...And We're Back.

Class and life in general have been pretty busy for the last week or so (hence the lack of regular updates).

On Monday, our group had a tour of the BMW factory which is right on the outskirts of town. The factory is a huge complex - almost as big as the entire Altstadt - which consists mostly of an assembly line where they make about a dozen different BMW models all at once. The scale of all of it was awe inspiring - we're truly living in the future.

The tour itself was a lot more interesting than I expected. When we started off with a powerpoint presentation and a motivational video, I kind of figured that we had been roped into a two-hour BMW ad, but despite the frequent propaganda, I was pleasantly surprised by how much they showed us and how close they let us get to the whole process. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures so I'll just say that there were a lot of robots and a lot of expensive German cars.


Classes have been pretty good lately - we just had quite a few tests/quizzes over the last week or so and I managed to do pretty well on them so I'm pretty psyched right now. The end of our crash course is looming - less than a month to go, which is exciting since I get about three weeks off afterwards and I won't have to wake up at 7:30 every morning anymore, but at the same time it's been fun and I've learned a lot and I'm a bit worried about what three weeks without classes is going to do to my German. We'll see.


On a completely unrelated note, here are some random pictures. As you may be able to tell from some of these pictures, the weather here is starting to get warmer, though that doesn't necessarily mean that we see blue skies any more often.


The other day, and yesterday as well, I made some beer brauts, which is an excellent dish that has all of the necessary qualities of a good meal - it's cheap, easy, tasty, contains protein, and involves beer.

the finished result

Moving on to some sightseeing, here is a really old tower between Domplatz (where I'm standing) and Alterkornmarkt (through the arch). The funny thing is that right next to the Dom there is yet another church (you can see part of it on the left).

obligatory Dom picture

The eagle on top of the fountain in Domplatz

We had a tour of the Altstadt a couple of weeks back and the tour guide told us about this gentleman, Don Juan de Austria, an illegitimate son of Kaiser Karl V (Charles V) born in 1547 in Regensburg. Surprisingly enough, the Kaiser officially recognized his son and set him up with a position in Spain (hence the Spanish name). Don Juan managed to do pretty well for himself and ended up leading the Spanish Armada to victory against the Turks at Lepanto (famous naval battle). Wikipedia says he died from poisoning or Typhus at age 31.


Steinerne Brücke about 2 days ago - the water level is pretty high (woo spring!) and there were two kayakers playing around in the strong currents under the bridge (you can kinda see them in this picture).


Our tour guide explained to us that when Steinerne Bruecke was built, pretty much nothing was made out of stone due to the sheer expense involved. However, Regensburg was swimming in money at that time because it sits right on the trade route to the Middle East (aka the Danube). When people arrived at Regensburg for the first time (almost always by boat) and saw the massive stone bridge, it was probably the first time in their life that they had seen anything like it so they would immediately know that Regensburg was insanely rich.

This is a statue in the middle of Steinerne Brücke - I'm pretty sure the figure is supposed to be admiring the Dom.

a neat looking house

graffiti

and some more

Finally, a special treat: a panorama of Regensburg taken from Steinerne Brücke


[edit] It looks like Blogger doesn't like how huge the original was so here's a link to a larger version: click me