Erfolg

Somewhat surprisingly, we came 2nd in the Flynn's pub quiz last night! The prize was a large quantity of Guinness. The pictures are from Ignacio's camera - there's a good one of the quiz team with Tina, one half of the quiz-setting duo.

The quiz was pretty tough. Did you know Honda is Japanese for 'large paddy field'? Well I know you did, but it's not exactly well known. Anyway, If we'd got that right we would have won. We were pretty satisfied with the Guinness though.

Behinderungen

Snowed again last night. The grit lorries and snowploughs seem to do a pretty good job, though there have been a few accidents on the ice. Meanwhile, just over the border in Alsace, no snow has been cleared, and the people working in our department who live there can't get in this morning.

Das Nibelungenlied

I went to an exhibition on the Nibelungenlied in the Schloss yesterday. The Nibelunglied, as you probably knew, is sort of the German equivalent of Beowulf (cue angry emails from anglo-saxon students), a long saga-poem in medieval German about various kings and their squires killing each other and fighting over thrones. The story was the basis for Richard Wagner's 4-part opera 'the ring cycle'. The exhibition was very busy, maybe because the whole lord of the rings thing is very popular over here. There was some very cool stuff in there, but there were way too many guided tours going on for my liking. They were all talking over each other and swarming around in big groups which got on my nerves a bit. What was very cool to see was the handwritten copy of the poem that was redsicovered in 1755 and sparked the renewal of interest in the saga, and in making modern translations of it. It's amazing to see the carefully written script and to imagine the one man who wrote the whole thing out.

I also liked the captions on the exhibits written for children. The German was a lot easier.