title: How to use umlauts with ruby's URI library
body: <p>Here is the problem: Ruby's URI library does not deal with umlauts; i.e.</p>
  
  <pre><code>irb&gt; require "uri"
  irb* URI("http://abc.de/äöü")
  URI::InvalidURIError: bad URI(is not URI?): http://abc.de/äöü
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>How can I deal with that? This is Ruby 1.9.2, btw.</p>