This may be shorter than many of you would like, especially considering the length of my absence. This keyboard is sort of confusing, including one key which I've hit six times now which automatically posts my writing. Also some keys are out of place, y and z are switched, "Shift" is shorter so I tend to hit < when capitalizing, and I occasionally pop in some ü, ö, ä, ß, or € action. But I will survive. Forgive my typos.
Friday I went to the play and bid my farewell to many acquaintances, some whom I shall never see again, sad as it sounds. It was a long drive to the cities for a four-and-a-half hour sleep before again leaving for the airport. The 3-hour flight was fairly boring, but it was well worth it - we were picked up from the airport in a limo and taken to the Sofitel, about a block and a half from Times Square in the middle of Manhattan. We later toured the city with a guide. I wish I would've gotten this guy's voice on tape because then I could play it whenever I needed to fall asleep quickly. Maybe half the bus dozed through his droning on and on about who lived where and when what building was erected. Twice we left the bus, once for a short walk through Central Park and once for half an hour at Ground Zero, where I met some evangelicals who gave me a million-dollar bill with Grover Cleveland on the front. We went and had a nice dinner; I sat with Andrew Mehr, one competitor from Iowa, and another from North Carolina who reminded us so strongly of one of our fellow students that he earned the nickname CJ (Amweg). After this came Hairspray at the Neil Simon theatre, an excellent production. The music, plot, and acting were all superb. That night it rained, but not heavily at all, though it was funny to see all the New Yorkers scampering around like they were about to melt. Who knows, maybe some of them might have.
Sunday morning was free time that I spent at St. Patrick's, the largest Catholic church in New York. The mass was surprisingly swift, lasting only about 45 minutes. One block away we saw the Palace Hotel (I believe) heavily barricaded with police cars blocking off the streets around it due to the preseence of some diplomat, though I never learned exactly whom. The rest of the day was taken up by the tournament and its proceedings. First we were split into groups to grade and review a couple movies the the National Council on Economic Education had put together to show kids in schools. After this we attended a lecture by a doctor, I believe he was head of the Economics or Business department at Columbia. It was fairly interesting but proved pretty much inconclusive and was a sad let-down in that regard. We had lunch (lavish, as they all were), and then headed into the contest. It consisted of two 15-question, 20-minute individual tests, after which we were in third place by five points, the smallest margin possible, representing the difference between answering a question wrong and leaving it blank. Entering the team 15-question, 20-minute written International and Economics Trivia test, we knew we needed to do well, and felt that we did so, answering all 15. Sunday night was a dinner cruise, which was surprsingly cheap at about $70 a ticket for 4 hours cruising around Manhattan island and out towards the Statue of Liberty as well as a very nice meal. Not that we paid, of course ;)
Monday was an early call, as they all were, this time for a walking tour of the financial district and the Federal Reserve. We went down to the maximum security gold vault to see the billions of dollars in gold held there, most of it not belonging to the US. Inside the airtight vault itself, a strong Play-dough like scent wafted throughout. We then walked through a small portion of downtown New York, Wall Street, Trinity Church, and Bowling Greens. We got pictures with a statue of a bull, which from the rear had very pronounced testicles, a fact that our guide constantly joked about. It was... unsettling. We then went to our final meal with the group where they announced third and fourth places before we trekked to the NY Public Library for the final "lightning round" between first and second. Unfortunately, we came in third, but that also meant we didn't need to go through the high-stress fourth round. Hawaii ended up beating Iowa for the title. At that point was the scheduled departure, but Hawaii and us stayed for another night as planned. We headed to the hotel for some downtime, though a few of us went out to an old hole-in-the-wall used goods shop, where Jennifer bought some stuff and I got a German grammar book. That night we went to Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic theatre, and though our seats weren't as good, they were definately worth it. After the show we made our way back to the hotel, but around midnight our team decided to head out and live it up on the strip, before finding out that, for the "city that never sleeps," New York isn't really bustling at 1 am Tuesday morning. We went back to the hotel, but instead of sleeping played a game of Monopoly, all in German, that Andrew had picked up at that store. This lasted until about 3 or 4 in the morning when Jake cornered the market and we al dropped dead.
Wake-up call came at about 6 or 6:30, so we got up and headed out by cab to the place of filming of CBS's Early Show. We were briefly on the 7 and 7:30 EST broadcasts, standing behind the weatherman as he spoke about the blustery cold and rain that we were standing and freezing in. After this, we scored a short tour of the CBS Early Show studio, then took the subway downtown again, this time to Goldman Sachs. A few of my comerades thought they saw someone relieving himself on the door of the train, but it ended up that he was just standing very conspicuously nearby the door. We met up with Nick Schaeden, a former student of Mr. Stark who ended up working for the company that had sponsored our tourney, and we got a brief tour of the trading floor there. Tuesday afternoon was spent by some shopping, and I ate possibly the biggest sandwich ever. Jennifer Dens got a picture, I hope she'll post it and back me up. We napped on and off in the van to JFK, and I said my goodbyes and departed at about 5:30 EST. I ended up in the last row at a window seat, sitting next to a sleeping Dutchman with crooked teeth. There were a number of movies available, and I saw Big Fish, one I'd always wanted to see, before I attempted to wade my way through various others, though without remarkable success at finding a good one.
At Amsterdam, 7:30 local time, I wandered out to find my baggage before realiying it had been checked through to Stuttgart, then had to make my way back in through security, having passed the point of no return. The flight to Stuttgart was on a small plane, and is very hazily remembered since I was dozing in and out, though I had tried to stay awake. As we neared, I stayed conscious long enough to note the German architecture on the landscape below. The Stuttgart airport was more than I expected, almost reminding me of HHH in the cities, which shouldn't surprise due to the cities' comparable sizes. Geli, her father Mannfred, and her little brother Frank, all met me at the airport. Marina, her mother, and Joerg, her brother, were working at the time. Luckily, they spoke English, and quite well, which is good because I wasn't really coherent enough to understand German. We drove home on the Autobahn, though in truth we went about 110 kph, not whatever crazy speeds people think are traveled at on the German highway. I took a short tour through the house and went into my new room to unpack my stuff. At this point, I'd had about 5 hours of sleep in the last 50, which was what I had planned, since my mother had told me that less sleep is better than more for curing jetlag. I lay down briefly on the bed, sure not to fall asleep because of the loud construction and remodeling taking place next door.
Eight hours later I awoke, sometime around 7:30 or 8 PM local (7 hours ahead of CST). I went and had some supper, and met Marina and Joerg as well as Geli's grandmother. Shortly thereafter, Geli took me to Waldclub, I believe, a small club on the outskirts of town. There was a Biergarten (beer garden) outside, which was nice in the cool night air. I met many of her friends, remembered a few of their names, and tried my German a bit. I did quite well in conversation, although I was usually completely lost when trying to listen to two others converse. We danced for a bit to oldies - it was quite odd to listen to songs from Grease and so on in a German setting. Actually one of the wierdest things about this whole experience so far is that, outside of naturally the city, the only large differences are the traffic signals and spoken language. Half of everything written, especially ads, are English, so to be more truthful, "You're the One that I Love" seemed more expected than the Scwäbisch (a strong and difficult German dialect spoken in the region I'm staying). It seemed more like German speech in an Englísh setting than English music in a German setting, if you understand. I also had my first beer, though the third of a bottle of the bitterly authentic stuff really had no visible affect on my full stomach. We caught a bus home at 11:40, arriving around midnight, where I then called my mother after half an hour of trying, checked in with her, and then went back to sleep, still fairly tired from my excursion.
This morning we went to church in the courtyard of one of the three palaces in town. The mass ended with a procession to the
Marktplatz, marketplace or city center, where the main Catholic church is situated directly opposite across a large pedestrian plaza from the Protestant church. I didn't have my camera, so I didn't get any pictures, but I'm sure I'll take some before too long. Actually, I'm not really sure about the situation with my camera, since there doesn't appear to be an easy way to load my pics directly to the computer and internet, so pictures may be delayed at best.
In retrospect, it wasn't quite so short a post. I'm therefore expecting some long comments ;)
