Essen?

Another weekend has passed, and with it went the last group trip with this semester's participants.  It was kind of depressing to realize how close this semester is to coming to a close, and how we'll never be all together in the same place again.  But, I guess, that's how life works.  We went to Essen, the industrial capital of Germany.  I guess in retrospect it was interesting to a point; I mean I'll never go there again in this lifetime (if I can avoid it) but it was something to see/add onto the list of life experiences.  The weather this weekend made the trip quite miserable, however.  It rained this weekend the most it has rained in five years, according to the radio station.  It wasn't terribly cold; actually it was quite warm, but the rain just made everything so much more annoying.  Oh well. 

Friday we left Marburg around 2 pm and arrived in Essen at 5 pm.  We took a brief moment to drop our stuff at our hostel (which was in the middle of nowhere.. relatively anyways..) and then went back to the city where we had a night bus tour.  That was actually pretty cool.  We were able to see the skyline of Essen from the city hall, and I got some pretty legit photos.  The guide was older and didn't completely understand the usage of English slang, so instead of using the word "like" all the time, he used the word "just", which gave the tour an interesting spin.  But whatever.  It happens.

So yep.  Those are my attempts at night skyline photos.  They aren't really all that great in their small sizes on here, so if you want to see all the pictures or these in larger form, click here... (yes, I am aware I sound like a spam add..)
http://picasaweb.google.com/113919949355390501172/20101114?authkey=Gv1sRgCIDm5pb5w_LXigE&feat=directlink

Basically, the city of Essen was created around the Krupp Steel Factory which was started there in the.. oh... I believe late 1800s? or maybe during the Industrial revolution?  Ok, I'm sorry for the lack of reliable facts, but, at least I remembered the name of the company?  It was for a long period of time the largest steel productor in the world.  The city grew around the factory, and industries soon began finding their way into this area.  Because of solider's resting points in the middle ages, there are 3 large cities where are all linked together in this area as the "industrial capital." The area is called the Ruhrgebein (at least I think?  I'd google but.. it's froze..) and this area is the industry area.  So, basically, we toured a ton of factories and coal mines, which were also highly prevelent in this area.  And by highly I mean 600,000 workers at one point.  It was the beginning of the industrial revolution in Germany, so there is a ton of history in this region.  However, the region was not "beautiful" until about 20 years ago, when they started closing coal mines and building new "Green" areas.  It apparently used to be quite the rugged little town.  We toured the Zollverein mill, which was one of the larget coal pit production places in the world at one point.  The museum was really modern and quite interesting, and our tour guide was pretty great, so I'd have to say that was my favorite tour.  Here's some of those photos..

If you're looking at my photos on picasa, they're the first set of pictures involving mining equipment.  The second set of mine photos was taken in an actual mine, which we crawled around for about an hour on Sunday.  I would royally suck at being a coal miner; i am not a fan of being a hunchback and would probably let it be known to whoever was working near me.  Oh and not to mention, i'm not a fan of working in the dark and wet, I like to breathe clean air, and no matter how many weight training sessions I sign up for, theres no way I could hold those tools for full 8 hour shifts.  Just 30 seconds was exhausting!  The life of a miner was not easy, but it paid well.  Today, however, it is no longer one of the better paying jobs in Germany.  Times change I guess.  Our tour guide for the coal mine tour was so cute, oh my god.  I wanted to take her home with me and adopt her.  Her name was Hildegard (yes, so authentic german; although I took to calling her "Hildie my Homie") and she only could speak English through reading the words off a page she had someone previously prepare for her.  Otherwise her English sentances were "Come to me now, Come to me" and "Yes, yes, you understand? yes?" ooooooh how I loved her.  Here's that mine..

 

Don't let the photos fool you; it was not that exciting of a tour.  Had it not been for Hildie, all hope for that tour would have been lost.  In addition to those coal mines, we visited a factory which made weapons during WWII.  Unfortunately, I can't really remember the name of it.  Apparently they had 2,000 prisoners of war working in the broiler rooms and melting down steel and coal and such during times of war.  Our tour guide told us about how in one situation, during a bombing of the city, some prisoners of war were chained to the... melting.. things... because they didn't want the production to stop, but had those workers ran for their lives, it would have.  Luckily, no bombs fell on that factory.  But I still found the story interesting.  Life really had to suck for them.  But then again, I guess it was better than going to the concentration camp near by: Buchenwald.  The 2,000 workers at the plant were actually taken from there to work in the factory instead

And here are some photos of the factory in the above ground part.  Today it is used as a hall for events and such.  The day we were there, they were hosting a marathon (which further instated my possible goal of running a half marathon..). 

I added the clock photo just to show you all that there are still various elements of the original factory left in place.  Personally, I did not find this to be the most beautiful event hall I've ever seen.  Yet it did have a strange industrial beauty to it.  And since the area is famous for their industrial history, I guess I can understand why they would choose to further emphasize it by serving cocktail weenies and displaying nude paintings for an evening, or by filling it with sand and preforming a biblical play.  You know, the arts meet history.  Eh.

The most exciting thing for me this weekend (please don't hold your breath; its rather lame) was finding a book store.  It was like Barnes and Noble, only ... German.  But i was in love.  You have no idea how much I miss Barnes and Noble.  I've been going through withdrawls like crazy, and just finished my last english book about a week ago.  So, I took advantage of the situation and attacked the book store with a vengance.  I bought myself a German novel, which I fully intend to finish before I'm home for Christmas.  This is quite the goal, you see, because it's 575 pages.  All in German.  Yeah.  If I truly accomplish this, someone better give me a cookie.  Although, I was pleasantly surprised that when I started reading it, it wasn't as hard as I imagined it to be.  This made me quite thrilled on various levels, because it was a new way for me to realize my german actually HAS improved (quite tremendously since the day I first stepped off the plane and couldn't even order french fries alone..) and I can follow the story line without really having to think that hard.  Ok, maybe I'm just a nerd, but this was seriously awesome.  The book I bought is a fiction novel called "Die Buecherdiebin" and it follows a girl who steals books during the time of world war 2.  Apparently she survives the bombing of her city, and witnesses the treatment of jews around her during the times.  I thought the connection to German history might be interesting, so that was how I came upon this choice.  Be excited for me, ok?  Thank you.

In other news, I leave for Paris Thursday and have officially began learning French via Rosetta stone last Wednesday.  No, I do not expect to know french by the time I go to Paris.  I'm actually learning it because it is a business language, and I'm kind of interested in having more than just English and German under my belt.  Again with the nerd thing, but hey.  Languages are my thing.

As for classes, Finance is confusing no matter what language you take it in, and my US reproductive health policy class is interesting and thought provoking as usual.  I have a huge paper due in a few weeks in that class (which I have yet to have actually thoroughly started) so I'm trying to squeeze typing times into my extremely hectic schedule.  Other than that, the life of classes is quite dull.

So folks, to wrap up this post, if you are planning on visiting me in Germany, or wish to explore the country at some point of your life, you might as well skip essen.  The word Essen in German translates as "Food" or "To eat."  Don't let it trick you.  McDonalds was probably some of the best food offered.  So there is literally no reason to go to Essen.  Just scratch it off your to do list, especially in rainy, cold November.  Oh and another life lesson: don't eat at Mr. Chicken.  Don't ask, just trust me.  It won't end good.