a spinning mind: Erlangen at Large

My body is still freaking out a little about being off schedule apparently. Saturday night I went to bed at 10pm and then woke up, wide awake at 5am... so I got up and ironed 8 or 10 things including a pair of new pants I’ve been fighting to get the creases in the right place. I think I worked on those an hour, changing the crease at least 6 times. I have a much better understanding of the way fabric is fit together into pants now!

Tip for gentlemen, your mother-in-law will be impressed if you can iron. You’re going to need her to like you, especially if your father-in-law is the shotgun type.

Anyways, I don’t have very many clothes here, but the things I do have look much better ironed (that includes a few nice T-shirts), so I may take this year and iron everything and become a pro. So after ironing forever I had breakfast, espresso and müsli, went for a walk then came back and crashed on my bed for an hour nap. Post expresso? Yes, I told you my body is still freaking out. woke up with 15 minutes to get dressed, in freshly ironed clothes, and make the 7 minute skate to a church I wanted to visit at 10:30.

The church was called ‘International Jesus Gemeinde.’ The service is in English and German. I met a few cool people and enjoyed it overall, but still plan to visit other places. I might want something more German intensive to challenge myself more. Regardless, the guys there play soccer indoors once a week on a nice turf field starting up in a few weeks. I’ll definitely be in on that! I was surprised how many folks from the UK were there and had been there a few years, still without learning much German. Then someone mentioned that SIEMENS is headquartered here in Erlangen. The company operates in English and often has employees from branches come to Erlangen for three year stints. Almost 1/3 of Erlangen’s population consists of SIEMENS employees. Another 1/4 are students (many of whom are gone the month for vacation sadly). In a city of 100,000 people that makes about 30,000 SIEMENS employees and 25,000 students. That explains a lot of the city set up and architecture.

Years ago, Erlangen was a much smaller place, back when they built those classic old German houses with the dark wooden frames with white ...stuff... filling the gaps. The university takes a very central location in the city bordering most of the oldest buildings. The campus has lot’s of impressive looking buildings itself and a huge garden for lack of a better term where this time of year there are quite a few people sitting out, picnicking, and all that jazz. Outside of that you start getting some skyscrapers (I use the term loosely, this is still Europe). I was out exploring and found myself quite lost amidst a cluster of ominous 7 story buildings (I think there’s a code that says buildings can’t be taller than that). All I could see in every direction was SIEMENS. It was actually kind of intimidating. Once you get passed that you get to my area, which is Erlangen now, but used to be a small neighboring town until it got swallowed up. Here are some pictures from my skate around the city. I also want to post some from where I live, and eventually some of Herzo where I work. Time is limited though so be patience, as my sister would say.

By the way, I write these at home when I’m free and then post a day or two later when I get internet. I can’t afford to waste internet time writing, so you’ll always be a few days behind. Monday is my first day of work, and I won’t get to posting this till my work day is done, but from my blog’s perspective it’ll still be Sunday.