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Please note that my entries are written in colloquial English and without any special attention to idiomatic correctness! It's just straight out of my head and spontaneous...



November 27th, 2002 "Back to the webmaster world" Fayetteville, AR/USA

Here we go, my Tour d'Euurope Newsletters:
Click here to enter the special entertainment feature!
I haven't put them all up yet but you will be able quench your thirst for reading already on this part... ;-) :-p



November 27th, 2002 "Back to the webmaster world" Fayetteville, AR/USA

Hello everybody!
I am sorry that I haven't been able to update my website at all since June. I was trabeling all over Europe during the summer, busy exploring, edventuring and having fun on top of writing bok-long newsletters to friends. I also worked as a photojournalist at the EUropean T&F CHampionshps which was very busy but awesome work. Upon my arrival back in the U.S. I entered the managerial MBA program at the University of Arkansas' Sam M. Walton College of Business. My studies did not allow me to spend time on keeping my website up to date, either. I now am far behind and I don't think I will find the time to everything on here I wanted to put on. We will see, though.
I have quite a few things to add: My Tour d'Europe Newsletters from the summer, my retirement announcement, and other stuff. Well, I better get started here...



June 27th, 2002 "Europe Newsletter # 5 (Stuttgart and The Big Surprise!)" Stuttgart, Germany

Dear Newsletter Subscribers all over the world,

I received a wonderful wakeup call on Tuesday...morning? No, afternoon! It was about 3pm and I woke up from an explosion outside, a firework fired up in reaction to Germany's victorious goal in the World Cup's Semi-Final versus South Korea. I went straight to one of the two TVs that were running in our house. My dad was watching the game downstairs, my mom had the TV running upstairs listening to the commentary while lying outside reading and getting tanned in the rare German cloud-less sun. It was about the 70th minute of the first semi-final and I finally got to see my first World Cup game this year....well, 20 minutes of it. Even the next day, I almost overslept the whole BRA vs. TUR game. I got to see 35 minutes of that one. I hope by the final on Sunday I will be awake enough to finally see the whole game for once, the World Cup final Brazil versus Germany, the first-ever encounter of those two nations in World Cup history! Unbelievable but true: Germany has never played Brazil in the World Cup. Both teams probably qualified for the championship every year and both have been world champion three times, but they never played each other. Since 1982 one of those teams stood in the final of every World Cup. This Sunday, finally, they are both playing together in one and the same World Cup Final. That will be a historical and memorable one, I know it already! I will be running a half marathon here in Stuttgart the same morning. The start is at 9am. I have 4 hours to finish and get back home to watch the game. I am not gonna stay for the award ceremony as the World Cup is way too important to miss.

After the German game yesterday, I went straight to downtown Stuttgart. I had to buy a travel backpack for my crazy Europe trip which will start on Tuesday. I found a good, big, discounted one. The city was full of beer-drinking German soccer fans. There was a huge group walking through the Koenigstrasse, Stuttgart's shopping street which leads passed by the Schlossplatz (Stuttgart's nice castle with a park-like area in front of it, with water fountains and little beer gardens). It was a wonderful, gorgeous day down there. First of all, I think I should tell you a little more about the area I come from:
I was born in Stuttgart and grew up in this town right outside of it, called Fellbach. It has 45,000 inhabitants (Stuttgart has 560,000). We are living in one part of Fellbach which is called Oeffingen. That little town has about 10,000 inhabitants. Lots of farmer families are living there. Agricultural fields, little mountains, and little forests are all around. There is lots of nature there. Form my house, you only have to run a few hundred meters and you are standing in the middle of a field. About 45 minutes driving time from here the black forest starts towards the Southwest. Towards the East, you get into a very hilly area, called the "Schwaebische Alb". You can ski there in the winter. Looking at my area from the bigger picture and dimensions, Stuttgart is located in Germany's Southwest. Measure in driving time, France is 1.5 hours away, Switzerland 2-2.5 hours, Austria 2.5 hours, Czech Republic about 3.5 hours, The Netherlands about 5 hours. The topography of Stuttgart is very pretty (in the summer): Lots of trees, all green, very hilly. HOwever, you might wonder now why I don't want to live here for good anymore... well, here is my reason: I don't like the people. I hate their prevailing mentality. And I don't like the weather. It is only nice in the summer; otherwise it's mostly cloudy and rainy. You hardly ever see the sun then, it's very depressing. The people here are idiots (most, NOT all, though): they are unfriendly, extremely jealous, unhappy, intolerant, narrow-minded (compared to other regions in GER), and they love gossip as well as talking bad behind people's backs. Also, they are not honest. All of those character traits I hate. The landscape can be as pretty as it wants, but if you don't get along with the people's mentality, you can forget about it. No, thanks. However, as I said, it does not apply to all people here. There are also nice individuals living here.

---------------------WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOLY MOLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT A SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I CANNOT BELIEVE IT!!!!!!!!! --------------------------------------------

You know what just happened when I was writing this newsletter and listening to MP3s on my computer? My dad came rushing up with the phone in his hand. I was like "Who is it?" He said something about someone from the US...I had no freakin' clue who that could be, since not too many have my number. I thought about some who had it but I couldn't think of a reason to call me. So I answered the phone with a surprised and questioning "Hellooo??????????". After listening to the voice on the other side, I found out about the big surprise: Seneca Lassiter was on the other side!!!!! It was a huge surprise as I never gave him my phone number in Germany. He got it from a friend of mine, Marion Steininger who is working for the Kim McDonald T&F Management in London. Seneca is managed by them. He knows I am friends with Marion and Marion knows I am friends with him. Also, my Irish friend I was mentioning before is living with Marion in London. I met Rosie at Boston University, she then moved back to Ireland and got a new Irish coach. This very coach is Marion's boy friend and is also working at the Kim McDonald T&F Management. Well, there is a lot more connections to all of that....I am also friends with others who know Marion, but that would be too much to write about now... It is Seneca who now is here in Germany and got my phone number from Marion. Seneca did not even know I was in GER right now and he did not know I was living very close to where he is staying right now, either. He is in Tuebingen, about an hour away from my place. In fact, he just saw Fili, a German runner who was training in Arkansas and tried to get into school there 2 years ago. He is living in Tuebingen. Also, a runner I recruited for Boston University is living in Tuebingen. Wow, all kinds of connections here... WOW!!!!!! AWESOME!!! Anyhow, as you can imagine, it was quite a surprise to talk to Seneca here in Germany. It was so nice to talk to him again. I hadn't seen him in quite a while as he moved away from Fayetteville to train with Kenyan world-class runner Bernard Lagat (second at Worlds, 3rd in the Olympics in the 1500m) in Washington State. Seneca and I will meet up in Stuttgart in the next few days before I go to Spain on Tuesday. He is just checking out his training plan and then he will call me tomorrow so we can set up a time and I will pick him up from the train station. I will then show him Stuttgart. SOOOOOOOO GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am really happy!!!!! Great to see an old friend... funny that, so many times, you have to go so far away, to a different continent, to see an old friend who is living in the country you live.

By the way, for those of you who do not know Seneca Lassiter: He used to run for the University of Arkansas until the year before I transferred there from BU. He was really good, national champion and all. Great miler. He turned pro and kept having success. He ran at Worlds last year, for example. He stayed in Arkansas for a couple more years after his eligibility was over. In fact, he was my neighbor for a little while. Then, a couple of months ago, he decided to move away and make a big change. He decided to go to Washington to train with his long-time rival, Kenyan Bernard Lagat who had made big progress after his college time at WSU under his coach. They all moved to Tucson, AZ after the coach accepted the head coach position at Arizona a few weeks ago (I knew about it before it became official but kept my mouth shut...). Well, Seneca has always come to EUR for the summer, but he always stayed in London. Now he is in Germany...which means that I will finally get to see him here and hang out a little. Will be fun, I am sure! :-)

Well, I wanted to write more about Stuttgart and how it was coming back, but now this newsletter is way too long already due to the big surprise on the phone. I will write about it all to two special friends (which does not mean that you are not special...;-) :-p!). I will then put it (or part of it) on my website as well in the next couple of days. If you are interested, you will be able to check it out there. I have not put anything up there yet, but that won't take long. I will do it soon.

That's all for this newsletter from me. Best wishes from sunny and refreshing Germany,

Lilli



June 24th, 2002 "Arrival thoughts/behaviors/embarrassments" Stuttgart, Germany

Wow...hmmm... I (almost) made it...and so far my flights have been as smooth and on time as never before when the United States were involved as either origin or destination. However, I am not quite in Stuttgart yet and I don't have my luggage in my hands yet, so it is way too early to celebrate... :-p

------------------ now I am there, I made it!!! Luggage there, my body there, but my mind is not quiet there yet and still has to comprehend what is going on...--------------

OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!! I am just sitting here in the Stuttgart subway on my way to my hometown where my dad will be waiting to pick me up... OH MY HOLY MOLY SHIT!!!!!!! Wow.
....silence...

Let me begin from the very start...

First of all, on the plane to Stuttgart already, I was sitting next to a German. All phrases I shared with him were like "Thank you" when he was handing me my bag from the overhead compartment. However, even though I knew he was German, English was the only language that jumped out of my head and mouth. Several times it happened to me, I never managed to get any German out of me. Then, while we were approaching the airport, I was sitting there with my digital camera taking pictures like a...TOURIST!!! ...who saw the area for the first time in his life! I did take those pics only for you, friends in Arkansas. However, I was really sitting there constantly staring out of the window... just like a...TOURIST, a FOREIGNER, a VISITOR!!! However, that was the least crazy thing that happened... I was also glad that we did not enter the airport through the finger. Before, i always preferred the most convenient method of getting into the terminal. This time, however, I don't know, I wanted to enter it as slowly and as consciously as possible. I was the only passenger to leave the bus and enter the building. That never happened before either...I am always one of the first ones anywhere!
Then, in the baggage claim area, I went to the bathroom...I was sitting there and did not really want to get back up. I wanted to just chill out a little...ON THE PUBLIC TOILET!!! How pathetic is that???!!!!! :-D :-p (I am cracking up while I am writing all of this...those intolerant Germans must be thinking I am a crazy American!!!) Then, again, at the baggage claim I was pretty much the last from the London flight who got her stuff. Also, I almost forgot... I wanted to get a cart for my luggage so I wouldn't have to carry it. Well, I saw one change at first sight: Now they require deposit for the carts. I thought "Oh, that's different! Something has changed besides the airport itself after it had been under construction when I left a year ago.". Well, that wasn't the only thing... then I was like "Deposit? That means "money"...hmmmm...didn't I miss out on something in the financial happenings in the last year??? Yes, here is the problem! I do not own any money I could use in the country I was born and raised in!!!" Well, I had US Dollars AND British Pound in my wallet, but I have never ever owned the "German currency" in my life ever before!!! So I went to the carts and looked...looked and saw that you could pay with Swiss Francs, Euros, AND 25 US Cent$. However, there was the next problem: I did not even have any 25-cent coins of "my own" currency... I always save them all for our laundry machine, so I hardly ever have any quarters in my wallet. Well, so there I was standing in my home airport with absolutely no money, not even enough to pay a cart deposit!
After that I went outside and straight to the BANK. How pathetic is that??? A native citizen needs to go straight to the bank and get the local currency with TRAVELLER'S cheques issued in US DOLLARS!!! I only wanted 20 bucks worth of Euros. That guy told me the commission would be relatively high to that little amount of money...I told him in perfect German that I did not have any Euros but my parents had, and that I had been in the country for a long time.
(While I am writing this, my laughter has subsided and I have become very quiet, very thoughtful instead...also, I am getting very close to downtown Stuttgart... from there, it is only 12 more minutes to my hometown Fellbach...eeewww!!! Getting closer and closer!!! At least I still know the exact amount of minutes of how long it takes to get from what station to the next...)

It came even worse after. First of all, I really wanted to actually stay in the airport for a little while, just sit there, let things sink in, think, and write...instead of rushing to the subway. Then, however, after I received my first-ever couple of Euros, I went straight to the luggage carts. The cart man came at the same time and wanted to take them away. I was there searching in my wallet for the right Euro coin...it took me a while, couldn't find the right one this quickly... I told that guy that this was the first time ever for me to have Euros, that I wouldn't know yet how which coin looks like...well, this cart guy did not have much patience but a lot of mercy with a "dumb foreigner", an actual native acting like a tourist who had never been to the place before and never seen the country's, his own nation's currency before!!!!! This guy had this little key and gave me a cart for free as I was unable to manage finding the right Euro coin. Wow!!! ...silence...

But this still wasn't the end of all of the dumb foreigner tourist embarrassment...

...(Now I was just sitting there for a few second staring into nowhere in the subway...just getting a non-focused grasp of the people around me and their facial expressions...their pure Germanness... the pure Germanness that probably is only written in my DNA...!!!)

------------ I need to stop here for a little wile...I am getting closer, VERY close to my subway station...wow... my adrenaline is rising...a little...hum...maybe a little more than just a little...I can feel it... :-p adrenaline...adrenaline maybe mixed with a little bit of fear??? I don't know, we will see... ------------------

Sorry, I have lost my thoughts now…I am unable to "keep the string of thoughts" and write on… I will finish this whenever I regain them all, I promise… I need some sleep now, haven't gotten any in by now 33 hours…

Let me see where I left you off...hmmmm...OK, I was telling you about the cart embarrassment when it took me too long to find the correct Euro coin and the cart guy had mercy for me, a dumb foreign tourist. Yes, when I was sitting on the public toilet :-p :-D before, I was gonna stay in the airport for a little while, just sit there and think...however, after the cart deal I decided to just jump into the next subway and write in there and use that time to think. I thought it might be sufficient.

Well, so there I went downstairs with all of my luggage with American Airlines tags to the subway station where the next problem was waiting for me: the ticket machines. First, I had to remember how those things work. I was standing there for a few second but then figured it out. It did not take me too long (at least that's what I thought...). So I was there trying to get that stupid machine take my Euro bills, which spit them out a couple of times...probably those machines reject accpeting Euros from a "foreignized" native, a Germerican... While I was fighting with tha machine this guy came over and asked me I wanted the "Baden-Wuerttemberg" TIcket, which is a ticket issued by the GErman Rail (I was standing in front of the local transit machine). He used English to talk to me. Obviously, he thought I was an American (he was with me in the lift...he might have seen my AA tags..) trying to figure out the GErman ticket machine system. He thought I was standing in front of the wrong machine. I replied to him in English that I was from here but just hadn't been here for a long time. Later I thought "Why did you speak English to him?", because he was obviously living in Stuttgart but he looked like he wasn't born in Germany... :-p Holy crap, this is so pathetic!!! Now I did not only feel like a tourist but others, who were foreigners themselves in Germany, had the perception that I was a tourist needing help to get around in the city I was born in... Holy crap! This REALLY IS pathetic, TOTALLY pathetic!!! I was just smiling and laughing quietly after all of that had happened to me... :-D :-p

Then, when I came down to the platform, all these Germans looked at me like I was the 7th wonder of the world! It seemed like they also thought I was a foreigner. Maybe I am too tanned to be German???!!!? :-D :-p ;-) They really looked at me weird, like they would like to know where I was form and which nationality I was... well, VERY good question! I don't know, either... oh, no, I know, sure: I am the citizen of the country "Germerica"!!! ...which must be somewhere in the air above the Atlantic Ocean, nobody has discovered it yet...well, yes, but only people who have lived in both countries for a long period of time.

As much as things seemed to have changed at the first sight and in the big picture, as little seemed have changed in the micro view: My hometown, Fellbach, itself seemed just the same with the exception of the train station which was under cnstruction when I left. Everything else stayed the same. Also our house, everything is wheer it used to be many years ag. My room is the same. Just a big box of Nike stuff and the mail form the previous 12 months got added (Nike sent some nice stuff :-)!)

I think that's all that happened straightly followed my arrival in Germany... more recent things later.



June 24th, 2002 "Europe Newsletter # 4 (The REAL ONn!)" Stuttgart, Germany

Hello everybody,

yes, I made it!!! Well, at least I made it to Europe, not to Germany yet, though. I am just sitting on my plane from London Heathrow to Stuttgart, my final destination after a 23-hour journey with a 6-hour odyssey in downtown London.

It really was an odyssey. I still need to comprehend what I did...I also haven't even had time to take a deep breath and realize that I am back in Europe again after having been absent for 11 months. I still need to create my thoughts and perceptions. I was so busy rushing all around to, in, and out of London that I did not even have time to think about what was going on. I was just sprinting from sight to sight, jumping on and off the bus as well as on and off the London underground (also called "the Tube"). All I did was snap, snap here and snap, snap there; all in all 60 pictures within less than 3 hours of time-compressed sight-seeing throughout Great Britain's capitol. I am sure it was one of London's shortest sight-seeing tours ever. Within less than three hours I pretty much saw it all. You name it, I saw and photographed it: Marble Arch, St. Paul's Cathedral, The Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, House of Parliament with Big Ben, Westminster Bridge, The Horse Guards, St. James Park, Hyde Park, Travalgar Square, and Picadilly Circus. I had been there, done it, seen it all before, 14 years ago. However, it had been long, obviously, and it was about time to return to a city as nice and historically rich as London is. I remembered it all very well even though my memories were kind of shady, dark (No wonder, as we never saw the sun 14 years ago, I do not think...). I also remember exactly how our best family picture was taken from across the House of Parliament, on the other side of the Themes River. This year again, I had a picture taken. However, I had to ask a random person as I was sight seeing by myself.

I was supposed to meet up with my Irish friend Rosie. I tried to call her but either I had the wrong number or I was just too dumb to call whatever I had written down. In any case, someone other than my friend answered the phone. I did not have any more small coins so I was unable to call again before I had bought something, which did not happen that quickly. As I was in such a rush and I took my a whole hour to just get away from the Heathrow Express rain station in London Paddington, I figured I would not get to see anything if I tried to meet up with Rosie and waited for her somewhere. Even the way I rushed efficiently through London (after the one-hour mess up in Paddington), I just barely made it back to my designated train to London Heathrow.

I was walking around back and forth in front of Paddington desperately trying to figure out London's very complex public transportation system in hopeless search for a day bus ticket seller. I was there wandering around all confused and frustrated like a dump foreign idiot. After a while, I started cussing around quietly before I finally made it onto an underground train whose later connections would finally take me to my first destination: The London Tower Bridge, which was my favorite of the day! I loved it. However, all time I had was to take about ten pics of it from down at the Themse and then I had to go straight back to the underground already to get to Buckingham Palace and tell the Queen "Hey y'all, whazzup!!! Sorry about y'all's granny!!I am fixin' to fixin' to Germany!!!" :-D (Sorry you Germans who have never live the US, you won't understand this joke…you only get it if you know how people with thick Arkansas accents speak… :-p). From Buckingham I walked along St. James Park down passed by Westminster Abbey to the House of Parliament and across Westminster Bridge to Waterloo. From there, I took the bus to the Horse Guards, saw their parade for a few seconds and then walked down through Travalgar Square to Picadilly Circus from where I took the Tube back to Paddington and Heathrow Express - that was my les-than 3-hour sight-seeing rush through the City of London! Pretty stressful, let me tell you that much! But next year I will spend a lot more time there and actually enjoy it all. I even had time to get some souvenirs for friends, though…

So, in the end, after my one-hour waste in Paddington which I needed to figure out the London Public Transit System, my sight-seeing strategy worked out perfect and very efficient. It was quite exhausting carrying my two laptops through the streets of London, though…

And now I am back in Stuttgart… I am just working on the perception I had and experiences I made so far after getting back as an American alien… It will be a long text. I won't send it via e-mail to y'all. If you are interested in reading it, just go on my website in a little while. You will find it there!

OK, I will finish the text now and then I better go to bed… I haven't slept one single minute I more than 32 hours!!!


Bye, bye, best wishes and more updates later,


Lilli



June 23rd, 2002 "Europe Newsletter # 3 (Ready for Europe!!!)" Fayetteville, AR

Hello, what's up and going on over there in whichever corner of the globe you are!!! :-)

OK y'all, I hope this is really going to be my last pseudo-Europe Newsletter from Arkansas... but we will find out tomorrow at 6:41pm when I am supposed to leave with destination: Stuttgart, Germany. My flight is scheduled to go through Chicago and London. I checked out my itinerary and was very delighted to see that I have a 6-hour layover in London! YEAH!!!! I am sure you know what that means.... certainly, Miss Silli Lilli will jump off the plane in London Heathrow, run through customs, punch out the officers who will want to have my illegal imports declared, throw off my luggage to get back in the system and on the plane to Germany, and then... people will just see a flash squeezing into Heathrow Express right before the doors shut.... and 15 minutes later there will be Silli Lilli standing in the middle of the City of London with a big huge smile on her face!!! Actually, you might not be able to see my face at all, as it will be hidden behind my digital camera taking innumerable photos every 15 seconds... ;-) :-p. You know what the best part of London will be??? I will get to see my good ole Irish friend formerly from Boston University, Rosemary "Guinness" Ryan!!!!!!! How wicked awesome will that be??!!!! Last time I saw her was at the World XC Champs more than 2 years ago in Portugal. We were hanging out all the time. I was with the Irish team more than with the German one... but no wonder, this lame pile of too serious people, those Germans!!! No fun hanging out with those... I prefer my crazy Irish, American, Canadian,... friends!!! In fact, I went out partying after Worlds with the Irish team, so much fun!!! And naturally I was the only German out there in the hot Portuguese night at the port... lame, lame Germans! No, thanks!!! I am glad I know so many fun people from so many different countries I can hang out with...

Fortunately, not that many Germans are receiving this newsletter...and none of them was there with me at the World Championship...:-p :-) Not all Germans are this non-fun, though!

There is not that much more to report from right now. Be glad, so you will get your deserved "silence before the storm"... soon tons of long, crazy stories from Europe will be fired at you!!! :-) Ha, I will get to GER right in time before we are playing South Korea in the World-Cup Semi's. I cannot believe I haven't seen one single game yet. What a shame!!! I had not missed any German games at international championships since 1986...no German games and hardly any other games!!! Wow, you really can live in complete isolation over here in the U.S.... I am very sad, though, that my españoles did not make it to the Semi's. :-( In fact, I would have cheered for Spain if they had played Germany in the semi's on Tuesday...my mom and I probably would have almost gotten into a fight with my dad while watching the game...;-) :-p :-D Well, now it's all set: Everybody in the house will be rooting for Germany.

I am actually very glad that my flight got screwed up 2 weeks ago. I had a great time here in Arkansas. I do not want to miss it. Right when I found out at the airport about my 12-day delay, I thought it might have been a good thing... and it was. Wonderful time here, but now it's time to get over there and start my big adventurous, crazy backpacking trip through my home continent!!! I am so happy to be able to show my American friends Europe!!! It will be soooo much fun!!! And it is looking very good that I will be traveling all over Europe with good friends next year as well!!! YEAH!!! But that has time still... first I have this year's craziness ahead of me!! And I better enjoy, appreciate and SEIZE the moment...!!!!

All from the German Redneck for now... time to get re-civilized again...;-) :-p :-D

Best wishes,

Lilli



June 15th, 2002 "Newsletter Subscription Opportunity" Fayetteville, AR

If you are interested in signing up for my e-mail newsletter, send a message to me!



June 15th, 2002 "Special Editon: Arkansas Wildness Newsletter # 1 (European Canoeing Danger!)" Fayetteville, AR

Helloooooe and whazzup y'all!!!! :-D

OH MY HOLY MOLY FREAKIN' CRAZY WILDEST BULLCRAPPING SHITTY GOSH!!!!! Sorry about my language but there is just no other way to describe the awesome time we had on our Camping Canoeing Trip we just got back from a few minutes ago... OH MY GOSH!!!! THAT WAS SOOOOOOOOOOO CRAZY, SUPER CRAZY WILD!!! I will always remember this weekend, we had soooooooo much fun!!!

The biggest miracle of the year just happened: The Europeans did not get extinguished; we made it out ALIVE, which REALLY is a BIG HUGE WONDER!!! I can tell you one thing: If you ever want to look death ;-) in the eye and feel the adrenaline coming out of your ears, get in one canoe with a Slovakian swimmer and a German runner :-) :-p: THAT is quite the DEADLY (BUT very FUN!!!) combination...which also gets everybody else in trouble who is on the river at the same time...!!! It was so hilarious, but it really surprises me that nothing serious happened. Natalia (the Slovakian on the LDayback swim team) and I got out of our 9-mile canoeing trip healthy...relatively healthy at least: I look like I got into a huge dogfight with scratches and small wounds all over my body as well as an ever-growing bump on my knee that is looking prettier and prettier every hour (I did not even know that you can have this many colors on such a small body part...). Let me give you this advice: Do NOT sit in the front of a canoe if you are not quite famous for being an experienced canoer... you will be the one who bumps right into the trees... :-D :-p!!! Well, it's actually not that bad, since you get the proper treatment a split of a second later when you roll over into the cold water and al you see is the canoe approaching your head from the top...well, the cold would prevent any inflammation but the lack of oxygen probably would not be that great to cure any injuries...however, The EUROPEAN POWER (hum...I should probably rather call it WEAKNESS, INABILITY or STUPIDITY...:-p!!!) managed to get out of the way before our canoe could bury us underneath it. Fortunately! During our 4,5 hours on the river (swim, chill, and food breaks included), Natalia and I were in deep shit (=trouble) THREE times... and every time a tree(s) was involved...hum...I don't know but somehow we really like nature, pure nature! You know, we figured since we were on our first camping trip ever and slept for the first time in a tent, we wanted to be as close to the nature as possible...which included several rollovers and direct (and fatal) contacts with trees on either sides of the river as well as in the middle of strong streams.

Already before we started the canoeing ride, people said experienced canoers should mix up with beginners. Well, Natalia had done it before so we wanted to go together. It was obvious, however, that people were not quite so sure if that was a good combination...:-)! The Europeans of us insisted to stick together, however. I had never done it before so I sat in front, I was the bumper...LITERALLY!!! Well, the distance on the river was 9 miles, BUT my estimation for the distance Natalia and I paddles was about 18 miles... ;-) :-p, especially in the beginning we drove from one side to the other, from one tree to the other. Nothing happened, though...until we started trusting our "abilities" more and decided to dare to paddle upstream to join others from our group a little upstream who were jumping from trees into the river...well, that was NO good idea... we didn't make it and floated horizontally straight into a tree at a spot where the current was very strong. Well, if I knew anything about plants, I could tell you exactly what kind it was we drove into because I ran straight into it. I was able to cover my face and lay back as flat as I could in the canoe...less than a second later we got out of balance and all I remember was this big boat coming straight down onto me from above! Both Natalia and I managed to not get caught up underneath so it was all good. However, we were unable to get the canoe back up,. In fact, I barely could catch the paddle and not loose it before I was just hanging there holding on to a tree not being able to get out because of the strong current. Natalia swam downstream with the canoe and geared it to the shore (good thing to be a good swimmer in such a situation!). After I had thrown to paddle to the one shore, I had to let myself let go downstream as well, get out of the water, walk a little upstream, get back into the river and grab the life vest as well as the paddle from the trees and then float back down and to the other side where we had trouble rolling over the canoe with all of that water in it. Well, WE MADE IT OUT ALIVE!!! First one down… AND I found out something very valuable: The NIKE Air Max Tailwind "running" shoe is just perfect for swimming!!! The NIKE Air unit keeps you safely on the surface and you can walk on the rocks in the river without hurting your feet.
Additionally, they drain very quickly. It's just a great shoe! I need to tell Nike to advertise its multi-functionality!!! Another good side effect of using it for swimming is that now my shoe is as clean as never before…:-)

However, just about a hundred meters later, again, we hit a tree that was in the middle of the river. This time, the cause was miscommunication AND inability: Another deadly combination!!!! :-) :-p Fortunately, there were other people right next to us that helped us get our canoe out of the water and drain. We could continue our odyssey pretty quickly.

Just a little while after, we passed by some poor fellow victims who rolled over and lost their cooler with all of its content… there were tons and tons beer cans floating all over in the river!!! You wouldn't believe, you saw nothing but beer swimming in the river!!...so we started practicing our lifeguard skills and rescued and reanimated one beer can after another in our canoes. Natalia and I rescued 6 beer lives!!! We should get a special award for risking our lives to safe the lives of 6 (!) beer cans!!! None of us drinks beer so I wanted to bring them all back to Fayetteville and donate them to the Walton College of Business Marketing Department Beer Fund. However, something else came in-between and destroyed our charitable plans… but more about that later! :-) :-p

Half way through our journey, we took a lunch break and enjoyed ourselves in the sun and… ON and FLYING FROM…the TREE!!! Yes, I just couldn't get enough from being as close to nature as possible… :-)… there was this big tree reaching out in the sky and above the river. A big rope with a handle was hanging down from it…guess what it was for and what we ended up doing? Right! Several of us (whoever had the guts to do it) climbed up the tree to about a height of 20 feet (6+ meters), took the rope in our hands, jumps off of it, swung with full speed and (at least I) screaming before (trying to) find the right timing to let go and fly in a big arch into the water (where it was kind of hard not to loose any clothes…).

When I saw some of us swinging/jumping down from the tree from the other side of the shore, I was like" Yeah, that looks like fun to do, I will swim over and join them!" . Well, standing right next to it watching them climbing up those loose sticks hammered into the trunk of the tree all the way up to about 20 feet and then managing not to hit any wood sticking out of the tree while jumping off and swinging away, I was like "Oh , Shit! Do I really wanna do this?". Well, I did. A minute later I was climbing up myself, cussing all along the way while everybody on my side and the other side of the shore was cracking up and started cheering "Germany, Germany!". I did not hesitate too long, jumped off, swung and hit the perfect timing which resulted in a very nice flight through the air into the river (where I almost lost my clothes…:-p). It was soooo much fun!! I went back and did it again. I would have liked to go higher but there was no handle in the rope higher above… too bad! :-( Two of us even did a back flip. However, I do not trust my gymnastics abilities anymore so I did not take any risk. One person did not manage to hit the right time to drop the rope… now he has painful scratches all over his body!

After that, back in the canoes, The European Weakness succeeded in passing this little water"fall". Oh my God, we were so proud of each other, you should have seen us just gliding smoothly over it!!! Everybody was watching us (you know, we already had our reputation in the group by then…!) and cheering like crazy when we made it through without rolling over. We thought we had it all figured out by now… we THOUGHT!!!... That little success gave us such a confidence boost that we once again took the lead and went ahead on the river. However, later on we could hardly wait for the other canoes to catch up to us…that was when we were hanging on to another tree for dear life!...:-) lol:-)… It must have been a funny picture to see: Natalia was standing/hanging in the tree barely holding the canoe on the one side with me hanging on to it with all the power I had in my hands on the other side, floating in the strong current and barely keeping my paddle from floating away and never seeing it again… oh, and one of my legs was trying to somehow get a grip on a branch under water because I could barely hold on to the canoe with my arm… We were just stuck there, but after a few minutes we had a little rescuing team helping us getting out of the helpless situation. If they hadn't been there, the only thing we could have done was just let ourselves and the canoe go with the stream and catch it later on. However, that way we would have never seen our paddles again, and it is quite hard to navigate a canoe without any steering device…

Well, exactly this last accident destroyed my charitable plan to donate our saved beer cans to the Marketing department… we lost everything that was in our boat: beer, water, and sunscreen!

After we had arrived at our camping site, everybody really was surprised that Natalia and I survived our canoeing odyssey…

There are more funny stories to tell about our camping trip. I will tell you those after my 10 to 11-mile run I am about to head out for in a second…

Until then I hope you had fun reading my crazy wild report about our special canoeing trip! And I am sure from now on all of you will stay far, far away from any Europeans in canoes… :-D ;-) :-p!!!

Wild wild wishes from Arkansas,

Miss Silli Lilli

p.s. I am glad my Europe flight got messed up and I ended up staying here longer!!!!



June 12th, 2002 "NO Europe for now... Newsletter temporarily discontinued!" Fayetteville, AR

Saludos norteamericanos a todo el mundo! :-)

yeah, yeah, I need to start getting more in Spanish again...you know I will be spending 2 weeks straight in my favorite European country speaking my favorite language so I better not only prepare for the travel through booking hostels and researching train schedules as well as tourist attraction but also prepare mentally to speak Spanish 24/7 for the first week of my stay. I will be speaking Spanish only while I am down in Sevilla and Cordoba by myself before my travel companions will join me a week later. Good thing I know Spanish (relatively) well...otherwise, it might be a little difficult getting around smoothly down there...

I am sure you were wondering about the subject of this newsletter...

Well... What should I say?... Let's put it this way: Remember I told you about my air travel, none of which (within the US are connected to the US) have ever been going smoothly? Well, yesterday was no exception either... However, I thought I would have personally experienced every possible crazy air travel scenario, BUT I was wrong, very wrong!!! Last year on my way to Germany, I got stuck in XNA (Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport) for 5 hours... this year I got stuck for... 12 (!) DAYS (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Yes, you heard/read it right, 12 DAYS!!!!! I am STILL IN ARKANSAS, NOT IN GERMANY right at this moment!!!
I got to the airport yesterday all packed and ready for a 20+ -hour trip across the ocean when I found out that there was no reservation in my name on any American Airlines flights that day. Back in February I called American up to change my reservation from May to June. That person looked on the computer and told me June 11th would be free. He said I would be all set, the change would have been made and that my flight times would all stay the same. Well, this incompetent little idiot was not quite right... there was no such flight at such time leaving from XNA to Chicago. The other flight were wrong, too. The AA check-in agent and I hence spent almost 1,5 hours on the phone talking to American Airlines trying to find out what the deal was and how to fix the problem. In the end they reissued my ticket and booked me on the next available flight to Germany, on June 23rd!!!! It's cool though, since this won't interfere with my travel plans within Europe. The only thing I am pissed off about is that now I won't get to go to London to visit two of my friends (and newsletter recipients). Dangit, I was going to get a last-minute ticket for next week and stay there for a week or so...well, that won't happen now but I have it on my agenda for next summer (in addition to Rome and who knows what other places...!).

That way I have the pleasure to stay here in Fayetteville 12 more days. I don't mind at all, since a lot of my good friends are here...much more fun than being at home in Germany anyways! In fact, I was never ever homesick during my 4 years here in the United States...not one single second !!! I already have great plans for this weekend: I will go camping and canoeing with the AAO (Arkansas Athlete Outreach). I am really excited about that, since I have never done either one.

As I am not leaving before June 23rd and I don't think there will be too much exciting stuff to report from, I will discontinue my newsletter for a week until I depart for Europe. You will most likely not receive any newsletter from me until either the 22nd of June or the 25th.

Enjoy yourselves until then, seize the moment and RELAX!!!

Best wishes from Arkansas,

Lilli



June 11th, 2002 "Europe Newsletter # 2 (Travel Plans Set!)" Fayetteville, AR

Buenas noches todo el mundo,

it's 1am Central Standard Time, I am sitting here in front of my computer (writing my last "Europe" Newsletter from... the USA!) slurping on a can of good Ole American Dr. Pepper ... that's the life of an American college student I would say, with the exception that I have not just finished studying for some of those tricky multiple-choice undergraduate exams created by those extraordinarily mean American and French marketing professors who have nothing better to do than making hell out of some poor, innocent, and super bright undergraduate students' lives while getting the best kick out of it. How satisfying must that be for them? Isn't it, Helene and Jeff? Come on, you can admit it here in public!;-) :-) :-p.
As much as I seem to have been Americanized, there is still a tiny little difference about my night time spent in front of my computer in an apartment right next to college campus and a caffeinated pop drink in my hand (for those non-Americans of you, Dr. Pepper might sound really healthy and doctor-recommended BUT... well, maybe I should leave you in that belief, it will make me feel less guilty drinking that stuff...;-) :-p :-) !). I did not just finish studying. Our Slovakian swimmer and her boy-friend just stopped by to wish me a good trip to Europe. How nice is that? Thanks, Natalia and Ray! :-) Well, before that I was just finishing up getting everything ready for my travel. I don't know but somehow I have the feeling that I forgot to pack something important...it just seems way too little what I have... but I will find out eventually, maybe the hard way...:-p

Today was a very good day, things turned out just fine. I am not only qualified to be a travel consultant now but I also managed to get our whole Europe travel planned out into the smallest detail, booked and set up. We are good and ready to go...prepared for the adventure! I received the confirmation for our youth hostel in Paris and booked all of our/my accommodations in Spain. Now I can tell you exactly what my Spanish plans are:
On July 2nd I will fly into MAdrid and take the train straight to Sevilla from there, where I will be staying for 4 nights.
From Sevilla I will go on to Cordoba where I will spend 3 nights.
On the 9th of July I will meet my travel companions Amy and Melanie at the youth hostel in Granada. That's when our official European trip together starts. We will stay in the beautiful city for 4 nights before we head to Madrid. We have only 1.5 days to explore Spain's capital as we will take a daytrip to Spain's capitol form the medieval time, Toledo (45km outside of Madrid). On July 16th our ways temporarily depart again but will lead back together a day later in Germany. Switzerland is pretty much set now as well. I got the green light from this hostel up on top of a mountain peak in Davos. It is located at an altitude of 2500m (8000 ft.). I am just in the process of negotiating a special deal, since Amy and Melanie would be staying there for a full week. I already have a hotel room booked with my dad. However, now that I saw this great and very unique place to stay (I mean, who in the world looks down onto valleys and mountain in the middle of the Swiss Alps when they get out of bed in the morning???) I want to stay there as well and give up the luxury of a hotel. If I am lucky, it might work out. My dad will look for someone who can take my place in the hotel room. I hope he will find someone...would be sooooo wicked awesome!!! In preparation for the marathon I would run up (Iand hike some of) that mountain from down in Davos instead of taking the ropeway at least once.
The European T&F CHamps are set as well. My beloved computer, my most precious possession, already received its reserved spot in the press section of the stadium with internet access and everything...that's all that matters and all that I need: My computer has its accommodation! :-) I hope there is also some sort of room service or something for it...you know, to everybody the luxury (he/she)it deserves... ;-) :-p :-) silly, silly...Miss Silli Lilli (I got that nickname from a professor, by the way...oh no!...doesn't that tell everything about my reputation among the academicians?? :-p I like that nickname a lot, though, just fits perfectly...Thanks a lot for it, Mademoiselle Parisienne :-)! ).

Oh, another thing: I wanted to welcome two of the new additions to our selected group ;-) of Lilli's Summer 2002 Europe Newsletter recipients: First of all, I wanted to welcome a special doctor, Mike Tyson's doctor to be exact. I am sure he is very busy these days trying to get his patient sewed together after getting ripped that badly during the fight last Saturday... then, we also have our first Swiss member: I got an e-mail from Switzerland on Saturday from this person who I met in Davos somewhere around 3-5 years ago while training up there. We ran together a few times. Now he stumbled over my website and wrote me an e-mail... How crazy is that??? The world is small, very small...

I think that's about all torture and boredom-to-death I "had to" tell/impose on you for tonight...that reminds me about a question I was asked in response to the Newsletter Subscription e-mail: My favorite (and only) sister really had the guts to ask me if it was possible to get a subscription that included every other newsletter edition only!!! Can you believe that? (Silliness must lie in the family...:-p) No, sorry, no special treatment here: Either you get the full load of torture or none, zero nothing none! Well, it was your choice, your own sentence straight to your grave caused by the well-known sudden-newsletter-death syndrome... you have my deepest and fullest sympathy!!! :-) ;-) :-p

OK, but now "Schluss mit lustig" (stop with being silly)...time to go to bed...I have a big huge travel day ahead of me. I hope it is going to be longer than on my itinerary, though. I am speculating on something that usually happens every single time I travel: a delayed flight, cancelled flight, airport evacuation or just a simple broken plane. That way I would have the American Airlines people get me the last connection of the day to Germany so I can jump into the train with destination "downtown London" and see the city for a couple of hours. That would be awesome. We will see if that will happen...

Now you have a couple of days to recuperate from an overflow of words...ENJOY as long as you can, SEIZE the moment!!!!!! ;-) :-) :-p :-p

Best last wishes from the United States of America,

Miss Silli Lilli


p.s. This is where hopefully all three of us will be staying in Switzerland: On top of this mountain you see on the photo on http://www.parsenn.ch/fm/p.cfm?url=oeffnungszeiten. This is a close-up taken in the winter: http://www.parsenn.ch/fm/p.cfm?url=hotel_jh. Wow, I really reallt hope this runner still needs a place to stay so I can stay up on the peak with my ARCETFs Amy and Melanie!!!




For your interest and education, I have added some information about the touristic/historic/cultural attractions I am going to be visiting during my 2-week stay en España mientras de hablar y practicar mi lengua favorita:

Córdob(v)a:
Córdoba (pop. 300,000), one of Andalusia's eight provincial capitals, stands on the banks of the River Guadalquivir, north of Sevilla. The city was founded circa 169 B.C. by the Roman praetor Claudius Marcelus and was the birthplace of Séneca. The city boomed under the Arabs and on the arrival of the Caliphate, became the most civilised and sophisticated city of 10th-century Europe. During this century Córdoba had nearly 1,000 mosques, 600 public baths and street lighting (700 years before London or Paris). Córdoba´s sophistication attracted numerous intellectuals, scholars, poets, doctors and philosophers. Later the city was conquered by the Christians and this equally important legacy can still be seen today. Recently the old quarter and mosque have been declared World Heritage City.
http://www.travelinginspain.com/cordoba.html

Granada:
Granada is the capital of the province with the same name, situated in the eastern part of the region of Andalusia. Geographical and scenic diversity characterizes the land. There is the coastal area with its warm climate; the extensive, fertile Genil plain; and the mountainous regions with a colder climate, where we find the 3,478 meter Mulhacén, the highest peak on the peninsula. The city of Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains at the confluence of the Darro and Genil rivers. Its unique history has bestowed it with an artistic grandeur embracing Moorish palaces and Christian Renaissance treasures. As the last Moorish capital on the Iberian peninsula, it also holds great symbolic value. The city of Granada has been shaped by the hills, where the old districts in the Albaicín and the Alhambra were founded, brimming with steep, narrow streets, beautiful nooks and corners, and marvelous landscapes. The new part of the city is situated on the plain, crisscrossed by the large arteries of Gran Vía de Colón and Calle de los Reyes Católicos, and where the busy streets around the Cathedral are found. The Moors crossed the Strait of Gibraltar in 711 and settled in what was then a small Visigoth town perched atop the Alhambra hill. Here they settled, erected walls, and laid the foundation for the prosperous civilization that would follow. It was in the 9th century when Granada rose to importance after the fall of the Caliphate of Córdoba. Its splendor was reached in 1238, when Mohammed ben Nasar founded the Nazarí dynasty, and the kingdom of Granada stretched from Gibraltar to Murcia. This dynasty bore twenty kings until King Boabdil was forced to surrender Granada to the Catholic monarchs, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, in 1492. During three centuries, a magnificent and rich Islamic culture flourished, leaving Granada with architectural marvels of the caliber of the Alhambra. After the Reconquest, the city continued to thrive, stimulated by the Catholic monarchs who ordered the construction of new civil and religious structures.
http://www.travelinginspain.com/granada.htm

Madrid:
The capital of Spain, located in the heart of the península and right in the center of de Castillian plain 646 meters above sea level, has a population of over three millions. A cosmopolitan city, a business center, headquarters for the Public Administration, Government, Spanish Parliament and the home of the Spanish Royal Family, Madrid also plays a major role in both the banking and industrial sectors. Most industry is located on the southern fringe of the city; where important textile, food and metal working factories are clustered . Madrid is characterized by intense cultural and artistic activity and a very lively nightlife.
The grand metropolis of Madrid can trace its origins to the times of Arab Emir Mohamed I (852-886), who ordered the construction of a fortress on the left bank of the Manzanares River. It later became the subject of a dispute between the Christians and Arabs until it was conquered by Alfonso VI in the 11th century. At the end of the 17th century, a defensive wall was built for the protection of the new outlying areas, tracing the roads of Segovia, Toledo and Valencia. During the 18th century, under the reign of Carlos III, the great arteries of the city were designed, such as the Paseo de la Castellana, Paseo de Recoletos, Paseo del Prado and Paseo de las Acacias. At the beginning of the 19th century, Joseph Bonaparte undertook the reform of the Puerta del Sol and vicinity. The commercial street known as the Gran Vía was built as an east-west avenue at the start of the century. In the 1950's the north-south boulevard called Paseo de la Castellana was extended and modern buildings were erected bousing the major financial institutions. What remains today of the distant past are mainly the Baroque and neoclassical structures of the 17th and 18th centuries, such as the Plaza Mayor (Main Square), the Palacio Real (Royal Palace) and others which will be described later during our tours of the city.
http://www.concierge.com/madrid/

Sevilla:
Seville is located in the Southeast of Spain. A provincial capital, seat of the government and parliament of the Comunidad Autónoma de Sevilla (Regional Government). It has more than 700,000 inhabitants, nearly half the population of the whole province.
The city of Seville is located on the plain of the Guadalquivir river which crosses the city from North to South. The river can be navigated from Seville all the way to its outlet near Sanlúcar de Barrameda, on the Atlantic coast. In the past the port of Seville played an important role in commerce between Spain and the Americas and remains today one of the most active river ports of the Iberian peninsula.
The Tartessians were the original founders of Hispalis. Next to this settlement, in 207 B.C., the Romans built Itálica. It was the centre of their Western Mediterranean dominions for seven centuries until the Roman empire was overrun by Northern barbarians at the beginning of the 10th century.
The long Moorish occupation of the Iberian peninsula, from 711 A.D. to 1248 A.D., left indelible traces in Seville as in all of Al-Andalus. La Giralda, the tower of an important mosque, is the most well-known of the remaining Islamic monuments.
In 1492 Seville played an important role in the discovery and conquest of America. The 17th century was a period of artistic splendour in Seville. Painters such as Velázquez, Murillo and Valdés Leal, and sculptors like Martínez Montañés were born in Seville and left behind important works. The city also assumed an important role in world literature and was the birthplace of the myth of Don Juan.
On two occasions in the 20th century Seville has been in the spotlight of the world's attention. In 1929, it hosted the Latin American Exhibition, which left important urban improvements in the city. More recently, Expo 92 reinforced the image of Seville as a modern and dynamic city.

Toledo:
Toledo, officially granted Heritage of Mankind status by UNESCO in 1987, is one of the richest historically, culturally and monumentally endowed cities in Spain. It is also the capital of the province of the same name; and this area of over 15,000 square kilometres divided in two by the River Tagus, which cleaves through it from east to west and on whose banks rise the main urban centres, has a population numbering fewer than half a million inhabitants. In the north-east, the valley of the River Tiétar is flanked by a series of mountain ranges; to the south, the Toledo Hills (Montes de Toledo), mantled in Holm Oaks (encinas), white-leaved rock roses (jaras) and aromatic plants, survey a sizeable stretch of terrain abounding in game. Eastwards the area opens out into the region of La Mancha which, overlapping into neighbouring provinces, is marked by its characteristically flat expanses and towns so indelibly portrayed by Cervantes. Toledo, one of the five provinces which go to make up the Comunidad Autónoma de Castilla-La Mancha (Castile-La Mancha Regional Authority), is situated south of Madrid, to which it is linked by road and train; the distance between the two capitals is 70 kilometres. A good network of secondary roads allows for exploration of a province which is also crossed by two major highways, the N-V connecting Madrid and Extremadura, and the N-IV heading south to Andalusia. The climate is similar to the whole of Spain's central plateau: cold winters, hot summers, plentiful sunlight, sparse rainfall, though temperatures are never excessively rigorous during either of the seasonal extremes thanks to the protection afforded by the mountain ranges lying to the south and north. Toledo is a farming and ranching province, studded with vineyards, fields of wheat, cotton and tobacco, the ever-present flocks of sheep and goats being the main types of livestock; most of its industries are connected with agriculture and handicrafts.
THE CITY OF TOLEDO
The first-time visitor to Toledo cannot help be struck by the city as a whole, impregnated as it is with such a weight of history and wealth of culture. The town, perched on a hill skirted by a sharp bend in the River Tagus, has remained almost unaltered since the end of the Middle Ages, surrounded by curtain walls and formed by a winding maze of alleyways and lanes that meander up and down, crisscrossing and revealing, to the visitor its historical sights and secret corners. Toledo is a city to be explored on foot, time and time again, following itineraries that lead to the artistic and cultural high spots, and losing oneself among the nooks and crannies of its tangled web.
Brief historical panorama
Roman civilization, which held sway over Toledo from 192 B.C., left its imprint on the city, an imprint still visible in the remains of the walls, the foundations of certain buildings and on the outskirts, where an ancient Roman Circus, as yet unexcavated, has been located. After its conquest midway through the 6th century by the Visigoth Leovigildo, it became the designated capital of his kingdom until the arrival of the Moors, who made themselves masters of the city in the year 711. The struggle waged by the monarchs of Castile to oust the Moors from the territories they had conquered on the Iberian peninsula culminated in King Alfonso VI capturing Toledo in 1085; thenceforth, three ethnically distinct communities were to live together in the city on the Tagus - Christians, Jews and Moslems. This tolerant cohabitation, which lasted into the Middle Ages, was to leave a profound mark. Cultural plurality bore fruit in the form of the Toledo School of Translators (Escuela de Traductores de Toledo), an institution which was founded thanks to the patronage of bishops and kings, and in which a team of learned scholars devoted their efforts to the translation of philosophical and scientific tracts from Arabic and Hebrew into Latin and Castilian Spanish. The very design of Toledo is proof in itself of the selfsame plurality that came to manifest itself in the layout of streets and quarters, with its respect for Jewish and Islamic tradition, and in the architecture, Mudéjar art in particular which is a subtle synthesis of the styles, contributions and needs of the three religious communities. In contrast to the climate of confrontation and intolerance experienced throughout most of Spain during the Era of Reconquest, Toledo was for a long time the meeting point for scientists, philosophers, poets and artists of widely differing backgrounds. The expulsion of the Jews from Spain, decreed by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492, heralded the political and economic demise of the city, which culminated in the Royal Court being moved to Madrid in 1561 in the reign of King Philip II. Yet while Toledo lost its title of capital, this actually made it possible for the historical heritage of so many centuries of splendour to be conserved almost intact within the city walls. It was this atmosphere of antiquity spiced with the oriental and a hint of something mysterious, an atmosphere maintained down to the present, that attracted the artist El Greco, and, in the latter half of the 16th century during Spain's Golden Age (Siglo de Oro), came to inspire numerous literary works and enlighten the pen of the epoch's leading romantic poets and writers.
http://www.softguides.com/madrid_guide/daytrips/toledo.html



June 10th, 2002 "Europe Newsletter # 1 (Pre Departure)" Fayetteville, AR

Hello all of you people around the world! :-)

I hope you do feel as privileged as you are: I can hereby call you an official member of Lilli's Summer in Europe Newsletter 2002, which will be a special one. Congrats! :-) ;-) :-p
You will notice that the list of recipients will increase as time goes by. In fact, this was agreat opportunity for me to find out who of you checks his/her e-mails 24/7 and who does not...

HOLY MOLY!!! Wow, today was quite a day, busy day, VERY busy day...and VERY productive day! My travel planning, organizing and strategizing has reched its peak phase. I am not only packing for Germany, which fortunately is not too much to pack for, but I am also doing almost all of my Spain and France travel planning. I was spending all day on the internet researching Spain, its tourist attractions, transportation system, and cheapest lodging.
I will be in Spain from July 2nd until July 16th. However, my travel companions won't get there until the 9th. I was going to stay with a friend, however, things came inbetween so that won't work out. I figured it would be stupid to stay in Madrid for two weeks, since the city is not quite as great as to be busy and fascinated seeing sights for 14 days straight without saying "Oh, I have seen this 4 times in the last 2 days!". So I went ahead on my beloved computer and into the internet to do excessive research on which places would be best to visit during my week of travelling with my imaginary travel companions...;-)... I knew Sevilla, Córdoba, and Granada are very famous historic cities en la provincia de Andalucía en el sur de España. I checked out the Spanish train system and, to my surprise, it does not take long at all form Madrid to get to any of those cities. I figured I had to go to all of them. Well, hours and hours of researching, planning, strategizing and hostel availabilty checking, I now have a tentative schedule for my Andalucia sight-seeing roundtrip. However, this plan is probably number C 3 already, so this might still change. I have contacted some cheap hostels in the heart of each city to ask for availability of a room. i will see what they respond soon...also, everything is dependent on Amy and her friend and when they will be able to get down there. Instead of MAdrid, we now want to meet in Granada. I figured they HAD TO see that city. It is so much more important to see it than MAdrid. Most of SPain's history took place in that area of Spain.
Well, I do have a very detailed and specific travel plan in mind for the 2 weeks en España (I know all train connections, time tabels, prices, special student deals, cheapest ho(s)tels in the historic centers of all cities,...)...however, it is all still in the air and dependent on several variables that are not under my control. I only hope I will have it all figured out by the time I leave for Germany... my mom is giving me trouble already...she doesn't want to me to travel at all and just stay at home, pull out the phone as well as internet cable and let me sleep and rest all summer long. However, I DO NOT want to do that. HELL NO!!! I wouldn't survive it at home.. that's more stress than 5 weeks of non-stop traveling through Europe. NOBODY can keep me from doing that...and if I have to run away from home, I do not care!
I don't think it will be a problem with my mom, though. She will be OK with it eventually...or at least not try to keep me from travelling. I e-mailed our hostel reservation for Paris. 3 people for 5 nights directly next to the Eiffel Tower and in (distance runners') walking distance to all sights in the gorgeous French capitol. That should work out, since I saw they still had rooms available. I hope that is all set!

I will let you know as soon as I have set up my Spain plan and how my travel to Germany went. Two more days... I am not quite sure if I should be happy or frightened... happy when I think of my crazy super awesome European travel time, that's for sure!

All for now. Sorry that this mail wasn't very entertaining... I am dead tired... hours and hours of pure concentration and strategizing in addition to a torturous 19km-run in the Arkansas summer humidity just take quite some energy...but I will have that back by tomorrow!! The next mails will be more entertaining, I promise! :-)

I will talk to you once I have arrived in Europe (I hope a plane will be overbooked so I can run to the ticket desk and snag a flight voucher :-)!!!)..well, maybe I will send a quick note beforehand, I will see...

Lilli


p.s. I have been invited to London by my two friends who are living there right now together (the one I have known my whole life almost in GErmnay, the other one, Irish, I became friends with at Boston University...they did not know each other before they met in London...and now they are roommates...and both are (independently) friends of mine, how crazy is that?!?!!!). I have to see if I can go to London as well...it all depends on how much business I can take care of in the next week in Germany...there is tons of stuff to do.



June 9th, 2002 "Summer Newsletter Time!!!" Fayetteville, AR

What's up everybody? Sorry that I hadn't updated my website in such a long time. I already received "complaints". I know, I told myself to update it many times, but then I either di dnot have time or just was too lazy to do it.... Now, however, I will put all of my newsletters than I will be sending out via e-mail to friends all over the world over the summer, so you can see what I am up to. Running wise, my injury just subsided (at least that's what I think so far). I hope I will be able to increase my mileage now. We will see. Last week I had a huge allergic reaction soI was unable to run for a couple of days because of that. It was pretty bad...
Well, here is the newsletter announcement I just sent off to my peoples on the globe:

Hello everybody all around the world,

most of you received my Arizona Christmas Break Newsletter... So let me guess what your reactions were to the "Europe Newsletter" subject of this email: Some of you thought "Awesome, another one! Great, wicked, I will be entertained again, I have nothing better to do this summer anyways! Fun.:-)". Others, however, might have thought "Oh crap, not again! Does she want to bore me to death with her super long mails again already? I am still sick of the Christmas one! :-("

Well, to make sure that only those of you are getting my Summer Newsletter form Europe who wish to recieve it, here is the deal/my conditions:
If you want to receive my Europe Newsletter, please reply to this e-mail (you don't even have to write anything, just reply!).
If you do not wish to be bothered by any e-mails, you don't have to do anything. Don't be scared, just sit back and relax, nothing is going to happen to you, I promise! :-)

If you are not quite sure what you want, here is my (relatively) brief summer outlook:
I will be in Europe from June 12th until August 15th. One of my (former) teammates, Amy Wiseman, who also just received her bachelor's degree from the University of Arkansas, will be in Europe all summer long as well to travel. As I have been injured all year and won't be able to compete in the European track season at all, I decided to have fun this summer, travel and run all over Europe. I hooked up with Amy and one of her friends and obligated myself to be the personal European travel guide for two super crazy wild and fun Americans... :-)! The three of us will be travelling together for 4-5 weeks straight, from July 6th until August 3rd for sure.
1. We will meet up and start our crazy travel time in Madrid, Spain where we will stay for almost two weeks (I will be there a little earlier). I just checked out what other places we could see from Madrid and saw cities like Segovia and Toledo relatively nearby. I think those cities are worthwhile seeing, so I am sure we will stop by there as well. I will ask some insiders beforehand to make sure we will get the best out of our stay in central Spain.
2. From Spain I will be flying back home to Stuttgart where I will pick up my travel companions from the train station. We will stay at my place for a few short days and my crazy travel fellows will have the honor to enjoy the world's best Pizza, Toni's Pizza, in my little town of Oeffingen. I have made that place world-famous already....:-p
3. From there we will go to Füssen (most Southern part of Germany) where my dad will run a marathon while the Americans and the Pseudo-American (me) will have a quick look at the famous Neuschwanstein Castle. I heard all Americans go there, I have never been there myself. However, now that I have become so Americanized, a Pseudo-American after having lived in the U.S. for four years, I think it's time for me to go there and see it. I am qualified now I guess...:-)
4. Straight from Fuessen our travel route will lead to the beautiful city of Davos in the middle of the Graubündener Swiss Alps. We will stay there for a full week but the Arkansas Redneck Crazy European Travel Fellows of us will take a train and drop by St. Moritz for a day as well. St. Moritz is the world's capitol of world-class runners every summer. You can see the who-is-who up there running in the most remote valleys in the middle of the Engardin Alps...and you can get a quick glance at some of their training secrets... every time a high caliber runner starts his interval training on the St. Moritz track, at least 20 stop watches are started all around the track and in the adjacent apartment windows facing the burning mondo surface... The Cold War is still going on in the competitive and cruel world of Track&Field, let me tell you...spies are everywhere!!! :-p
5. On the last day of our stay in Switzerland, all of us ARCETFs (Arkansas Redneck Crazy European Travel Fellows) will face a hugely challenging adventure: The Swiss Alpine Marathon, the highest marathon in Europe. During those 42.195km (26.2 miles) we will climb 1890 vertical meters and descend 1710 vertical meters. It is going to be super crazy nuts, I can tell you right now! I have been there many times and my dad has run it. There are some pretty scary parts where you can fall pretty deep if you trip and get a meter or two too far to one side... it is going to be so awesome, though , great adevnture! I am ready for the challenge, with or without a good training base, I don't care! I will get to the finish line... running, walking, crawling or robbing...I don't give a shit! But I will get there...sooner or later, I promise...with or without wetted shorts from peeing in my pants while crawling on both my hands and feet and facing the fear of heights on top of the mountain world...yeah!!!!! It IS going to be AWESOME, super awesome!!! I only hope the weather will be OK, so it will be somewhat safe to run, hike, crawl up, atop, and down the Swiss Alps! I like "little" adventures like that, and so do my ARCETFs...:-D (thumbs up!) For more info on the race, click on http://www.swissalpine.ch
6. Right after the marathon we will drive back to my place in Germany where we will have a brief couple-of-hour long stopover before we head to the train station early the next morning to enter a train with destination: PARIS en France!!! :-) My favorite city so far....I was there 2 years ago on my way back from the World XC Champs and I just plain loved it! I figured I had to go back as soon as I get the chance to do so. Now I have the opportunity and honor to show one of my teammates and her friend to show around in the wonderful city, the capitol of both France and Romance.Awwwwwweee....just thinking about it, I am like "WOW!!! I want to be there right now!". We will stay in Paris for 5 days adding walking mileage to our high alpine running mileage from Switzerland.
7. The end of our stay in Paris might very well represent the end of our wild and crazy ARCETF traveling time. On August 4th I will start working as a journalist at the European T&F Championships in Munich. My travel partners might go with me to Munich for a little bit but we don't know yet...also, you know, they might already be sick of being around the German-American Redneck for 4 weeks straight...;-) :-p too much craziness at once for some nerves...;-) however, I think I will be the one who has to adapt to the even more advanced craziness of my fellow Europe tarvellers...;-) :-) :-p Gosh, it is going to be so wicked awesome this summer in Europe!!!! YEAH!!!

On August 15th I will return to Arkansas where my MBA (master's degree in Business Administration) orientation as well as marketing research will begin right away.

OK, so, if you want to get first-hand reports from my travel in Europe this summer (with quite a few funny anecdotes here and there, I am sure...), reply to this e-mail and you will be a (hopefully) proud subscriber of Lilli's Summer 2002 Europe Newsletter! I won't have frequent internet access so my newsletters might get to you sporadically.

April and ASP (Lisa, I mean...), I am really sad that we won't get to continue our wonderful Arizona Christmas Break time in Europe over the summer...hopefully we will get to do that sometime soon! Jess, damn it, we just missed each other in Spain...:-(! Kyla, happy belated Birthday! And to everybody else, I wish you all could join the three of us in Europe!!! :-)

So long and best wishes (still) from Arkansas,

Lilli



June 9th, 2002 "Undergraduate Years (1998-2002) in Review" Fayetteville, AR

To get the full report, click here!




May 12th, 2002 "SEC Outdoor Track Championships: Not quite the Happy End..." Starkville, MS

crap, damn it. Well... it really would have surprised me if this year had terminated with the perfect happy end, as happy as in those oh-how-wonderful-the-world-is and the-good-always-wins movies... reality is different, but I knew that before. Obviously, we did not make it as a team this weekend. We have a saying in German, "if two are fighting, the third is happy", which represented the weekend very well: We expected Florida to be our biggest competitor, they beat us indoors barely, but in the end it was South Carolina who snug the title. We were second once again.

In several events we scored less points than anticipated, the 5000m was one of them. We lost a lot of planned points right there, 9 to be exact. It wasn't a good race, I was quite disappointed afterwards, not for taking 5th but for seeing three runners ahead of me who did not were the red-white-black Razorback uniform...that was definitely not on our schedule. The only Ladyback ahead of me was my roommate, who fortunately won easily after placing a disappointing fourth ion the 1500m earlier. My time was embarrassing, I haven't run that slow in like 7 years but that's no surprise as a recent hobbyjogger, reanimated and carried back onto the track for SECs. I mean, what could I expect from 6 miles of hobbyjogging a day? Definitely not running a fast 5000m but I knew that before. As a team we only placed 1st, 5th, 7th, and 8th to score points. We expected to get the top 2 spots plus about 5 and 6 or so. We lost a lot of points right there. Also, I do not have the physical base to recover quickly enough from a 10k just 2 days beforehand. So personally I am not very disappointed with my 5000m performance, it was OK. I ran well tactically. I was in second place meanwhile after making a move but couldn't hold it. I almost caught the 4th girl in the end, though. My 18-year experience was what made the huge difference this weekend, especially in the 10000m.

I am pretty disappointed now for the team. The 10k from Friday is almost forgotten, at least temporarily. However, soon I will be happy about the 10000m title again I think. It always is like that in sports, it is very "short-living", the emotions can change (and always do change) within seconds from one extreme to the other; from complete happiness to complete depression. It is unbelievable how easily our brain can forget about what just happened. The latest experience takes the entire mental state right over, neglecting everything that had happened in the past, even if the past was long-lasting. Track and Field and competitive sports in general is just one complete roller coaster of emotions which is takes strong nerves to handle. A lot of people have the physical talent for competitive sports but not everybody has the nerves and mental toughness to survive in athletics. A lot of people think the athletes out there are the most talented ones "available" but that's not true at all. They are just the ones who also have the mental strength and toughness in addition to a certain degree of talent. There are even a lot of great athletes who actually do not have that much physical talent but they just make it all up with a great head. Especially here in the US people are special tough, I have noticed.

Like on all other days before, we got back from the track very late, passed 10:30pm. Today we had our yearly team meeting where awards are distributed to leaving seniors, MVPs, and staff. That can be quite emotional at times. It wasn't too bad this year but I very well remember last year's ceremony. It was soooo sad because two very accomplished, very good friends of mine, Amy Yoder and Tracy Robertson, participated in their last SEC Champ for the Ladybacks. Amy is by far the most successful Ladyback in history, she is unreal. A couple of tears were rolling down my cheeks when Lance gave his speech about Amy and handed the award. It was so sad.
May 10th, 2002 "SEC Outdoor Track Championships: Comprehensive 10000m Coverage" Starkville, MS

WOW!!!

As spectacular, crazy and unreal as the academic year began (and remained all year) it just ended. It all began with the incredibly terrible incidences on September 11th in New York/Pennsylvania (which, by the way, occurred the day after my 23rd birthday!) and ended tonight on the track at the SEC Outdoor Track Championships in Starkville, Mississippi: Completely surprising and unexpected I won the 10000m and added the eighth SEC individual title (along with 6 team titles) to my personal collection. This, however, was by far the most valuable, memorable and special title of all of them. You were able to experience it all first hand in the last couple of weeks/months: I had not been able to train at all really since SECs Indoor, almost 3 months ago, and I also was not very motivated to run, temporarily quit competitive running. In addition to all of that I caught a flu right in time for my only outdoor track race this season. Between yesterday and today I slept 24 hours within 32 hours and I was only able to run on one day during this week leading up to SECs due to both injury and flu. The only reason I stepped on the track under my conditions today was for the team, especially my coach, and the athletic department. I knew how important it was to squeeze every single point possible out our sleeves so I was like: "Hey, I will just give whatever I have in me and hope to get some points for my team". The race pretty much reflected the whole year, it wrapped it all up and finished the pure craziness that had been going on non-stop with pure craziness during 25 laps on the Mississippi State University outdoor track on a wonderful Mississippi spring evening (which is probably the hottest and most humid it gets in Central Europe at 8:30pm during the summer...): I knew I was by far the most unprepared runner in the field, with no single workout and no single stride or sprint in 6 weeks and just 6 miles easy a day (if any running possible at all). As I was suffering from the flu I really had no freaking' clue what to expect today, I wasn't even sure at all if I could finish the race. You know, 10000m on the track can be long, very long, especially if you are sick. The longer the distance the worse it is if you are sick (and injured). Well, I knew I could only give my best and that I had nothing to loose (at least in the minds of those who knew what had been going on). I was really relaxed before the race, was kidding around. As usual, all of the other runners did the sports medially stupidest mistake and warmed up before the race. So dumb, I am telling you, but you can tell those people as often as you want to that it's the wrong thing to do for such a long race in warm weather conditions...they never learn, but oh well, it's good for me! I have the edge on them. All I warmed up was running to the check-in tent when I realized I was supposed to check in 30 min. before the race and it was already 20min. before... otherwise, I just stretched, that's it. Instead of warming up I poured water all over my body right before the gun went off to cool down my body temperature a little which makes the lactic acid raise a little later than usual. Right before the race one of the sprinters asked me "What? You are running the 10000m?". I replied "No, I am running the 5000m: I am warming up 3000m, racing 5000m, and cooling down 2000m". Just by accident, that adds up to 10000m if I am not miscalculating...;-) :-D :-p

Well, anyways, originally, without flu, I thought I could finish second despite having been a hobbyjogger for a while now. My race plan was just to run with whoever is behind our freshman Penny who has been racing great this season. That's what I did, I let Penny go and the three Auburn girls tucked in behind me, I did not like that at all, since I was not willing to pull them through and keep the gap on my own teammate close or whatever. So I just stepped outside on lane 2 and stop really quickly and abruptly. The Auburn girls could not react that fast so all of a sudden they found themselves in the lead with me following them on their heels. I heard some pissed comment from the one girl but I was thinking "Ha! Did you really think I would make the pace for you? Yeah, you me too!". So I was just floating along with the Auburn girls all around me, I had fun. Penny gained more and more meters on us, had 120m at one point, but I did not care. I just had fun playing around with Auburn. I was getting kind of bored out on the track so I was kidding around with my teammates cheering me on like crazy from the outside. I made some funny signs and stuff, they were cracking up, especially Samantha. I just love races like that where I just use my competitors as playmates, I like the feeling of being in control... well, so with 17 laps to go I already set up a more specific race plan in my head. I thought to myself I would give the Auburn girls 7 more laps of mercy, 7 more laps of writing their last wills, and then it would be all over with playing around, over with being bored and having mercy. At half way (12.5 laps to go) I had already been witnessing the process in the front and saw that Penny started slowing down. She still had about 90m on us,, though. That's exactly when I knew I could win this race because I was chilling in the back. I still figured 10 laps were enough to not only get rid of my company but also catch Penny. Well, I got so anxious to go that I did it 50m earlier than planned but then I executed it all the way. My kick always comes quicker than anybody can react so I had like 20m on the Auburn girls within about 100m (if that) of running. It took me about 4-5 laps until I had Penny, so I had my designated last 2000m to "cool down". Well, those last 2000m did not really feel like a cool down, but still...the last 2-3000m were the only part of the race when I did have to push. It got a little rough in the end but I have had harder races. This was only my second 10k on the track, though. I have made only the best experiences with it so far...

So, yeah, I won "the shit" (as I told Samantha) by 12 seconds. It was unbelievable. I still have not quite realized what I really did. Considering how little I trained and my current flu, it is quite incredible what I accomplished. However, I was able to make the media know how special that was. I gave them enough to write about and also made sure I was only on the track for the team. I told them I did this race for Lance, which is true. I also made sure they know how supportive, how awesome he is, and how much also my Samantha and my roomie have helped me during the rough year. I hope they will make the story out of it all that they could. This media interviewing is kind of like the PhD interviews: You feel like an idiot telling those people the story over and over again. It gets kind of annoying but I enjoyed it tonight. The highlight was another TV interview with Fox Sports. The last time I had to give them one was exactly a year ago at the same meet in South Carolina. However, it was under different circumstances: It directly after the 3000m steeple at 1am, I was so pissed off. The meet got delayed for 3 hours and I did not have a good race. I was just too pissed that we had to run so late. I just did what I had to do and won the thing, I became the first women's steeple champion in history, but it was more than expected. So nothing special at all... as opposed to tonight! I was not annoyed at all that I had to give a TV interview after a couple of newspaper ones. I had already seen the Fox Sports Lady before the race and we greeted each other (I have known her for quite a while now), but I definitely did not expected to have to give her an interview after the race...well, I can live with that, no doubt! :-)

I really felt bad for Penny. When I passed her I gave her signs to tell her to stay with me. However, I did want to win the race so I tried to just pass her and pull away right away. I did not wait for her (I was thinking about that in the race but then decided I wanted to make it a sure thing and win without a doubt). She was so disappointed after the race. I tried to talk to her and cheer her up but I don't think it helped that much. I mean, I would also feel special bad getting beaten by someone who has hardly been training for months...

In fact, Samantha (our massage therapist who had first-hand experience of what I went through the whole academic year) was even crying out of joy when she watched my race and I am sure the race was fairly emotional to Lance as well... I have not had the chance to talk to my roommate Andreina after the race but she left a really nice message on my hotel room answering machine.



May 11th, 2002 "SEC Outdoor Track Championships: UNREAL!!" Starkville, MS

Wow. I cannot believe it what I did last night: I won the 10000m at the SEC Outdoor Track Championships. It was completely unexpected and surprising, since I had not been able to train really ever since the week before SECs INdoor in February. I had been a hobbyjogger ever since and just pulled out back on the track for SECs only. I had not done one single stride, not one single workout in 6 weeks and was limited to max. 6 miles easy a day (if any running possible at all!).
Well, you can read the newspaper articles on the chmapionship by clicking here!
I will write more later.



May 1st, 2002 "PhD decision made" Fayetteville, AR

I am just sitting here in the college of business. I had half of my interviews yesterday and am scheduled for the rest today. However, after talking to the faculty yesterday I got convinced that it is the smarter and more sensible decision to get an MBA first. Those three initials just have way too much power in both the business and academic world to pass up... and it only takes 2 years so I better hang in there and do it. It is better for my future, no doubt.
I will write some more about the extremely turbulent days sometime soon when things got settled and minds finished up cleaning.



April 28th, 2002 "PhD in MArketing - A dream coming true sooner than expected? Read about my obstacles and thoughts in my "Geheimmission PhD"..." Fayetteville, AR

Hello y'all!! I am really, sincerely sorry that I have not updated you on my personal happenings/evolution here in Arkansas in such a long time. I have already received personal update requests, so now here is the first one... I have been and still continue to be so busy, it's not even funny. It is crazy, so amazing what has been going on. Amazing, life-changing things are happening and developing so quickly, I can hardly follow the process with my eyes. Everyday I need to replay the slow motion version in my head to try to understand what is going on. I am so excited, so motivated, so anxious about the latest developments. I have had quite a few sleepless nights because of the extent of excitement and importance of things recently...

I have talked about my PhD plans on here before...well, it has all become part of reality a lot quicker. Now I am badly trying to get into the doctoral program in MArketing here at the University of Arkansas, my soon-to-be alma mater, for the fall semester already. I got accepted into the MBA program a few weeks ago but my ultimate goal had always been the PhD while writing my MBA applications. I just thought it was necessary to have an MBA in order to get accepted into a PhD program. However, it turned out to be different. Jeff, the PhD coordinator here and NYC03 Mission Possible fellow, told me it actually was not required, just kind of a tradition.
Since I have always been a person who wants to pursue her dreams with all energy and determination as soon as possible and as thoroughly and planned out as possible, Jeff and I decided to go for it all the way and try to get me accepted for the PhD program in the fall. I so badly want to get into the program, it's crazy. That's all I want right now. That's my dream, a realistic dream.

PhD obstacles and thoughts

On Tuesday Jeff informed me about our first, though expected, obstacles: One professor in the marketing department does not think it would be a good idea to accept me into the PhD program this fall already. He said I would not be ready yet, I would need more "seasoning" through an MBA. Jeff talked to a lot of professors now, since my application is becoming reality in the near future. He also talked to the department chair who also is not quite sure about the idea. All of the other professors Jeff has talked to so far, the women in the department, completely supported Jeff's and my efforts. Especially Prof. Betsy Creyer completely stands behind our idea. I had her in Promotional Strategy last year. She is an avid runner herself and knows what it takes to be a competitive runner at the national/international level. She knows what kind of personality one has to have in order to be up there, a personality with which you have great potential in all life careers. If you don't know anything about running and the sacrifices it takes to pursue such a demanding challenge, then yes, I could understand that some people in the department might doubt my readiness for a challenge such as a PhD straight out of undergraduate business studies. However, exactly those people don't even know me, they would think otherwise if they did. I am definitely NOT an ordinary undergraduate student. You cannot put me in the same category with most of my classmates, no way. My background and experience is just so different, very unique. I have always been different from the mass. I have always been untraditional, special, a little crazier than everybody else. This might be my problem this time, since the most powerful professors in the marketing department rather belong to the traditional category. They do not seem to welcome changes, fresh wind. I think that this attitude is very counter-productive. Isn't the world, especially the business and marketing world, always changing and evolving? Isn't it crucial to keep up with the changes or even be a step ahead of the world? Isn't it necessary to adapt? Isn't it necessary to adapt to changes as quickly as possible in order to stay competitive? My answer to all of those questions would be a crystal-clear "YES!". I am sure "yes" would also be Jeff's and my "Geheimmission PhD" idea's skeptics… it's just that those skeptics think inside the box, not outside the box. And in my opinion thinking outside the box is a big part of the competitive advantage, a competitive advantage that is also the objective in the world of academia. However, the majority of the marketing faculty seems to support fresh wind, change in the department, a wind that might have a good influence on everybody…that's at least my goal, a goal that I have been able to achieve everywhere I have gone so far. I hope, in this case, I will keep my tradition…provided that democracy will take place in my PhD application and it will come to a vote among the marketing faculty to whether each faulty member wants to have me in the program or not. If the department chair does not step in and stops my application process and it comes to a democratic vote, I am very confident that all obstacles will have vanished and my PhD journey can begin…. A journey like a steeplechase race: full of little obstacles, hurdles, which I intend to master very smoothly and efficiently with a perfect technique…just like in all of my steeplechase races!!!

Please keep your fingers crossed for my PhD Interviews starting this Tuesday!!! Thanks so much. :-)

Post scriptum: In my PhD application essay I also advertised this website right here...I hope some of the marketing faculty members are stopping by... If someone of this group is reading this right now, pleeeeeeaaaaase give me a chance! :-)



April 11th, 2002 "$300 million donation to the University of Arkansas!" Fayetteville, AR

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS RECEIVES $300 MILLION GIFT, LARGEST IN HISTORY OF U.S. PUBLIC HIGHER EDUCATION

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - The University of Arkansas today received the largest gift in the history of American public higher education - a $300 million commitment from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation of Bentonville, Ark., to establish and endow an undergraduate honors college and endow the graduate school.
"This unprecedented generosity from the Walton Family will transform the University of Arkansas for our students and faculty, and in the process position us to serve as a powerful engine of economic development and cultural change for the entire state," said University of Arkansas Chancellor John A. White. "What the Walton Family has done today will improve life in Arkansas for generations to come, and we are grateful beyond words."
MORE: For the entire news story, print-quality JPEGs, and other background information from today's historic announcement visit http://pigtrail.uark.edu/news.

How awesome is that? looks like I will get more money now for my PhD stipend next year...:-)
I know I haven't posted anything on here for a while, but a lot of things have been going on here and I am quite busy...



March 31st, 2002 "NYC03 Marketing Mission Possible" Fayetteville, AR

How awesome! I don't even know if I have written on here about the FMAMMRC that I have unofficially founded with my former Consumer Behavior professor Jeff Murray... I have become friends with him as well as my International Marketing teacher, Hélène Cherrier, a PhD student in Marketing from Paris, France. They both are recreational runners and I had both of them as professor in the fall of 2001. Jeff and I had been e-mailing and talking about maybe running together a couple of morning when I am not running to fast anyway. So we ended up founding the unoffical Fayetteville Metropolitan Area Marketing Morning Running Club and accepted Hélène as the only additional member. We have not had an official meeting yet but I successfully made a very challenging proposal to my FMAMMRC fellows: to run the NEw York City Marathon 2003. They both have never run a marathon and were quite shocked and very doubtful when I told them about the challenging idea, which I call FMAMMRC NYC03 Mission Possible. :-) It took me two days to convince Jeff of doing it and two more days to get Hélène into it. She was a little more stubborn and I had to pull out quite a few additional promotional strategy tricks, but obviously even marketing professor cannot resist those propaganda campaign even though they should know everything about them already...:-) maybe, even a little knowledge less marketing undergrad can teach his/her marketing professors about their profession...;-)!
Great! New York City 2003 is set! That's both the place where I did my first marathon in 1996 and where I first entered U.S. soil in 1993 when I came to watch my dad run it. I remember exactly in 1993 when I was standing on First Avenue and later in Central Park and witnessed my country woman Uta Pippig win one of the most prestigious marathon in the world. I was so impressed. Back then I thought to myself "Next time I come back I want to do that myself!". Consider it done!...Three years later I was standing on the starting line myself and successfully completed the marathon non-stop "just for fun" without any preparation in 3:18hrs.. That was one of the only races I did that I enjoyed. It was a fantastic experience. I never enjoyed racing but I did there at the New York City Marathon...



March 30th, 2002 ""A Beautful Mind" Movie Commentary" Fayetteville, AR

I watched "A Beautiful Mind" today with a couple of teammates… It's a good movie, no doubt, but I didn't think it was great. It was pretty frightening on the one hand but on the other the main character, Russell Crowe, just made it impossible to me to buy the whole thing. He simply is the actor who fits the least into that role, He just plain does not look at all like some intellectual person. During the whole movie I was like "Yeah right, do you really want me to buy that this guy is a genius?". I know one shouldn't think in stereotypes but Russell Crowe really messed up the movie for me, even though he undoubtedly is a very good actor. His (imaginary) roommate would have fit into the role of a genius much better…

As for the content of the movie, it really was frightening, a warning to all intellectuals, grad students, professors. My personal conclusion of the movie is: I am soooooo glad I am not a genius! I thought I would be pretty crazy in certain respects but this movie gave me a new definition, no, dimension of craziness. I am a lot more normal than I thought…totally normal. :-) :-p

That movie also clearly showed what a former professor of mine was referring to when she told/warned me that it would be very easy to lose your inner self while doing research. Man, "a beautiful mind" really is a must for grad student and professor. It definitely is a warning of not going too much into one's research but keeping one's feet firmly planted on the ground of reality, and not loosing contact to the environment. You really can go completely psycho if you do loose your contact to reality and environment…crazy! However, I do think that marketing research (which I will pursue as a Marketing graduate student form the fall on!) is not quite as prone to schizophrenia as research in sciences such as mathematics, physics,…. Marketing fortunately is very close to contemporary reality…
There is no doubt, though, that it is very crucial to keep a magical balance. It always is important to stay connected to other things besides, in this case, research. That also applies to all other different things that involve an individual's full attention/energy/PASSION, however. For example, it is crucial to stay in contact with people who have nothing to do with whatever you are focusing on professionally. I am sure once in a while all of you also get sick of being around your teammates all the time; you don't want to have anything to do with running and distract yourself from it. A lot of times I don't feel like going to practice at all and prefer just running on my own at a self-chosen time. At times it is good to get some distance from running and distract yourself…find the BALANCE, which might give/enable you a different perspective on running afterwards, gives you some "freshness"… This principle apply to just everything: school, private life, your job,...
It really is good to keep/establish contact with the world around your passion. It truly is refreshing and gives you more energy for your passion/profession (hmmm…those two words really sound similar, don't they? Shouldn't they also be the same?!?! Just a thought…).

Anyhow, I think that's enough of my personal commentary on "A Beautiful Mind" and its application to a "normal" person…

Oh, one thing: There was more I did not like about the movie…I did not like the fact that receiving the Nobel prize now has a very negative association, at least to me. It looks like you have to be completely psycho, schizophrenic in order to receive one… In the future when a person receives a Nobel prize I will always be thinking about someone in a psychiatric clinic who has gone completely insane and is living in his own imaginary, totally unrealistic world…I am sure that's not applicable to all Nobel prize winners, but that's the lasting impression of "A Beautiful Mind"…at least on me!



March 30th, 2002 "Back to normal training; No Stanford Invite nor NCAA steeplechade" Fayetteville, AR

I hope I will be able to write this story today...



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