Our week in Europe (part III: the city of Jena)

Of course we didn't spend our whole time in Jena working. We also did our best to sample the food and drink and some of the sights while we were there. I have to admit that we didn't really adore German food. Usually when you travel somewhere you realize that so many of the stereotypes aren't really true, but in Germany they really do eat a hell of a lot of sausage. This doesn't bother Jeremi so much (though his health may disagree), but I found it a bit much. At least it was quite affordable to go out. Here is Jeremi happily looking at his plate of sausage and sauerkraut, with my plate of some German chili-like creation in the near ground. It was pretty much like chili, but with pork rather than the usual beef, and with a complete absence of spice. The lack of spice was ubiquitous actually, including the indian restaurant we tried. Looks like we're going to continue cooking at home most of the time.

We weren't really expecting much from Jena in terms of a night life. It doesn't make sense, considering the reasonable size of the city (~100 000) plus the large university, but we were warned to expect the worst. After the first two nights we still hadn't really too much excitement downtown, but we were still willing to give the city a shot. But then on our third night, while waiting for the bus to head back to the institute, we decided to take a walk around a block we hadn't seen yet. And then, as we rounded the corner, we saw the most incredible thing - a small street packed full of people, completely lined with bars, cafes, and restaurants. It was like Christmas. We tried to get a couple of pictures at night, but they didn't really show the wonder. We went back the next day to take a couple of photos, if only as proof to our European friends who said there was nothing at all in Jena. (We're talking about Gerd, mostly.)



We also took a picture of the Intershop tower, the only really high building in Jena, which houses a business software company of the same name. It was built during the Soviet years, and is one of the only major buildings obviously from that era. The name people use for the building in German translates as something like the cookie roll, like a roll of dough you'd make before cutting icebox cookies. It really is a giant cylinder. But the real reason that we took this picture, is that from this angle you can see the ruins of another old cylindrical building in the foreground, and the Intershop building really seems to continue straight out of it. The ruins are from the Anatomieturm, or Anatomy Tower, where Goethe once performed anatomic studies. I think the Anatomieturm might have been part of the city walls once, but the sign was in German so I'm not so sure.

And finally, we have one last picture from Jena. It turns out that our last night there was the first night of the Old-Town festival in Jena, where there's a big carnival in the middle of the city centre. We ate and drank, and enjoyed the musical entertainment, and even went on one of the carnival rides. I was quite enjoying myself on it, while Jeremi was merely bemused, while taking pictures of me squealing. That is until the spinning caught him by surprise, and while he tried to take a picture he smacked me in the face with his outstretched arm. And that was the end of the self-portraits while on a rotating ride...