HOW MUCH IS THE FISH!

“HOW MUCH IS THE FISH?” screamed Scooter, during one of his classic nineties europop songs. The guys in my lab recently introduced me to the dance music that was popular in Europe during the decade in which I was born. Apparently, it was trendy to use English, even for people like Scooter, who didn’t really speak English. According my labmates, Scooter combined just about all the English he knew and created a hodgepodge of a song with it. I guess it’s not too surprising that the product would come out titled “How Much Is the Fish?”

Oh, the nineties were a dark time for music.

But if you feel like dancing, and don’t care how ridiculous it is, or if you just want to watch a weird nineties German music video, feel free:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8m6IbItrgk

Now that Scooter has had his turn, it’s my turn shout in aggravation

“WHY ARE THESE STUDENTS STILL IN SCHOOL?”

That’s right, all of the other students I’m living with in Studentendorf are still spending their nights studying for tests. I know Germany hardly gets a summer, but come on… Although, I’ve heard that German students get a much longer winter break as well as some lengthy breaks in the middle of each semester to compensate. I wonder if that would lower stress levels at a place like Emory? Food for thought. I’ve been learning other interesting things about the German education system, too. They don’t have pre-med students at the colleges here. Medical programs start at the college level, and you can enter them directly or soon after graduating high school (which lasts a little longer here too). It’s still a selective program, since students here are not admitted to some general college of arts and sciences with the ability to declare a major later in Germany, but rather are admitted to only a specific program at a specific college. But hey, it’s all paid for! (And I bet it’s nice not to have to deal with those pre-meds who only care about the MCAT, although I’m sure they have their own problems).

It’s just too bad all this studying in the middle of July kept any of my friends in Studentendorf from visiting Heidelberg with me.

Oh well. I met up with a bunch of other Americans and stormed the town. It was nice to be around so many people who spoke English at one time, thanks to Hannah. She is also a participant in the RISE program for American, Canadian, and British students conducting research in Germany. They had a conference in Heidelberg ending on a Saturday afternoon, and I was happy to join them. The picture above is not the bulk of Heidelberg, but does show the huge hill that the bunch of us hiked up in the evening.

That’s more like Heidelberg. Take a good look at the castle. You won’t see it in the next picture, which I took a little higher up.

Heidelberg is the picturesque small town in Germany. When tourists don’t want to see the picturesque sights of the big cities, or the picturesque Alps and forests, they come see picturesque Heidelberg.

The old town in Heidelberg is one of my all time favorite places for window-shopping. I saw cuckoo clocks so intricate it looked like they had taken months to build. Postcards, beer steins, chocolate shops were everywhere. We visited a student prison, the local university’s alternative to the town jail where students back in the day used to do time. Heidelberg really is a fun city to be a tourist in. Apparently even Mark Twain loved the city, and used to climb up on the same path I took to get all those aerial pictures. It’s called the Philosopher’s Walk now.

Even the parking lots in Heidelberg are interesting.

I guess it’s just because bikes are everywhere. We saw some more as we were getting ready to leave the city.

And they’re off!