Frankfurt (Oder) photos (quite frosty)

das Rathaus - the town hall (the current one is just next door, to the right). On the left said, a small greeny-bluey bit indicates the entrace to a very good restaurant in the basement. And I think there's steam of some kind coming out of the 6 (/12) dark vents above the three front doors...curious heating system if it really is.

A part of the Marienkirche (St Mary's church), now only used for community events.

The Kleist Museum - Heinrich von Kleist was a famous German writer who lived in Frankfurt (Oder), whose 200th anniversary will be celebrated in 2011. (Not sure whether of birth or death.) The arches housing windows in the roof are typical of traditional architechture in this area - the CVJM house has them too.

A random building I like the look of.

The steeple of the Marienkirche, and, behind it, the 25-storey Oderturm, housing offices, a restaurant giving view of the city, and a shopping 'mall' (for want of a better word) at or above ground level. Standing at just under 89m high, the Oderturm is the tallest building in Brandenburg. It was built from 1968 to 1976, renovated in the 90s, and now (or 'since then' at least) houses 41000m² of office space, providing 1400 jobs. And the name lights up blue at the top at night.

Die Friedensbrücke - peace bridge, with Poland in the background.

The famous (or in Germany anyway) European Viadrina University, where I think Bach or some other great artist studied...and the Marienkirche in the background.

Doch bin ich Student! (meaning 'Yes I am a student actually!')

Also a feature of my weekly routine - on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 14:15 to 15:45, I take part in a Linguistics lecture and a Theology seminar respectively, as a 'guest student' ('Gasthörer', literally guest listener) - sort of a programme for people who perhaps work and only have a few hours per week to spare for study, but want to nonetheless. I won't do any exams, but I have to be present 60% of the time to 'pass' and get my certificate saying I took part. Thankfully that means I'm very flexible, so if I'm busy with CVJM work one week and can't go, that's not a problem.
For this privilege, I've had to pay fees of 18€, plus about 12€ to the Copy Shop down the road for a copy of the reading materials. Study will never be so cheap in my life!

The point of being a 'guest student' is to help me decide whether to study Linguistics or Theology at Uni 'properly' (or studying another foreign language would be an option). The Theology idea has only really surfaced since I've come to Germany, but at the moment I'm more that way inclined than to Linguistics - although the latter (ooh, turns out I can still speak English, and formally too, wow!) would probably make for broader career options. But Theology just seems more right for me than Linguistics.
He says now. Who knows when he might change his mind again...

One last thing - hats off to the priest/pastor who leads the Theology seminar - the poor guy wrote on the white board in permanent marker for 95% of the first session.

And one second last thing - the University (a very international one, with 40% students from abroad) is called the European University Viadrina , or Europa-Universität Viadrina, or Uniwersytet europejski "Viadrina" in Polish, as one also sees on signs.

And one last last thing - although it can be tiring sitting through 90 minutes of rather academic German, it's increasing my vocab and, I suppose, knowledge of non-slangish German, which is good.