Priya Barnes

August 3, 2010. There were two rea­sons for Mar­burg being spared from Allied bomb­ing at the close of WWII. A his­toric church and an impor­tant art archive. You don’t want to for­get your cam­era in Marburg.

A friend of A’s, Carol, gave us a tour of the city after which we enjoyed a great din­ner at her restau­rant. Noth­ing beats a tour from some­one who lives in the town. Not even Rick Steves. If you are ever in Mar­burg, try out 5 Jahrzeiten not just for the food but also the gor­geous view of the city from the restaurant’s terrace.

July-August, 2010. Classes dur­ing the week are best enjoyed after an espresso at one of the kaf­fee houses in Mark­t­platz or a cup from the Mensa.

On Wednes­days, the farmer’s mar­ket that sets up just out­side our class build­ing is a visual and lunchtime thrill. Imag­ine our delight in dis­cov­er­ing the mar­ket dur­ing our first week here.

And check out my car in its nat­ural habi­tat!

July 22–25, 2010. We spent a good part of an evening at the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. On the bus from Reus to Barcelona, I lis­tened to Alan Par­sons’ album, titled Gaudi, and after the visit learned about the con­se­quences of being lit­er­ally hit by a bus.

The first pic­ture shows the work and vision of the famed archi­tect Antoni Gaudi on one side of the cathedral.

This pic­ture is of another side of the church. It shows the work of another archi­tect who was com­mis­sioned after Gaudi died from being struck by a bus. The Sagrada Familia is expected to be com­pleted in 2026 but I have my doubts. The story is stronger as a per­pet­u­ally incom­plete archi­tec­tural work.

Sagrada Familia boasts the only sculp­tural depic­tion of a fully nude Jesus Christ. The Cata­lans are known for speak­ing their minds. And the Romans look like pro­to­typ­i­cal Darth Vaders.

The Picasso Museum is another must-see. Of course, you can’t take pic­tures in the museum.

And finally, a video view of a fish mar­ket you don’t see every­day.

July 22, 2010. We had barely dri­ven out of Giessen and we got lost.

Fig­ur­ing it would take us two-and-a-half-hour max on the auto­bahn, we set off for a small sub­ur­ban air­port with a planned detour at pic­turesque Bernkastel-Kues along the way. Four hours and a few nutty petrol sta­tion stops later, we lit­er­ally ran into the last car­ferry cross­ing that would take us across the Rhein. Whew! Okay, so the 20 euro GPS might have been a smart idea. Google maps can also do bet­ter.

Bernkastel-Kues is another insanely charm­ing place along the Mosul River.

On the way back from Barcelona, we stopped at Koblenz to check out the con­flu­ence of the Rhein and Mosul rivers, includ­ing a pre­car­i­ous ride on a lift to get a bet­ter view.

July 19 — 20, 2010. Giessen is a small Ger­man city and a large uni­ver­sity town. Stu­dents com­pose a third of its 70,000+ pop­u­la­tion. It is located about 45 min­utes by train from the bustling Frank­furt Main hbf or Cen­tral Sta­tion. Jus­tus Liebig Uni­ver­sity is spread out across the length and breadth of the entire town. While the build­ing in which our classes are held daily is gor­geous, it is the excep­tion rather than the rule.

Eichen­dor­fr­ring, where our dorms are located is a 7 minute bus ride from class.

There are stu­dents here from many coun­tries, includ­ing Lux­em­bourg, Greece (with apolo­gies to Ger­many), Brazil (with no apolo­gies to Chicago) the U.S., So. Africa, Ethiopia, Viet­nam, Roma­nia, Korea, Texas and others.

Some of them can be seen here enjoy­ing a Ger­man bier­garten in Giessen. Ger­man men (and women) are com­fort­able drink­ing beer fla­vored with lemon, banana and apri­cot. Yum.

July 18, 2010. A boat along the Rhein took us to Marks­burg where we enjoyed a tra­di­tional Ger­man meal and still more stun­ning views. A great way to kick­off a week of study­ing back in Giessen. The trail to the cas­tle is a steep, unpaved 25 min­utes. And, drag­ging your lug­gage on its wheels is not rec­om­mended.

July 17 — 18, 2010. We couldn’t have ordered bet­ter weather or wine for our short trip to the Rhein Val­ley. Here’s a short video of the vine­yards on the banks of the Rhein taken from the train.

The next morn­ing, we could almost hear the roost­ers crow­ing as we looked out the shut­tered win­dows of our attic-suite in Bacharach. Here are a few unbe­liev­able pic­tures. And yes, the views were taken from my iPhone 4. Both are amaz­ing, no?

July 17, 2010. We took the right train from Giessen to Bacharach via Frank­furt and Koblenz. Deutsche Bahn rocks. But A rocks more.

She fig­ured out how to get the right tick­ets from a Ger­man language-only ticket kiosk.

Ger­man Idol

S says she wants to try every­thing at least once. Includ­ing help­ing  a young Ger­man qual­ify for Ger­man Idol by bet­ting 1 euro. Watch.