Life as a Thuringian

On Monday I worked a half day so that I could meet up with Martin's family in southern Thüringen to celebrate his grandpa's 80th birthday.


That's his grandpa. The rest of the pictures can be found on Facebook. :) I got there after the family had eaten lunch at this Gasthaus: Mönchhof
We stayed there for coffee and cake and then drove back to Martin's family's house to have a party in their garden. It was a lot of fun seeing Martin's entire family again - they're really nice and fun!

As far as work goes, this week was an eventful one. I got to meet the rest of the congressmen/women in the party this week, as well as the opportunity to go on some of my first "business trips."

On Tuesday I got to meet Katja Wolf, and I sat in on a budget committee meeting. Katja is very young and friendly, and she was also in charge of the meeting. There were about 15 people present, so it wasn't too bad, but Katja had me introduce myself to everyone at the meeting. Little did I know that was just preparation for the 40+ people I'd be introducing myself in front of the following day.

Later that evening I traveled to Eisenach. There was a committee meeting in Eisenach with Congressmen from the neighboring state of Hessen. The committee was discussing the problems with K+S - the potash mining company dumping their waste into the Werra river. I was excited to go to this meeting since the topic is what I've been working on for the past two weeks at the Landtag. Tilo and I traveled from Erfurt to Eisenach together with the ICE train (normally I use the cheaper regional trains, but I wasn't the one buying my ticket this time so it was nice to be in the fancier, faster train!). When we got there, Tilo and I had some extra time, so he invited me to dinner. We went to this really neat all organic restaurant in the city center - Tilo paid for everything too (the internship keeps getting better and better). ;) Later Tilo and I met up with Katja, and she gave me a quick tour of Eisenach. It's a really beautiful city, and Katja informed me that it wouldn't be the last time I would be there. The meeting was also really interesting; I learned a lot more about current issues going on (e.g. K+S's stance/claims about the pollutants), which made my research all the more interesting and relevant.

On Wednesday I sat in on a Fraktionsitzung, which is a meeting where the party discusses current debated issues and establishes their policy for the respective debates. I got to meet the party leader, which is somewhat comparable to the Speaker of the House in the US government. The meeting lasted for about 3 hours, and some points were harder for me to understand since I had no background information on some of the topics. Without the technical vocabulary, it's pretty easy to get lost in these meetings. This meeting was in preparation for the Landessitzung, or the Congress meeting next week. This upcoming meeting will be the first meeting of Congress since June - July was a vacation month.

Today I spent 8 hours traveling around Thüringen with several Congressmen from all of the five represented parties. Our first stop was this agricultural technical school in the city of Apolda. We listened to 4 hours of presentations about what the agricultural schools do for Thüringen and why they need government support.

Our next stop was a flower/plant seed company. The company has been family owned and based in Erfurt since its founding in the 1860s. We got to tour around the 10 acre property, got free flower seeds/herb seeds, and we got to learn about an organic energy source they are developing with the seeds from a certain flower. The company wanted subsidies to buy more property to cultivate this flower as a renewable energy resource. One acre of this flower is equal to about ten acres of corn as far as the energy yield. (I'll also be pictured with all the congressmen in the company's newsletter!) ;) This part of the day was definitely more interesting.

Because of all the running around today, no one had time to eat lunch, so as of 5:30pm today all I had eaten was a cup of yogurt at 7:30am. I went straight from work to the city to grab lunch - I had forgotten that I had used the last of my cash the day before and hadn't gone to the ATM since. I realized this as I was about to pay, but luckily Martin met me there and had just enough money to cover for me. Phewf.

This week has been fun, but it has been very busy. I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend. Tomorrow I'm going to get my bike tuned up and ride around for a bit (hopefully). On Sunday I'm biking to a neighboring city, Weimar, with a friend of mine. :) I'm excited to get back on the bike again!

Willkommen in Erfurt

I've been in Erfurt for a week now, but this past week has really flown by. I got to Erfurt last Friday evening, had the weekend to unpack and somewhat settle in, and then began my internship on Monday.

Let me start off with saying wow! I have no idea how I got chosen for this internship, but it is sooo cool. I'm loving my internship - it's only my 5th day at work, but I've gotten to do some really cool research about environmental issues here in Thüringen. I've had coffee with a few local politicians, and I got to sit in on a press conference. I'm working with Die Linke Fraktion in the Thüringer Landtag. Die Linke are "The Left" so that basically explains their political views. :) I've met several party representatives already - everyone has been very friendly and accommodating. I'm working directly for two representatives - Tilo Kummer and Katja Wolf - you can see who they are and what they look like here.
:) I met Tilo last week, and I'll meet Katja on Tuesday.

Everything with the party members is very relaxed and friendly. They use the informal 'you' with each other and address each other by first names. For many workplaces in Germany that is uncommon. Usually you must use the formal 'you' and address each other by Mr. or Mrs. _____.

This week was the last week of the vacation period at the Landtag, so I anticipate that there will be a lot more going on around the Landtag starting next week. Right now I'm currently working on a project involving the Weser and Werra rivers and saline run-off caused by K + S - a potash mining company. Just in the past few days I've made a lot of progress on the research for this issue, and it's pretty exciting doing research that actually affects politics directly.

When I met with Tilo last week, he told me that if I wanted, I could travel to different events around Germany. Next week we're going to sit down and take a look at his agenda and figure out where in Germany I'll be traveling. Basically, I'll be traveling to conferences that other party members can't make it to, then I'll do a report about them when I come back to Erfurt. They also told me I could write an article in their bi-weekly party newspaper.

I'm so lucky to have this opportunity here, and I can't wait to go back to work next week. :)

As for the rest of Erfurt, the weather has been beautiful, but the past few days have been cool - basically like Texas in the winter. I'm not complaining though - I'd take 50º over 100º any day.

Next Monday is Martin's grandfather's 80th birthday, and his family is having a big celebration for him. I'm taking the afternoon off of work and taking the train to south Thüringen (where his family is). I'm excited to see his family again - they are a lot of fun.

Along with working 7-8 hour days, I've managed to apply for my visa, register as a resident of Erfurt, and open a German bank account. Most of the bureaucratic things are taken care of now. (Yay!)

I've met up with friends on nights that I haven't been too exhausted from work. I love the biergartens and bars here in Erfurt. Most of them are in very old buildings, and the restrooms are usually in the basement. A lot of the basements are originally from the 1100s-1300s when Erfurt was in the center of the European link to the Silk Road. Being surrounded by medieval architecture never gets old - it's absolutely beautiful here (in a weird historic way).

I'll write again next week about my internship - there are always interesting things happening there!