internationale politik, frankfurt (again)

thursday was the last day of publication for internationale politik - global edition. i'm an editorial intern there, and we'd been working intensively to get this issue published. ip-ge is published by the german council on foreign relations (no affiliation to the us version). the internship is unpaid, but they also have access to a great journal for energy issues and i get access to talks/speeches (such as one last night with john mearsheimer/stephen walt on their new book on the israel lobby). plus my bosses are really great.

my dad came and visited this weekend. he flew into frankfurt (no direct flights to india from berlin) so i went a day early to go and get him. i went and saw goethe's childhood home. i thought it would be interesting to compare to my visit in weimar. as nice as his house was in weimar, his childhood home was even more fabulous! there was a special trapdoor when you first entered, huge staircases (big even for those days, the guided tour said it was borderline tacky, how ostentatious the steps were), and many nicely decorated rooms.

i wrote about his weimar place that he had an interest for italian art - well, this interest began when he was young. his father had paintings of rome in one of the main hallways, and would talk to him about italy. he was ecstatic to finally visit when he was older, and maintained his interest i guess. one fashionable thing back when was to have colored themed rooms - there's a green room, blue room, and a red room (called the 'peking room' hehe).

another interest that grew into something important: goethe and his little sister (who was educated, rare in those days) would put on plays in their family puppet theatre. hehe.

afterwards i walked around the city a bit. the skyline is really pretty, especially at night. across the Main River (actually the route you would take to get the view of teh skyline) there are these trees with HUGE leaves (1.5 times the size of my hand). bc it was autumn, they were all of gorgeous color and on the sidewalk, making the walk really fun/memorable.


it's a really beautiful city. it's kind of a generic thing to say, especially about a city in europe, but it honestly is lovely.