Basic Day at School

Well hello there.  A bit earlier, is it not?  Want to get this in before the games start, so lets get to it!

I woke up.  Ate a ton of yogurt because the breakfasts here consist of either meat, yogurt or meat and gosh darn it I so do not want to eat a sausage at seven in the morning.  The nice man brought me a pot of coffee again this morning, but because of how wired I was yesterday I cut back to two cups.  I like this guy and he needs to come home with me so I can have coffee around the clock. 

We went to class, and I stumbled up to the basic class- thats what it's called.  I'm so basic.  At least I don't drink starbucks.  Sorry for my slang, it was too good to pass up.  Anyway, we started by chatting with the others in the class.  Out of the 10 people in the basic level, 7 are from my school. Two from Spain (Barcelona and Valencia) and one girl from Hong Kong.  I feel bad for those three, because us UNCW kids already know each other and I feel that they're excluded a little bit.  So I sat with the Spanish girls.  Because I'm a bit homesick for a language I know!

We did some basic stuff, like basic questions, basic verbs, basic conjugations, basic sentence structures.  It was nice to have the refresher, but please god don't make this a repeat of Spain where I learn stuff I already know!!  At least here I have the option to move up a level.

So here is my struggle...  My german is very very rusty.  I can read it ok, but speaking?  Oooooh not so great.  But I have a relatively good grasp of the grammar, since that's my specialty and I studied it extensively over the last year.  So if I stay basic, I'll just be polishing up what I already know, working with vocabulary, and getting confidence and whatnot.  Sounds good, doesn't it?

But the trouble is that I need to take a business german class, which is a 300 level course, back at school for the business program.  If I take basic german, I won't be getting those 200 level grammar lessons that I'll need for business german.  I don't know a lot.  So, if I scoot up to intermediate (the level above basic) I'll be on par with the grammar, but my vocab will be lacking because it already is. 

It's a struggle.

Anyway, while we were basically basicking, it rained a lot, which made the temperatures go down even more... yuck.  We're hovering in the 50-70 degree zone here in Northern Europe, so that was not a welcome treat.

I ate at the student cafeteria again before I went back.  Then I did laundry.  Our sketchy hotel doesn't have laundry facilities, so we have to hike a block and a half to the laundromat, where the cranky old german lady yells at you for not operating the dryer her way.  Fortunately, the chances are very high that another student will also be waiting there after class, so you at least have company while the german lady grouches in your general direction.  Who knew the laundromat would be where you socialize with students the most?

I forgot to mention this yesterday, but there
are trails of coins all over the city.  If
you follow them, you'll always end up
at the Brementown Musicians.

Then I went pillow shopping because the ones here are not great and I didn't bring mine from home.  It was an adventure with European pillow shapes.  Either HUGE and square, or thin and long.  I opted for thin and long because it's the one that's most likely gonna fit in my suitcase.

 I was going to eat while I was out, but that pillow was big, and I wanted to get it back and out of my arms (because bags are for wimps and Americans!)  So I decided to try the only restaurant within striking distance, which is one of those shady hole-in-the-wall chinese restaurants.  I tend to like them a lot, and this was no exception.  I also learned what it's like to eat in absolute silence, because I was the only one in there, there is no AC running or anything, and the walls are stone.  Dead silent.  So amazing.  I'll be back.

By the way, these pictures are all from yesterday.  I couldn't fit them into yesterdays post and I didn't get any pictures today, so for now enjoy the pretty photography!  As usual, see you tomorrow!

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The Worlds Most Stupid Test

Yaaaaaawn it's late so I have to keep this brief.  Sorry!

We woke up and ate breakfast.  The breakfasts here are ok.  Not as good as Bonn, but hey.  Free food.  There was a very nice coffee man though, who asked if I wanted a cup and I said yes.  So he handed me an entire flipping pot.  TO MYSELF!!!!!  I didn't want to make the coffeeman disappointed, so I of course drank... all.. of.. it...

Then we went to the school, where we took the placement test.  It was stupid.  It had more math than actual knowledge of the german language, and it was rigged so that even the Austrian and the German didn't do so hot.  Want to know it's deal?  Examine these rules please.

Dumb, right?  Anyway, I took it, it sucked, and then we broke off and went to the main square (where we were last night) to wait for our tour guide.  During this time, the bulk of the group went to get coffee, which I declined since I'd had... 1, 2.. 3... 4 cups this morning.  So I went to the bread shop down the way and... oeowjojjoknnnoooooo  I'm a happy Kailey.  There were so many delicious breads!  I got a cheesy croissant since I was hungry and restrained myself from going after the chocolate croissant.  It was tough.

Then Herr Burt wandered over and reminded us to eat lunch, so I went with him and Bitty Burt back to the cafeteria at the school to see how it was.  Not bad!  Reasonably priced, too, so I'll probably be lunching there most often.

Then we went on the tour with a darling little old lady.  We went into the cathedral, which is gorgeous on the inside, through the little fisher village where I saw a local coffeeshop that sells locally roasted coffee.  I'll be back!  We went into a bonbon shop, where I had a rose bonbon.  It was better than I thought it'd be.

We went down by the river and back up to the local main street, where the glockenspiel is.  Amazingly enough, the mainstreet was made because the guy who owned the property, as well as the bulk of the trade in and out of Bremen historically, wanted to advertise his coffee trade.  Thus the glockenspiel plays his old adverts.  It also plays other stuff, too.

However, because the glockenspiel only plays on the half hour, we had twenty minutes to kill so I went into the local tea trader and got some tea called "Nuwara Eliya" because it smelled the best.  You know, I had cut way down on my caffeine consumption.  I don't think that is gonna last, sadly.

Disco Neptune!

Then we got our test results back.  Because of the stupidity of the test, the fluent Austrian and German kids got plopped into "intermediate" while most everyone got beginner or basic.  Now I know my german isn't good, but that test was absurd.  There was no testing of knowledge at all!  Grammar, vocab, whatever... you could guess!  I did guess!  I- erhhhh.  I'll stop ranting.  Moving on.

We met up with the business school students for dinner.  They're loud, don't care to even try speaking german, ignore everyone, and each had about four drinks for dinner.  I was not impressed by my classmates.  Please at least try to make a good impression, guys...

Sorry this was short.  I had more to talk about but I'm tirrred.

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Tales of the Autobahn

Sorry, short post today! I spent most of the day either asleep or on the Autobahn.  But that doesn't mean nothing happened.

So we got to sleep late today!  Which meant that I got a full 8 hours of sleep for the first time in.... five days.  I'm so happy!  We ate breakfast, piled into the bus, said some sad farewells to Bjorn, and hit the road jack and we wont be coming back no more no more.

So, we drove north, passing Cologne, Düsseldorf, Münster, and a billion windmills on our way to Bremen.  Sadly, the land got less pretty and hilly as we went north.  We stopped halfway, around noon or so, at a German rest stop.  These aren't much like US rest stops, see, because while US ones have a bunch of bathrooms and maybe a vending machine, typically, German rest stops sell gas, food, souvenirs, and have TERRIFYING BATHROOMS.

I might bring this up again later, but you have to pay to use the bathroom here.  Just fifty cents, usually, and this is basically to pay the staff to keep it clean.  The result is the staff are usually a bit nicer, and the bathrooms are clean and everything's stocked and whatnot.  Except, this one had those scary toilets that clean the seats after you use them automatically, have dual flush technology... not quite Japanese standards but still more high tech than your usual toilet.

We got back on the bus and kept going north with the promise of a lunch-dinner after we arrive in Bremen.  I spent the remainder of the drive playing the license plate game, where I counted how many different countries were represented on that stretch of road.  Germany, Luxembourg, France, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Switzerland and Norway I do believe.

Then we arrived in Bremen.  We're staying in a hotel by the airport, and it's one of those old fashioned hotels where you only get one key and have to turn it in whenever you leave the building.  one of those old clunky keys, not a card.  It's great, except that I have to invariably let my roommate in after a late night of drinking since we only have one key.  I suppose I can just leave the door cracked, but still.

After we received the briefing from the school people and got passes for the tram and bus system, we hopped on a train and rode downtown.  Might I just say, Bremen is not a very big city.  It used to be extremely wealthy back in, oh, the 1600's, but it didn't just BOOM like Hamburg did, just northeast of here. You know, lets plop a map on here.  Bremen is pretty far north, right between the Netherlands and Denmark.

We walked a ways, and stopped at a Biergarten where I ordered me some Wiener Schnitzel, knowing that I haven't had any yet and I was stupid hungry at this point.  It was like four o'clock, I was cranky, I was hungry, and I wanted to try some veal by gum.  But I got chicken schnitzel, which tasted like just fried chicken.  Yum...?  It was good but not quite what I had my tasters set for.  Sadly.

Welp, after lunner (lunch+dinner=lunner) most the group sprinted off in the direction of the nearest bar (we were in a biergarten, why they didn't just stay there is beyond me...?) while I and another girl decided to stick with our professor and see the square of the city.

Bremen is known for two things.  The first is the river, which is called the Weser,  and second is the Brementown Musicians.  They're everywhere.  Every restaurant or hotel or anything has the musicians on them, but also the symbol of Bremen, which is a key.  That's because Bremen is it's own "state" in Germany, like Hamburg and Berlin.  That's a big deal, because Bremen has to be wealthy enough to be its own state, so they like to just plop the key everywhere.

Now I'm back in the hotel.  Gotta get up early tomorrow, so I need my sleep!  Auf Wiedersehen!

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Fieldtrip to Köln

Happy Pride Day in Cologne!  So many rainbows and unicorns!

Welcome back everyone!  Sorry I'm late but I've been out and about all day long.  We took a trip to Köln- Cologne- and only just got back.  Man my feetsies are tired.

Bonn and Cologne basically touch, they're so close to each other, so a day trip to Cologne is totally possible.  We woke up relatively early, around seven o'clock, ate breakfast, and hopped on a train.  I've praised the european railway system before, but let me just say again: it's awesome.

We arrived at the main station after about twenty minutes to half an hour, and immediately found ourselves at the cathedral, Cologne's most famous landmark.  Once there, we were joined by a young lady named Francisca, who had been a foreign exchange student to UNCW and wanted to come along with us.  Super nice, and she didn't even criticize anyone's German!

After everyone was grouped up, we met up with our tour guide for the cathedral, who was the epitome of the German sense of humor.  That is, a bit of an acquired taste.  Regardless, we watched a "multimedia event" describing the history of the Köln Cathedral's construction.  I don't remember most of it, except that a giant crane sat on top of it for hundreds of years because they up and stopped construction for some weird reason.  Eventually it was finished in... 1880?  And was briefly the tallest building in the world... until the usa built the washington monument.

Anyway, our tourguide was a massive stain-glass window nut, and was all-too eager to describe each motif, especially this one panel with a bubble blowing angel.  I understand why the windows were the focus.  They were something special... one half being from the medieval era, one from the... gothic?... with some being from even further back, some being from the 1800's, and one being from the 21st century.

Your window is glitching out!
This is the newest window in the cathedral, with column 1
mirroring 3, column 2 mirroring 5, and 4 mirroring 6. 
So symmetrical.  So satisfying.

The Cologne Cathedral is particularly special because it supposedly contains the relics of the magi, which the cathedral people refuse to let be touched for DNA testing so we don't know for sure.  It's a pretty shiny box.  While we were for sure able to photograph stuff, we cannot photograph that so I didn't.  Sorry!  If you're curious, I'm sure you can find a picture somewhere.

We finished up the interior tour, and then it became time for the.... roof tour.  Hope you aren't afraid of heights, elevators, or scaffolding!!  The poor austrian bloke was scared of all of these things.  Sadly, we needed him, as we accidentally got a german-only tour guide, and since most of the people speak worse german than me, which is saying something, we needed a translator.

If you ever find yourself posed with the option of the roof tour, I wouldn't recommend it unless you are interested in architecture.  We went, essentially, into the attic of the cathedral after a ride in the most terrifying elevator in the world.  We saw the upper side of those pretty arches pictured above, all the clunky steel supports, and more!  We also walked outside on the service scaffolding to get a good view at Cologne, while Wolfgang (our german tour guide) tried to explain the restoration process. 

So, I'm not sure if you can tell in the pictures, but the cathedral is mostly black.  This is due to the fact that it's made out of sandstone, and because Cologne is a very industrialized city, it used to have a lot of coal plants and steam engines going through it.  The smoke in the air, combined with acid rain, have essentially turned the sandstone into sand, and also colored it black.  So now, the cathedral group is trying to replace the damaged stones.... one gothic piece at a time.  Maybe they shouldn't use such a fragile stone...?  I don't know.

We went to eat lunch after that.  It was extremely meaty.  I ordered herring and potatoes, as it seemed the lightest thing on the menu, it was.... not great.  I liked the potatoes, but I've never had herring before and it is absolutely not my favorite fish.  So I ate the discarded mystery meat slab from someone else, who didn't like it.  It tasted like pig cheeks, which I do like, except a million times tougher.  Anyway.

We split into groups of five people, because the train tickets covered five people apiece, and began our leisurely stroll around Cologne.  Our group was joined by Francisca, who lives in Cologne and knows all the good places, and she assured us that she could take us to the best ice cream in the city.  We walked a long way, making a brief stop for me to pick up some 4711, and got said ice cream.  'Twas good.

Both decked out in leather.  Took us all rather by surprise.

Francisca led us back to the river, where we ran into......  Gay Day. 

Ooooooh boy it was a blast.  We didn't linger, but there were so many rainbow flags, free hugs signs, and buff gay germans in full leather.  Also, every restaurant in downtown Cologne was flying the rainbow stripes.  I love this country.

We parted with Francisca, after she pointed to the Lindt chocolate factory.  We walked in it, to find it too expensive for us.  Not so much that we weren't willing to pay, but it was like 5:00 and we had walked literally all day.  Also, the England game was on!  We didn't leave without stopping by the truffle bar though.  I got myself a dark chocolate, darker chocolate, and coffee truffles.  And ate them all immediately.  I deserved it, by golly.

We then went to a sportsbar, watched the end of the England game (sorry Sweden, was hoping you'd make it through, but I kinda was rooting for England more), before deciding to head back to Bonn. 

We ate dinner on the way back through the city, and now here I am.  All in all, I prefer the atmosphere and size of Cologne (fourth biggest city in Germany) but Bonn feels a lot more safe, and cozy in a way.  Given the choice between the two of them, I prefer Cologne.  Tomorrow, we go to Bremen!

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The Real Estate is a bit... Extravagant.

...Today was a weird day.

So, sleeping in a foreign country is never super easy, you have to adjust to the time blah blah blah jet lag.  The way to get around this is to do a lot of activity stuff so you're nice and tired in time for bed, sort of the same principle as letting an energetic child run around like crazy before bed.  The incorrect way to deal with jet lag is to just not sleep. 

I get it.  I'm weird and like to go to bed early.  I fully expect to stay up later than I'm comfortable with on a trip like this.  But what I do not appreciate is a bunch of people stumbling into the room at three in the morning drunk as skunks, screaming, giggling and all around acting... um... silly. 

So, with that out of the way....  I didn't get much sleep, and 99% of the group (excepting me, I don't drink, and the ex-military guy) were groggy with hangovers this morning, and also sleep deprived.  Huzzah!  Great start to the day, dontcha think? Hope this isn't going to be a daily thing.

Well.  We woke up, very early, and got on the bus.  I don't know much about being hungover or anything, but apparently a stick-shift bus on the autobahn is not the best remedy for it.  We had a person puke, almost everyone was complaining of how nauseous they were... geez.  Poor Bjorn was not impressed.

Admire the vineyard on the hill behind the town!

We came to this tiny little town (can't remember the name) to catch a boat, and we had a few minutes to kill.  So, these genius college students darted into the nearest supermarket, grabbed a bottle of the local wine, and... I don't even know what happened to that.  I was too busy looking for the kinder surprise eggs... and failing.  They only had the neutered kind that doesn't have the toy in the chocolate.  No choking hazard?  Pssh.  No fun.

Don't know what this is but it's pretty.

We got on the boat, and spread out.  I and the person I'm most friendly with seized a spot on the prow next to the most posh British couple I've ever seen.  It was windy and cold, but mostly sunny so while my hair became a mess quickly, it wasn't bad.  The military dude came out to join us after a while, and we discussed the complexities of the english language, followed by the complexities of the german language.

Goats!  Those white splotches under
the rock are mountain goats.

We were on the boat for about two hours, during which we saw vineyards, villages, castles, cargo boats, and a ski-lift thingy.  We also saw- more heard really- a german fighter jet zooming very low overhead.  I'm accustomed to the wilmington fighters, which are much higher and much slower, and also much quieter.  Wow that thing was loud.

We landed in another tiny town of an unpronounceable name after a while, where we followed our trusty guide Bjorn to the place of eating.  It was a light pasta buffet- where the only option was marinara.  Wasn't bad at all, actually.  I refilled my favorite water bottle- the same one I got duped with on day one in Spain- and we were good to go after some eating, water glass music, and sarcastic jokes form the austrian guy.

 Then we went for a walk.

I am a good hiker.  I don't hike as much as I used to, mostly because I live like eight hours from a mountain, but I do consider myself a good hiker.  I am also a very fast hiker.  I know I am.  I practically jog.  Regardless, the nomenclature surrounding this walk was amusing.  The castle we were visiting, like most of the castles in the area, was at the top of a hill.  I wouldn't even call it a mountain.  It's a hill if you can walk up it in twenty minutes.  Fact.

So Bjorn said to us, we're walking up to the castle.  Cool!  Nice stroll through the greenery on a 45 degree incline.  Good for your thighs and glutes. It isn't a hike.  I wouldn't call it a hike, and Bjorn got very puzzled by anyone calling it a hike.  But, the argument went, anything in the woods up a hill is a hike... right?  Silly americans.

 The view was very worth our time though.  As was the castle.  The Marksburg Castle is the only medieval castle remaining on the middle Rhine, as it was oddly never attacked or conquered or anything.  We didn't really discuss why.  Anywho, we joined our tourguide and wandered through the castle. 

Most of it is actually still lived in, by the staff and the head of the group that owns the castle, so most of the rooms are closed off.  The wine cellar, kitchen, one bedroom, dining room and armoury were still in tact though, with mostly original furniture. 

So we finished up and came home, getting held up by 5 trains.  Huzzah.

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Beginning in Bonn

Welcome back everyone!  Because I did a post so early yesterday, I still have a lot to say about last night.  Also, I updated the itinerary page so  Firstly, Bonn is lovely.  We all gathered around noon yesterday, with this dude named Bjorn as our guide.  So very German.  So we marched onto the bus and rode on die Autobahn up to Bonn.  Not as exciting as I had imagined, but the German countryside is way prettier than the Spain.  Lots of green, pleasing rolling hills, little towns with red roofs clustered on said hills, and many windmills.  It's nice to look at for sure.

We arrived in Bonn, settled our stuff in the hotel (which follows that good old european tradition of no air conditioning... it's not as hot as southern united states or Spain, but its still uncomfortably toasty).  Then, around 5:30, we began our walk to our evening dining place. 

Before I get into that, I feel like no one knows what Bonn is, or its significance, or anything like that.  It was one of the farthest out roman cities, and it sits comfortably on the Rhine.  It's seen a lot of wars, mostly with the pesky French that keep trying to extend their border to the Rhine... but it's also survived a lot of wars too.

It was largely ignored during the world wars, thus it was one of the few major cities to remain intact after WWII.  That might be the reason it was established as the capitol of West Germany following the split, maybe it was because of how inconspicuous it was... that seemed to be what was implied.  It was where a lot of people doing coverty stuff with East Germany holed up, or something.  Anyway.  It isn't the capitol anymore, and so all Bonn's really got going for it is......... Beethoven.

We walked into this pub-like place, except it was way more expensive than any pub... not to worry, our meal there was already payed for.  This place is called "Gafthaus im Stiefel", and it was apparently where every musician's favorite fan of the repeat used to drink and play piano.  Which we didn't know at the time, so we walked in and saw a piano that you can play at and thought it was a super neat idea.  Some of the people in our group play piano, so they took turns serenading the restaurant.

It was a really fancy restaurant, but I eventually got some smoked salmon, potato cakes, and some kind of weird herb sauce.  I liked it all right, but I wouldn't get it again.  Even the potato cakes were a bit too fancily done.

Most of the group stayed behind to drink from their vast beer menu, so the few of us that don't drink decided to FINALLY go to bed.  We wandered back to the metro... and couldn't find the entrance.  After a walk, we managed to get on the zippy underground choo choo and made it back to the hotel where we promptly crashed.

NEXT DAY!

I intentionally left the curtains open so the morning light would wake me up.  Clever me!  I woke right at 7:00 and had just enough time to dress and eat before we met our other guide lady.

We got back on the choo choo to make for the history museum, and met our lovely tour guide.  The museum in question is a history museum that covered German history from 1945-2013.  Probably because during most of that time,  Bonn was the capitol so it makes sense to have that period in focus.  We explored the different arguments in favor for and against both political systems of East and West Germany... why the former ended up not working and while the latter still more or less functions.

Of course, other things were talked about, such as the Munich olympics, Volkswagen's noble history (hahaha), the formation of the EU, and that Germany is quite sad that their formerly close political buddies seem to be leaving them in favor of a different path.

We also saw a bat house.  That's a thing here in Bonn.
Bat houses.  Everywhere. 

Then we met with a different tour guide and walked around the historic portion of Bonn.  All of it.  All four streets.  Yep.  Big city.  It used to be bigger.  Then a few fires and some big wars came, and it got chewed up and spat back out.  People forget just how torn up Germany was after World War 2.  That's why most of the major cities are so modern looking- very little was left un-kaboomed after the war.

We saw the Rhine, pretty river, nice and big.  Lovely mountains in the background.  We saw the home of the very popular bishop that governed Bonn for a while, it's now a university... we saw Karl Marx's apartment from when he studied in Bonn, a bunch of pigeons, the remains of a medieval wall that got torn down to build the metro, an "old Catholic" church that was smushed into the city after one of their many fires, and Beethoven's house.

Old Catholic Church.  Not called old because the
church is old- though it is.  Old Catholicism is a mostly
German branch of  Catholicism. 

 We ate at a fancy burger shop for lunch.  Fancy, meaning the burgers weren't greasy and gross and were made with probably real meat.  Unless you got a veggie burger like me.  They had some weird choices, such as walnut patties, olive patties... whaaat?  I got a spinach burger with pesto and some hard cheese.  I also had a tasty mango-ginger lemonade that was to die for.

Then we went to the Beethoven house.  It was stupid hot in there, and the museum itself was disappointing.  It had nothing about him as a person and just showed some pictures and stuff that he owned from his other house.  It had some pianos and violins that he played too, which was cool, but it was a self-guided tour through a house with limited signage, and the signage that they did was in pompous german.  Whatever.  Was cool enough.

Then we came back!  We have the rest of the evening off, but since we have to wake up absurdly early tomorrow, I'm hitting the hay early again tonight.

Beethoven's first home.  Although he never
actually owned it.

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Welcome Back! Teacup News- German Edition

Hello! It's been a while since I was here, writing to you, telling you about my delightful adventures.  That would be because I've had very little to tell you about since my return from Spain... Anyway.  I'm currently sitting in the Frankfurt Airport, killing time, so I figure I might as well give you a lovely little introduction as to why I'm in Germany now.

Firstly, I'm here to study... bum bum BUUUUM... German.  Which means, I will be taking... er, two semesters worth of German classes in a single month.  Along with the "trial by fire" approach to language learning: learn fast or die painfully.  Yay! 

Anyway.  This trip has been hard to get my head wrapped around.  I don't really know why, I suppose its mostly because I haven't had a good opportunity to sit and internalize the fact that I'd be stumbling through a second country.  I'm not sure.  Regardless, I sit here now.

To start off my recounting of the last two days, I got up and paced a lot before we ended up at the airport.  I followed my boarding pass instructions dutifully, and found the terminal, but because I was so early, there was no one there yet- unsurprisingly. 

So I wandered off to the rocking chairs in the half of the airport that doesn't smell like shoes and yoga mats, and sat in the same chair I had claimed before the Spain adventure.  I drew some pictures, none of which are decent enough or relevant enough to include here.

My view from my chair!

Then I went back to the terminal... waited for a while before it became clear that this flight was going to SYRACUSE not Frankfurt!  So, I sprinted aaaaaalllll the way across the entire airport.  I made it on time, and it might have been for the best as I didn't have to kill time in my seat this way.

I had a quiet german dude on my right and a nice german dude on my left, and a puerto rican next to him.  The one on my left decided to move, so I ended up with an empty seat next to me- which quickly became occupied by my backpack.  And the flight begins.

Nine hours and three movies later, we land in Frankfurt a whole 2 minutes early.  So far, it seems our flight was the only one on time- which means we have even longer to wait here.  Huzzah!  I met up with the girl I'll be roommates with- she's nice, rides horses, has a similarly limited knowledge of the german language... seems cool.  Now, I sit and wait.

Oh!  I like this airport.  Has elevated monorails that have pretty views of the mountains.  Behold!

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