i trained it up to the frankfurt to spend some time with the family of an exchange student that spent some time at a very close family friend from providence. how i knew them wasnt as important as the fact that i hadnt a place to go for rosh hashana. the family was very nice and invited me to spend my holiday weekend with them. friday night we went to a friend of theirs for dinner. it was nice, interesting variety of invitees. saturday morning we went to temple. temple in frankfurt was interesting to say the least. it was “orthodox” in the sense that men and women were seperate. but nobody in the service sang, followed along or prayed except the few at the bimah. everyone else just sat, stared around, and talked. you couldnt even hear the rabbi if u tried. once in a while he would shush the crowd but that only lasted a half a minute until the crowd resumed their conversations. it didnt really feel like temple. admittedly, i didnt always follow along when i went to synagouge back home, but it was still nice to sit and sing and listen to others singing. however i found this lack of interest in the service very concerning. i voiced my observations to my host family, who seemed not to bothered by it. based on what i saw at this temple i am convinced the fate of the jewish community in frankfurt is limited. there were not many younger people there (and i can understand why), and the older people didnt seem to be making any effort to change the current practices to involve the congregation. on the flip side however, i always felt the prayers in the sidor didnt not always capture my personal feelings very well, and the real reason for going to temple was to bring the community closer together; and on that note the members of this congregation did a great job of talking with each other. in anycase my experience at frankfurts largest synagouges (probably one of germanys larger ones, as frankfurt has one of the larger concentration of jewish people in germany) was very interesting…saturday after temple we went for a quick bite, italian food. i got a tunasalad. in the afternoon the daughter of my host family took me around a bit, then we meet up with some of her friends for a quick drink. after a dinner with my host family and a quick nap, the daughter of my host family and i met up with some of her friends and went out in the center of frankfurt. first a more obscure spot with an alternative/grunge crowd, then to ‘the living’ a very large disco in frankfurt. it was a decent time…sunday morning i got up early and hit the town. i had one day and a long list of sites i wanted to see. first i went to borner platz, where they had a jewish memorial. then i walked to near the opahouse and had a half sandwhich and read the news paper. i then went to the goethe house. this was a great museum/house. i got a PDA that told me everyhting about every room. and the staff was very knowledgeable and helpful. really enjoyed the visit here. i then went on to roemerplatz where i sat outside and had a frankfuter (a trip to frankfurt would not have been complete with out it.) i continued on to the Dom church. after much walking a decided to stop for a real lunch, and popped into a sushi place. (sushi here is expensive!!) it was the type of place where the sushi keeps going around on a conveyer belt and u grab whatever u want. after a couple tiny plates i was walked onward and stumbled upon another great tourist spot, the main tower observation deck. i went up 150 meters and got a great view of all of frankfurt. after the main town, i crossed the main river and visited the architecture museum. mission accomplished i visited everthing i had set out to see. after a long day of walking i grabbed an icecream and took a nap on dock with my feet in the main river. very succesful day. i hopped the train back to reutlingen.

sunday afternoon i met up with a friend from northeastern who is studying in Madrid and a friend of hers from Munich . I met them at the chinese tower in the english garden, europe’s largest public park. similar to central park. I had a half hendl mit pommes frites and a raddler (half of a roasted chicken and fries and a 1/2 beer 1/2 sprite drink) . after that we meet up with my other northeastern buddies at an irish pub. after a couple drinks we ended the night early. we headed to a our sleeping accomodation, which was a small camping tent. basically a huge soccer field was used to pitch a hundred or so tents (each housing up to 4), the camp site was called wiesn camp. at 10 bucks a head, it was a great deal . i wasnt prepared for the slightly colder weather in Munich so i spent most of the night rolling around on the uncomfortable floor trying to keep warm. the next morning we were up early (7:30ish) so we could get to oktoberfest early. we noticed we were the only ones awake at the campsite but didnt think twice about it. at oktoberfest we were one of the first people there. we realized we were a bit toooo early. in anycase once the tents opened we went inside. we chose the schottenhammel tent (reccomended by maxim, about.com, and every native i spoke to). the tents holds about 6000. we were the first 6 patrons of the day. at 1pm or so i got lunch, the exact thing i ate the night before (it was really good-again). cleared the plate. i returned to our table. our seats were arguably the best in the house. front center and right next to the band. my group had planned to leave that ight back to reutlingen, but i decided to stay an extra day as i was invited to stay in munich my friends friends place. my reutlingen buddies left around 4pm for the train station. just before they left a group of 5 men joined the table. they were british. a professor from oxford, a state councellor, a guy who teaches in cuba, a recent grad, and another goverment employee. what my reutlingen buddies and i didnt realize before was that the real oktoberfest partying doesnt occur till about 8pm or so. people just get there much earlier to save a seat, just like the one we had. the majority of people in the tent had been drinking from noon till about 8pm from liter sized mugs. needless to say everyone was ready to party. it started with one table just next to us. the starting dancing on the table, then another table and another table then my table, then next thing i new all 6 thousand people in the tent was dancing and singing on there tables. it was the party of a lifetime. nuff said.
the next day i went to the deutsches museum in munich with my friend. we were told it was a 20 min walk…turned out to be a 1.5 hr walk, and it started pouring rain. it was a science and technology museum. the highlight was seeing all the old fighter planes, helicopteres, and ancient sailboats. we had lunch at the famous hofbrauhaus. i had the fish dish. i got back on the train and thats where i am now, writing all my memories from this fantastically eventfull weekend. souvenirs: 1LT mug, sweater.

on sunday morning a group of us left reultingen for a trip to Munich. we decided to make a stop at Dachau, the first and last concentration camp used by the nazis. no matter how much u have learned about the holocaust places like this will always shock and disturb u. dachau is best known for perfecting the sickeningly violent and uncompromisingly percise concentration camp model. as the only jew in my travel group i had assumed that the experience there would not have been as meaningful for the rest of the group, but i was wrong. it seemed to have a serious impact on the entire group. with my agnostic beliefs i am always confused when it comes to prayer but i had the urge to relate to my history and ancestry some how. but what could i say. there stood, in a place where people more righteous than i, made prayers with more meaning than i could understand. Lost, i asked a friend what he that a a proper prayer would be in a place like this. he respose was suprisingly satisfying. he told me to pray that the people who died here didnt die in vain, and that nothing like this ever happens again. this trip to dachau was very eye-opening and it serves as a reminder to the catastrophic results of ignorance.

Friday night saw the movie ‘Das Parfum‘, interesting movie to say the least. At about 2 AM the movie ended and a buddy and I decided to stop a local pub, Bier and Wine, to say hi to some friends. We ended up staying a bit longer than expected and i got home by about 3:30 AM. a couple of hours later I was awake, and tossing together a quick sandwich for a day trip to Heidelberg. on the way to heidelberg we stopped by the sinsheim museum. the museum was full of airplanes and cars. the highlight was going inside the concord.
in heidelberg we visited the heidelberg schloss (castle). it was mostly ruins but you can just imagine how amazing the castle was in its prime, overlooking over the entire city. the schloss had a room where i saw the worlds largest wine barrel, able to hold 55k gallons. After lunch (fleischkaese: a square flat hotdog with a sunny-side-up egg on top and some french fries on the side. i had no idea what it was when i ordered…but it was edible.) we stopped by the student prison. it was a prison that used to be used by the university of heidelberg back in the day to house students who acted up. from the sounds of it, u didnt have a good time at the university unless u were ‘locked up’ at least once. the walls were covered in graffiti and silhouettes of the students faces. all in all it was a fun little trip. souvenirs: Lederhosen Aipron, Bottle of Pompegranite Liqour.

after spending a week in CA satisfying my craving for quality family time,
perisan food, an animal style at in-n-out, and some time wrestling the waves at the beach. i packed my life in 4 bags and began my move Reutlingen.
i have been here a week already. so far i am really enjoying my time here. the city is incredible. life is much more laid back and natural. rolling hills of uncut grass. stores close for a couple hrs at lunch time. despite all the hills many people prefer to bike. i am looking into getting a bike for myself, then hopefully doing a weekend bike tour to another city. i really enjoy my room here, and am especially fond of my view. there is also a running path through the woods near my school. whats great about it is it has work out stops on the path, all made out of logs. u really get a great core work out. the downtown here has everything u could need all condensed into a maze of cobelstone streets, imagine the german town with the wood work houses painted in pastel colors. but there are also many modern building built into the city between the older homes, its adds a nice contrast.
the students here have been extremely nice and fun, and love to party. a couple of my NU buddies and pregamed a little in my room and continued the party in the Fishbowl outside the french students apt. i was soon to nicknamed the “schwimbadmeister”, which means poolmaster becuase i was encouraging people to go to the town pool the next day. my night ended with people chanting schwimbadmeister, its was a good time.
i have finished the 1st week of three wk intensive german language course. last night we went to a wine fest in the stadtmitte, we had three bottles throughout or sit (there were a bunch of us NU crew plus some irish and indianu U students. we got a reisling, a random dry red wine and a another white that i didnt really like. after that we hiked it to the only disco in town, the Fahrbarie. it was a small place and it seemed that everyone there was from ESB. it was ‘doubletime’ when we got there. everybody was havin a great time, and at some point i think i was in the middle doing a windmill. we were there for a while and me and an NU friend trekked back to campus. we got home about half past 3. the next morning got up around 7:45 for a trip to constance [bus leaves at 8!!] i quickly ran door to door and woke up all my buddies and we all ran to the bus making it just in time. we took a day trip to the lake of constance (bodensee). absolutely incredible. on our bus ride there we stopped first at a la Caterdral Zweifalten. we then continued towards the lake and parked the bus in a lakeside town called Meersburg. there we ate a quickly, i had apful strudel mit eis and an expresso machiatto. expresso blew my mind i was wired all day. we then walked towards the lake beach front so we could jump in for a quick swim. we ended up by walking into a resort type place. the desk attendendent wasnt at their desk so we decided to walk in…greatest idea ever. this place was an oasis by the bodensee. [[NU buddy in foto]]two pools the overflowed at the edges each with a magnificent view of the lake. a mini wave pool, a slide, topless sunbathers, a dock and a highdive into the lake. the water was pretty cold but refreshing (fresh water). we jumped of the high dive and did some swimming around then back to the meeting place to board the ship to Constance. at constsance we only had an hour so we ran around trying to make the most of it. its a was a very nice little city with lots of interesting builings and grand church that was currently being built. its was massive. we ran (literally) back to the bus and we began back Reutlingen. fantastic day.