august: cleveland county

It's time yet again for my monthly German wrap-up! The German side of the Internet has been quite busy over the past month; here are some links that caught my eye. UEFA held the draw for the Euro 2016 soccer tournament groups. Germany is going to be playing Ukraine, Poland, and Northern Ireland in June - only six more months of waiting left!...

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With two of my colleagues, I created a research portal that explores the Vatican City and how it operates in the international system. You can view it here: http://vaticanportal.wordpress.com/. This news about Pope Francis being honored with the Charlemagne Prize for promoting European unity came out too late for it to make our portal, but is still an interesting read. ...

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During the Fall 2015 semester, I had the opportunity to take a course in spoken Chinese from the Confucius Institute at the University of Oklahoma (OUCI). This course, called Great Wall Chinese, was not for credit and open to the public. It met twice weekly for just over an hour, and we learned quite a bit in a short amount of time. Since...

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Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably already heard that Angela Merkel was named TIME magazine's Person of the Year. The profile reminds me of another written just a little over a year ago in the New Yorker: The Astonishing Rise of Angela Merkel. Naturally, such a favorable write-up has garnered some criticism. Deutsche Welle believes that Merkel is an interesting person, but...

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After a seemingly unending period of construction, part of the new InterCity Express train line that will eventually connect Berlin to Munich via Erfurt is finally finished! Now you can travel from Erfurt to Leipzig in less than an hour, and by the end of 2017, the travel time from Berlin to Munich is only going to be four hours, which is two...

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