OK! So I made it to Germany last week. My flight was uneventful but I did get to see the new airport in Tallinn Estonia (I also added a set of stamps to my passport).I have another week here in Germany then it is home to San Jose.

My cousin Jarrod had a four-day weekend so we rented a car and traveled around the area a bit. On Friday we drove from Darmstadt to Heidelburg, which is one of the most popular tourist towns in Germany. On Saturday we took a short trip over to France and visited Strasbourg. On Sunday we went to a freind of Jarrod’s mothers 60th birthday party in the German countryside.It was a pleasant weekend. We are now sitting in the cafe on the Marketplatz in Darmstadt and thinking about what we will have for dinner.

See you all in nine days!

→ 2 CommentsTags: France · Germany

This will be my last post before I head off to Germany on the third. There are not any pictures to show you all this time around as I have spent most of the past week conducting interviews for the stories I hope to write when I return.

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→ 2 CommentsTags: Moscow

Well the last few days since I last wrote have been busy. I have shot three more events and taken a trip into the country.

On Friday I covered two events that were part of a larger protest being made by gay rights activists. The first part of the event was a picket at the Ministry of Health building to protest the ministry’s rule that gay men can not donate blood. It’s a familiar argument to one gay rights groups are making in the US.

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→ 3 CommentsTags: youth groups · journalism · Moscow

Last night I got my first opportunity to cover a news event in a foriegn city. When Katia, one of the people helping me with interpretation, called the Youth Yabloko group to see if they were having any upcoming meetings they told her that there was a meeting on Wednesday night. I guess something got lost in the translation becuase I was expecting a meeting and what I got was a “radical action”.

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→ 2 CommentsTags: youth groups · journalism · Moscow

Ok here is the first batch of images. I tried to upload half of these yesterday but I ran out of minutes on my internet account. I found a wifi provider that has a decent signal here in the apartment. It was only $20US for 31 days of unlimited connection and unlimited data transfer. That is cheaper and faster than my DSL at home! So the pics are up at flickr.

These are not pictures for any of the stories Im working on per se. They are just fun shots of Sergey and his family. I will start working on my story research on Monday once I have an interpreter and can begin calling the contacts I have gotten from Mansur and Sergey. Enjoy. I will try and get video up sometime soon.

→ 5 CommentsTags: Moscow

So I made it safely to Moscow. Sergey met me at the airport and we had to take an hour and a half train ride to his house. It turns out the airport is on the opposite side of Moscow from Sergey. What fun. I still have not gotten to see Moscow because the subway is underground.

We have much to do today. I have to register my visa, get a phone, contact the people I have found to help me with translation and meet-up with Mansur. That is all for now.

I will try and put up some pics and a video soon.

→ 4 CommentsTags: Moscow

Well the unthinkable has happened. I have started a “blog”. As many of you know I have often said that I didn’t see the usefulness of blogs for us ordinary folks. Im not an authority on anything and my opinion on any subject is no more valid or important than the next guy’s. The one area of usefulness I have seen for blogs, by us common folk, is using them to keep in touch with a large group of people whilst one is off doing other things and constant contact would be difficult.

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→ 1 CommentTags: introduction