This is me by the Tower Bridge

England
21. May 2009

When I expressed interest in a graduate program at Loughborough University, adidas graciously sent me to visit for the weekend. I flew out from Nürnberg at around 5am, got to London a few hours later and picked up my rental car shortly thereafter. At first, I almost got in the wrong side of the car. Driving right hand drive is odd but it is weirder to drive on the left hand side of the road. A couple of hours later and I was in Loughborough, home of Loughborough Univerisity. I met Dave Rogers, a PhD candidate who spent a bit of time in Herzogenaurach in my department. That day, I had tours of the facilities and campus and that night I went out to eat with Dave and his girlfriend Karen. The next day, I filled out an application for admittance and a grant and I hope to hear back at the end of June.


Here is a picture of Loughborough. It's a lousy photo of an uninteresting section of campus, but I didn't feel it 'professional' to take a camera on my tours.


Here is a picture of a river/canal through Cambridge.

On the way back, I drove through Cambridge and walked around for a bit. Lovely city. From Cambridge back to London, I set the GPS to avoid highways (adventure mode) and ended up rolling through little villages and beautiful countryside on small winding roads.


Trusty GPS at my side.

This was funny at the time. The garbage can says "Litter" the phone booth says "Telephone." I hope this clear labeling scheme was not added as a result of some prior confusion.


A church made of pebbles.


This is me in a yellow field somewhere north of London.


I dropped my bag at the hotel and took the tube to the city center with a camera and no destination. This was a Friday night of a three day weekend and the city was hoppin’. I walked around for a few hours in the middle of the night and the streets were packed! Tourists and partiers roamed the streets in groups in search of the place to be. The people were as much a part of the constant scenery as the buildings they walked into; despite the crowds, my walk was as peaceful and alone as my time in Helsinki.


This half of a Mini was at the Science Museum.


Here is a picture of me at the Prime Meridian.

The next day, I visited the Science Museum (awesome) and Greenwich. Upon my arrival to the historic city, I ate some fish and chips by the Thames. Greenwich is the G in GMT. It was established as the prime meridian in the 19th century and it has stuck as the reference for most map makers as zero longitude. The sight has a Nautical Museum filled with maritime voyage and navigation exhibitions (very cool). The Royal Observatory is located on the hill out back (high point in the area) to give the observers of the past the best view possible. The observatory houses John Harrison’s chronometers, the first that cracked the longitude problem, the difficulty maritime navigators had until the 17th century. Though the zero longitude line passes through the building, my GPS indicated that it was about 100m East. Excellent museum though, I highly recommend it.


Here's a handstand in the park by the Royal Observatory. The observatory is on top of the hill behind the building.


This was the main observation room. Something can be seen through the long telescope. I'll leave that for you to discover.

The rest of the trip involved more meandering and observing of the city, a trip through the National Galleries, and a bit more Cadbury chocolate. A fun trip, with potentially great implications for my future.


Obligatory picture of Big Ben.


A picture of the London Eye. What a piece of engineering! I ended up walking in the Eye/Parliament/Westminster area at precisely 12AM and 12PM the following day.

Salzburg

Here's a picture of me levitating on the Untersberg.

Salzburg
17May09

My freshman room mate Tim was running the University of Portland’s Salzburg campus/center for an alumni program so sophomore/Salzburg room mate Erik and I met him there for the weekend. I met Erik in Frankfurt and we hired a sleek Italian automobile, a Fiat Punto. To avoid paying for an Austrian vignette (highway tax sticker), we switched the GPS to little roads and darted through neighborhoods, narrow alleys and dark fields until we reached the UP Center.


Documentation Center

It was quite odd to be back in a place where so many fond memories were created. We visited our favorite restaurants, I ran my favorite routes, and we meandered along the familiar streets, happily recalling the good ol’ days. That weekend, we visited Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest, a house on top of a mountain with a FANTASTIC view of the area. We visited the documentation center as well. This building was built on top of the bunkers (which are also open for exploring) and it discusses the history of the area and some of the results of the terrible decisions that were made there.


Bunker Hallway. This is where they kept back up generators. It was an interesting underground complex.

The next day we hiked the Geistberg and the day after that, we conquered the Untersberg. Both were long hikes with lots of climbing and spectacular views. The Untersberg was particularly cool because of the trail on the way up. Hacked into the side of a mountain with wooden ladders and little cables, through glacier rivers, and over snowfields, the trail was always interesting and the 1200 vertical meters went by relatively quickly. There’s nothing like standing at the top of a mountain with good friends.


Here is Erik pulling me up a cliff face.


Large Bird and a Wind-Sculpted Tree.


Erik and Tim hiking up the narrow path.


The stair/ladder on the side of the cliff.


Koennigssee


A peaceful bench on the top of a mountain.


Tim and Erik.

This is a picture of some copper nudists in a park.

My first time at the Finnish. After a few busses, planes, trains, and a subway, I arrived in Helsinki late Friday night and proceeded to walk around the city for a few hours. It was dark, cold, and, apart from the seagulls, very quiet. I visited museums for art, history, and design, a former sea fortress, and several cathedrals.


It was a very nice place to walk around. There is a long coast line with industrial, residential, and commercial areas as well as a variety of parks and interesting structures more inland. The city is known for its architecture with lingering Russian influences and Art Nouveau. It was just neat. The Finnish are also known for their good design and that was evident in some of the more modern buildings. I probably spent about 5 hours between two nights just walking with no destination, enjoying the silence, cityscape, and mood of the whole place.



On Easter Sunday, after leaving St. Henry’s Cathedral, I made my way to the Nuuksio National Forest for a few hours of hiking through Finnish wilderness. It was a relatively young national park, strangely evident by the softness of the trails yet seemingly popular this time of year.



Two unexpected events put kind of a local touch on the trip: a small café and a jazz concert in a cool club. I stumbled upon a small café on one of my meanderings and it was the best-smelling place I have experienced. The door, operated by a rope and pulley system and a friendly baker, opened the portal to an overwhelming wave of fresh cinnamon pastry, bread, tea, and happiness smells. I actually stood there in surprise for a second. I thoroughly enjoyed my tea but I decided to leave the pastries as a reason to return.


The jazz club was a hopping joint in the basement of a small restaurant. The band was from New Orleans and they were very good. It felt a lot like the jazz club I visited in New Orleans.

Simply a great trip.


This is a picture of me on the island of a Finnish sea fortress.


There's a reflection of me and some boats in the shiny sphere. This was during one of my long pensive nocturnal meanderings through the city.


Sculpture/Monument by the coast


This picture was taken from the steps of a big cathedral looking over the city to the bay.

Augsburg

Here's a picture of me in a crypt.
4. April. 2009

With Würzburg off the list, the next closest ‘burg, Augsburg became the destination dejour. A relatively town, this place is probably best known for the Treaties signed there (Peace of Augsburg should ring some bells). There’s a neat cathedral with a cool crypt. The most popular café in town was called Henry’s and they have a well known marionette theater (perhaps well-known to those who like marionette theater).

I saw Hansel and Gretel at this theater and it was quite good. I was probably right at the average age of the audience (most were either 5 years old or 44 years old).


This town, generally speaking was not really exciting but it marked the new season for me. Every little café overflowed, the streets and plazas filled with tables, chairs, ice cream, coffee and relaxing people. Families were enjoying the weather and each other on a lazy Saturday in a quiet town. Lovely.

Würzburg

This is a picture of me. Castle on the right, city on the left.

14March 2009

On a whim, I hopped a train to Würzburg, a small city between Nürnberg and Frankfurt. I chose it simply because it was the biggest dot on the map in the area I haven’t checked off in my travel atlas but it turned out to be quite a pleasant trip. Although the city is quite small, there are two rather large royal attractions, a big castle on a hill (Marienberg) and a princely residence in town (Würzburg Residence). I left the train station and followed the crowds down the typical Euro-shopping street until I arrived a a deceptively large cathedral. The front door seemed small because the front façade was kind of built into the surrounding buildings but the interior was fantastic and there was a neat crypt too.


The Residence was a neat place to visit. It was made a few hundred years ago but renovated after it was blown up 50 years ago. My shoes on those wooden floors alerted everyone in the mansion to my position and walking speed. My favorite floor had a cool outward-radiating angular pattern constructed from several types of wood. There was a nice garden out back but it was cold and all of the colorful plants were probably dead.


I walked through that little arch and up to the left to get to the castle path.

The castle on the hill was perhaps the most castle-likecastle I’ve visited. It is reached by walking on a winding path that climbs through outer walls and wine fields to the main entry way a hundred meters above river that runs through the city. The main entry way is a massive tunnel through a 20m thick wall with holes on top so they could pour boiling oil on the visitors that were not invited. The castle had a big moat, and an inner wall that blocked off the main rooms and a tower. The tower had no stairs, just a dumb-waiter type thing and a floor at the tip top (much like fairy tale towers).

The inner rooms had art and artifacts from the castle-days which were all very nice but I mostly enjoyed walking around the castle, the architecture and the view.

I had a sandwich and left the city. I’d recommend it for a day or afternoon.


Neat city church.


Bridge.


No vertical bowling allowed at the castle.


This is a picture of me in a castle. The other side of the wall is a moat, presumably where they kept moat monsters.


Rapunzel, Rapunzel? She was not in.

This last one is me standing on the path to the casle, with Würzburg down below.

Ulm

Ulm
07.March 2009

On a whim, I hopped a bus, train, train, and train and reached Ulm, the city with the shortest name in Germany. Known for the Münster, the tallest cathedral in Europe, this city also holds a stretch of the Danube and a museum about bread. What’s not to like, eh?


This street name makes up for the short city name. It is also has the biggest street name length to street length ratio I've ever seen.


The cathedral is so tall (700 something spiral steps) that the upper levels were still ‘frozen’ and closed for visitors, probably because the upper levels are poking through the upper levels of the atmosphere. The inside remained spectacular though.


This one makes me think of finite element analysis.



I walked through a cemetery to remind myself how happy I am to be the one facing the grave stones from this side and straight to the Bread Culture museum. Out of all of the food museums I’ve visited (chocolate museum in Cologne, Potato Museum in München), this was the best. It explained the history of bread making processes and development as well as the cultural impact of the loaf.

The Ulmer Museum stretched the definitions of ‘art’ a bit and had some nice classical stuff as well. Mostly, I enjoyed walking around the city. It could be considered the stereotypical German city: Relatively small with a HUGE church, a famous river flowing through, and lots of ancient architecture. There was a city wall built in the 13th and 14th centuries and many segments still stand today. Aside from a few wall sections now covered with quaint houses and schools, the majority of the preserved sections are the bits with gates and towers so there are loads of cool passageways throughout the city. There are a couple of small streams that join the Danube in the city and these flow through canals that meander tightly under houses and diagonal walkways, creating a little maze for confused tourists.



This is a model of a gate. What remains is a little more run down (700 years will do that) but much much bigger.


This is one such tower on the wall, and now part of a small school.


This sign is by the river (seen on the right). "Bei Hochwasser" means "in case of flooding" and the arrow points away from the water. So, if there's a flood, simply read the sign and proceed away from the water.

The sun came out and I listened to the J. Strauss’s Blue Danube on the banks of the Blue Danube (but it was kind of a greenish-brown river color).

Nuremberg

This is a picture of a tower on the castle in Nuremberg.

On a whim, I caught a train to Nürnberg (Nuremberg), the closest bigger city in the area. At roughly 500,000 inhabitants Nürnberg is a nice sized city with an “Altstadt” sequestered by the remnants of a city wall. The city has a nice Burg/palace/castle sort of cluster of buildings on a hill. It was the emperor’s crib when he would visit the region and that happened about 300 times in 600 years so it wasn’t really used much. Because it was only used once every two years or so, all of the decorations and furniture actually belonged to the wealthy families; they’d just furnish the palace when it needed to be furnished. So, the rooms in the castle were all empty but there was at least a nice view.



While I was there, there was a demonstration monitored by lots of police in a square by one of the churches. As far as I could tell, it was a convention of the folks that wear lots of black, boots, metal pointy things, and outrageous hair styles. These are the types that hang out by train stations across Europe and they had gathered to do what they do best, stand and sit around. A flag indicated that it was an anarchist rally of sorts so they were trying to further their cause by drinking, smoking, and playing death metal music. Way to go guys.

Time for pictures.

This is the view from the castle over the old town area.


They don't make em' like they used to.


I kind of wonder why they decided to put a building on top of the river. Surely there was some good reason.