Virtually Home

The first day back, I had to go to a mandatory medical visit to retain my visa. I was in and out of doctor's offices and waiting rooms, but aside from it being complicated, it wasn't too much of a hassle. I was in and out in 45 minutes, and really all they wanted was my height, weight, blood pressure, a chest x-ray, and to listen to me breathe. I guess I proved I didn't have TB because they gave me a carte de sejour and they sent me home with the chest x-ray, which I decided to hang on my wall to fix some of the previously un-relieved white. Plus, I think it's kinda cool to see my vertebrae and heart on the wall, but maybe I'm the only one. Amy has been on a furious search for somewhere to live on various apartment-finding websites for Bordeaux, with not very much luck. Tomorrow, she's going to look into getting a dorm room, but last fall there were too many students to accommodate them all in the dorms, so I'm not sure how much hope I have for that scenar...

I'm not sure exactly when this side-adventure took place, but at some point we took the U-Bahn out to the Olympic stadium that had been built for the 1936 summer games.  You know, the games where Jess Owens claims Hitler "didn't snub him". It was interesting to see, and imagine all the things that were starting to happen in Germany at the time -- and what all the droves of tourists around for the Games might have felt about it. There wasn't really anywhere to go in, but I was interested to see the grounds. Some of them had been knocked down and other things built over them, so that was kind of sad. But then, there were gold mines like this attractive, modern bathroom structure! This was one of the several moments during the trip I thought to myself "What the hell, Germany?" I mean, I thought Germans were all about tact. Or something. I guess that brings us to the part of the program where we return to a chronological account of matters. The mornin...