The Owl Has Landed

... or should I say: the Owl's Nest is temporarily the Sloth's Lair. Now that I am reunited with my parents, I am also unemployed. Therefore, I have some time to stroll around my old hometown, which is actually "old" in a double sense. I grew up here, but it is also older than one millenium. St. Ingbert, as it is know today, was mentioned in an official document for the first time in the year 888. Which makes one wonder how Chicago could grow to almost 100 times the size of St. Ingbert in so much less time ...
Anyways, I think I had a great childhood and youth in St. Ingbert, and it is worth the notion that it was the education I received here at the local primary and secondary schools that ultimately enabled me to go to Berlin for a doctorate, and then to Chicago for even more scientific research. And for that reason I would like to share a collection of the pictures I have takes after my return.
A - my parents' house, but not my parents' car. (They drive a Citroën, a French car.)
B - the tower of the church of St. Joseph. The roof went up in flames in 2007, and they are still rebuilding it.
C - one end of the pedestrian zone. I do not remember seeing pedestrian zones in any U.S. city I have visited. I do remember this street before it became part of the pedestrian zone.
D - I was laughing so hard! Delusions of grandeur are an integral part of the nature of Germans, especially when it comes to a comparison with the United States. (But that is a different story.) Note that Germany is slightly smaller than Montana alone, and that my home area in Germany (Saarland, after the river Saar) is even smaller than Rhode Island.
E - the church of St. Engelbert, who is called St. Ingobertus in Latin. This hermit is my town's namesake. The legends make him a descendant of Irish or Scottish nobility. In case of the former, I would have a genuine right to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in Chicago!
F - a pond in the park. I used to feed the ducks with my paternal grandmother when I was a toddler. (Sadly, it is now her who cannot walk so well.)
G - the office building and chimney of the former Becker brewery. These are two landmarks of my hometown, even though the facility is now defunct.
H - a fast food booth with a long tradition. Formerly owned by a guy everyone knows as "Schleppi", this is the place in town for a "brat" from the grill.
I - a view across the valley of St. Ingbert, from the old cemetary, which is actually called the Old Cemetary. The other burial area is the larger and newer Forest Cemetary at the town limits, where there is a significant amount of forest indeed.
J - the creek in the park. Being another indication of delusion, it is called the "Grand Creek" ("Großbach").
K-N - a column at my old high school, where the class of 1996 wrote down their names. I can be found as "Alex U." on M. - The school is called Albertus-Magnus-Gymnasium, which is an example for how words have evolved to different meanings. The greek parent meant a place where both body and mind could be exercized. The English language has maintained the former, and the German language the latter meaning. Note that a Gymnasium (which is capitalized because all German nouns, proper or not, are always capitalized) is the highest tier of secondary schools and the principal road to university access. Other tiers lead to vocational training and take less years. - The degree conferred by a Gymnasium that grants access to tertiary education is called Abitur; hence the "Abilympics" theme of the decoration.
O - a stone that commemorates the tenth anniversary of the town twinning between St. Ingbert and St. Herblain in France. That is remarkable because France and Germany used to be arch-enemies, which originates from a post-Charlemagne rivalry. Charlemagne, who considered himself the heir of the Western Roman Empire, crowned himself Emperor of the Franks in the year 800, thus ruling over much of what is today Germany and France. His three sons then fought each other to reunite the Empire, but they only got as far as eliminating the one brother in the center. Over the centuries the fight was continued on several occasions, including Napoleon's conquest of central and eastern Europe and both World Wars. Since I am a fan of France and currently live as close as ten miles from the Franco-German border, I am quite happy about this new approach.
So much for the places of my youth. The show must go on of course, and I am in the middle of a job hunt right now. Therefore, this is not a sloth's lair, despite the allusion at the outset, and that is not just because sloths do not live in lairs.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

... don't know when I'll be back again. That's the chorus of an old John Denver song (which he performs here with a cool 12-string guitar I wish I could call my own).
I'm finally back home in Germany, after almost two years abroad. I left Chicago, my home away from home, on September 3, 2010. However, I did not return to Germany from there, but I did a little detour via Washington, DC and New York City, NY. This also gave me the opportunity to reunite with some friends of mine. Lucky me had Heather (accompanied of course by Jon) as a tour guide in DC - Heather is the most organized person I have had the pleasure to know, and she planned the entire trip to the most minute detail in advance, which worked out perfectly. I got to see the following places: the Iwo Jima monument (on my own), the White House, the National Mall and the many presidential and war memorials in and around it, the Smithsonian museum of American history, the National Archives (with the originals of the Declaration of Indepence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution)), the National Gallery of Art, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court, Congress (also the visitor center inside), and finally (after Heather's and Jon's departure) Arlington National Cemetary and the Pentagon. This was a very intense weekend (extended by Labor Day), and it would be impossible to show you all the nice photos I was able to take. Thus, I was having a hard time picking out my absolute favorites, but finally I came up with a selection. Also included are photos from my subsequent stay in NYC, from where I ultimately left the United Stated "for good" - for now. I actually met another friend from Berlin in NYC: Dr. Björn Brandt, who pursued his doctorate together with me.
Here is a description of the photos (A-D in DC, E-L in NYC):
A - the White House (front view). It is a bummer that I was not fast enough to get this photo with the (presumed) Secret Service agent on the central pediment.
B - the Washington Monument from up close. The obelisk is as tall as 170 m! It is sourrounded by many American flags.
C - the Washington Monument and the Reflecting Pool. (Yes, the pool ist there to produce a mirror image of the Washington Monument.)
D - the Vietnam War Memorial. The right part is aligned with the Washington Monument, and the left part is aligned with the Lincoln Memorial, which we also visited, but is not depicted here.
E - the Chysler Building. It is my favorite building in Manhattan. When I first saw a picture of it a long time ago I thought it was something like a citation of the Empire State Building's architecture. But in fact the Chrysler Building is even older by about one year.
F - the Empire State Building. It is named after the Empire State, also known as the State of New York, in which the City of New York is located. It is currently the tallest building in New York City, until the new World Trade Center is completed; probably around 2020.
G - the Statue of Liberty. I took this picture from the Staten Island Ferry, which is free, and passes close enough by the statue that I considered a separate trip to Liberty Island a redundancy.
H - the Unisphere. It is a globe of the size of a twelve-story building, located in Flushing Meadows. That is where the U.S. Open tennis tournament is held, and they were actually playing while I was there.
I - view from the Empire State Building at night, toward Lower Manhattan. I highly recommend visiting the Empire State Building at night. It is open until 2 am (the last elevator goes up at 1:15 am). I was there at around 10 pm, and the "legendary long" lines at the entrance (ticket, security and elevator!) were actually not long at all. Plus, the view at night is just so much more stunning! I actually went up to both the 86th and 102nd floor observatories.
J - "Tribute in Light". Every anniversary of 9/11 two giant spotlights commemorate the destroyed twin towers.
K - the beach at Coney Island. This was my first encounter with the Atlantic in two years. And I was about to cross it to go home.
L - the Brooklyn Bridge. The Manhattan Bridge is just behind it.
The video shows the panorama of the site known as "Ground Zero" on September 11, 2010, at around 6:30 pm.
I would like to point out that I visited all five boroughs of the City of New York: I arrived in Manhattan by train (Amtrak) from DC, I stayed in Brooklyn in a motel, I went to Queens to see the Unisphere, I took the ferry to Staten Island (and stayed for about half an hour, until the next ferry took me back to Manhattan), and I went to the Bronx to photograph the New York Yankees Stadium.
After all this sightseeing I was completely exhausted and ready to fly home from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Düsseldorf (Germany) International Airport, where a close friend of mine picked me up and gave me a ride to my parents' hometown.