I guess it's April already

Wow, it's been a while.

As you may have guessed, my enthusiasm for posting updates has dropped precipitously. Part of that is that there isn't really all that much new or interesting going on here, and the other part is that I'm just feeling really lazy and unmotivated right now.

A quick news update: our intensive language course is done and we're free until April 20th when the semester starts. I managed to essentially ace the course, though it certainly didn't feel like it when I was taking most of the tests. I suspect that we were assessed more on the instructors' sense of our improvement/invested effort and not on a hard-and-fast scale, though even by that metric I feel like they overestimated me. That's not to say that I don't feel like I've improved, merely that I don't feel like I put as much effort in as I could have.

In the meantime I have been up to pretty much nothing, which feels quite excellent at the moment, though I really should be getting stuff in order so that I can do a bit of traveling. Over the last couple of days it has become really beautiful - today it must have been in the 60's with a cool wind. Biergarten weather is fast approaching.

Yesterday I headed downtown in the morning and wandered around pretty aimlessly for a few hours and managed to end up in a few places that I had never been - here are some pictures:

This is an arch along the old city wall right near the Schloss in town

A building right next to this arch

A tower and part of the old city wall. All around the Altstadt there is a ring of parks which runs right outside where the old city wall once stood. As I was wandering through the park yesterday I was actually approached by two Jehovah's Witnesses which was an interesting conversation.

The west city gate, leading into the Altstadt

Bismarckplatz

The east city gate, leading into the Altstadt


An intersting building right next to the east gate


The Danube


That building from a different angle

A tower a little ways down the river


ruins/art installation: apparently there are roman, medieval and modern ruins all on the same spot which is now a park/installation piece.


An interesting mix of old and new materials


Kentucky Fried Chicken - I was so tempted to go in. Its hard to see in this picture but one of the signs says "Donnerstag ist Chickentag" (Thursday is chicken day)