Schloß und Schlauch
The opening of the Schloß-Arkaden in Braunschweig has been all of the talk at work. One colleague actually went this morning before work (the Grand Opening was a six this morning), he was able to give us his opinions during Kaffeepause. He was not particularly impressed, but, he grew up in Braunschweig and is very, very, touchy about everything that changes the landscape of the city (cityscape). Hence, he is predisposed towards prejudice.
The Schloß-Arkaden is a huge shopping mall, that has been built near the site of the old Braunschweiger Schloß of Heinrich der Löwe, which was destroyed during the War. The most exciting thing about the new Schloß is that it is an actual reproduction of the original structure, and uses some of the original stone, I think. Another key thing is that, in diverging from general German practice, the mall will be open all weekend. And by all, I mean all. As far as I can tell, the mall will be open from Friday all the way through until Sunday. This includes the night, which they have been advertising as Moonlight Shopping (yes, in English) since at least the beginning of February.
I will eventually get down to that part of town and take a picture for you, but I will wait for all of the fervour to die down. I was taking a bus that went by there yesterday (on the way to a basketball game, more on that later) and there was a huge amount of traffic and people in the area. *
The basketball game: It was the New Yorker Phantoms Braunschweig versus Ratiopharm Ulm and the reason I was there was that the International Office got free tickets.
The Braunschweig side has such a lovely name because one of the richest men in town is the owner of a quite successful clothing store name New Yorker. Let's just say that I do not think anyone (bar of the Dominatrix/Brothel/Goth set) would be caught dead in any of the outfits that I have seen advertised around town, but, after a little tooling around their website, I guess that I can say that the rest of their clothing seems be a little more main stream. Anyway, as you can guess, the Phantoms part of the name follows from that. The have an incredibly silly looking mascot, which is a guy dressed as a 'phantom': ie. in a black muscle-y outfit with a black cape and a white mask. I tried to find a picture, but I was unsuccessful in my attempt. I nearly died of laughter when I first saw him. Add that to the Phantom of the Opera music and the fact that Phantom was a memorable part of my senior year in high school (band trip to NYC, including seeing the musical on Broadway... not to brag or anything.) and I was dying.
Other than the hokey mascot, the game went well. At least, it did go well, until two minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, when Braunschweig was up by at least ten. We will just suffice to say that once we hit overtime, it was looking like an interesting mirror to the Tar Heel's loss to Georgetown on Sunday. Or so I hear, since I was not privileged to watch that particular game as noted in a previous post.
And now it is time for me to got to bed, since staying up late on the Internet is no way to kill my sleep deprivation-- the presence of which I am not sure of, since I get at least eight hours of sleep a night. (Yay flex time and nothing else to do with my life.) Hopefully tomorrow my bike will be fixed. (Yet another flat tire, this time the back one. So completely dead that I had to go and buy a new inner tube-- Schlauch auf Deutsch, that word has a nice roundness to it...) I had the tools and other necessities to fix it to-day (except for the colleague from whom I am borrowing the bicycle and the one who does the fixes), but I was too chicken to try to do it myself, since I have never taken the back tire off of a bike before, and, knowing my luck, I would have killed it. Forever. And, as old as it is, it does not deserve the fate that is me trying to fix things. I know what you are thinking: 'Isn't this girl majoring in engineering?'. Answer: 'Yes, but there is a reason why I did not choose mechanical, and remember: I am not fixing the aeroplanes and space ships, I am just designing them. And there are IT guys who can fix the computers.'
Countdown to London: Four days.
The Schloß-Arkaden is a huge shopping mall, that has been built near the site of the old Braunschweiger Schloß of Heinrich der Löwe, which was destroyed during the War. The most exciting thing about the new Schloß is that it is an actual reproduction of the original structure, and uses some of the original stone, I think. Another key thing is that, in diverging from general German practice, the mall will be open all weekend. And by all, I mean all. As far as I can tell, the mall will be open from Friday all the way through until Sunday. This includes the night, which they have been advertising as Moonlight Shopping (yes, in English) since at least the beginning of February.
I will eventually get down to that part of town and take a picture for you, but I will wait for all of the fervour to die down. I was taking a bus that went by there yesterday (on the way to a basketball game, more on that later) and there was a huge amount of traffic and people in the area. *
The basketball game: It was the New Yorker Phantoms Braunschweig versus Ratiopharm Ulm and the reason I was there was that the International Office got free tickets.
The Braunschweig side has such a lovely name because one of the richest men in town is the owner of a quite successful clothing store name New Yorker. Let's just say that I do not think anyone (bar of the Dominatrix/Brothel/Goth set) would be caught dead in any of the outfits that I have seen advertised around town, but, after a little tooling around their website, I guess that I can say that the rest of their clothing seems be a little more main stream. Anyway, as you can guess, the Phantoms part of the name follows from that. The have an incredibly silly looking mascot, which is a guy dressed as a 'phantom': ie. in a black muscle-y outfit with a black cape and a white mask. I tried to find a picture, but I was unsuccessful in my attempt. I nearly died of laughter when I first saw him. Add that to the Phantom of the Opera music and the fact that Phantom was a memorable part of my senior year in high school (band trip to NYC, including seeing the musical on Broadway... not to brag or anything.) and I was dying.
Other than the hokey mascot, the game went well. At least, it did go well, until two minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, when Braunschweig was up by at least ten. We will just suffice to say that once we hit overtime, it was looking like an interesting mirror to the Tar Heel's loss to Georgetown on Sunday. Or so I hear, since I was not privileged to watch that particular game as noted in a previous post.
And now it is time for me to got to bed, since staying up late on the Internet is no way to kill my sleep deprivation-- the presence of which I am not sure of, since I get at least eight hours of sleep a night. (Yay flex time and nothing else to do with my life.) Hopefully tomorrow my bike will be fixed. (Yet another flat tire, this time the back one. So completely dead that I had to go and buy a new inner tube-- Schlauch auf Deutsch, that word has a nice roundness to it...) I had the tools and other necessities to fix it to-day (except for the colleague from whom I am borrowing the bicycle and the one who does the fixes), but I was too chicken to try to do it myself, since I have never taken the back tire off of a bike before, and, knowing my luck, I would have killed it. Forever. And, as old as it is, it does not deserve the fate that is me trying to fix things. I know what you are thinking: 'Isn't this girl majoring in engineering?'. Answer: 'Yes, but there is a reason why I did not choose mechanical, and remember: I am not fixing the aeroplanes and space ships, I am just designing them. And there are IT guys who can fix the computers.'
Countdown to London: Four days.
* Update 01.04.2007: Here is an artists rendition that I found online, the foreground being the Schloß and the hinter-part being the rest of the shopping mall.
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