Sandi with Brandi in RotterdamA friend and fellow faculty member, Sandi Poindexter, is teaching in Helsinki, Finland all this year. Sandi is the one to whom I owe huge thanks; she's the one who got me started on international travel. The Finland system, or at least the system where she is in Helsinki has "intensive" courses where fewer courses are taught for more hours per day, for a month or so. Sandi had a week break between sessions, so she went to Brussels for a few days by herself, came here, and then she and I planned to go to Amsterdam and Rotterdam on Thursday through Sunday.
Sandi got to Bielefeld on Monday evening. I was able to meet her at the train station. It was so nice to see someone from "home" and to be able to talk about events on the NMU campus, what was happening for people we both know, and that kind of thing. Sandi went with me to school on both Tuesday and Wednesday. My computer gave me new fits and it appeared that Sandi was able to solve at least part of the problems. On Tuesday evening, the current dean, Uwe Rossler, and his wife took Sandi and me to dinner. We had a nice time and a great conversation. The dean and Sandi had met some years ago while she was here, and he had also come to Marquette I believe. On Wednesday, Sandi met with the "informatiks" (computer) faculty to discuss what their program is like, whether they will be offering classes in English (so that our CIS students could attend here---doesn't look like they will be), and told them about the one-week international event that the CIS people have been having each year. The computer faculty did seem interested in that idea. Wednesday evening Sandi finished making housing arrangements for our trip to Amsterdam (going there first, 2 days) and Rotterdam (going there on Saturday and leaving there on Sunday). We tried to find out whether Brandi could go with us, or rather, what it would cost. Sometimes different websites for the same hotel would say a pet was acceptable on one site and say no on another! We did call one place and discovered that it would cost 50 euros to take Brandi!! I've imposed on Wolfgang's family twice to take Brandi--once for the trip to St. Etienne, and next weekend for my trip to Spain. So, Sandi had nicely agreed to taking Brandi touring with us. So, we were set with a backpack apiece (really the way to go if you can condense down that far!) and Brandi walking where possible or traveling in her airline mesh bag when it was not, and we set off Thursday morning for our adventure!! Pictures to come in the next day, I hope!!
Speaking of the next day----Thomas the IT guy here and I have given up on this computer. The screen is scrolling, often, out of control. I can use it at school by hooking it up to an external monitor and just looking at that. At home, I often have to hold a certain spot on the screen (evidently a loose connection) in order to stop the screen from scrolling. This makes for inefficient one-handed typing. Thomas is afraid that if we don't send the computer in for repair (OK'd by NMU, given that Thomas found out that based on the particular number of this computer the world-wide repair company says it's under warranty and they'll fix it) something else will happen and we won't be able to even use it to get my info off of it. Sandi had nicely downloaded everything on it to my 500gb external hard drives (thank heavens I thought of getting one from OfficeMax before I left!), so that is current as of a couple of days ago. She'd also "fixed" the screen roll business at that point by inserting a piece of paper between the screen and the plastic housing. That worked until last night, when whatever broke loose again and the roll returned. This minute, it's not rolling, but obviously, something is wrong.
Because there are severe limits on how many pounds of luggage I can take on both EasyJet and RyanAir flights this weekend and because I'm giving up and downloading to a German laptop Thomas will loan me, I'm not taking this computer with me this weekend. If I can't upload pictures tomorrow, I will not get to do it until after I'm back. Then, you'll get to see Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Vic in Spain in one big splash of posted blog pictures!! So, stay tuned.....!
Sandi got to Bielefeld on Monday evening. I was able to meet her at the train station. It was so nice to see someone from "home" and to be able to talk about events on the NMU campus, what was happening for people we both know, and that kind of thing. Sandi went with me to school on both Tuesday and Wednesday. My computer gave me new fits and it appeared that Sandi was able to solve at least part of the problems. On Tuesday evening, the current dean, Uwe Rossler, and his wife took Sandi and me to dinner. We had a nice time and a great conversation. The dean and Sandi had met some years ago while she was here, and he had also come to Marquette I believe. On Wednesday, Sandi met with the "informatiks" (computer) faculty to discuss what their program is like, whether they will be offering classes in English (so that our CIS students could attend here---doesn't look like they will be), and told them about the one-week international event that the CIS people have been having each year. The computer faculty did seem interested in that idea. Wednesday evening Sandi finished making housing arrangements for our trip to Amsterdam (going there first, 2 days) and Rotterdam (going there on Saturday and leaving there on Sunday). We tried to find out whether Brandi could go with us, or rather, what it would cost. Sometimes different websites for the same hotel would say a pet was acceptable on one site and say no on another! We did call one place and discovered that it would cost 50 euros to take Brandi!! I've imposed on Wolfgang's family twice to take Brandi--once for the trip to St. Etienne, and next weekend for my trip to Spain. So, Sandi had nicely agreed to taking Brandi touring with us. So, we were set with a backpack apiece (really the way to go if you can condense down that far!) and Brandi walking where possible or traveling in her airline mesh bag when it was not, and we set off Thursday morning for our adventure!! Pictures to come in the next day, I hope!!
Speaking of the next day----Thomas the IT guy here and I have given up on this computer. The screen is scrolling, often, out of control. I can use it at school by hooking it up to an external monitor and just looking at that. At home, I often have to hold a certain spot on the screen (evidently a loose connection) in order to stop the screen from scrolling. This makes for inefficient one-handed typing. Thomas is afraid that if we don't send the computer in for repair (OK'd by NMU, given that Thomas found out that based on the particular number of this computer the world-wide repair company says it's under warranty and they'll fix it) something else will happen and we won't be able to even use it to get my info off of it. Sandi had nicely downloaded everything on it to my 500gb external hard drives (thank heavens I thought of getting one from OfficeMax before I left!), so that is current as of a couple of days ago. She'd also "fixed" the screen roll business at that point by inserting a piece of paper between the screen and the plastic housing. That worked until last night, when whatever broke loose again and the roll returned. This minute, it's not rolling, but obviously, something is wrong.
Because there are severe limits on how many pounds of luggage I can take on both EasyJet and RyanAir flights this weekend and because I'm giving up and downloading to a German laptop Thomas will loan me, I'm not taking this computer with me this weekend. If I can't upload pictures tomorrow, I will not get to do it until after I'm back. Then, you'll get to see Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Vic in Spain in one big splash of posted blog pictures!! So, stay tuned.....!
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