In Germany finally, late April

Finally arrived in Germany to start a six month internship, or guest journalist, position in the English language programming unit of Deutsche Welle Radio. I'm living in Bonn, which is near Cologne. Bonn reminds me a bit of Victora, B.C. It's a government/university town on the water (the Rhine in this case). It's very green, lots of grass, big trees and gardens, and laid back, maybe a bit too laid back for some, but it's okay for me. And the much bigger Cologne, that's the main station in Cologne above, is just a half hour away by train. Bonn's university, the big yellow building above, is right downtown with a big lawn in front. On nice days it's full of young people sunning, playing football (Euro style) and doing all of the other things young people do. That's one of buildings anyway. They're scattered around the city and the university has about 27,000 students. Getting around on bikes is huge here. There's about 400,000 people in Bonn I think, but it's fairly compact and everywhere's close on a bike... there are no real hills and which helps in the speed dept. Cafe life is really big here too, even if the cafe is Pizza Hut, it's fairly popular, as is McDonalds. The pizza in the Turkish fast food joints,the immbisse(s) is good and cheap. Like Canada, pizza's a mainstay.. although I'll have to talk here sometime about the other mainstay, curry wúrst... it's not as good as it sounds.

bavaro beach near punta cana, mid-April

Bavaro beach is on the eastern coast of the Dominican Republic. We had several heated debates over pina coladas around the pool about whether the sea there is the Carribean or the Atlantic. The beach is very beautiful, but very busy. There are dozens of resorts along it. I was at the Barcelo resorts, there are five intertwined around each other.

jama and cory's wedding..mid-April

My nephew Cory and his fiance Jama's wedding at Bavarro beach. I think it was one of the most stress free weddings I've been to and I had a great time.