English stations here - CNN and MTV. I’ve actually heard some good European English songs that I’ll have to get off of Napster (if they have them) when I get back.

BTW, I brought perhaps one of the best gadgets with me on this trip thanks to my wife. Prior to leaving we went out and bought an international atomic travel clock from Brookstone. You install different antenna units based on where you are in the world and the clock auto synchronizes to the local atomic clock. The rooms I’ve stayed in so far (2 hotels) BOTH didn’t have a clock of any kind. Since I don’t trust wake up calls (especially when you get a call by signing up for a time on a piece of paper), this clock, with 2 different alarms, is a fabulous thing to have.

Tomorrow I head off to Bilbao, Spain. The fellows going to Barcelona are staying at an Intercontinental hotel. I’m sure myself and the folks in Bilbao won’t be that lucky. Ah well. Should be fun.

I’ll Have a Hamburg and a Side of Fries

June 12th, 2004 • Comments Off Marshall Memorial Fellowship

So, I’ve been in Hamburg, Germany since Wednesday. The flight to Hamburg was uneventful so it was good. I had just sprained my ankle on Tuesday so I was suffering. Fortunately, I have a great bunch of fellows that I’m travelling with and so they took care of me and my stuff. That evening we had dinner at a great Asian fusion restaurant (Henssler & Henssler). In fact, this was the best meal I’ve had so far on this trip. They gave me a phenomenal potato soup.

On Thursday, we hit the US Consulate in Hamburg. Susan Elbow (Consul General for Hamburg) was absolutely great. She had a great perspective on Germany and the U.S. We had a few other meetings but the most important was at the newspaper Hinz & Kunzt. Hinz & Kunzt is a Hamburg newspaper that is sold exclusively through the homeless or low income individuals. The most interesting part of the meeting was talking with two of their vendors who were not homeless but definitely low income/welfare individuals. One vendor, Ulrich, also had quite a number of paintings that he did at the Hinz & Kunzt office. I must say they were quite good and insightful. Hopefully he’ll get discovered one day as an artist and escape his current situation.

Wednesday started out with a bang. We had a meeting with the Hamburg Waterways Police. The session was informative and then we got a ride in a police boat. Now talk about a fun ride.

Friday night another fellow, one of the coordinators, her sister, and myself went out to dinner to Krameramtsstuben am Michel. The restaurant is in one of the few undestroyed medieval streets in Hamburg. After dinner we hit the Reeperbahn district. We walked around a bit (quite a feat for me at this point) and saw some interesting sights. If you know what the Reeperbahn area is, you’ll know what I’m talking about. We didn’t actually go into any of the establishments but we did end up at a bar for a few drinks (”Purgatory” in case you’re wondering).

Today (Saturday) we went on a boat tour of Hamburg. We saw a bit of stuff with the waterways police but we did see a few new sights. Plus the sun was shining a lot more today than yesterday. We’ve got dinner tonight and tomorrow and then I head off to Spain on Monday.

Also, I got an email from some folks wondering if I had sprained my other ankle and if I was being hauled around in a wheelchair. I, in fact, have not done something so stupid but thanks for the words of support. I’ll get the folks responsible for the comment when I return. I have been pushed around in a wheelchair during the last few days. First time I’ve ever had that happen.

Also, in terms of first time experiences - I’ve finally used an ATM machine. That’s right, I had never used one up until recently. I’ve now used it once in Brussels and once in Hamburg. I definitely see the convenience of having an ATM card. Not sure I’ll keep using it when I return though.

I probably won’t post anything more until Monday or Tuesday. Hope all is well. My ankle is getting better so I’m happy.

I Sprained My Ankle at NATO… E-I-E-I-O

June 8th, 2004 • Comments Off Marshall Memorial Fellowship

Quick entry right now. I was excited about visiting NATO today. So excited that my right foot slipped on the curb getting off the bus. This is same ankle I messed up playing basketball some years ago. My ankle is pretty badly sprained and so I got to hang out at the NATO infirmary.

This is going to be a fun 19 days in Europe…

I’ll Use My Chapter 11 Card And Continue Past Go!

June 7th, 2004 • Comments Off Marshall Memorial Fellowship

So I know some of you may have been coming by the site the last few days looking for updates and were disappointed by no new entries. For this, I apologize. Let me explain. The problem centered around my using my Palm (T3, if you care) as my access device to the Internet. Apparently Palm, unbeknownst to me, never increased the size of the clipboard on the palm. So I wrote a long entry into my note pad with the hope of pasting it into my web browser. Unfortunately, the entry was too long. So I had to post it in parts and this is VERY time consuming. Given that I don’t have much time here from the get go, it took me a few days to get done. This time I’m bypassing the note pad and typing directly into the browser. I just hope I don’t run out of power or have a browser crash while I’m doing this.

So the past few days have been interesting. On Sunday, we travelled to Ghent and did a walking tour. The most interesting thing I did was eat a hot waffle (as in Belgium waffle) from a street vendor. This thing was ridiculously good. If you’re ever in Belgium, buy one of these. But make sure you get it from someone making it fresh in front of you. Insane. I just can’t figure out why we don’t have street cart waffle vendors in the U.S. You could make a killing.

Monday was our first official fellowship day and it was a good day. The highlight of the day was visiting the European Parliament (look kids, Big Ben, Parliament…). We got a tour and took a group picture at the main EU Parliament meeting room. Pretty neat.

The feedback and interactions with the Europeans has been interesting to say the least. One speaker today (Monday) was pretty critical about the U.S. and our policies. Some warranted, some not so much.

On the personal side, I’m dealing with my allergies here. I’m just glad I brought Visine and Claritin. Without these I’d be a sniffly, red-eyed miserable fellow.