License plates

Not much to tell about today . . . walked with Fifi, another Australian student, to printmaking class and spent basically the whole day there.  Turned out a single aquatint plate at the end of the day, but it came out nice so I'd say it was worth the effort.

Tomorrow is May 1, which is a holiday in Germany.  Schools and businesses are closed and everybody gets the day off.  I asked a few people what the deal is with this holiday, and basically it just goes back to traditions of chasing away the winter spirits so that spring and summer will come.  Indra said that a lot of places do Maifeuer ("May fire") which is a giant bonfire that goes along with the old beliefs about the spirits.  Nowadays it's just an excuse to be crazy, I think . . . tonight is apparently a HUGE party night in Hamburg, so much so that people come from out of town for it, and tomorrow there are going to be demonstrations of some sort over in the Sternschanze neighborhood.

I think tomorrow sounds like a good day for me to stay home and get schoolwork done.

Since I have nothing else to report about today, here's some trivia for you.  I found out a while back how the numbering system on European license plates works.

Example of a Hamburg license plate, with a close-up of the seal

The country is identified by a little blue vertical stripe on the left-hand side with a letter "D" for "Deutschland" and the 12 stars of the European Union.  All the EU countries have this blue stripe with a letter/letters that stand for their country.  The next part is 1, 2, or 3 letters that stand for the city in which the car is registered.  Usually the biggest cities have single letters (for example, Berlin just has "B."  The abbreviation for Hamburg actually has two letters, "HH," which stand for "Hansestadt Hamburg" (this refers to its history as a member of the Hanseatic Trade League).  Lübeck was part of the Trade League as well, so its letters are "HL" for "Hansestadt Lübeck."  All the cities are coded this way, so each city has its own license plate abbreviation.  After that come two little round stickers on top of each other.  The yellow one on top proves that the car passed the vehicle safety test.  The one on the bottom is the registration seal, which varies from city to city.  In Hamburg, it has a white castle on a red background, which is the city's official seal that you see all over the place.  Then come 1 or 2 letters and anywhere between 1 and 4 numbers.  I started researching it online and found that European plates can be customized for an additional fee at registration, just like American ones can.  I also learned that certain letter combinations are forbidden because they have Nazi-regime connotations.  For example, it is not allowed to put "HJ" (Hitlerjugend, Hitler Youth), KZ (Konzentrationslager, concentration camp) or SS (Schutzstaffel, Hitler's notorious defense branch).  Who knew that license plate history could be interesting?

On another note, between dishwashing and printmaking (and trying to avoid catching all the colds that are currently going around), my fingers are totally dry and peely.  It's kind of unavoidable, but I'm getting tired of my hands looking and feeling so rough!  I've resorted to thick layers of lotion and Vaseline at night, with gloves when I go to bed.  So far it seems to be helping a little, but the next day there are more dishes to wash and more art classes to go to, so I think I'm fighting an uphill battle . . . and right now the dish soap and ink-remover scrub are winning.