From all four corners of the US

Place of pilgrimage for UFO fans If there is one place on Earth where aliens are welcome it is the "Extraterrestrial Highway" in the US state of Nevada. Since a worker has seen UFOs there a few years ago, the small town of Rachel in the middle of no man's land has become a place of pilgrimage for those who believe in UFOs. The town - 240 kilometers north of Las Vegas in the barren desert - isn't really a town, it is made up entirely of just a few trailers. At the center is the "The Little A'Le'Inn," a little bar with an onomatopoetic name, filled with devotional objects of aliens. Most of those meeting for pancakes and coffee there have had an encounter of the third kind - and are proud of it. Some even claim to have been abducted by aliens. It is the common hobby that brings the inhabitants and the tourist to the desert. In Rachel, the only town on the Extraterrestrial Highway that has only got that name six years ago, the alien fans are among themselves.

On the contrary - anyone going to Rachel, camping out in the car night after night and still not seeing any UFOs envies all those able to talk of their own experiences. The highway runs over a length of 158 kilometers through the sparsely populated scenery. Street signs with pictures of UFOs are put up along the way and leave no doubt about what highway the traveler is driving down. Near Rachel, the small town with a population of 65 people, is an Air Force base that has been secret for a long time. Conspiracy theorists believe the base is a heavily guarded place where alien technology is being kept and researched, far away from the eyes of the public. Behind this is the legend of Roswell - it is said that a UFO with four aliens on board crashed here near the small town in the state of New Mexico in 1947. Even though there were apparently several witnesses there when the UFO crashed and was found, the military spread the news that a registering balloon had come down there. According to some observers, the remains of the aliens have been brought to the military base near Rachel in Nevada for research purposes. The US government, however, insists on the not so interesting version for alien fans, that nuclear contaminated toxic waste is being stored there.

Since none of the alien tourists will ever be admitted on the strongly guarded base, they meet up at the "Little A'Le'Inn," buy T-shirts, eat alien burgers, and talk about their newest experiences with the most popular visitors in Rachel.

The Modern Art Museum is moving Up to now, tourists in New York just had to turn a corner - the Modern Art Museum was just half a block away from the popular Fifth Avenue. People lining up on the pavement outside proved the popularity of the central cultural temple. However, in the future, visitors will have to travel a little further in order to have a look the highlights by Matisse and Miro, Picasso and Pollock. Because today, with the end of the current Gerhard-Richter exhibition, the 73-year old museum is closing, parts of it will be torn down and rebuilt. That's why for the next three years, the billion-Dollar collection will be moving to Queens.

Three years ago the curator Glenn Lowry had bought the Swingline Staple Factory there. Originally, the staple factory had only been meant to serve as a store room for the museum's collection that is spread out over 18 different locations. But when the discussions about the rebuilding of the main building in Manhattan began, the museum's management decided to also exhibit the works of art in the storage room. The rent in Manhattan was much too high, so they had the idea to simply use the rooms in Queens, explained Lowry while showing the press around the freshly painted new rooms. The architect Michael Maltzan was hired to give the storage room a museum-like atmosphere. Opening day is June 29. Only drawback - most tourist sightseeing routes don't go past the Queens Boulevard. Most tourists do arrive in Queens, at JFK Airport or La Guardia, but after that don't get out of Manhattan anymore.

Lowry knows that the move will cost him some visitors. Instead of 1 million visitors in Manhattan, he only expects 400,000 a year in Queens. The financial losses are already factored in, he explains. And after all, he doesn't have a choice - the rebuilding of the old house was long overdue, there was hardly any room for the collection. And in Manhattan, neither the price nor the space was acceptable. The curator, who likes to wear red socks with his pinstripe suit, is enthused by the unpolished new location. The coolness factor of the new environment could be beneficial to the dignified museum. New dynamic, that's what the curator calls it. And that's also why the factory floor has been left just as it was - pure concrete. It only took one year to turn the factory full of machines into a modern museum with all security requirements (air conditioning, fire security, vibration-free elevator, anti-theft system). $70 million were contributed by public sources, $50 million by the private museum.

A total of 100,000 paintings, sculptures, prints and designer pieces will be crossing the East River. 400 of the 550 employees will be moving as well. They already got a taste of the feeling of adventure in wild Queens. One employee told the New York Times that it was like moving to a new country.

Starbucks comes to Berlin The boom of coffee bars in Germany has now attracted even the US chain Starbucks. CEO Howard Schultz said at the opening at the first two coffee bars in Berlin that Germany was one of the countries with the highest coffee consumption in the world. Starbucks wants to open between five and ten coffee bars in Germany this year, and a total of 180 within the next five years. They will be run by the KarstadtCoffee GmbH. This is a joint venture with the trade and department store chain KarstadtQuelle.

Starbucks is a model for the same coffee bars that have been expanding in German cities.

The first coffee shop has been opened in the US in 1971 already. Around the world the chain - named after a character from the classic "Moby Dick" - has more than 5,400 coffee shops with 18 million guests every week, according to the company.

The first coffee shop in continental Europe has been opened in Zurich last year. Vienna and Madrid also have Starbucks by now. Starbucks caused a sensation with the opening of a coffee shop in the forbidden city of Peking last year. According to the German coffee association, there are about 400 coffee bars in Germany, most of which were opened since the end of the 90s. According to the experts' estimates there's room for about 1,500 coffee shops. The current market leader in Germany is the Italian traditional brand Segafredo, with more than 80 shops, followed by the Italian competitor Lavazza and newer chains such as World Coffee, San Francisco Coffee Company or Cafetiero.

German photographers on the rise in the US You can't emphasize it enough - the boom of German photography isn't older than a pubescent high school student. Only 15 years ago, German curators refused to recognize photography as art, they refused to exhibit photos or buy them. Only in the 90s did photographers gradually enter their works into public collections.

That has changed by now. Collectors all around the world pay a lot of money for German photography of the Becher school - meaning the circle of artists studying with Bernd and Hilda Becher at the academy of arts in Düsseldorf in the 70s and 80s. After the great success Andreas Gursky had with his great exhibition in New York last year, the second piece of shocking news from the US wasn't far away - this Sunday, a retrospective with ca. 90 photos by the German artist Thomas Struth from Düsseldorf opened in the Dallas Museum of Art, until the fall of 2003 it can still be seen in Los Angeles (Museum of Contemporary Art), New York (Metropolitan Museum), and Chicago (Museum of Contemporary Art). Struth's entire works from 1977 until today will be exhibited to extent unknown until today. The artist in his mid-forties has compiled an exhibition together with the curators that is usually reserved for the great classics.

Besides his famous museum pictures and family portraits from a number of big cities throughout the world, you will also see some of his less famous works such as his Swiss sceneries and photos of flowers. More than 25 years of continuous development have provided the artists with no more than a handful of subjects:

Photos of streets, cities, portraits, people in museums, flowers, sceneries, jungles and forests. All the time he is most interested in structural issues, issues of perspective. Every time Struth makes photos of people, he clearly puts them in the center as the main subject. His museum series shows people looking at works of art. On the family portraits, they exhibit themselves. Otherwise his photo series are more or less empty, at least people aren't the central topic. These series look like skeleton-like frames for human communication, as Daniel Birnbaum says in his enlightening essay in the newest edition of "Artforum."

Each millimeter of these large photos is technically and manually designed to perfection. The result is pure beauty. And that while Struth always keeps a distance to the people's emotions. By leaving the people some space he makes us think about the premises of different cultures and societies.

(Sources: Spiegel Online)

Getting married in the US - a reader's report Here is a report by Ms Behrens and Mr. Fritsche, who were so kind as to allow us to use this for our newsletter. We would like to thank them very much (we don't take responsibility for the correctness of the information).

What you have said about the wedding formalities in Las Vegas is 100% correct. We have already tried this in 1996. And had a lot of fun. What could maybe still be said is that you really don't have to know anything before. It is true that everyone there knows how it works and is happy to tell you, e.g. the people at the reception of your motel or hotel. You will be more or less guided through the process and nothing bad can happen. Of course you have your passport with you and a few Dollars for the fees. However, that's basically it. (In our case, the one-armed bandit reimbursed us for the fees the next morning - we were lucky). By the way, even the time of day isn't important in Las Vegas, the office for the marriage license was open all night. The ceremony in the "Little White Chapel" was very nice and we will always remember it - we showed up completely unannounced, around 2am, and everything was prepared within a couple of minutes, but quite calmly. There we were also told about all the formalities and the fees and everything was handled right there. Quite professionally.

The certificate from Carson City arrived here quickly after our return to Germany. So did the "wedding photos." We had a great Reverend, who delivered his speech so convincingly after talking with me for a few minutes, we almost believed he was saying all of that for the first time. And he didn't just use the usual stale clichés, but everything was very personal. Unfortunately, the video he made of our wedding was a little expensive so we didn't take it. You should also factor in a donation for the reverend, because that's what he lives on - approximately $100-300, depending on how well you liked everything. If you like, the chapel's (white) limousine will then take you back to the hotel. To make a long story short - we highly recommend doing the same. Still happy: Monika Behrens, Jochen Fritzsche.

Bankruptcy threatening the land of opportunity? On Thursday, the US will reach the debt limit of $5.95 trillion set by US Congress for the second time. If Congress doesn't raise the limit, treasury secretary Paul O'Neill will have to tap into the pension funds of the federal employees so that the country is able to pay. The treasury secretary is planning to take about $44 billion from the pension funds. Things will get serious by the end of June - $67 billion to Social Security will be due then. To stay below the maximum debt level, treasury secretary O'Neill is now taking money from several pension funds.

If the treasury department doesn't interfere, the US will not be able to repay their debts. The payments to social security due June 28 would raise the debt to almost $100 billion above the national limit. In a letter to Congress O'Neill warned that until then the treasury department would have run out of options.

The US collected 30 percent less taxes in April than they did for the same period the year before. This has sped up the process toward inability to pay. The treasury department already had to announce that they would have to take up $1 billion net in the current quarter. In January the department was still expecting to be able to pay back $89 billion of their debts. In his letter to Congress treasury secretary O'Neill wrote that the amount of taxes collected in June was still uncertain. Analysts have already warned that the country would not earn enough to finance the due payments.

So far, Congress has always rejected the US governments request to raise the debt limit by $750 billion. The government's reasons for the higher financial requirements are the war on terror, the fact that tax income is lower due to the recession and social security benefits are being raised continuously. The US government is reaching the debt limit for the second time this year. In April the treasury department transferred $18.7 billion from the G-fund that was paid back with tax money later. Already at that point the treasury department warned that this would only be a temporary solution to the problem.

Sent on vacation No employee will complain about vacation if he can pick the time himself. However, several computer concerns and software producers in the US that are in the middle of a crisis are sending their employees on a forced vacation of one week at the beginning of July. Hewlett-Packard did it before and Hewlett-Packard is doing it again now - 74,000 employees in the US are to take their annual vacation between June 30 to July 6 or take unpaid vacation. The company started a similar project for Christmas. The new forced vacation that coincides with the American Independence Day on July 4 is to "improve efficiency and our ability to act in a weak market environment in America," according to an internal email.

The company management had been inspired by the fact that employees of Compaq that had been recently taken over had already had a company holiday for Independence Day the year before. Apparently, the employees are quite okay with this, but it remains to be seen how much HP really wants to save with this vacation close-down. Sun Microsystems, with 32,000 employees in the US, has a similar plan to save money. Sun extended the Independence Day vacation in 2001 already and already gone on a one-week break this year. The software provider VeriSign, in the other hand, that specializes mainly in security certificates for the internet, will make its 3,000 employees take three days of paid vacation in this and the next quarter in order to reduce the number of unused vacation days.

Fisher's paradise USA It doesn't matter whether the tourist is a hobby fisher or not - anyone renting a boat on the Lake of Woods usually gets a fishing rod along with it. The lakes between the US and Canada are considered one of the fisher's paradises in the US - and offer a lot more than pike-perches, trout and pickerels.
Without a boat, the paradise is only half as beautiful. Paddle in hand you find your way through the labyrinth of bays and canals. Pelicans, cormorants and eagles are fling over the lakes while deer and moose are walking among the trees. Sometimes you will see wolves or foxes - and if you're lucky even black bears. Lake of the Woods is the name of this lake area between the US and Canada. With a land area of 4,000 square kilometers it is among the best fishing areas on the North American continent. Trout, perch-pike, pickerel - the fishers will find everything here.

And if you don't want to go fishing you can just enjoy nature - there are about 14,000 islands with an estimated 104,000 kilometers of coastline in the area that reaches from the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba to the US state of Minnesota. The main city of the region is Kenora in Ontario. The small town has a population of roughly 15,000 - most of them live off tourism. They rent out boats, offer tours or repair boating equipment. How much Kenora is connected to fishing is shown also by the town landmark - "Husky the Musky" is a 14-meter tall pike made of fiber glass, greeting the visitors that come to town.

The best season for a visit is summer, which is between the beginning of June to the beginning of September here. However, early fall is also a very nice season in the lake area - the leaves have many colors, the usually shy moose can be seen a little more often and the midges too don't bother you as much anymore.

Since the lake paradise is a bit remote, it can best be reached if you drive from Winnipeg in Manitoba to Kenora. After a two-and-a-half hour drive you continue your journey by water plane or water taxi.