My friend from Germany came and visited San Diego! We had fun and laughs talking about the Dutch dialect, American habits, European stuff, my travels in Europe and drank allot of coffee. It's a past time. Over at lestats drinking coffee, hanging out, talking to linguists, discussing world problems and political stuff.

One of the days we went to Balboa Park, a very nice multicultural part of San Diego that has museums, nice Spanish Architecture and beautiful plant life. We went to two museums. One was the Natural History Museum and the other was The Museum of Photographic Arts. One was free, the other was not. The highlight was BODY WORLDS. Have you ever heard about it? Body Worlds is a show done by Dr. Gunther von Hagen where he plasticized real bodies and put them in different positions.

Now there's some controversy. As Peter (Tino's friend also from Germany) put it, it's forbidden in Germany to have that show. It's not completely known if the guy got the bodies from legitimate sources. Supposedly they are donations to plastination and scientific use. But some are very intense. Take for instance the body of a woman who still has a fetus inside of her. They have her standing in the reproductive department and her stomach is cut open to show all the different places and where the fetus is inside her. That one is very very intense. I can see how that one can be very controversial.

When you walk in there, you realize these are real bodies, real bones, real arteries, real muscle. And they're characterized in very different ways.

Example: [link]

Like "The Diver", or "The Skateboarder". The bodies mostly have the skin removed in most places, and you can see the musculature structures underneath with certain parts of opened and exposed to give a view of the different layers underneath. Because they are in completely different situations like "Drawer Man" [link] some countries have forbidden the showing. Nonetheless. It's a mind blower, and you'll never really look at another person quite the same way again. You'll know "too much".

Anyways guys. Tino just left this morning. It sucks. I want to jump on the airplane with him and go to Europe again. But I have to wait. But not for TOO long.