Urban Renewal

Listen up, Buffalonians-- things are happening in Wittenberg! They have been struggling with high unemployment, a tough reputation, a brain drain out of the city as younger people go elsewhere to get jobs, a failing inner city. But they have a lot of historic buildings and a history of education and (at least part of) a university. Sound familiar? Sachsen-Anhalt, the state in which Wittenberg is, has encouraged 19 cities in the state to work together to develop different answers to the problem. A lot of these are kind of grass roots projects and each city chose different answers and projects based on the strength of the city. (Just to give a more unusual example-- one of the cities is the birthplace of Homeopathy and so are looking to host homeopathy conferences and to capitalize on that.) Wittenberg has chosen to use education as its central concept. It's looking to have more people to come and study, more partnerships and exhibits, classes, seminars etc. People here seem to agree that it's working. There are a lot of tourist groups on the streets and a lot of tours seem to be underway. We had a question and answer session this morning at the "New City Hall"-- which appears to me to come from the seventeenth or eighteenth century. I guess everything is relative.
Camera problems continue to plague me. I thought I had it pretty much solved after a visit to a camera shop. He said I had put the battery in wrong and sent me to an "Aku Shop" What is an Aku shop, you ask (my question as well!-- why, it's a whole store entirely devoted to Akummulators-- batteries. The Germans think of everything. So said I had broken the battery and it would cost about $80 to order a new one. I have an extra and things were looking good for getting by on this one, but now it's funny again. I am trying to focus on this trip about other things beside technology (or "Scheisstechnologie", as my guest mother called it-- use your imagination, non-German speakers as to what that means. I agree! So, now I have bored as many people as possible with my camera problems-- on both sides of the Atlantic and in two languages. I'm going to sign off and take a walk.