Long walk west along the Elbe and Tour of the Rathaus(town hall)

A few weekends ago, it was very nice out (17.5C/63.5F and sunny), so I was outside a lot. On Friday, I ended up on a long walk westwards, following the parks along the Elbe and on Sunday, I went on a tour of the Rathaus(town hall) with the other students in my German course. Which is very affordable, by the way (2 or 4 euros for a tour, depending on whether you go with a large group or not).

I. Rathaus
A bit about the Rathaus. Hamburg had a huge fire in 1842 that burnt down a large swath of the city, including the old Rathaus. The rebuilt sometime within the next 20 years, and worked pretty hard at making the thing reflect their status as a wealthy/powerful city/state.

The Rathaus from outside. Pretty, not overly ostentatious:

From Germany 2012-2013

I got there a bit early and wandered around a little, also coming across this WWI monument nearby:

Trans: 40,000 sons of the city gave their lives for you

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The WWI remembrances I've seen are bigger than the WWII ones. The WWII things are smaller. Lots of small plaques on buildings or in front of doorways. Not sure why.

So, something complicated about Hamburg (which it shares with Berlin): it is both a city and a 'state'(Bundesland). As a result, it has both kinds of government, a parliament and senate.  Our tour started on the parliament (or 'less fancy')side.

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The ceiling of the stairwell was bordered by murals of an ideal Burgher's life:

Which apparently has something to do with a mermaid (LL corner)

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Parliament assembly room:

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Room where I think guests of the Parliament sit/wait/are met with:

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And then we entered the Senate side. The doors involved are plain-ish on the Parliament side and super fancy on the Senate side (like so:)

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We were told to take notice of the walls, which were quite richly...covered? I'd say ''papered'', but it's not paper. It's leather (in this case):

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On an adjacent wall, a man wearing traditional Senate dress. It weighed ~30kilos and was never washed, only powdered. Ew.

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I liked the very nautical touches to the sort of classical-style adornments. For instance, a ceiling mural with...walruses?

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This was part of a huge room that included this plaque commemorating a canal dug between the North and East Seas (represented by the ladies holding hands):

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And the ceiling was surrounded by representations of the continents as reliefs that framed paintings of harbor cities that were then part of Germany/Prussia. I liked the continents best, and will just leave them here and you can figure them out :)

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And a nice representation of the seal of the city of Hamburg:

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In the next room was perhaps one of the more pretentious things there:

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 Clearly the Hamburgish version of "SPQR"(Senators Populusque Romanus - The senate and people of Rome). Apparently the "H" is "Hamburgensis".  I chuckled at this and pointed it out to my classmate, and how I found it a bit pretentious. The way the tour guide translated it to German was interesting; 'Populus' as 'Bürgerschaft', which can mean both citizens and the city-level parliament.

Then a fancy circular room with murals of important cities. I think this one was somehow Amsterdam (If anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears, as to why this should be Amsterdam):

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Ah. These doors were worked out of some weird Aluminum-Bronze alloy that somehow required electricity to be worked. Which in the mid 1850s was a bit expensive I suppose, and maybe dangerous. So, each door cost something like 10,000 euros a piece, and of course there were at least 8 pairs of them around:

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More leather walls, now with some metal worked in:

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And in that room, above a fireplace, the Muse of History, writing Hamburg's.

trans(roughly): Who had done the best in his time had lived enough for all time

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The next room contained sort of memorials to the burnt down Rathaus and parts of town. That included this, which was a safe full of silver blocks that someone forgot in the basement of the previous Rathaus:

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Also, I couldn't get any closer to this, sadly, but it's a map of Hamburg and the areas marked in red are what burned down in 1842:

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Here's something from Wikipedia as well.

The entrance to the Senate side:

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The final huge room was quite tall, and surrounded by murals of the history of Hamburg. The start was just marsh and water, then early settlement

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..working over to this delightful one:

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The story: Originally, this contained a bishop blessing a kneeling person who is presumably a Hamburg resident. The people of Hamburg protested that no person of Hamburg would kneel before the church! So, they told the artist to remove the guy kneeling. As a result, you have a church procession with the lead guy blessing...the ground? Nice. The four statues below are supposed to signify traits of the ideal Hamburg(er):  wise, learned, strong and quick. (owl, books, lion skin, bees)

Then on to trading with ships

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and a nice picture of old ships on the left and new ones on the right:

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On our way out we passed this lion on the edge of the staircase, holding the seal of Hamburg:

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II. Walk along the Elbe parks
 On Friday, I walked along the parks lining the Elbe. Crocuses are already blooming:

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Looking the other way, sloping grass-covered hill watched over by cranes

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A better view of the cranes, which are quite brightly colored:

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I guess if you have to have machinery, at least it's colorful.
Here's a view of the harbor, from closer to the water:

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Once by the water and walking along it, came across a patch of very old buildings. Probably the oldest I've seen in Hamburg.

Old house and the path I walked along

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Kooky old house

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More old houses of varying styles

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These houses, along the Elbe, had this path in front of them and then in front of that path was a small yard associated to each house. Some of the yards were...peculiar. For instance, the remains of a ship model used in a newer filming of Moby Dick:

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This one had a cool chair thing in a tree:

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Oh, yes. And an easter egg tree:

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On German Easter(Ostern) traditions -- Trees adorned with eggs, usually with the insides ''blown out'' and then the shells painted. When Easter comes, painted eggs are hidden for the kids to find, or chocolate eggs (which are wrapped in foil). I explained how in the States we usually use plastic eggs stuffed with candy, which didn't excite anyone here. They also have a big bonfire on Easter Sunday or Easter Monday. Announcements of the bonfire say ''Ostern Feuer'', where ''Feuer" means "fire" and "fire" is roughly how you say ''Feier'' (which is ''Party'').

After a while, finally managed to walk past the very old houses and all of the cranes, to a beach:

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And hung around long enough to watch the sun set over the Elbe:

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Show's over, folks

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Start of Term

The last two weeks has been busy, stressful, surreal, with some fun thrown in.

O. Housing 
I spent a few days freaking out about where I would be living this month. It worked out, but now I have a lease for only three months. On the upside, the woman I am renting from (and sharing a flat with) might decide to let me extend it. This all hinges on whether she'll continue living there or not. She just (the day I met her and saw the apartment) ended her career as a Psychologist, and is figuring out what happens next. For those of you who've been to Santa Fe, NM or Sedona, AZ, she would fit right in there.  I'll take a picture to illustrate at some point, but, it suffices to say that the peonies on my room's (rather spacious) balcony are kept company by a seated buddha (maybe 1.5 ft tall), and the corner of my room that the balcony is not attached to is decorated in yellow things and coins in some usage of Feng Shui, while Ganesha reclines on a shelf by the front door, accompanied by some wooden dolphins. It's very pleasant.  Oh, yes. It's also adjacent to where I work. And yet, I have a balcony overlooking gardens and trees. Very clever design, whoever put the block together. My neighbors all have children, which is a bit loud around dinner/after dinner and on weekends, but is nicely quiet after 9pm or so.

I. Teaching/beginning of term. 
In case you are wondering, even with my (sometimes seemingly) Herculean efforts at getting to a passable fluency in German, teaching in it is a whole other story. Yesterday was day 1 of our term (and the last day is in July), and I am running problem/discussion sessions for two courses, Complex Function Theory (math majors only) and Math for CS II (linear algebra and calculus).  Yesterday was the Complex Function Theory, which was a free form kind of day because the homework exercises had not been handed out yet. If it were in English, that would be fine, but I agreed to this assuming I could teach somewhat in German (otherwise, I'd be teaching something a bit harder, mathematically).

On the upside, the kids seem reasonably bright, attentive, and a smattering of them speak good English. Not all of them, based on the blank looks given to me when I would lapse into a complete sentence in English.

Important things learned during class:

• Even if I could say everything I needed to in German, their muttering to each other is still in German, which I don't have quite the ear for yet, and find it hard to tell (so far) if they're lost, or snarking, or what. :/
• So, there's 'time' in German, which is "Zeit" and 'time', as in 'occurance' (one time, two times) in German, which is "Mal".  Like English, to say "2 x 3", you say "2 times 3", i.e. ''zwei mal drei''. 
• Fractions.  3/4 is ''3 durch 4'', literally ''3 through 4'', short for ''3 geteilt durch 4'' (3 divided by 4). 
• Greek letters.  Theta = Tee-ta,  pi is ''pee''. Thankfully alpha and beta are about the same. I haven't asked about the rest. 
• Verknüpfung = operation. As in, a field is a set with two operations, addition and mulitiplication = Ein Körper ist eine Menge mit zwei Verknüpfungen, Addition und Multiplikation. 
• ''Given A..." is "Angenehm A..." which is not quite literal, but sensible. 

During class, I (heroically?) managed to get myself to say "e^{i \theta}" without ''swapping'' letter names. That is, the German name for "e" is "ay" (as in, the English name for the letter "a") and the German name for the letter "i" is "eee".

The other class I'm teaching is run by someone who is a bit of a control freak, so I have problems given to me, as well as solutions (including some complete German sentences, which are very helpful for me) and ''scripts'' (the lecture notes) which are printed and bound nicely. I feel a bit spoiled, I admit.

A note on computer science. Our CS department at U New Mexico was quite good, I think, as was the one at U Illinois Urbana-Champaign.  However, here...there is this weird conception (which has been brought up by at least 3 people around me) that the CS majors here are ''failed mathematicians'',  that is, quite bad at math of any kind, and also kind of dumb. I am pretty perplexed by this. If you're any good at programming, you have to understand modularization, that is, taking a big problem and breaking it into smaller pieces to solve it. This is effectively what you do when tackling a proof. Same kind of analytical thought.

II. Language classes
Man, talk about an instance of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing.
So, unlike what I might expect, things here really don't run by internet. Sure, there may be a website and it may claim to have information, but the information is usually incomplete, and any requests for more information (say, by email) are answered very slowly (up to a week) and then they ask you to call them or even come see them in person.

The reason I took the intensive two-week German course was in part to prep for teaching but also because it was the only thing I could find.

Turns out, there's a network of 'Volkshochschule' (roughly, community colleges/places that run adult or continuing ed classes). One of them works in conjunction with Uni Hamburg (and the other universities around, to some extent) to coordinate the Deutsch als Fremdsprache (German as a Foreign Language) courses. This was the thing whose website I went to to register, and who I asked then if they would have, say, a B2 level german class during the term, since there weren't any listed on their website. Answer: No, but I could travel around the lake (which is a 2.85 euro train/bus ride, or 30 minutes by bike, based on the traffic we have here) to another Uni and take it there (Monday nights only, for 2.5 hrs).

However, I had heard (from my officemate) of another Volkshochschule, down the street. So, I also asked them, and got a completely different answer. All of their courses had already started, two weeks or a month ago, but if I came in (of course) I could take a placement test and then see if one of the courses would match my schedule. Even with starting a month in, it would still be cheaper to do this than go to some other school, so it makes sense. I go in, take the test, and sign up for one in Harburg. I went yesterday, and didn't quite make it. It took some work to get to Harburg, and I still had another 15 minutes left of walking in the rain to try to find the place when I gave up and decided I didn't want to make this round trip twice a week (at about 12 euros a week and ~45min each way, for 3 months, it adds up).  The trip (~20 km):

Größere Kartenansicht

Result? Heck if I know. Rock and a hard place. Do I take the course that meets once a week?  Seems like it wouldn't be that helpful. My current plan for tomorrow is to go to the Volkshochschule around the corner from here during their ''office hours'' tomorrow and talk with them, then go from there.  I applied through the university for a ''tandem'' partner (someone who's native German-speaker who wants to learn English, and we can swap) and have heard nothing. The libraries all have German conversation hours, but I don't know if they're supervised by a native German speaker or if it's just a bunch of nonnative speakers trying to be mutually intelligible.

III. Miscellaneous Culture commentary 


Math/mathy people/people with Ph.D's: It came up in conversation with my classmates in German class that I have a Ph.D. in math, as most of the rest of them are Erasmus students (study-abroad, within Europe) either getting Bachellor's or Master's degrees.  Surreally enough, I was applauded (German-university-style, by rapping the table with one's knuckles) for this, that is, for having a Ph.D. in mathematics.

Beer: Germany is proud of its beer, I suppose. As a result, you can buy any kind of German beer you want. Hefe-Weizen, Weizen, Pils, Schwarz Bier (neither a stout nor a porter...don't ask me) and lager. From various regions of Germany. The only imported beer I have seen with any regularity has been Guinness and Carlsberg/Tuborg (which is probably because we're pretty close to Denmark).   No Belgian beer, or British beer, or anybody else's beer. I find this peculiar. Also, disappointing. Wine selection is not as limited; French, Spanish, German, Italian, New Zealandish (yes, I can buy yellow tail here as well if I wanted) and some South American stuff.

Bicycles: So, as was said to me in discussion about this, in Denmark (and the Netherlands), bicycles are treated as traffic, similar to cars, whereas here, bicycles are treated as traffic, similar to pedestrians. That is, there are bike lanes, but they exist as red-bricked sections of the sidewalk, not separate paths/sections of street. The pedestrians are overall pretty good about staying off the paths, and the cars do a good job of watching out for bikes when they're pulling out or in to parking spots/lots.

Some benefits of knowing (some) German: While loading up my bike one day, a kid flew by on his bike and nearly clipped me and the old man walking along maybe 2 or 3 meters from me. The guy muttered something in German and I nodded agreement. He then asked me if I'm a Hamburger(in) (in German) and, as I'm not, where I'm from (with a construction I hadn't heard before: "Wo kommst du her?" -- I'm used to "Woher" being one word). He then said "Ich mag nicht den USA" and muttered something that sounded like him being in the Hitler youth (!) and something about Rommel (the Desert Fox) something something and how he didn't like the CIA. It was...surreal. I wanted to get to the store before it closed, so I said I was sorry, I needed to go (in German) and he paused, then asked something like ''Weißt du, der kleinste Dom?"  (Do you know the smallest Dôm (Cathedral)?) I shook my head 'no' and he said "ConDOM''.

Things I miss: Now, a place to really settle in to. I have lived now 5 different places over the last year (2 in Urbana, 1 in Copenhagen and 2 here), 6 if you count my stay in Boston pre-Europe-flight and post-Urbana-semester. :) It'd be nice to be somewhere long enough to feel like I could buy my own things. But I don't know for sure for sure if I'll be in Hamburg more than 1 year. And I don't have a long term place to live yet. :/

In closing, here's the Alster on a sunny day (17.5 C) two weekends ago. It goes along with a trip to the city hall, but I'm running out of steam, so I'll write about that later:

From Germany 2012-2013

Language Exam/Learning, Work, and a Bicycle

I. Language stuff:

(a) This week, I took the official (online) language-placement exam to determine which German course I can take at the university.  It was 8 pages, each with a paragraph, each sentence rather long but with 5-10 words mostly removed, that you had to fill in something sensible for. That is, something like (if it were in English): 

``When more than half of the w_____ po_______ wakes _____ Thu_____ – the 101st Int______ Wo_____ Day – _____ be hard to k____ whether to c______ or _______ to d_____. A Bri____ woman will f____ the pr_____ of ____ 14 more gen____ ele____ before women _____ men in the C_____. ''
 

[The ''answer'' is the first paragraph here] 

5 minutes per page. It gave me a bit of a headache by the end, and I couldn't believe how hard it was. If you do speak some German, you can try an example version of the test here. 

Result: Level B1: ''Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc. Can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken. Can produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest. Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes & ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans.'' If interested, you can read the level descriptions here.

(b) Today, I started an intensive German course, 4 ''hours'' a day (where each ''hour'' is an academic hour, meaning 45 minutes) for two weeks. There was a bit of a mixup which caused us (the students) to show up at 9am and the instructor to show up at 9:15, intending to teach at 9:30am. The class ran until 13:00, with a pause of 20 minutes in the middle for a snack or fast lunch from the cafe downstairs.   The makeup of the class is largely female, largely Italian, and largely ''Erasmus'' students, which is an EU study-abroad program (however, not all of the class was female, Italian, and Erasmus; just any one of those categories contains a number of people which is ~half the class). Two other women are also in math, and one also a postdoc. That was neat. Also, I mistake Italian for Spanish when overhearing other people speaking; I mentioned this and was told that it's common. 

We covered various things, some of which I did much better than at than my classmates and others that I am rustier on. At the break, the instructor told me that my level is more like B2, and asked me how long I've been studying German. 


Level B2: ''Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialisation. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options."






II. Work 
I ''officially'' started work on Thursday, which means that that's when I start being considered as someone they'll pay. Huzzah :). However, I found out on Tuesday that my proof of employment for Illinois was not enough (which I'd had sent months ago, and she could've mentioned then, or when I saw her last), so I had to write a draft and have the correct person send it. Information they needed were exact dates (e.g. starting August 15th, 2004 instead of just August 2004) and salary/year. Also, name of position(s) and associated duties. Now that that is done, either this paycheck or the next will be higher than I originally anticipated -- my 7.5 years in grad school count as work experience for the job and raise my pay grade. 

Here's the building I work in (the Geomatikum):

From Germany 2012-2013

It has 18+2 stories. That's floors EG, TG, 1-18. EG = Erdgeschoss = ground floor, and TG=? Technikgeschoss, maybe? Not sure what's on that floor. I suppose I could go look. There are two banks of elevators, one for only odd floors and one for only evens. Good system.

Here's a view from my office, on a nice day:

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The other day, I saw the following parked by the Geomatikum, and have seen it around town. Maybe only Americans will find the name funny:

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On the walk in to the Geomatikum from my (current) corner of Altona, I pass the following weird/creepy and out-of-place photo booth, nestled amidst chain link fence, in front of a rough-hewn fence:

From Germany 2012-2013

III. Bicycle!
Saturday, I went to Flohmarkt Flohschanze, a Flea market (Floh = flea, like in English) a pleasant 1.4km away on the edge of St. Pauli.  I think 'schanze' refers to the street 'Sternschanze', which is trendy and punk, and lies around the corner from where the flea market is held.  I went looking to find a decent bicycle. The very first one I found would've been great, but it had the seat lowered as much as  possible and was still too high for me. After that, I tried about 5 or so different bikes from another guy, all in the 70-90 euro range, and all with some things wrong that I don't feel like dealing with (especially not knowing what it would cost here). Legally here, bikes have to have self-powered lights, which is nice.  I walked around a bit more and through to the sort of back side of the flea market, and there was a set of bikes, clean and looking in good order, including two Peugots (one a women's bike, and one a men's road bike). 2 women were there before me, asking about the bikes and when I was asking after them, yet another person came up to ask about it. I test road it, and they had to play with it a bit (the wires had come a bit loose, so the front light wasn't working), and then I  bought it. Relatively painless, all in all. 


 I then bought a helmet, pump, basket and bike grease from the nice people at RadundTat (play on words: Rad = bicycle, Rat = advice,  ''Rat und Tat'' ~ help and advice). Today, I attached the basket before heading out for German class. I'm considering also buying a basket for the front, for greater carrying capacity. The baskets are very affordable. This giant one I got for the back (with its own kit of mounting hardware and allan wrench) was only 20 euros, and the smaller baskets were 10. 

From Germany 2012-2013

IV. Mexican food!


No, really. Cafe Mexico.  The owners come from Mexico City, I think (so says the review). It's nested by a weird everything-shop where I bought a european-style wallet (it has a coin pouch, which is crucial). I had Chicken Enchiladas with Molé. They make their own corn tortillas, use black (somewhat refried) beans, creme fraiche instead of sour cream, and just-right sized portions. Yum.  

backlog: past two weekends

Time flies, and I'm a bit behind.
I will break this into two posts, one of weekends, and one of the rest.




1. This past weekend I was in Bonn for a bit, and went to an interesting Museum (Haus der Geschichte).

Upon entering the (free) museum, one sees the car (and train car) of the post-WWII German Chancellor, and a video about how he took it everywhere with him, including Moskau

From Germany 2012-2013

Here is the actual signed unconditional surrender document of Germany from WWII:

From Germany 2012-2013

Just to make sure everyone knew about it, the Allies dropped what I might call ''Truth Bombs'' on the public, in the form of missile shells filled with a long scroll of paper. Here's one such:

From Germany 2012-2013

Once the war was over, a large effort was organized, with typical German efficiency, to help people to find missing persons. They posted signs advising people how to proceed. Step 1: Don't just wander around from city to city!

From Germany 2012-2013

And then Stalin turned 70. Oh, wait, I missed some stuff in there. Post war, everything gets divided, and everyone fights over whether to force Germany to regress to a completely agrarian society or not. France and Russia implement programs for this, and the US and Britain did as well, although they changed their minds while France and Russia were flatting factories and telling people to go grow some corn or potatoes or something (when not cleaning up rubble). Russia actually moved entire factories (cut up the building, transported it, re-assembled it and its contents) eastward into well-established soviet bloc areas.

Right, so, the greatest ally of the East German people (heh) turned 70. Hurrah:

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And Soviet-era Germany would not be complete without a slew of squashed rebellions, from as early as '53 and onwards. A swarm of school children came up and babbled things in German to their teacher, mainly declaring that following is a Panzer:

From Germany 2012-2013

Now we come to my favorite part. JFK's handwritten notes. Yes, those. From that speech. 

From Germany 2012-2013

I would translate them to proper German and then English for you, but for those who know German, I think I'd ruin the fun of trying to figure out it. My favorite is probably ''DOICH-lont''.

Oh, and of course; I am a jelly donut:

From Germany 2012-2013

Anywhere in Germany that is not Berlin, one calls (plum) jelly filled donuts "Berliners''. See here. Berliners like to call them "Pfannkuchen'' (Pancakes) which is what everyone else calls pancakes, confusingly enough.

Wikipedia has a nice explanation:

There is a misconception that Kennedy made a risible error by saying Ich bin ein Berliner (emphasis added): the claim is made that Kennedy referred to himself not as a "citizen of Berlin", but as a "jelly donut" (US) or "jam doughnut" (UK), known in parts of Germany as a "Berliner".^[7][8] Kennedy should, supposedly, have said Ich bin Berliner to mean "I am a person from Berlin", and that adding the indefinite article ein to his statement implied he was a non-human Berliner, thus, "I am a jelly doughnut".^[9] However, the indefinite article ein is omitted when speaking of an individual's profession or residence but is necessary when speaking in a figurative sense as Kennedy did. Since the president was not literally from Berlin but only declaring his solidarity with its citizens, "Ich bin Berliner" would not have been appropriate.

After all that, more red menace and cold war commentary.  My cold-war-era Germany++ history is weak, so I'm not sure who this is:

From Germany 2012-2013

I'll end with the following cheery sign:

Chernobyl is everywhere.

From Germany 2012-2013

2. A week ago, I went to Berlin for the weekend.

I visited a neat park and a museum.


The neat park was made of land formerly used by trains, gone to seed.

E.g. tunnel and former (now covered) tracks making a path:

From Germany 2012-2013

It was full of (sometimes artfully strewn) old railway stuff. Here's a look in one of the buildings:

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With an artistic statement around the corner: 

Comparative (bigger, better, faster, stronger) is the beginning of every conflict

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Nearby was a sort of workshop area, and also a round train track-changey thing: 

From Germany 2012-2013

There was also random art strewn around:

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''Art is the nearest neighbor to wilderness''

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and an old steam locomotive:

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The museum (Computer Spiele Museum) was in East Berlin, on formerly-known-as-Stalin-Street (now...Karl Marx Alley, I think).  The street was rebuilt post-war as some kind of poster child for soviet up-and-coming cities. 

Walking to the museum, saw a lot of buildings (and signs explaining the buildings), such as this cinema, with a painted poster for the 'Iron Lady'. 

From Germany 2012-2013

The museum itself explored such deep questions as 'What do old computers do when we no longer need them?' (apparently, play games with each other):

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They had some neat old hardware there, including these remotes dating back to the 50s:

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I also had had no idea that Eliza dated back to 1966.  I knew it was present on Bulletin Board Systems, at least.

Here's some misc old hardware from the 70's:

From Germany 2012-2013

I think the museum's main attraction was its collection of arcade console games, which I played some of (e.g. Frogger). Most exhibits involved playing some games. Old consoles plugged into TVs with super mario 3, sonic, legend of zelda. Monkey island. There were also some things that they were trying to preserve, so they would only let people play them once a month or such, like the 'virtual reality' machine (looked like something out of tron-- on this page, listed as 3-D simulator). On the same page as I just linked to, you can look at the weirdest game -- the Pain Station. You have to be an adult to play, and have to specifically ask the staff to unlock the machine for you to play. It's a beefed up version of 'chicken'. Some people played while I was there, and gathered quite a crowd.  The website's description:

How much pain is a victory worth? The PainStation reveals the dark side of our all-too-human craving for games. The game is an adaptation of the classic "Pong". If the player misses a ball, he or she will be subjected to one of three physical penalties (heat, electric shock, whipping), depending on which symbol the ball hits. Instead of hitting the ball in order to attain the highest score, the player has to avoid missing the ball in order to avoid being penalised. Physical punishment is an integral part of the game. The player loses as soon as he or she removes his or her left hand from the related surface.

So, yeah...

Official stuff in Hamburg

Kind of a short post. First, some amusing words:

German/Danish (English):
das Buch/Bog  (the book)
die Buche/Bøg  (beech tree)
der Buchstabe/bogstavet(?) (alphabetic letter, literally 'beech'+ 'stick'(der Stab))

Oh, I think I didn't emphasize this before.
Copenhagen = København (roughly: Coop-in-HOWn, where 'hown' rhymes with 'clown'. You can listen here. ). You can also hear Bog('boo') and Bøg(~Bo), here.


Yesterday, I got up early, managed to just grab a bus and just grab a train to put me in to my appointment with the 'Hamburg Welcome Center' (read: foreigners office for foreigners they like admitting). It went smoothly, and included getting my index fingers fingerprinted. I then took a walk across town to the Finanzamt (Finance Office) in my area (Altona), since it was nice out, and I was feeling a bit cheap (transit's pricey).

From the start of my walk, a view of Hamburg, towards the Alster:

From Germany 2012-2013

I also took a walk towards the Altona Bahnhof (train &bus station), which advertises itself as a big shopping hub. It actually is. The other night I went grocery shopping and ended up wandering around this giant store (probably close in size to a Target), and was a little dazed by all of the choices (maybe reminiscent of Moscow on the Hudson).

Anyway, found all kinds of cool little stores in a small radius of the bahnhof, on either side.

Here's a view from near where I turned around and started walking back:

From Germany 2012-2013

And some rowhouses nearer to where I'm staying:

From Germany 2012-2013

They're nice and brightly colored, but different sort of construction from Copenhagen.
Walking around, there are little head-sized signs on buildings, saying what year they were built, or what year destroyed and rebuilt. Interesting. I've seen ones that were (re)built in the 90's as well as the 50's so far.

Today, I went into the department, got (and cleaned up a bit) my office, adjacent to the professor I'll be working with (who is out of town the entire month) and that was the main accomplishment of the day. The weather was drear, turning to steady rain from late afternoon onwards.

Continuing in my study of 'Homo Sapiens Europeans', German/Hamburg-oddities:

There are no apartment numbers, just house numbers and names. That is, if you moved apartments within the same apartment building, your address would not change. The buzzer and mailboxes are labeled only by name. Interesting.

For the people who are European, and don't know what this is in contrast with --- in the states, the apartments have numbers or letters. E.g. 1234 Sesame Street, Apartment C.  I suppose the apartments here must have *some* kind of number/description attached to it, maybe only on the papers of ownership.

Oh, right. Addresses.  In the States, you say number, then street. Here, it's reversed. Similar for postal code. Also, I don't think the Bundesland (state/region) is used. So,
German-style address: ''Groß Vogel, Sesam Straße 1234, 56789 ImaginaryTown''
American-style address: ''Big Bird, 1234 Sesame St., ImaginaryTown, ImaginaryState 56789''

Here's a Hamburg-specific oddity. Pink trash bags. Not the pinkness, but that they're just sort of lumped around willy-nilly along...bus routes? If I understood what was written on them correctly. Observe:

From Germany 2012-2013

Leaving Copenhagen, gone to Germany

On my last day in Copenhagen, I woke up a bit early to clean a little more and get out early. I hadn't timed things properly to get one last load of laundry in the day before, but I didn't have that much that needed washing, anyway.

Here's a look into my bedroom, denuded of stuff, with a characteristic IKEA lamp and bookshelf-thinger, as well as the washing machine (which was really fantastic to have). Those black curtains were incredibly effective, and only as thick as a few sheets of paper. The thing the lamp by the window is standing on is attached to the wall. Era--70's? Unsure.

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

The apartment rental people said they'd be happy to watch my stuff while I went to campus, so I hauled everything down my stairs, up the very slight incline to the Strøget (about 2 blocks or so) and up about 2 more flights of stairs, which impressed them. When I came back, they helped me carry my stuff down, so that I only needed to lug the backpack down myself, which I was okay with.

I went to the university to see a friend give a talk in the seminar that the grad students have been holding on the kind of stuff I work on (Goodwillie Calculus) and to eat lunch.  Said a few goodbyes. Returned the bike and turned in keys.

I feel I should say something about the magical world that is Copenhagen's topology group. Their center is flush with funding, which is an amazing thing to be around, but that's not what drives their approach (as far as I can tell), it just greases the machine, as it were.

1. Plenty of professors around/different viewpoint: the topology group includes something like 9 professors (~4 of whom more homotopy-theoretic among topologists), and is an interesting blend of group theory, topology and some analysis-like topics. This is definitely an advantage for the students, as there is a good variety of people to work with, and their view of what topology is is more broad/inter-disciplinary. 
2. Monthly meetings:  Once a month, the group meets over lunch (hooray for department-provided lunches) for sandwiches and discussion/presentation. I attended the one last month, which started with Jesper Grodal running through some of the papers that the students had posted on the arxiv that month and what they were about. It wrapped up with a discussion of the courses to be held the next few academic units (blocks/n-mesters (where n=tri or quad or something)). This was interesting, as the students put in a request for a subject that they wanted to be taught (stable homotopy theory/spectra) and asked to have a class with as many hours as possible (that is, they were quite serious about wanting to learn this). Clearly, the department cares about it's students; that's the message being sent, at least in my eyes. 
3. Required external work: If you're Danish you must (and if you're foreign, it's optional) go study at another university with another professor for something like 2-6 months of your time as a Ph.D. student, which the department pays for. This is a great idea -- you learn new things, you make new contacts, and you also get a bit of a 'break' from the sprint towards graduation, which might otherwise be a bit monotonous or overwhelming. 
4. External committee members: From what I gathered, it's (effectively?) required for your dissertation defense to have at least one external committee member, who reads your document and flies in for your dissertation. Again, great way to make external contacts, get an external letter writer, make it more likely for you to be able to get a job afterwards. 
5. Dissertation defense party: I think that the defense is totally finalized and approved (including deposit) *before* the defense. This makes the defense more of a formality (or party), which is kind of nice, actually, although weird as well, as you aren't really 'defending' your work. I'm not sure if this is uniformly true, but was true for at least one of the two defenses I saw.
6. Guests, Guest seminars/courses: The department hosts guest professors/postdocs and workshops (''Master Classes''). E.g. Søren Galatius is giving a course with Oscar Randall-Williams over their current work. Bruno Vallette will come from France next month to help run a week-long ''Master Class''. There's hope that Lars Hesselholt will run the Stable Homotopy Theory course that was requested. 
7. Ph.D. position interviews: I think this is a Europe-specific thing. There are a small number of new Ph.D. student slots, and they're interviewed for. More of a personal touch than in the States.
8. Coffee: The department has a nice coffee machine (although I agree with a friend that there's something off about the coffee, despite being fresh-ground and brewed -- not complaining, just observing :) ) that produces coffee/espresso/cappucinos/hot chocolate, located in a nice common area that's on the top floor of the institute, with lots of windows.
9. Food: The department regularly sponsors speaker dinners, paying for a handful of students/guests/professors/postdocs to go to dinner after a seminar talk. There was a similar dinner when prospective Ph.D. students visited.  The ''grown-ups'' (postdocs, profs and seminar speakers or guests) meet for lunch every day and the grad students get together for the same as well, all trekking in their groups across the muddy field to the other building's canteen/cafeteria, which is a nice sense of community. The food at the canteen is government-subsidized, so quite affordable, which is why everyone just eats there every day.  

After leaving the university, I walked around a little bit and took a picture near the Strøget:

From Copenhagen 2012(picasa)

On the way to Germany,  I waited quite a while at the Copenhagen main train station to board the train, and then still managed to board the wrong half. That is, our ICE (InterCityExpress, i.e. fastest) train was comprised of two trains linked together, and I'd gotten on the part that would not go all the way to Hamburg. Thankfully, the train would stop once or twice before disconnecting and give me the chance to switch parts. I had the delightfully odd experience (while waiting for the train attendant, who then told me to switch trains at the next stop) of being asked if I speak English, by a nice German girl who was from ~1hr south of Munich (München).  

Following the train switch, I found good seating and room to store my large amount of luggage, which people were thankfully very patient about. During the trip, I went to the back of the cabin where the cafe/food stand was, and asked to buy some water (in German).  There was a Danish guy there already who was chatting up the cafe employee. The Dane also tried to speak with me in German, but I had some trouble understanding him (some combination of accent and vocabulary) and the switch to English was surprisingly disastrous. I *think* he was saying that he has a daughter who movied to Mississippi and accidentally violated curfew...but there were some phrases in there that didn't make much sense (house arrest,..but, Church,...strong!,...now we know). 

The scenery started bright and lovely and descended into low-lying fog as we approached the ferry and moved into Germany. It was dark when we boarded, so I didn't take any pictures. [This is the same train-on-a-ferry transition as before :)]  I got into Hamburg and to the apartment I'm subletting without incident, although the stairs in the stairwell are the narrowest I've ever seen. I would hate to move any furniture in to or out of the place. 

Yesterday there was some walking back and forth between the apartment and math department and other things in the university area.  Here was a neat building mural I saw:

From Germany 2012-2013

And a view out the stairwell of the building that holds the math department(tinted a bit blue because, well, white on white is a bit drear):

From Germany 2012-2013

The day was quite successful, having lunch with the two students of the professor I'll be working with, and also managing to get my contract signed (which involved me returning to the apartment to fetch some documents and then trekking halfway to the hauptbahnhof).

I never wrote up my travels in August, so here's a little pictoral run through Hamburg for you guys (incomplete, though. I'll throw in some more of my pictures in a later post perhaps):

Two neat buildings along the Reeperbahn (ala the red light district), the first called the dancing towers:

From Hamburg August 2011

From Hamburg August 2011

I went to the museum of erotica there, which was actually really interesting and included a lot of Hamburgish history. The German text was more colorful (and complete) than the English text; there was a comment that when the French took over Hamburg, they brought their 'loose morals' with them, e.g.  They also had a crazy bathroom covered in weird wallpaper. Here's part of the sink: 

From Hamburg August 2011

Here's my rough translation: "Man is a biological catastrophe. The Y-chromosome is an incomplete X-chromosome, meaning that it has an incomplete chromosome-structure. In other words,  Man is an incomplete woman, a mutated miscarriage(?), which is already in (its) Genetic stage(?) shriveled/withered.  Man is to be called broken (?); Mankind is a disease of deficiency, and men are psychological cripples (or maybe 'crippled souls'). ''

The infamous redlight district street. I forget the name:

From Hamburg August 2011

The opera house that is way over budget and never to be finished, maybe: 

From Hamburg August 2011

And maybe a nice summary of Hamburg--- Industry, shipping, new buildings, trains, construction: 

From Hamburg August 2011

Oh, yes, and bleakness. I'm told it's pretty constantly overcast, which you can believe from these photos form August, and I can verify is still true now. Ah, well. 

Some trivia related to Hamburg: The Beatles got their start in Hamburg. Also, the only foreign language songs they ever released were in German. ''Kom gib mir deine Hand''(I wanna hold your hand) and ''Sie liebt dich''(she loves you, yeah yeah).  Speaking some German, I find these songs hilarious and awesome. :) Here's the story behind these recordings.