I've been having such a great time traveling, but there have also been really fun things to see around the city. I was walking back from class when I saw this "Happy Semen" advertisement. With that kind of a campaign how could I not check out the website? It was in German but the pictures alone are hilarious.
It takes about 30 minutes to walk home from the city center, which is about 3 km from where I live near the Uniklinik. On my bike I can get back and forth in about 10 minutes, but there are some pretty substantial hills so sometimes it isn't the most fun experience. However, I'm really glad I got a bike to have here; the busses are a lot slower than some of the other cities and don't run very frequently at night, so it's nice to just ride wherever I want. One of my favorite points is getting to the top of the hill that climbs out of the inner circle of Aachen because through the houses you can see a bunch of the surrounding area. I snapped this picture while walking and think it's pretty reflective of the streets and cars here. Pretty much all of the vehicles are small hatchback cars, which are probably all that can fit through most of the smaller streets here. 
I've been loving the food and one of my favorite things is the fresh produce in the markets. I've been eating what is probably an unhealthy amount of cherries, so I figured I should pay homage to them.
The great thing is that there is a "Hit" market just about five minutes' walk from my room, so I just have to cross a little field, go up through some trees, and I'm there. Hit is great because it's a find-all sort of store where you can get everything from fresh bread, fruit, meat, cheese, and wine to housewares and various car and bike supplies. Oh, as a side note since I've mentioned bike supplies: I got a flat tire on my bike last week and couldn't find anywhere to buy a tube. Yesterday I was walking along and found what I thought was a really clever idea (especially in a place where half the population gets around on foot or bike), a tube vending machine! It cost five euro and they had a various selection of tubes, and once I made my selection out popped a box with exactly what I needed.
There have been other such intuitive things that I've really appreciate here. The Germans are very eco-friendly (I may have mentioned how they try to recycle absolutely everything) and it's been pretty cool to see so many wind turbines and alternative forms of energy. I really like that in my dorm the lights go off automatically in all the hallways, so you just push the button at one end and they stay on for a bit while you get to your room. Something that I thought was a really clever idea was automatic escalators. For a while I thought that a bunch of the escalators were broken, but when you walk onto them they automatically start moving and then turn off again when nobody is using them.
However, one of my favorite ideas by far are the windows. All of the windows I've seen are designed in such a way that they're dual-hinged. Twisting the handle straight up let's you have the window hinged at the bottom so that it's sort of cracked open, while twisting it to a horizontal position locks in a different set of hinges that let the window swing completely open from one side. I haven't encountered much air conditioning, so these are definitely a good idea and actually keep the rooms pretty cool.
I took a few shots the other evening from my bedroom window looking across the courtyard. The complex I live in is pretty unremarkable; I have my own room with a sink and I share a kitchen and bathroom with the other people on my floor. There are 8 rooms on my side and 8 on the other, so it really hasn't been too bad going back to a pseudo-dorm life. It's always kind of fun to walk into the common area and just sit down and talk with people for a little while.
As for food, I've been eating a ton of bread and pasta. Sometimes I'll cook something like rice and stir-fry, and there has of course been plenty of sausage as part of my diet. I really like the restaurants I've been to, especially on the student street, "Pontstraße", where everything is really cheap and comes in big quantities. Last night we had a barbeque in this really beautiful area right behind the apartments. There is a pit at the edge of some trees, under which there is an old stone checker-board table where we hung out. It took a while to get the coals going because at first we didn't have any lighter fluid, then when some German girls walked by with their little grill we borrowed some, but it was one of the least flammable lighter fluids I'd ever seen. Luckily Ken brought some from his quick run to Hit, and we were then able to create a much more substantial flame and have a great evening grilling and hanging out in the beautiful (incredibly long, the sun hasn't been setting till way after 10) evening.
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