Today we went to Wiesbaden, Herr Dr. Stoehr’s hometown. We
were very lucky to have him as our tour guide because he was able to grant us a
deeper insight of Wiesbaden. We walked through the town, saw many historical
sights like the Staatstheater (State Theater), Kurhaus (Casino) for which you
must be well dressed (James Bond style suit and tie) to be admitted, and Rhein-
Main Halle, which is a multi purpose building used for concerts, festivals,
etc. Rhein-Main Halle is actually going to be torn down in the near future and
rebuilt because many Germans do not like the architecture because it does not
look “modern enough” (it was built in the 70s).
After a lot of walking and sightseeing in Wiesbaden, we went
to lunch at the Ratskeller, located in the city hall cellar. After lunch we
headed to the Landtag (Hessen’s Parliament) because we had an appointment at
1:30. Upon our arrival we met our tour guide whom gave us his first English
tour ever. He was very nervous, but did a great job. The Landtag building was once
the winter palace of Wilhelm the First (the ceilings of the main stairwell had
snow flakes and were blue). During the time period when additions were being
made to the Landtag, Parliament met in Rhein- Main Halle. Hessen’s Parliament meets
three times a month, has 110 members who sit according to party. The President
of parliament along with his five Vice Presidents sit in the front of the room.
Currently, there is a coalition between the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)
and the Green Party. 
When we finished touring the Landtag, we hurried to the Staatskanzlerei
(Hessen’s Executive headquarters), which was about a five minute walk. Upon
arrival, our tour guide gave an extensive 45 minute presentation, which
described the basic functions of the Staatskanzlerei along with its ministers.
After the presentation, we toured the building, which had inspirational quotes
written on some of the windows, one read Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I
have a dream.” “Ei häwwe Dream”
After the Staatskanzlerei we discussed with our professors
what our favorite parts of the trip were. They then decided to give us an hour
of free time in Weisbaden. The students split up from the professors and of
course our first stop was an ice cream shop, then we walked around stores and
decided to look for an H&M. After asking a couple of locals with our broken
German, we finally found H&M and a couple of the girls went shopping. A lot
of the winter clothes were on sale. We
finished shopping, leaving 10 minutes to get back to our meeting spot. Five
locals had assured us that the Hauptbahnhof (train station) was a five-minute
walk from H&M. However, the cashier at H&M told us that it was a
twenty-minute walk, so we all started to run and that is when we realized we
were lost in the city. We tried asking locals for directions and some of the
German students asked English speaking Americans for directions in German and
they gave us a very familiar confused face. After realizing that they too were
American and clueless in German we all laughed and continued to run. Finally
some of the German students found a map and figured the way to the train
station. We were 16 minutes late to our meeting place at the train station and
the professors were a little upset, although they did not say anything to us.
However, we still made it to the train on time. We agreed on the train that we
would ALL (students only) go out to dinner. We decided that we would meet in
the Lobby, however some of the group decided to change the meeting place to the
4th floor without telling Eric (apparently Eric’s roommate was
supposed to tell him). Shortly before he was about to go down to the lobby,
Eric’s roommate stepped out for a few minutes to talk to Dr. Galatas and said
he would be right back. He did come back, three hours later, after going to
dinner with everyone, and telling them Eric didn’t want to go to dinner, thanks
Forrest –du Arschloch. -- Ruth Rivera & Eric Peer
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