- Wrote software for the fastest computers in the world.
- Drank sulfur spring water in Aachen.
- Visited "Bodies".
- Went clubbing in Berlin.
- Visited the Alhambra.
- Heard the orchestra in the Budapest Opera House and drank wine on the balcony during intermission.
- Got my first apartment.
- Visited Auschwitz.
- Started my PhD studies.
- Ate Roman gelato.
- Knocked down a house in New Orleans.
- Competed in the USA national triathlon championship.
- Lost a good friend and mentor in a school shooting.
- Bathed at the Szechenyi Bath & Spa.
- Ate ox tail.
- Ate cock testicles.
- Ate millet mixed with blood.
- Visited the Cologne Cathedral.
- Got sunburned on the clothing-optional beach at Malaga.
- Visited the Wieliczka Salt Mine.
- Watched fireworks in Prague.
- Got my first publication.
- Drank espresso and ate crescents in Paris.
- Saw my sister get engaged.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Signing off
Well! It's been a completely unforgettable summer and certainly one of the most defining years of my life. God has blessed me so richly and given me so much! Here's a list of life-long memories from just this year:
Munich, Berlin, and Home!
I arrived in Munich at 1:00 AM in the middle of a rain storm. Fortunately my hostel (Jaeger's Hostel) was just across the street from the central train station.
I met a Hollander named Paul at breakfast. We took a walk around the city, visited the Olympic Stadium and the BMW Museum, and generally chilled out. We dropped in on the University and Geschwister Scholl Platz to see an exhibit about Sophie Scholl, who, along with her brother, was a member of the White Rose resistance movement in Nazi Germany. Coming out of the exhibit, M94.5 radio interviewed us on what we were doing this summer. (If I find a recording I'll stick it up here).
Paul called an old coworker, Eric, to come hang out with us, and in the afternoon we were joined by Linda, the girl I met in Paris. The three of us spent the day together and shared some glorious Italian food for dinner at Pasta Basta.
The next day I took the first flight out to Berlin and arrived back at Ute's apartment around noon. We talked a lot and then went back to KaDeWe for dinner and present shopping. The next morning, I took a suitcase down to the Kaisers Market and filled it with chocolate for transport back to the States. Ute accompanied me to the airport, and then I was on my way home!
I met a Hollander named Paul at breakfast. We took a walk around the city, visited the Olympic Stadium and the BMW Museum, and generally chilled out. We dropped in on the University and Geschwister Scholl Platz to see an exhibit about Sophie Scholl, who, along with her brother, was a member of the White Rose resistance movement in Nazi Germany. Coming out of the exhibit, M94.5 radio interviewed us on what we were doing this summer. (If I find a recording I'll stick it up here).
Paul called an old coworker, Eric, to come hang out with us, and in the afternoon we were joined by Linda, the girl I met in Paris. The three of us spent the day together and shared some glorious Italian food for dinner at Pasta Basta.
The next day I took the first flight out to Berlin and arrived back at Ute's apartment around noon. We talked a lot and then went back to KaDeWe for dinner and present shopping. The next morning, I took a suitcase down to the Kaisers Market and filled it with chocolate for transport back to the States. Ute accompanied me to the airport, and then I was on my way home!
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Malaga!
After my escape from Rome and two jam-packed days in Granada, I was ready to relax. I looked along the coast of Spain for towns with a beach and an airport, and Malaga was the closest, so I went there.
I stayed in the Residencia Universitaria Santa Paula, where I found the most relaxing hostel bed I've had the pleasure to sleep in. The rooms are enormous, include a balcony, and cost only $30 a night!
The weather was amazing.
I only took two pictures of the beach because it was clothing-optional, making it hard to find an angle where I wouldn't be photographing a lot of skin. Completely naked, very beautiful people were everywhere and I felt very out of place. I expected a "beach bouncer" to come over any time and kick me out. "Excuse me sir, but you are simply too white and ugly to be on this beach. The sunlight reflecting off your pale, pasty body is interfering with low-orbit satellites."
These trees remind me of "Horton Hears a Who"
After three days of bumming around on the beach, I was sunburned, poor, and very ready to return to the cold drizzle of Germany. On to Munich!
I stayed in the Residencia Universitaria Santa Paula, where I found the most relaxing hostel bed I've had the pleasure to sleep in. The rooms are enormous, include a balcony, and cost only $30 a night!
The weather was amazing.
I only took two pictures of the beach because it was clothing-optional, making it hard to find an angle where I wouldn't be photographing a lot of skin. Completely naked, very beautiful people were everywhere and I felt very out of place. I expected a "beach bouncer" to come over any time and kick me out. "Excuse me sir, but you are simply too white and ugly to be on this beach. The sunlight reflecting off your pale, pasty body is interfering with low-orbit satellites."
These trees remind me of "Horton Hears a Who"
After three days of bumming around on the beach, I was sunburned, poor, and very ready to return to the cold drizzle of Germany. On to Munich!
Rome!
First stop after the internship was Rome, Italy. The flight and train ride into the city were uneventful, but somehow I lost my notebook/diary which contained not only every personal thought and feeling since last January, but also my hostel address. After stamping around the train station a while, I managed to recall a map I'd seen showing where my youth hostel was in relation to the Vatican. From that and a metro map, I made it to the Il Cerchio youth hostel.
The Il Cerchio is family-staffed and generally fantastic. The grandmother of the place poured a glass of fresh orange juice for me a check in, and told me to help myself from a large fridge filled with goodies. I took a brief walk around the neighborhood, ate cheap pizza, and discovered that, in Rome, just 2 Euros will buy you four scoops of the greatest gelato in the world (whipped cream, chocolate syrup, and sugar cone included!).
The next day I visited the Vatican! It took three hours of standing in line to get in, but it was well worth it.
The Sistine Chapel is stunning. You aren't supposed to take pictures, but I did my best undercover work.
After the Vatican came the Roman Forum and the Colosseum. The scale of these things is unbelievable!
Roman hair-do in the Museum of Sculpture near the Forum.
I took a walk down to the "capital building."
Trevi Fountain. Toss one coin over your shoulder and you will return to Rome. Toss two, and you will fall in love with an Italian. Three coins gets you a wedding in Rome.
St. Peter's is now my definition of BIG.
The view from the top of St. Peters.
Some nuns, come to see the view from the boss's office.
The most at-home homeless person I've seen. He's set up shop in the road median and is reading the newspaper with his slippers off and drinking coffee. The life!
I ate dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall place recommended by both Lonely Planet and my hostel grandma. It served amazing Italian "home-style", which is pretty much spaghetti.
Getting out of Rome was challenging. A combination of a worker strike at the airport, my nonexistent Italian, and the presence of two airports in Rome, caused me to miss my flight. Unfortunately, easyJet makes it very clear that a missed flight is nonrefundable in any way, so I had to buy a full-price ticket to Madrid at the airport. Missing this flight meant I missed my train from Madrid to Cordoba, so the Cordoba trip was off. All in all, it took about $500 and a sleepless night to get me out of Rome and to my hostel in Granada.
On the positive side, I got to stay another day in Rome so I visited the Castel Sant'Angelo.
View from the top of the castle.
Miraculously, I found my diary in the train station on the way to the air port. All my reservations and other such papers had been taken, but the rest was fine. Whew!
The Il Cerchio is family-staffed and generally fantastic. The grandmother of the place poured a glass of fresh orange juice for me a check in, and told me to help myself from a large fridge filled with goodies. I took a brief walk around the neighborhood, ate cheap pizza, and discovered that, in Rome, just 2 Euros will buy you four scoops of the greatest gelato in the world (whipped cream, chocolate syrup, and sugar cone included!).
The next day I visited the Vatican! It took three hours of standing in line to get in, but it was well worth it.
The Sistine Chapel is stunning. You aren't supposed to take pictures, but I did my best undercover work.
After the Vatican came the Roman Forum and the Colosseum. The scale of these things is unbelievable!
Roman hair-do in the Museum of Sculpture near the Forum.
I took a walk down to the "capital building."
Trevi Fountain. Toss one coin over your shoulder and you will return to Rome. Toss two, and you will fall in love with an Italian. Three coins gets you a wedding in Rome.
St. Peter's is now my definition of BIG.
The view from the top of St. Peters.
Some nuns, come to see the view from the boss's office.
The most at-home homeless person I've seen. He's set up shop in the road median and is reading the newspaper with his slippers off and drinking coffee. The life!
I ate dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall place recommended by both Lonely Planet and my hostel grandma. It served amazing Italian "home-style", which is pretty much spaghetti.
Getting out of Rome was challenging. A combination of a worker strike at the airport, my nonexistent Italian, and the presence of two airports in Rome, caused me to miss my flight. Unfortunately, easyJet makes it very clear that a missed flight is nonrefundable in any way, so I had to buy a full-price ticket to Madrid at the airport. Missing this flight meant I missed my train from Madrid to Cordoba, so the Cordoba trip was off. All in all, it took about $500 and a sleepless night to get me out of Rome and to my hostel in Granada.
On the positive side, I got to stay another day in Rome so I visited the Castel Sant'Angelo.
View from the top of the castle.
Miraculously, I found my diary in the train station on the way to the air port. All my reservations and other such papers had been taken, but the rest was fine. Whew!
Monday, July 16, 2007
In Rome!
Hello all!
My internship is officially over! It was a great success and my code will be included in the next major release of the SCALASCA software-nerdy-stuff that I was working on. More good news: I have an offer to come back to Juelich next summer for three months (paid!). Loverly.
I'm on the shared youth hostel computer so I'm not going to put up photos or much now, but I've got gay cheerleaders, vats of molten chocolate, indoor rain forests, and smoked sheep cheese to write about.
Laters!
My internship is officially over! It was a great success and my code will be included in the next major release of the SCALASCA software-nerdy-stuff that I was working on. More good news: I have an offer to come back to Juelich next summer for three months (paid!). Loverly.
I'm on the shared youth hostel computer so I'm not going to put up photos or much now, but I've got gay cheerleaders, vats of molten chocolate, indoor rain forests, and smoked sheep cheese to write about.
Laters!
Krakow!
My CESRI internship ended with a debriefing in Krakow, Poland. I arrived a day ahead of everyone else and spent the night in the Elephant on the Moon youth hostel (thus named because an elephant is a Polish symbol of good luck, and the moon is a symbol of sleep). The staff were very friendly and suggested I join a friend of their, Justine, on a pub crawl that night. Turns out that a "pub crawl" in Krakow is what I would call "clubbing", and my gray VT sweatshirt and sneakers got me bounced from several of our destinations. It was a seriously lame way to spend the night.
To cheer myself up after the pub crawl debacle, I used my extra day to visit the Auschwitz death factory. Auschwitz is of course horrific and shocking, but also very fascinating. The exhibits were strangely unadorned and included little explanation, mostly because they required none. Piles of shoes and clothing taken from murdered children are easily recognizable as a work of evil. The hair was the most disturbing. The Jews were shaved and their hair used to make textiles, exactly as if they had been sheep. (Imagine buying your daughter Jew-hair bedsheets!) Two tons of hair taken from murdered women were on display, and the smell was very disturbing. It smelled like people.
The Gate of Death, leading into Auschwitz Birkenau.
After I got back from Auschwitz, I checked out of my hostel and into the hotel downtown where I was to meet the rest of the CESRI fellows and our supervisors (Agi, Chris, and Vijay). We had another amazing gourmet meal at CESRI's expense (I had pierogi). Vijay has a degree in religious studies, so we had a great conversation about belief and religion. During dinner, Thomas taught us how to make a polish friend (video here).
The next day was the first round of presentations. Each CESRI fellow talked for 20 minutes about their research this summer and other such academic fiddle-faddle. Lunch was excellent, as always, but an adventure. I asked for roast goose, but instead got Polish blood pudding: a plate of millet mixed with blood. It tasted somewhere between pan-fried hamburger and chocolate. After that was over, we took a 3-hour walking tour of Krakow with a charming guide who spoke with a perfect British accent and was very short.
We visited the University of Krakow (Copernicus graduated from here) and made many discoveries. The best 15th and 16th century scientific equipment was on display: telescopes, astroglobes, and chronometers (a.k.a clocks).
Krakow is a very beautiful and romantic place.
That night we feasted at "Under the Angel", a high-priced Polish gourmet restaurant. I tried honey mead, Polish bread drink, vodka, borsch, bread with bacon fat, and other amazing foods. After dinner we had a vodka party on Vijay's balcony. A really amazing night.
The next day we had the last of the presentations and a final good-bye lunch. Agi, Chris and Vijay had to leave quickly to catch a flight, but the food was amazing. Each dish was brought out on a covered platter and then dramatically uncovered. Thomas sang polish songs of farewell and embarrassed many people considerably, but I enjoyed the performance (video here).
After lunch, we visited the Wieliczka Salt Mine. This beautiful network of salt caves is one of the wonders of the world and includes the largest underground chapel in the world. Everything is made of salt, which comes in various colors and levels of purity. Salt sculptures are everywhere and artistic lighting creates a beautiful atmosphere.
Salt leaking out of the ceiling to form "salt spaghetti".
Salt sculpture.
And so ended the CESRI fellowship! I've still got ten days before I return to the USA, so I'll be visiting Rome, Granada, Malaga, and Munich before returning to Berlin for the flight home.
One thing I forgot to mention is the Krakow sheep cheese. This stuff is EU-protected so it can only be sold in certain places in Poland and it tastes great! It looks like a small loaf of bread and you buy it grilled from street vendors (the best will include some cranberry jelly). It squeaks in your teeth and tastes amazing.
To cheer myself up after the pub crawl debacle, I used my extra day to visit the Auschwitz death factory. Auschwitz is of course horrific and shocking, but also very fascinating. The exhibits were strangely unadorned and included little explanation, mostly because they required none. Piles of shoes and clothing taken from murdered children are easily recognizable as a work of evil. The hair was the most disturbing. The Jews were shaved and their hair used to make textiles, exactly as if they had been sheep. (Imagine buying your daughter Jew-hair bedsheets!) Two tons of hair taken from murdered women were on display, and the smell was very disturbing. It smelled like people.
The Gate of Death, leading into Auschwitz Birkenau.
After I got back from Auschwitz, I checked out of my hostel and into the hotel downtown where I was to meet the rest of the CESRI fellows and our supervisors (Agi, Chris, and Vijay). We had another amazing gourmet meal at CESRI's expense (I had pierogi). Vijay has a degree in religious studies, so we had a great conversation about belief and religion. During dinner, Thomas taught us how to make a polish friend (video here).
The next day was the first round of presentations. Each CESRI fellow talked for 20 minutes about their research this summer and other such academic fiddle-faddle. Lunch was excellent, as always, but an adventure. I asked for roast goose, but instead got Polish blood pudding: a plate of millet mixed with blood. It tasted somewhere between pan-fried hamburger and chocolate. After that was over, we took a 3-hour walking tour of Krakow with a charming guide who spoke with a perfect British accent and was very short.
We visited the University of Krakow (Copernicus graduated from here) and made many discoveries. The best 15th and 16th century scientific equipment was on display: telescopes, astroglobes, and chronometers (a.k.a clocks).
Krakow is a very beautiful and romantic place.
That night we feasted at "Under the Angel", a high-priced Polish gourmet restaurant. I tried honey mead, Polish bread drink, vodka, borsch, bread with bacon fat, and other amazing foods. After dinner we had a vodka party on Vijay's balcony. A really amazing night.
The next day we had the last of the presentations and a final good-bye lunch. Agi, Chris and Vijay had to leave quickly to catch a flight, but the food was amazing. Each dish was brought out on a covered platter and then dramatically uncovered. Thomas sang polish songs of farewell and embarrassed many people considerably, but I enjoyed the performance (video here).
After lunch, we visited the Wieliczka Salt Mine. This beautiful network of salt caves is one of the wonders of the world and includes the largest underground chapel in the world. Everything is made of salt, which comes in various colors and levels of purity. Salt sculptures are everywhere and artistic lighting creates a beautiful atmosphere.
Salt leaking out of the ceiling to form "salt spaghetti".
Salt sculpture.
And so ended the CESRI fellowship! I've still got ten days before I return to the USA, so I'll be visiting Rome, Granada, Malaga, and Munich before returning to Berlin for the flight home.
One thing I forgot to mention is the Krakow sheep cheese. This stuff is EU-protected so it can only be sold in certain places in Poland and it tastes great! It looks like a small loaf of bread and you buy it grilled from street vendors (the best will include some cranberry jelly). It squeaks in your teeth and tastes amazing.
Monday, July 9, 2007
Koeln is Really Really Gay
I managed to make it to Koeln (Cologne) a second time this summer, and it was really, really strange. Unbeknown to me, I'd arrived right during the Koeln Gay Pride weekend festival. My first clue was all the guys holding hands, but as the day wore on, the abundance of seatless leather pants and street-corner lesbian porn peddlers somehow made it obvious.
Some gay cheerleaders.
The gay pride parade, lead by Santa Clause and Mr. Slave. I never thought of Santa as a gay icon, but think of him as a hairy old man who delivers packages down your chimney and he fits right in.
After a while, I got tired of all the gayness in the streets so I visited the Lindt Chocolate Museum. This place is fantastic! There's an indoor rain forest, a complete bean-to-truffle chocolate manufacturing line, and a chocolate fountain. You get free samples from the fountain and the entire museum smells fantastic.
The Koelner Dom! This massive structure is the definitive Gothic cathedral. Dark, huge, and a little foreboding, it's truly amazing. Personally, I prefer the smaller and more colorful Aachener Dom.
These strange "mystery bananas" were everywhere. I saw a few in Aachen also.
Some gay cheerleaders.
The gay pride parade, lead by Santa Clause and Mr. Slave. I never thought of Santa as a gay icon, but think of him as a hairy old man who delivers packages down your chimney and he fits right in.
After a while, I got tired of all the gayness in the streets so I visited the Lindt Chocolate Museum. This place is fantastic! There's an indoor rain forest, a complete bean-to-truffle chocolate manufacturing line, and a chocolate fountain. You get free samples from the fountain and the entire museum smells fantastic.
The Koelner Dom! This massive structure is the definitive Gothic cathedral. Dark, huge, and a little foreboding, it's truly amazing. Personally, I prefer the smaller and more colorful Aachener Dom.
These strange "mystery bananas" were everywhere. I saw a few in Aachen also.
Friday, July 6, 2007
JET: The Jülich Tokamak Fusion Reactor
Check this out! Last week my friend Ivo managed to hook me up with a tour of the Tokamak fusion reactor at Jülich. Technically, you aren't supposed to take pictures anywhere in the research center, and this is particularly true of the reactors, but I took as many as I could before security shut me down and made me promise not to post certain photos on the net. If you want to see more, check out the official photos here and the really awesome videos here.
Mission control! The hallowed control consoles for all fusion experiments. Jülich's engineers and physicists can monitor all aspects of the reactor from here. A typical experiment lasts between five and seven seconds (the longest on record is 12 seconds) and an experiment can be run every five minutes or so.
That pipe-looking thinggy is a coax cable, just like you plug into the back of your TV. Only bigger. Much bigger.
This was the last thing I was allowed to photograph. At times like these, green is my favorite color. "Bunker-Verlassen" can be translated as "abandon the bunker!".
These next two photos are from the TEXTOR website, but they look almost exactly like the photos I was told not to post.
The inside of the reactor as seen through an observation port. In here, hydrogen plasma is heated to 50 million degrees and held in a 60,000 volt toroidal magnetic field. The plasma is invisible, since the hydrogen atoms have been striped of their electrons, but the "cool" plasma near the walls will emit an eerie pink glow. (No pink here, since the reactor was inactive.)
The power cables for the reactor. Research Center Jülich as a three-million Euro annual power budget. Ivo asked if the physicists were required to notify the power company before turning on the reactor. Our guide just laughed and said, "Oh, they know when we turn it on."
After the fusion reactor, we tried to get a look at one of the old fission reactors. Research center Jülich was origionally named "Kernforschungsanlage Jülich" (Nuclear Research Institute Jülich) and sported two fission reactors, but one is now decommissioned and the second is in the decommission process. Security around these reactors was extremely high. That white dome was the only thing I could photograph, and I was immediately told to put my camera away. There's a double-layer fence, guard towers, and security cameras all over the place. We couldn't get inside, on account of not having signed documents from the police. Wow.
Today it's a radio tower, but it was originally built to measure the strength and extent of nuclear fallout in case of a reactor meltdown.
Some interesting facts, comparing nuclear fission to nuclear fusion:
Mission control! The hallowed control consoles for all fusion experiments. Jülich's engineers and physicists can monitor all aspects of the reactor from here. A typical experiment lasts between five and seven seconds (the longest on record is 12 seconds) and an experiment can be run every five minutes or so.
That pipe-looking thinggy is a coax cable, just like you plug into the back of your TV. Only bigger. Much bigger.
This was the last thing I was allowed to photograph. At times like these, green is my favorite color. "Bunker-Verlassen" can be translated as "abandon the bunker!".
These next two photos are from the TEXTOR website, but they look almost exactly like the photos I was told not to post.
The inside of the reactor as seen through an observation port. In here, hydrogen plasma is heated to 50 million degrees and held in a 60,000 volt toroidal magnetic field. The plasma is invisible, since the hydrogen atoms have been striped of their electrons, but the "cool" plasma near the walls will emit an eerie pink glow. (No pink here, since the reactor was inactive.)
The power cables for the reactor. Research Center Jülich as a three-million Euro annual power budget. Ivo asked if the physicists were required to notify the power company before turning on the reactor. Our guide just laughed and said, "Oh, they know when we turn it on."
After the fusion reactor, we tried to get a look at one of the old fission reactors. Research center Jülich was origionally named "Kernforschungsanlage Jülich" (Nuclear Research Institute Jülich) and sported two fission reactors, but one is now decommissioned and the second is in the decommission process. Security around these reactors was extremely high. That white dome was the only thing I could photograph, and I was immediately told to put my camera away. There's a double-layer fence, guard towers, and security cameras all over the place. We couldn't get inside, on account of not having signed documents from the police. Wow.
Today it's a radio tower, but it was originally built to measure the strength and extent of nuclear fallout in case of a reactor meltdown.
Some interesting facts, comparing nuclear fission to nuclear fusion:
- When a fusion reactor fails, the plasma's energy is dissipated onto the reactor walls, they heat to about 400 degrees C or so, and nothing too exciting happens.
- When a fission reactor fails, you get Chernobyl.
- Nuclear fusion produces very little radioactive waste, and this waste is dangerous for only 50 years.
- The United States Department of Energy states that in Ohio alone, nuclear fission has produced "31 million pounds of uranium product", "2.5 billion pounds of waste", "2.75 million cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris", all of which will be harmful for thousands of years.
- Three baseball-sized garden rocks and three liters of water contain enough fusion-fuel to power a household for an entire year.
- Every fusion reactor to-date has consumed far more energy that it ever produced, but the ITER reactor will be the first to actually produce power. (It won't be a power plant, just a proof of concept.)
- The first fusion power reactors should go online sometime between 2050 and 2070. Mr. Fusion!
Tagebau Hambach and VI-HPS Inauguration
Wednesday I attended the inauguration of the Virtual Institute for High Productivity Supercomputing, a new academic effort at Jülich. Most of the day was scheduled for lectures, which weren't too bad. I met Douglas Post, the Chief Scientist for the United States Department of Defense, and also a few researchers from Tennessee, Oregon, and Dresden. You could tell who Douglas Post worked for. His keynote address bristled with phrases like "smart bomb" and "F-16 turbine" and "gulf coast oil rig" and "terrorist threat".
But the really exciting stuff was after the lectures when we went on an "excursion" to the largest open coal mine in Europe: Tagebau Hambach. Our guide was exactly what you'd hope to find in a coal mine. (Not Dick Cheney; that's what you wish to find in a coal mine.) Our guide was a short, densely-built, muscular German with thick wiry red hair and beard who looked like his favorite past time was banging rocks together. He was clearly very familiar with mining and the English tour was excellent.
Some of Germany's finest minds encased in green plastic. The lady in red is wearing high-heels, poor fool. I valiantly caught her in my arms as she fell from our all-terrain bus.
Photos can't properly describe the sheer size of Tagebau Hambach. It was first opened in 1978 and will continue to produce coal for another forty-or-so years. The coal layer is 70 meters deep, the deepest deposit in Europe. Mining the entire strip will require relocating three towns and an enormous forest. Sad as that is, the environmental directors take their job very seriously. Every square kilometer of destroyed forest is duplicated as exactly as possible on the far side of the mine. Seeds and saplings from the original plants are used, and even ant hills and wasp nests are transported. A few days before, I went running in the relocated forest and was completely unaware that it was "artificial." It's probably not as good as the original, but it's better than many mining companies have done in past. Actually, the company is not required to rebuild the destroyed forest. They're doing it just because they like trees.
Looks like Mordor to me.
This is the "bucket wheel" of one of the six 245 meter tall excavators. That wheel is about the size of a small house and can be moved with millimeter precision. The main structure is tracked via GPS and local computer equipment and can be moved by centimeters. Four operators take two-hour shifts controlling the massive wheel.
After Tagebau Hambach, we went to Burg Obbendorf for a three-course buffet dinner (I was inordinately pleased that I could identify by taste two out of three wines served). A little rain storm came in just before dinner, leaving this gorgeous rainbow.
God has blessed me so much this summer. It's just amazing.
But the really exciting stuff was after the lectures when we went on an "excursion" to the largest open coal mine in Europe: Tagebau Hambach. Our guide was exactly what you'd hope to find in a coal mine. (Not Dick Cheney; that's what you wish to find in a coal mine.) Our guide was a short, densely-built, muscular German with thick wiry red hair and beard who looked like his favorite past time was banging rocks together. He was clearly very familiar with mining and the English tour was excellent.
Some of Germany's finest minds encased in green plastic. The lady in red is wearing high-heels, poor fool. I valiantly caught her in my arms as she fell from our all-terrain bus.
Photos can't properly describe the sheer size of Tagebau Hambach. It was first opened in 1978 and will continue to produce coal for another forty-or-so years. The coal layer is 70 meters deep, the deepest deposit in Europe. Mining the entire strip will require relocating three towns and an enormous forest. Sad as that is, the environmental directors take their job very seriously. Every square kilometer of destroyed forest is duplicated as exactly as possible on the far side of the mine. Seeds and saplings from the original plants are used, and even ant hills and wasp nests are transported. A few days before, I went running in the relocated forest and was completely unaware that it was "artificial." It's probably not as good as the original, but it's better than many mining companies have done in past. Actually, the company is not required to rebuild the destroyed forest. They're doing it just because they like trees.
Looks like Mordor to me.
This is the "bucket wheel" of one of the six 245 meter tall excavators. That wheel is about the size of a small house and can be moved with millimeter precision. The main structure is tracked via GPS and local computer equipment and can be moved by centimeters. Four operators take two-hour shifts controlling the massive wheel.
After Tagebau Hambach, we went to Burg Obbendorf for a three-course buffet dinner (I was inordinately pleased that I could identify by taste two out of three wines served). A little rain storm came in just before dinner, leaving this gorgeous rainbow.
God has blessed me so much this summer. It's just amazing.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Chocolate! Charlemagne! Fireworks! Giant Spiders!
I've been pretty busy the last two weeks, but last weekend I managed a day-trip to Aachen with four other PhD students, Binh, Ivo, Kyle, and Anna.
Our first stop was the Lindt chocolate factory! This place is amazing! We weren't allowed inside the actual factory (might frighten the oompa-loompas), but there's a great outlet store where you can buy TONS of chocolate for pennies. Kyle walked out with about 3KG (6.61lbs) of lovely Swiss chocolate for less than $20.
Next we took a nice walking tour of Aachen. Aachen is famous for it's sulfur springs and there are natural fountains all over the city. (The sulfur spring tasted like warm, runny eggs.)
It's not a lamp-post, but this reminds me of Lucy Pevensie.
This coach house was a bookshop in the 18th century, but the bookseller couldn't read or write! He didn't stay in business long and died a barrel-maker.
The Aachen Cathedral, and the only square in Aachen that actually has four sides! Every other open area is a triangle. This is because when the Romans laid the streets of Aachen they oriented them along their major highway, which runs south-west to north-east. However, cathedrals are all built facing north-south, so when Charlemagne rebuilt the roads to correspond with the cathedral, all the squares were bisected.
The cathedral is amazing! It's one of the first twelve sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List and was the coronation church for the German kings for about 600 years. The central part is the oldest: an octagonal tower with a 16-angled dome built by Charlemagne in 786. He's buried there today. The glass choir hall on the left was added when the central chapel couldn't hold all the pilgrims, and the tower on the right-side was added some time after that.
I just loved this garden on the roof. Downtown Aachen is packed with these beautiful European houses.
There was a huge festival that night back in Jülich in the Brückenkopf park, an old Napoleonic fort just over the Rur river.
These hot air balloons drifted past my apartment window while I was getting ready for the party.
Elvis lives! And he has a German accent! And can't dance for peanuts! I laughed so hard I almost fell over. Just when I didn't think they could top that, the band started playing "Sweet home Alabama". It is a physical impossibility for a German to say "Alabama". He is guaranteed to say "Ala-bauma".
There was an AMAZING fireworks show, the best I've ever seen. The fireworks were synchronized to music from Hook and Pirates of the Caribbean (the first movie, the only good one), and you were allowed to get very close to the launchers.
After the fireworks, an Indian tribe did a dance. I had to come all the way to Germany to see native Americans?!?
This guy was waiting for me back in my apartment. That's a 1-Euro coin, about the size of an American quarter-dollar. Can somebody tell me what it is?
Our first stop was the Lindt chocolate factory! This place is amazing! We weren't allowed inside the actual factory (might frighten the oompa-loompas), but there's a great outlet store where you can buy TONS of chocolate for pennies. Kyle walked out with about 3KG (6.61lbs) of lovely Swiss chocolate for less than $20.
Next we took a nice walking tour of Aachen. Aachen is famous for it's sulfur springs and there are natural fountains all over the city. (The sulfur spring tasted like warm, runny eggs.)
It's not a lamp-post, but this reminds me of Lucy Pevensie.
This coach house was a bookshop in the 18th century, but the bookseller couldn't read or write! He didn't stay in business long and died a barrel-maker.
The Aachen Cathedral, and the only square in Aachen that actually has four sides! Every other open area is a triangle. This is because when the Romans laid the streets of Aachen they oriented them along their major highway, which runs south-west to north-east. However, cathedrals are all built facing north-south, so when Charlemagne rebuilt the roads to correspond with the cathedral, all the squares were bisected.
The cathedral is amazing! It's one of the first twelve sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List and was the coronation church for the German kings for about 600 years. The central part is the oldest: an octagonal tower with a 16-angled dome built by Charlemagne in 786. He's buried there today. The glass choir hall on the left was added when the central chapel couldn't hold all the pilgrims, and the tower on the right-side was added some time after that.
I just loved this garden on the roof. Downtown Aachen is packed with these beautiful European houses.
There was a huge festival that night back in Jülich in the Brückenkopf park, an old Napoleonic fort just over the Rur river.
These hot air balloons drifted past my apartment window while I was getting ready for the party.
Elvis lives! And he has a German accent! And can't dance for peanuts! I laughed so hard I almost fell over. Just when I didn't think they could top that, the band started playing "Sweet home Alabama". It is a physical impossibility for a German to say "Alabama". He is guaranteed to say "Ala-bauma".
There was an AMAZING fireworks show, the best I've ever seen. The fireworks were synchronized to music from Hook and Pirates of the Caribbean (the first movie, the only good one), and you were allowed to get very close to the launchers.
After the fireworks, an Indian tribe did a dance. I had to come all the way to Germany to see native Americans?!?
This guy was waiting for me back in my apartment. That's a 1-Euro coin, about the size of an American quarter-dollar. Can somebody tell me what it is?
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