I need food and drinks!

Our today's topic treatened th culture of food in the U.S.

There are three types of stores in the United States of America: conservative, processed and organic food stores.

An example for a conservative store is Kroger's or Enki. It's an every day store, you can get the goods in normal packages(family size) and you can see there nearly every social group. The prices are low, the food usually comes from foreign countries like chile aso. Every kind of food has its own rack, so the market is well arranged.

In a processed store you get the goods in large packages. Examples for this stores are Jungle Jim's and METRO in Germany. This stores are also import - export - stores, which import food from almost every country of the world. In Germany, you need to be self-employed or you running a business to get access to a processed store. The prizes are higher as in a conservative store, because of the costs for import. You can see there the mid-class, that buy the goods.

The organic food markets or Farmers Markets like Pipkins are localvore-markets, that sells vegetables, fruits and other goods from Farmers, which are 100 miles around the store. This products aren't genmodified and the prices are little higher than in processed stores, but the sold products are very fresh. You' ll see there the health-conscious mid- and upper class of the society.

master and servant

Dear reader,

today we were at the Freedom Center in Cincinnati to inform us about slavery in the U.S.

The part of the museum, which impressed me most, was an animated film about slavery. This animation was divided into three shortfilms. Each film has a different style and theme. The first film was about the difference between freedom in unfreedom, the second film describe the slavery in the U.S. and the third treated the underground railroad.
The second film was the most impressive film for me. It shown the living in a slave pen and the treating of the slaves of the masters. For instance, when a female servant, which worked in the household, broke down a cup of tea, she gets a clab from the master. It was directed in a very shocking way, I could really look inside the slave.

I wasn"t in a WWII concentration camp yet, so I can not compare with this. But I think the way the theme is tret is a different. In the Freedom Center they bring this theme to you by using ne medias, e.g. showing films, where you have to interact. In a concentration camp like you would more "read" the history, so it won"t be so impressive.

I think it"s necessary to keep the history alive. Mostly the people remind to the good things in past, but also the cruel deeds must staying in the heads of the people. So historical museums or monuments are necessary.
These museums are also bringing the impportance of human rights to the persons.

So see you later,
Thommy

Back in childhood

Dear Buckeyes,

Yesterday we went into the public library of Blue Ash to borrow some books for children.

The library of Blue Ash is divided in different sections like in Germany too. The section for kids is adapted for children. In other words the size of the racks is downsized so the kids can reach everey book. There are also playgrounds for the children, where they can paint and so on.

We should take two books from the kids section. I've taken "Planes" and "Grandfather's Shape Story".

"Planes" was directed to children, which want to inform about planes themselves. I estimate to children in the age of 8 until 10. It is written in an explaining style, easy to read and understand. In my childhood I read those books in german, so "Planes" was similar to them with lots of pics and drawings. I think not all kind of children would rese those books, only these kids, which interested in aviation and technology.

"Grandfather's Shape Story" is a creative tangram story. It's about a rooster, which is scared cause he would be eaten by a fox. So the rooster asks a man, if he coul help him. The man helped the rooster to escape from the fox, as consideration the man has one wish free and the man thought about the different wishes he have. But the story has an open end, so that the children themself could determine the end of the story. The text is written in a simple style and was quite easily to understand. Beside the text are pictures build up with the tangram shapes, so the children could get creative impressions about abstract thinking. I don't have read such a combination yet, so I have no compare to such a book. The book is written for all kind of children at the age of 3 up to 5.

So see you soon,

Thommy

buildings and landscapes

Today is my first day in the summer school. The first post is about the buildings and landscapes around Cincinnati.

In comparison to Ilmenau - the town where I'm studying - Cincinnati is much greater. Here some figures: Cincinnati has 300000 so called buckeyes(the habitants of Ohio) - Ilmenau hast 30000 habitants. So Cincinnati is 10 times greater than Ilmenau.

For my point of view the buildings are typical american. Downtown Cincinnati you have also scyscrapers and a nice skyline like other big cities in the U.S.

On the one hand the Campus has an very nice architecture, but when you leave the campus and walk some streets towards downtown, you will see some shabby buildings - the other side of a big city like Cincinnati.

The Campus of Cincinnati

is quite bigger than in Ilmenau. Understandable, there are 30000 Students signed up. The architecture of the campus-buildings can be devided in two styles. In the one hand you have the old buildings like McMicken Hall with its "old" - but timeless - architecture and on the other hand you have the Recreation Center with it's modern design. In my personal opinion i like these mixture of these different styles. The complete campus is very ample, there are big green fields where you can chill a litlle bit.