Transatlantic Giraffe

2010-07-29T05:20:00.000-07:00

Hello all! Katie and I are in Koblenz, the gateway to the Historic Middle Rhine valley. We're camped across the river from the Deutsches Eck, an impressive monument toped by an enormous statue of German Emperor Wilhelm I. We've finally found an internet cafe that will let us upload photos! Here's a few of our favorites so far...

In Edinburgh, I received the Scottish Sword of State:

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

We visited the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin:

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

Katie partied with the Guinness zoo animals:

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

We visited Powerscourt House and its majestic gardens:

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

We loved the Irish countryside and made a new friend! Ora is from Isreal and hiked most of the Wicklow Way.

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

We visited Glendalough Valley and the monastic settlement St. Kevin started there. Poor guy was trying to get away from everyone and go into solitude, but people just followed him out here. Now he's got his own icecream wagon!

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

We got lost once or twice:

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

But we were really excited to make it to the half way mark!

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

Our campsite at Iron Bride was comfortable and romatntic:

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

After hiking all day in the rain and pestered by Irish flies, we stopped at Tallon's Dying Cow for a pint and cooked dinner on their front porch to stay dry.

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

We were so happy to finish the Wicklow Way! All 137km!

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

In Waterford, we saw master craftsmen blowing and cutting glass crystal:

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

The craftsmen were making a trophy for Justin Timberlake for something (probably for being Justin Timberlake). Katie got to hold it.

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

We got rained-in in Tramore for two days.

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

We were really happy to get some nice weather in Düsseldorf. There's an enormous all summer long carnival/fun park along the riverbank. We rode the pirate ship ride. It was our one-month anniversary!

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

In Köln (Cologne to you 'mericans), we visited the Kölner Dom and the Lindt Chocolate Museum.

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

We found a bakery named after our friend Betsy!

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

We've been in Koblenz for three days now. It's lovely here.

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

We've seen so many castles and old towers! This one is Roman.

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

Katie is pretty:

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

We're just going to move in here.

From John and Katie on Honeymoon

I don't know if we'll have another chance to update the blog before we get to Budapest. We should reach Weisbaden by August 4. From there we're going to Berlin by train to visit my good friend Saskia for a day before we fly to Budapest and the end of the journey. Laters!

Ireland!

2010-07-20T07:06:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! Updating the blog has been hard lately because Katie and I have been in the middle of the wet wet wilds of Ireland. I wish I could post some pictures with this, but this computer isn't cooperating.

Katie and I are in Germany now. We flew into Düsseldorf from Tralee this morning. Ireland was lovely but really really wet. We were in Dublin two nights and visited the Guinness Storehouse where the beer got its start. After Dublin we hiked 137km down the Wicklow Way. We had a lot of adventures camping by iron bridges, in sheep fields, and once in a ditch in a crowded pine forest. The first 50km or so had a lot of people so there were grocery stores and water pumps, but for the second half we had to carry all our food through and filter river water to drink. I think I had more fun than Katie, although we both enjoyed the adventure. We saw the ruined monastic city of Glendalough, gigantic waterfalls, peat bogs, and glacial valleys. One one relatively clear day we visited Powerscourt House and Gardens, which Katie said was her favorite part of the vacation so far. The whole trip took us six days of lazy walking.

Ireland is wet wet wet! It rained at least once a day the whole time we were there, and there were two days we just stayed in the tent because it wasn't worth going outside.

After the Wicklow Way we went to Waterford and visited the Waterford Crystal Showroom. You can tour the factory for a few Euro, and we were the only people on the tour so we got to talk to the master craftsmen while the cut crystal and blew molten glass into molds. Justin Timberlake had commissioned a crystal trophy and Katie got to hold a finished piece of it.

We spent our last day in Ireland in Killarney enjoying live Irish music with Guinness. Hope to post pictures soon!

Mr. and Mrs. Giraffe

2010-07-06T12:15:00.000-07:00

Check it out y'all! There's a Mrs. Giraffe and we're on honeymoon! I aquired my wife at an exceptional bargain: just three chickens and a good milk cow. A real steal since she's already house trained and can even read and write.

All kidding aside, Katie and I were married on 20 June 2010. She's by far the best out there so to all you other fellows: Game over, you lose, no woman can match my Kate.

We flew into London overnight on the 23rd and have been keeping a journal since. Let me fill you in. We were both totally shatterd on the 24th after our long flight, but our room (a guesthouse above a bar called "The Windmill" in Acton Town) was easy to find. A little coffee went a long way, and that afternoon we took the London Underground to Westminster to see Big Ben, Parliment House, and Westminster Abby.

Katie wrote in the journal: "Upon finding our way out of the train station my jaw drops as busy Londoners and tourists rush around us, sometimes nearly bowling us over. The sound of the majestically resounding bells of Westminster Abby carry over us. Something profound reaches my heart hearing that sound. It's joyous yet dissonant, and echos between the lofty Abby and Parliament."

We wandered past the London Eye looking for dinner and wound up in a wholly unique beer garden under the shadow of an enormous inflatable purple cow, udders high in the air above an astroturf pasture.

The next day, we went to the Tower of London. A beefeater gave us a very entertaining tour and the Crown Jewels were stunning. Katie was impressed by the size of Henry VIII's armor which included an enormous special armored compartment for his man-bits. (Do you suppose that he's compensating for something? None of the other armours had this.) We tried to visit St. Paul's Cathedral but it was closed, so we went to the Globe Theater hoping to catch a performance but that was sold out. Instead, we went to St. Martin-in-the-fields for dinner in the crypt (our first experience with mushy peas). After dinner, we heard Rachmaninoff's Vespers in the church, which made the peas seem worth it after all.

We left London by train, after two nights, for Keswick in the Lake District, but not before sending some postcards. So, check your mail! (If you want a postcard, e-mail me your address!)

The Lake District is one of the most beautiful spots I've ever seen. Fluffy sheep run around everywhere and the people are charming. The landscape is incredibly wild and the tops of the mountains are stark and rocky. Well-traveled footpaths lead you everywhere and anywhere you want to go; the perfect place for an adventure! Katie and I checked into the Camping and Caravaning Club in Keswick, which is a UK-wide camping organization with sites everywhere (except S. Ireland). They're really great and we recommend them if you're ever in the area. If you'll be staying for more than six nights, be sure to get a membership! It would have saved us a few pounds.

In Keswick, we bought a large-scale map of the Lake District and "Twenty Linear Walks in the Lake District." If you buy this book, I advise you to put it down a garbage disposal at your earliest convinence, and certainly before walking anywhere in a linear fashion. In the first place, the maps in it are useless. On the first page of the book (which we didn't initially read) there is a disclaimer amounting to "This book is based on out-of-date information, conjecture, and probably will leave you lost and/or dead." Oblivious to our peril, Katie and I choose a nice "10-mile" walk that should have taken us from Keswick to Buttermere, a tiny village the next valley over. We walked and walked and climed and descended for almost nine straight hours. Around 4:00pm, the winds were so strong that they were actually pushing us over and poor Katie was so exhausted half-way through the route that she was crying. I wound up having to carry both packs for the last few miles just to get us through. In the end, we didn't arrive in Buttermere and had to pitch our tent at the end of a narow valley with a stream. In spite of the exhaustion, it was a beautiful spot:

After our night in the wild, we walked around the mountain into Buttermere (finally!). We were so happy to get some hot food from the pub.

We stayed only one night in Buttermere because the camp site there was a bit of a money trap and there was no grocery. So, we took the bus back to Keswick and got a better map. This time we bought the Ordinance Survey map (denoted OL4 for some reason). This map said our 10-mile linear hike was actually a 17.5 mile hike involving four non-trivial peaks and was pretty much the hardest way possible to get from Keswick to Buttermere. Note to readers: buy the Ordinance Survey map. It's all you need.

The next day, we did a really lovely "fell walk" (British for hiking up a mountain) up Skiddaw Peak. It was a bright and sunny day as we walked through mossy woods and fields of lambs to the base of the peak. Along the way, we met a nice couple named Ian and Anika. At the top, we rested on some stones and feasted on olive bread and fresh cheshire cheese as we enjoyed fresh mountain breeze. We could see all the way out to the ocean and the Isle of Mann. We descended by a very steep way at a toe-busting clip. We returned to Keswick on a long abused and abandoned public way still marked on the map (We had to sprint across a highway and it was covered in nettles). Luckily, we cooled off with delicious ice cream back in Keswick.

Our last night in Keswick, we played "Obstacle Golf" in the rain and went to the Theater by the Lake for a performance of Northanger Abbey, which was fun and fascinating not the least because they didn't have to fake their accents. That night, Katie was attacked by nasty biting bugs the likes of which have not been seen since the Jurassic. The bites raised quarter-sized welts all over her body, but she took it in stride with only a little whining and some calamine.

From Keswick, we traveled by bus and train to Ravenglass on the coast of the Irish Sea. The town used to be a busy trading port, but nowadays it's a tiny sea-side village connected by rail to Eskdale and the rest of the world. It's a quaint little village with views of rolling farmlands, ocean and sand dunes with mountains in the distant mist. We stayed in another Camping and Caravaning Club site, the cleanest and nicest we've been to yet.

The train to Eskdale is an unbearably cute miniature narrow-gauge steam-powered contraption installed in the late 1800s to access the iron mines. The cars are open to the air and the 40 minute trip up the mountain was lots of fun. From Eskdale, we hiked to Burnmore Tarn (a lovely mountain pond), up a valley, and the over the hills back to town. On the way, we saw three ancient stone circles and (of course) many sheep. Back in town, we wandered into a pub for cream tea and beer and got to watch Germany clobber Argentina 4-0.

The next morning was rainy and windy but despite the weather we walked to Muncaster Castle, an old estate still inhabited by the same family, the Peningtons, from the 1200s. The castle contained a strange mix of old artifacts and new: large illuminated leather-bound books shelved next to modern paperbacks and 14-century tapestries surrounded by family photographs. Katie was put in stocks for gossip and chocolate biscuit theivery.

The weather cleared while we were in the castle leaving the garden terrace especially lovely in the afternoon. Additionally, the World Owl Center is located at Muncaster and we were able to see many species of owls and learn about their rehabilitation.

The next day, we traveled by bus and train to Edinburgh. Now we're staying in a backpacker's hostel right next to Edinburgh Castle.

That's all for now folks! Hopefully we'll update more frequently, but our next stop after this is Dublin and then it's back to the wilderness. We'll be hiking down the Wicklow Way and then, if all goes well, the Dingle Way, before flying from Ireland to Bonn, Germany. See you then!

In Hawaii for SAC'09

2009-03-12T18:12:00.000-07:00

Hello all! This special edition of the Giraffe comes from Hawaii! I'm here for the ACM SAC'09 conference. I wrote a paper, which you're welcome to read if you're having trouble falling asleep. That got me a free ticket to Honolulu so I could inflict my brand of academic drivel on willing victims. Here's what's been going on.

First, sorry this post is so long. Internet access is $13/day in my hotel, and it doesn't get much better elsewhere, so I've been writing offline until I could post. I finally found a place with free WiFi for customers, and if I sit in the Starbucks across the street I can just barely pick up their signal. This wad of web rubbish comes to you on pirated air waves.

Anyhoo.....

I met another CS grad student named Conley in Roanoke, and after arriving in Honolulu we went down to Chinatown for dinner. We couldn't read any of the signs so we just picked the busiest restaurant. Conley got Duck-Foot-Sea-Cucumber-Hot-Pot which was brimming with boney duck feet. We had to ask the waitress how to eat them! You just gnaw the skin off. It's like a really skinny chicken wing. I got the sea food.

Next morning I caught a 5am flight to Big Island and Volcano National Park. Few people live there and you have to rent a car to get anywhere. Conley came along and we decided to climb Mauna Loa, Hawaii's 14,000 ft active volcano, that afternoon. We had breakfast at Lava Cafe (Loco Moco = delicious!) and visited the 450m lava tunnel.

After the lava tunnel we ran down a pig path we found in the jungle (we did a lot of that over the next few days). We found a gigantic fern plant with strange curled sprouts about 1-foot long, very springy, and covered in a soft brown fur. We broke one off, looked at it, and then at the same time said "Can you eat it?" It tasted like a dry apple and the syrup was very light and sweet.

The hike up Mauna Loa was fantastic and wet. It was drizzling when we started and at about 7,000 ft it began to pour like a garden hose. The landscape was stunning, blasted and barren. Coal-black volcanic rock surrounded around us for miles. Nothing grew there; no trees, no ferns, not even lichen. Huge cracks and crevasses opened on the sides of the trail. One of them was spewing stinking sulfur and steam which made our heads spin. It would have been insane to leave the trail. The volcanic rock was as sharp as broken glass and the flows were thin and weak. It was the most desolate and hostile place I've ever been. (Excluding my brother's bedroom.)

At 9,000 feet a thick freezing fog settled on us and soaked us to the bone. Visibility was less than 50ft and we started to worry about finding shelter. At 10,036 ft we found a cozy cabin complete with bunk-beds and a butane stove! The cabin had two blankets and a woman's jacket. We stripped off all our sopping clothes to dry and Conley claimed the jacket. If anyone and walked in, they would have found two men with nothing but a woman's fur-lined jacket between them! A 3rd party would have questioned the existence of our girlfriends.

We made canned-ham-blueberry-bagel and peanut-butter-jelly sandwiches and decided to wait-out the pounding rain. It kept raining long into the freezing night and we wound up camping until the next morning. At about 8:00am it was clear that we would never be able to reach the summit in this weather so we had to get dressed in our wet clothes and trudge back down the rainy mountain. The worst part was putting on those cold, wet pants. It was like putting on a bloated frozen frog.

About 2-hrs down the mountain the rain finally cleared. The sulfur vent wasn't blowing so we got as close as we dared. The black rock walls inside the vent were painted with fantastic yellows, oranges, reds and greens. It was like Pollock gone cave-man. We got back down the mountain around noon, soaking and smelly. It was some of the best fun I'd had in ages.

After we got down Mauna Loa we tried to see the rest of Volcano National Park, but sulfur plumes had shut down most of the park. We visited the volcano observatory and could see the main crater in the caldera, but all trails down to the crater were closed. Some jerk hit my rental car in the parking lot and ran off without leaving his info, so I had to call the rental agency and report the damage. Fortunately, I bought the $11/day insurance so everything was covered.

Back in Hilo, we visited Boiling Pots park where gigantic waterfalls, 150ft and higher, fall roaring into a natural rock bowl. With the rain and the waterfalls we were once again soaked to the bone, so why not run down this muddy path into the jungle? After a passing thought for leaches, we splashed along a stream and scrambled up a mud bank to the top of one of the falls. We found a nut tree with strange white walnuts which we cracked on the rocks and ate with fat blue berries and water gathered in banana leaves. It was wonderfully primal to crouch on the top of the falls in the rain, dripping wet, few clothes, cracking nuts and drinking rainwater. I tossed a small tree in the bowl and it was shattered to matchsticks in seconds.

After Boiling Pots we went to the airport, sopping and smelling of jungle. Security gave me no end of grief for the tent poles in my backpack and confiscated Conley's peanut butter as a security hazard.

That was the end of the weekend. Monday - Thursday I'd be in and out of presentations, but most days I'd slip away to see something interesting. Here's a few of the highlights:

Wednesday I visited Perl Harbor with Haiyan, a Chinese student from my lab, and her 8-year-old daughter Catherine. There's all kinds of museums around there, but they're all kinda expensive and only the Arizona Memorial is free. We went on the USS Bowfin, a retired WW2 submarine, and I whacked my head on the bulkheads until I realized I would never fit in as a submariner. The monument was very somber. You take the ferry out to it and you can see the outlines of old battleships beneath the surface. There's a viewing well in the floor of the monument where you can see the rusted deck of the Arizona. Hundreds are entombed there.

Every afternoon I've been swimming in the Pacific. The sea water here is crystal clear and a lovely 75 degrees. And so salty! Monday I went for a swim just off the beach and I was amazed to find beautiful fish of all colors and fantastic patterns swimming over the rocks! Most were about the size of a tea saucer, but some were as large as house cats. They're completely unafraid of people so I could swim right up to them! I spent a few hours just swimming around the reef near the shore.

Wednesday afternoon I decided to follow the reef out to where it gets deep. I swam out from the island for about 20 minutes, held my breath, and dove. It's really hard to sink in the sea water, so I actually had to swim downward! About 20-ft down there was a gorgeous coral reef, all pink, green, brown, and yellow. It was swarming with angel fish, sea urchins, and dozens others I couldn't recognize. There were large fish with a strange horn-like thing on their forehead, skinny semi-transparent fish about 1ft long, and a big fat fish I called the "quilt fish" because it was a patchwork of colors. Even at that depth the water is clear as glass. The reef was a maze of caverns, arches and ledges. I'd stay down as long as I could hold my breath and then shoot up gasping to the surface. Best of all, it was completely free! Nobody organizes this kind of thing. It's just the Hawaiian equivalent of watching pidgins in the park.

I wasn't on the reef long before I had a scare. A long white sea-snake with black spots and rings was writhing on the coral only a few feet away from me. I wasn't too worried because the animals clearly weren't threatened by me, but I did swim over to a different part of the reef. That's where I saw the moray eel. I swam down into a bowl in the coral, turned around, and found it's wicked grin just 2-ft away! It's head was about the size of a small dog's I could just barely see its jagged teeth. My friend Michael nearly lost a finger to a moray, and I doubted my arsenal of basketball shorts and swim goggles would be sufficient protection. I also remembered that I was 20-minutes from shore and nobody knew where I was! I decided I'd seen enough of the reef for one day.

Last night I went to the conference awards banquet at the Polynesian Culture Center. Everyone got a traditional flower lei on the way into the center. It was the first time most these geeks got leid (har har). The banquet featured delicious Hawaiian food and fresh pineapple, and was accompanied by Polynesian dances from Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga, and Hawaii of course. The show started by digging dinner out of the ground. An entire pig had been roasting all day in a pit covered by a heap of banana leaves behind the stage. An extra tasty pig! The Tahitian women were incredible! They could isolate the motion of just their hips, calves, or anything really. It was quite a show. The climax was a spectacular fire knife dance given by the 3-time world champion of fire knife dancing. I'd love to have "fire knife" on my business card somewhere.

Whew! That about catches everything up. If anything else happens I'll stick it here. Cheers!

Stuttgart and Winterbach with Guni

2008-07-22T14:53:00.000-07:00

My work in Jülich is done! Friday was my last day, but I've got a few more days in Germany before I fly home, so I took a high-speed train to Stuttgart to hang out with my friend Guni and her family in Winterbach.

Winterbach is beautiful! Fruits and berries and flowers grow everywhere. Apples, pears, cherries, peaches, ..... all sorts. The rolling hillsides are covered in vineyards and grapes grow like weeds in the town. The blackberries, raspberries, and gooseberries actually ARE weeds, they grow so well. It's a regular Hobbiton down here. Guni and I took a bike ride through the wineries and orchards until it started to rain, so we stopped in a little cafe for espresso.

Here's me at the beer-garden with a local hefeweizen. Tasty! I also tried some of the local Trollinger wine. Very light and fruity with a light color. Quite glugable. I glugged two bottles with Guni.

The local houses all belong on postcards. This tiny house was built in the 1600s and is one of the narowest in the city.

Another 17th-century house sported this ranchy brass handel on the front door. (Must ... resist ... lewd comment about brass door knocker....)

Guni's dad is retiring from teaching after 40 years. I attended his retirement party, which was incredibly boring, even for the native speakers. Someone decided to weight the napkins with painted building blocks. A big mistake! These board engineering professors soon had them collected to one table and were building away during the keynote speech. Half the table encouraged them, half ignored them. I was cracking up.

I only survived the boredom when a very nice old professor with long dirty-white hair and brown teeth joined our table. He looked so like the Crypt Keeper that I started mentally-translating his conversation into the lead-lined guttural tones of death to keep myself amused. For example: I always enjoy riding my bicycle.

Kölner Lichter

2008-07-14T00:59:00.000-07:00

This weekend I went to Köln (Cologne) for one of the biggest firework shows in the whole of Germany! It's called "Kölner Lichter", the Lights of Cologne. Over 50 ships from the entire Rhine ferry passengers to Cologne and people crowd the bridges and banks to watch an enormous barge launch fireworks from the river. It was really fantastic!

We got there a few hours early and found a place on a pedestrian-soaked bridge. Many people had been camped on the ashfalt since noon and the crowding was intense. The (rich) people who could afford a spot on the Cologne river boats took a short trip downriver to meet the main convoy coming up from the lower Rhine.

It was like a carneval on both banks! TONS of beer, piles of delicious gummy candies, rides, and a live concert in the old city square. Over 100,000 people showed up!

I began to get impatient as the sun set, so I took pictures of the dome to stay distracted.

The boats arrived! The gigantic sound system riged around the area played Gregorian chants and people held sparklers and candles. It was all very mystical. (This is probably the best night photo I've ever taken. As with any photo on my blog, it comes in high-quality when you click it. Hint hint.)

The fireworks started at 11:30 and blew my mind. Indescribable. You'd have to be there to understand. So I'll try to tell you about it anyway.

The show theam was "fire as technology", staring with the Chinese fireworks and moving up to modern days. The period-style fireworks were synchronized with music depecting everything from the Chinese culture to ship warfare, to interstellar exploration. Colored lights illuminated the trails and plumes of smoke. I really enjoyed the bit about ship warfare. The barge appeared to bombard the city by firing long, silvery streams of flame over the crowded banks. It was quite convincing. My favorite was near the end when they brought out the most advanced firework technogies. There was an amazing "cluster bomb" kind of firework which rippled out from the center in hundreds of thousands of miniature golden explosions and sounded exactly like waves on a shore.

My viewpoint on the bridge put me directly under the show. I'd come back to Germany just to see this again.

Castles on the Rhine

2008-07-10T00:23:00.000-07:00

This post is woefully overdue, but I'm running out of time in Jülich so work is getting hectic.

Tuesday last week I visited Castle Marksburg and about seven other castles and towers in various states of ruination along the Middle Rhine. Barons of various degrees built all sort of fortifications along the Rhine to levy taxes on the river traffic and "sell protection." The Mafia was alive and well in medieval Germany.

Marksburg is really fantastic and in excellent condition. It was never captured or destroyed, the only castle in this area to remain so, and is now the headquarters and offices of the Deutsche Burgenvereinigung (German Castle Association). It's the ancestral home of the Count Katzenelnbogen, which for some reason means "Cat's Elbows". Visitors are advised to control their dogs.

We were given an excellent English tour by a German hunchback with a bundle of enormous iron keys. I'm not kidding.

The castle residents sported a variety of lung diseases. All the beds were deliberately too short, forcing you to sleep sitting up. If you fell over in the night, you risked drowning in your own phlegm.

This anatomically-correct coat of arms hangs just inside the main gate. I think the Landgraves of Hess were compensating for something.

The castle kitchen was very impressive. The meals for the great hall were prepared and arranged on these tables and then the entire table would be carried up the uneven stairs to the hungry guests. They could have passed the food bucket-brigade-style to the main hall, but they were too busy carrying that heavy table to stop and think about it.

I found this chastity belt in the armory. Guaranteed to prevent damnation or your virginity back!

Back in the day, the castle's walls were plastered and painted, inside and out. This was common to every castle, but our movies filmed in castle ruins make most people think the plaster is unusual. The German Castle Association is restoring the plaster and paint according to contemporary color sketches.

After Marksburg, we drove through a few small towns on the Rhine. It was just like what you've seen in postcards and tourism movies: beautifully-constructed traditional-style houses with old churches and fragments of the ancient town walls scattered between. The Rhine has very few bridges, so most people cross with ferries. The ferry advertisements, typically German, sound more like warnings. My favorite: "Without this ferry, you don't stand a chance!"

This is wine country and vineyards abound. Germany is at approximately a 45-degree latitude, so most of the grapevines are planted on a 45-degree slope to receive maximum direct sunlight throughout the day.

There's a cat-and-mouse pun started by, or related to, Count "Cat's Elbows" Katzenelnbogen that runs up and down this valley. This is Burg Maus, the "Mouse Castle". There's "Mouse Tower" further downstream.

The impressive Burg Rheinfels, the Rock of the Rhine.

Here's Burg Gutenfels, Castle "Good Rock". The origional owners were pirates of a sort, levying heavy taxes on the river traffic. It's a hotel now, so they're maintaining the tradition of extorting passersby.

The nobles of Burg Gutenfels built this interesting tower on a small island in the middle of the Rhine. It's blatantly intended for levying taxes on passing barges, and sinking those who don't feel spendy. The Germans recaptured it from the Spanish in 1504 when a small girl showed the German forces a way to sneek up on the castle undetected. The tennents of the modern Hotel Gutenfels wish she was still around so they could sneek out undetected.

Burg Sooneck.

Smoking

2008-06-30T09:22:00.000-07:00

Just about everyone smokes in Germany. This is ironic given the severity of the German cigarette warning labels, which are printed in black letters you could read from space. None of this wimpy "The surgen general recommends...." stuff. For example:

Smoking can lead to impotence due to circulatory system disorders.

Rauchen kann zu Durchblutungsstörungen führen Impotenz

Smoking while pregnant harms your unborn child.

Rauchen in der Schwangerschaft schadet Ihrem Kind

Smoking can lead to a slow and painful death.

Rauchen kann zu einem langsamen und schmerzhaften Tod führen

Protect children! Don't let them breath your tobaco smoke!

Schützen Sie Kinder -- lassen Sie sie nicht Ihren Tabakrauch einatmen

Smoking damages you and the people around you considerably!

Rauchen fügt Ihnen und den Menschen in Ihrer Umgebung erheblichen Schaden zu

Smoking can be deadly.

Rauchen kann tödlich sein

Smoking causes fatal lung cancer.

Rauchen verursacht tödlichen Lungenkrebs

Your doctor or pharmacist can help you give up smoking.

Ihr Arzt oder Apotheker kann Ihnen dabei helfen, das Rauchen aufzugeben

Germany in the finals!

2008-06-27T04:07:00.000-07:00

Germany has made it all the way to the final match of the European Soccer Championship! I watched the half-final game against Turkey in the bar, and I got some great footage of the Germans at their wildest. Check out this video! (The kids at the end are the best.)

The crowd spilled out of the bar and into the street. Tensions were really high and everyone was half-drunk. The guy with the German flag on his cheek (first row, middle) screamed that the Germans were playing like **** for the first ten minutes of the match, and then wanted to fight me when I (and the two guys sitting next to me) told him "Relax man! It's just the first 10 minutes!" After some intense staring he gave it up, and by half-time he had forgotten it completely and gave me a big, beery hug.

The Turkish competition! They look happy here, but by the end of the match they were pouting like two-year-olds.

The match ended 3:2 for Germany, and everyone went wild! What an awesome night!

Drachenboot-fest in Essen!

2008-06-25T02:39:00.000-07:00

Last week I was lucky enough to compete in a Drachenboot (Dragon boat) race at Essen Baldeneysee. I got in at the last minute because a friend/coworker at Jülich got a nasty mosquito bite on his hand and couldn't compete. Poor guy's entire hand was puffed up like a balloon!

I looked up dragon boats before the race and found some fantastic pictures. I thought we'd be paddling something like this:

but our were a bit more modest:

A dragon boat is a really long, narrow paddle boat with a caller in the prow and a helmsman in the stern. Our boats had 20 paddlers and massive animal-hide drums for the caller to beat time with. The sport originated in China and is popular in Germany. There's even a national dragon boat association! The Berlin team was the world champion in 2005.

The drums were my favorite part. Waaaaaay better than the plastic dragon prow. The beating sounds like a giant heart and makes me feel like Ben-Hur.

Our valiant team, composed of mathematicians, scientists, engineers, and nerds in general, was called "Die Blauen Füchse" (the blue foxes). The explanation for the name, given in English, went like this: "There is a kindergarten called the foxes. And when you drink too much, you are blue. So we are the blue foxes." Apparently, we are a walking tribute to juvenile delinquency.

The team!

We raced four times, and every race was fantastic! The race starts with the announcement "Are you ready? Attention! Go!" and then everyone paddles furiously. We splashed and tossed water everywhere and if anyone's stroke got out of sync he was sure to toss buckets of water in your face. There was a gentle headwind for the whole of the course, which grew into a powerful, gusting wind by the end of the day. We finished each run with an inch or two of water in the bottom of the boat, and several gallons in my lap. It was easy to see which side of the boat you sat on; your inward side was your only hope of a dry stitch.

There were 36 teams in total, all of them crazy and most of them sporting outlandish costumes. There was a prize for best team uniform, so people came dressed as old fogies, hippies, sea creatures, secretaries, pirates, and monks. Team Love Boat wore tie-dye, and team Daytona showed up as race car drivers, and even brought their own mini-cars.

I wish we had dressed up and mentioned it to my friend Ivo. "Come on!", I said, "We're not even competing. You'd think 25 mathematicians would come up with something." We both thought a moment and then said, in the same breath: "Integral signs." Nerds on parade.

Some teams were really competitive and showed up in skin-tight waterproof shorts and spandex. Never in my life have I seen more banana hammocks, even counting the 15-or-so triathlons I've done. These people know they have to win to regain any self respect for their appearance. Its not like a bike race where you're going too fast for anyone to see anything. And when that cloth gets wet... well... the Germans have a relaxed sense of decency.

It was brilliant sailing weather, and by the end of the day boats of every size were flying up and down the lake. One guy nearly capsized his dinghy on an jibe when his jib tangled in the forestays. (That's the last time I show off my nautical vernacular. I swear.)

The wind gave a spirit of joy to the giant yellow people, prompting them to hug small children.

This is team Dragon Hunter, by far the best-dressed team in the place. Not only did they dress as monks, and not only did they bring Gregorian music to play as they boarded their boat, but they even dressed in hokie colors! They won the much coveted costume party prize.

We played around on the lake all day, and in the end came in 16th of 36. Not too shabby for a boat full of geeks. If you want to see what we look like in action, take a look at this movie I made.

The adventures didn't end at the lake, though. The weather had been fantastic all day, but on the way home we got caught on the Autobahn in the most intense hail storm I've ever seen! The hail was a good 1/2" across and brought traffic to a screeching halt. We had to cover our ears for the sound of ice smashing on the roof, but we didn't get really worried until we started watching cracks crawl across the windshield. We were literally watching the ice destroy the window before our very eyes! The hail was so large it tore branches off trees and smashed up dozens of cars. Our windshield was a complete write-off, and the car was covered in dents. It looked like a toddler had taken a ball-peen hammer to the car. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture.

Not being the owner of this dearly lamented automobile, I had a marvelous day.

Scenes from Jülich

2008-06-18T07:58:00.001-07:00

Here are a few tidbits from last week.

Ballooning is popular around here. Every once in a while I see one or two of these drifting around. On holidays you might see as many as a dozen drifting around the countryside.

The countryside around Jülich is homogeneous, but beautiful. On the way home from work I sometimes wander down the footpaths through fields of wheat, barley, hops, sugar beets and strawberries.

It's getting late for wildflowers, but there's still a few out here.

Coal mining and electricity production are the major economic stays of the region. Here's one of the half-dozen or so coal-burning power plants in my neighborhood.

I found these kids at a street festival a few weekends ago showing off their breakdancing moves. You can watch the whole video here.

Fußball Party!

2008-06-17T05:35:00.001-07:00

The European Soccer Championship is dominating German TV, radio, newspaper, etc., and I love it. I've been watching more soccer than ever, usually accompanied by large frothing beers and boisterous friends. If you ever want to see just how foreign the Germans can be, do as I did last Thursday and attend a Fußball party.

The scene!

I went to a large café in Aachen with two of my coworkers to watch Germany vs. Croatia. Let me try to explain what a German café is like to my fellow Americans. They're a bit like an American sports bar - crowded, dark, and filled with tobacco smoke - but with tastefully-arranged flowers on every table, full menus, no age limit, and well-trained waiters. They're a bit like a restaurant, with atmosphere, conversation, and three-course meals (if you want them), but also very like a coffee shop, since they sell cappuccino, hot chocolate, and even warm milk. It's a place where you can order a beer, a coloring book for your kid, pizza, espresso, a kids meal, a pack of smokes, a shot of gin, a hot chocolate, and a steak, all at the same time.

My friends and I were sat behind a group of adolescent Croatians, in front of a grandmother waving a German flag, and next to a family with a six-year-old. The air was thick with tobacco, shouting Germans, and beer fumes.

To add further incongruity, the café was giving away free condoms. Mine was yellow with pearls.

We had to arrive almost two hours ahead of game time to get a seat, but that gave me lots of time to watch German soccer commentary. Every few minutes or so, the talking heads were interrupted by a short cartoon featuring the adorable antics of four kids playing soccer. The Fußball version of the Peanuts, methinks. These interruptions became more frequent as game-start approached, forming a sort of count-down to the game. Way cool.

The game!

Germans never do things by halves. I often get the impression that when a German does something, they do it for the thing's sake, rather than the purpose of the thing ("German bloody-mindedness"). For example, when a German works, the object is not to get things done, the object is to work. Productivity is incidental. Obviously, this is not true, but it's a facet of the German attitude.

When a German is at a soccer party, the objective is to throw a soccer party. They loose all their traditional reserve and scream, swear, and jump around like maniacs. A point for the German team sends them into raptures suggesting the safe delivery of their first-born child. Points against their team reduce them to open-mouthed disbelief and gasps of horror. The beer-glass casualties can be horrific.

Unfortunately, Germany allowed Croatia to score in the first half, and then never could get ahead of them. By half-time it was looking grim, and even when Germany scored in the second half I was pretty sure of the outcome. The party around me never flagged though.

With only a few minutes left, the German coach made his move and sub'ed one of my favorite players: Bastian Schweinsteiger. I don't know anything about him, except that his name roughly translates to "Pig Path". Schweinsteiger! Schweinsteiger! Schweinsteiger! The crowd went wild! Everything looked great, until he got a red card for pushing the Croatian who fouled him. Now the Germans were down a point, and a player. Even so, the Germans kept the party going. Alas! but to no avail. The game closed, 2:1 against Germany.

After the game the German composure, weighted with the disappointment of defeat, slowly settled down. I walked to the train station through the murmuring, slightly drunken crowds. On the way home, I saw an entire row of German faces wearing the exact same expression of resigned disappointment. I couldn't help but laugh.

Forest Critters

2008-06-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

The forest around Forschungszentrum Jülich is crawling with all kinds of woodland critters. Most mornings on the way to work I see a half-dozen different kinds of birds, frogs, snails the size of golf balls, hares, giant slugs, and a brown fox. I'm still on the look out for Snow White.

Greens. Eat your greens.

Hedge hog! This guy was completely unconcerned about me taking his photo. Just stared at me a bit, munching a beetle, and then wandered slowly away. Guess I would too, if I was covered in spines.

Magic mushrooms. This is how the good research gets done.

Black beetles everywhere. These guys are about the size of a dime.

These guys are everywhere too. Don't go walking in the dark unless you enjoy mashing soft-boiled eggs with your feet.

Two very naughty Gastropods.

Update on last post

2008-06-13T09:57:00.000-07:00

Re-reading my last post make me think I might have portrayed Indian culture unfairly. Obviously, the opinions I'm repeating here belong only to the people who expressed them. I'm sure there are huge variations in opinions from Indian to Indian.

And I finally got to taste a pigs foot! My curiosity must have really impressed Run because he cooked me my very own half-trotter. What a dude. The foot tasted a bit like a beef-jerkey gummy bear, kinda sweet with a dark-meet taste and very very chewy. I didn't finish it.

My very own pigs foot!

Pig feet and women

2008-05-31T09:55:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to an Irish pub with my suite-mate from India and some of his friends. Talk about a mix! One American, one Frenchman, one Chinaman, two Indians, and ten Guinness. (Thanks, I'll have your order at window #1!)

It was a night of cultural clashes, beginning with the discovery of two very obvious pig feet in our kitchen sink. I'm talking toes, skin, bones, the works. My Chinese suit-mate, Run, was getting the feet ready to wok (har har). Run offered me a taste, which I was eager to accept, but I was on my way out. (I really was eager. Pig feet wouldn't be the worst thing I've ever eaten, by a long way).

Cultures from three different continents were represented our table, which was covered in beer glasses, so the conversation got very interesting very fast. Topic #1: Women. We were all guys so what did you expect? Things got a little volatile when the Indians in our group asserted that all women were by nature inferior to men, and then tried to prove it. Their broad statements about a woman's intelligence and emotional stability were so offensive that, at first, I was convinced they were joking. Most of these arguments weren't even scientific. It was strange to see such a prejudice in such intelligent people. These guys develop nano-scale technologies for a living, and then turn around and claim that a new-born boy is inherintly more intelligent than a new-born girl!

It's not the first time I've heard these arguments from people from the sub-continent. I've even heard similar stuff from an Indian woman! It's a little hard to know how to act in these situations. I usually point out people like Marie Curie, Ada Lovelace, Margaret Thatcher, etc.

After women in general came the subject of girlfriends. Of all the people at the table, only I had a girlfriend, sparking an "ah, that's so American" kind of attitude from our beer-table Indian demographic. Our resident Frenchman was also experienced in romance, but rather than discuss it with us, he actually demonstrated by visiting a girl at a nearby table. Ah! The French. (FYI, it was an unsuccessful assay.)

It was an entirely enjoyable night, but I'm always impressed by how different people's opinions can be on fundamental issues. It makes you wonder how your opinions may be "flawed", and who has the "right" opinion in any case.

In my opinion, I'll have another beer.

Lucky Penny

2008-05-27T00:59:00.001-07:00

I had a cultural adventure this morning.

There's a charming little bakery next door to my apartment with every kind of delicious German baked good imaginable. (The buttercroissants are my heavenly reward for an early morning run.) The proprietor of said establishment is a charming old girl with two children, aged 25 and 30, who insists on speaking her uniquely Germanized English to me. She's completely charming.

This morning after handing me my change she gave me a single penny. "There! That is a lucky penny for you. It is lucky because I spit on it. I spit on it three times. Put put put! Like that."

I'll keep it forever.

Back in Jülich!

2008-05-26T06:23:00.000-07:00

Well folks, I'm happy to report that I have returned to Forshungszentrum Jülich for the summer! A professor in Jülich is footing the bill, which, unfortunately, means no travel budget. Travel will be powered by Ye Olde All-Mighty Greenback, which our dearly inept government has reduced to just a little more than half it's value (vs. the Euro) in one short year. In spite of all that, I plan to do a bit of travel this summer. Brussels for certain, and maybe the alps? I brought hiking shoes....

For example, I've been here a week now and already visited Köln and Aachen again. The European rail system is legendary and deservedly so. 8.50€ sends me two hours down the tracks and into the city. I would have preferred to stay in Jülich for the entire work week, but there was a German national holiday on Thursday so work was closed Thur - Mon. Jülich during a national holiday is like you're average church-goer: old, quiet, and asleep. Most people get out of town.

Kölner Dom! My new camera takes much better photos of architecture.

It's a bad day to be Stephen. You get all dressed up and people throw rocks at you.

Ever wonder how to say "Sunflower" in German?

The highlight of the weekend was my visit to Saskia in Simpelveld, NL. Saturday we wandered in and out of old churches and fancy cafés, catching up on the news and eating fresh strawberries. (The strawberries and asparagus are being harvested now so both are cheap and oh-so-tasty). I spent the night in Simpelveld and in the morning we visited a colorful christian church called "The Vineyard", which was very like my old church Calvary Chapel in Utah. But in German. ("Triff und unterhalt sich!" is the closest I can come to "Hang out and fellowship!").

The sunsets around here are great.

Here's a few funny things that have happened so far:

Desperately board, I riffled the research center library for English fiction. I found such classics as "Day of the Dead! The world's scariest film is now a novel!", "The man who loved cat dancing" and the discrete early 1970's documentation of African-American culture entitled "Mammies, Blackies, Half-breads and Bucks".

Jülich's castle mote is perfect for running laps.

My taxi driver from the airport was a Croatian named (I think) Ganni. He didn't speak any English, but is an avid fan of George Bush, Bill Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, and American foreign policy in general. He was totally ecstatic to be driving an American and told me about how he had decorated his home with photos of George Bush and American flags. I think he was the first person I've met in Europe so enthusiastic for America's war in the Middle East.

My trip to the Jülich library wasn't entirely fruitless. I turned up a copy of "12th Night" and "Bluebeard" by Kurt Vonnegut, all 264 pages of which I devoured in a single sitting. I finished 12th night on the train to Aachen.

Also on the train to Aachen was a man playing, very badly, an electric keyboard and carrying, also very badly, a blind-man's cane because he was clearly able to see. (Grammatical mistakes intentional. How many ways can you interpret that sentence?)

Fireworks in Jülich to celebrate some something or other. I watched from my 10th-story balcony.

In Köln I saw the end of the world. Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Dunkin' Doughnuts side-by-side! And both were packed! Oh, great job Germany! You've already got a negative birth rate, so go stuff yourself on greasy food. I'm sure Hefty Helga with her 2-meter waist line has no trouble finding a mate! Dunkin' Doughnuts indeed!

Well, whatever they're eating doesn't seem to be clamping down on baby-making. German babies are everywhere! I didn't remember this many kids and babies last year, and it seems every woman has either a baby or a bump. Ahoy white whale! (or "Ahoi Weißwal!" as they would say)

This might have something to do with the European openness to sex. I'd almost forgotten how prevalent adult stores are in Germany. The main shopping district in Köln sports several, and I got a good laugh from watching a skinny man with an overbite and pink Lacosste shirt weave in and out of every sordid establishment on the street. You could have written "pervert" all over his forehead and it wouldn't have been more obvious.

Last note. This year I was careful to buy some decent-looking shoes before landing in Germany since Germans seem to judge you buy your shoes. (Last year both my shoes and socks were mentioned.) People no longer stare at my feet, which got me thinking. Wearing bad shoes in Germany must be like having large breasts in America. Except in Germany, they're on your feet. So that's what it feels like to be Oprah!

Cheers all!

Signing off

2007-07-27T11:20:00.002-07:00

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:

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.

So that's that! I'm back in the USA now and getting ready to fly to Utah to see my sister's wedding. I hope God is as good to you as he has been to me, and I hope the second half of this year is as wonderful and eventful as the first. Transatlantic Giraffe signing off!

Munich, Berlin, and Home!

2007-07-27T11:20:00.001-07:00

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!

Malaga!

2007-07-22T13:04:00.005-07:00

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!

Rome!

2007-07-22T13:04:00.001-07:00

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!

In Rome!

2007-07-16T11:29:00.002-07:00

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!

Krakow!

2007-07-16T11:29:00.001-07:00

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.

Koeln is Really Really Gay

2007-07-09T23:51:00.000-07:00

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.

JET: The Jülich Tokamak Fusion Reactor

2007-07-06T09:40:00.001-07:00

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:

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!

So! There's your physics lesson for today.

Tagebau Hambach and VI-HPS Inauguration

2007-07-06T08:42:00.000-07:00

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.

Chocolate! Charlemagne! Fireworks! Giant Spiders!

2007-07-02T05:55:00.000-07:00

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?

Filthy Language

2007-06-28T03:52:00.000-07:00

This may be a little off-color, so if either of my moms are reading this, I apologize. ;)

I've been making a list of normal, harmless, every-day German words which are so phonically similar to offensive English words that an American could possibly confuse the two. Here are the English spellings of some of my favorites. Click the word to get it in German.

Douche
Dick
Guilt
Fart
Cunts
Hell
Gross

I was on the receiving end of "douche" and "dick" before I knew German. Ute came to visit Saskia at Virginia Tech, and on seeing how skinny I was, said "Oh! You are not very dick". Back at my apartment, I was surprised when she said "Please. Do you have a douche?"

It goes both ways though. The German for "hot" is "heiß" (the ß is a double "s", a bit like a snake's hiss). In English you can say "I am hot" when the temperature is high, but if you say "Ich bin heiß" to a German, you are saying you are horny. Also, the German for "humid" or "muggy" is "schwül" (notice the umlaut!), but the German for "homosexual" is "schwul". Hilarity ensues.

Once, one of my classmates once tried to say "It is hot and muggy" and accidentally said "I am horny and gay". Good times.

Under no circumstances should you tell a German to "flick it".

Birthday Party, Chuck Close, Pirates 3, Migraine

2007-06-25T08:09:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was a mixed bag. It started off great with a birthday party for Paul, the father of Saskia's "host family" in the Neatherlands. Paul and his partner Suzi are very dynamic, very intelligent people who live in a beautiful old farm house they've been rebuilding for the past few years. Susi is a brain surgeon and Paul owns his own software company. They have an excellent appreciation for music and art, and their house is full of beautiful things and two charming children. The party was awesome! Saskia destroyed me in Fussball and billiards, but I had a great time.

The next day, Saskia and I visited a much-hyped art exhibit in Aachen featuring portraits by Chuck Close. I thought the portraits were fascinating, but the exhibit had been over-hyped. We cooked fresh pasta for dinner. Yummy!

That night we went to the Dutch theater to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3. (Unlike the Germans, the Dutch show movies in English). Unfortunately, this movie really sucks. There were so many explosions I felt like I'd been in a two-hour car wreck, and so many ludicrous plot developments I completely gave up trying to understand who was on who's side or what they were fighting for. And since when are salty old pirates called "the brethren" and give patriotic speeches and sing soulful songs of unity?!?! Even Johnny Depp couldn't save this one. The only bonus was pretty-boy Orlando Bloom getting his heart cut out.

One reason for my strong dislike of this movie may be that it contributed to the first serious migraine headache I've had in over two years. It had been so long since my last one that I was beginning to wonder if I had exaggerated how painful they are. Unfortunately, I had the record exactly right. If you've never had one, try imagining rubbing shards of glass in your eyeballs while the US Navy tests jet engines inside your skull and an irritatingly cheerful gnome sings high-pitched ditties while he cuts your toe-webbing with paper. It's hell. My feet were freezing, my head was frying, and I vomited if I tried to stand up. I dreamed someone was chainsawing my ear, woke up, and found that a fly had been circling my head. If you think I'm exaggerating, then try this: I once ran three miles with a torn kneecap ligament before I realized what was up. If I say it hurts, believe me, it hurts.

Saskia, angelic as ever, drove me back to Juelich and made sure I got to my apartment OK. A hefty overdose of Ibuprofen later, I passed out for six hours and was weak as water till this morning. 24 hours later, I still feel worse than after most day-flus. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be back on my feet!

More about Forschungszentrum Jülich

2007-06-19T05:00:00.001-07:00

Prof. Dr. Felix Wolf, my host professor here in Jülich, gave me a little history lesson over lunch today. I had supposed that the research center had a military background because of its remote location and nearby military buildings, but not so. The center was founded in the 1950s as a nuclear research center, focusing on nuclear power. It's in the middle of nowhere for several reasons:

The area around Jülich is a major coal-producing region, so there is easy access to an abundance of electrical power.
This was the most thoroughly-destroyed part of Germany after WWII (95% completely leveled!), so the research center was seen as a way to revitalize the area.
When everything for miles around has been bombed to oblivion, land is cheap.
People who question the basic laws of physics should work in the middle of nowhere.

Nuclear weapons were never researched here because the Allies would have been annoyed. They're not researched now because the German people would be annoyed. In fact, nuclear power research is shutting down because of political pressure.

Basically anything that needs a lot of electricity tries to be nearby. The military is nearby also because of the cheap power. The world-wide German AM radio stations are broadcast just outside Jülich (the antenna is a spider-web sorta thing about the size of three football fields that hangs between six tall towers. I can't get a good photo because the cables are so thin.)

Prague!

2007-06-18T06:17:00.000-07:00

Prague was really unforgettable and certainly the most architecturally beautiful European city I have yet visited. I was there with Mike, Charity, and Bettina, who are CESRI fellows from Poland, Slovakia, and Germany respectively. I took a Schlafwagen (sleeping car in the night train) from Köln (Cologne) at 10:00pm-ish on Thursday and arrived 10:00am-ish on Friday very tired. The Schlafwagen was not worth the extra 100 Euro, but now I can say I've spent the night in a sleeper train! :)

The other CESRI fellows wouldn't arrive until 8:30pm, so I wandered around the town. I found this billboard directly outside my train station. No idea what they're selling.

I found our hotel and picked up a flier proclaiming itself as "The Most Useful Map of Prague!", which turned out to be handy if you wanted to find a hotel, which I didn't, since I already had one. It did include a metro-map though, so 15 minutes later I was down on St. Wenceslaus square in front of the National Museum.

"The Most Useful Map" showed parks behind the museum, so I wandered over there. Remember, I hadn't been in Prague so much as an hour, so I was a little shocked to find a drug dealer helping shoot up two kids in broad daylight behind the museum. Leather strap on upper arm, needle, lighter, the complete set. I even stopped to stare and they didn't seem to care. But that was nothing. Right round the next corner I found a lady holding a baby on one arm and shooting herself up with the other! I decided I didn't like Prague very much at first sight.

I took a walk down St. Wenceslaus and into the old town. I found hot-dog sellers, lots of tourists, and beautiful buildings everywhere. In one side-alley, I found a creepy Asian guy selling hand-guns and an M-16. Down another was a fantastic collection of cut and spun crystal. Crystal is a big thing in Prague. You can buy it everywhere. I had Chinese food for lunch.

Here's part of the story I shouldn't tell, but hey, here goes.... So even after seeing these druggies behind the museum, I decided to take a little rest in the park. (Park was close to the Museum, which I wanted to see next.) My 15-min sit-on-a-bench turned into a complete 1-hour completely passed-out nap in the heart of shoot-me-up Prague. I sure felt stupid when I woke up....

I probably would have slept even longer, except it began to hail (in June!). It was an excuse to check out the National Museum, which actually sucked. They have this annoying habit of exhibiting things they don't actually own. For example, the Hope Diamond is in the Smithsonian collection, but somehow it was on display here. As a plastic copy. Next to the plastic copy of the Jubilee Diamond and the Blue Heart Diamond. OK. They also did this with two prehistoric human skeletons (also in the Smithsonian) and the Statue of the Dying Gaul (which, to be fair, has been copied quite a lot). The mammalian collection was really cool though. They have an enormous (real) whale skeleton.

I met up with Mike and Charity around 7:30 and we got some dinner. We were sleeping four people in a three-person room, so we had to keep a lookout for Bettina so she wouldn't try to check-in and blow our cover. Our watch was supported by some excellent Vodka and blackcurrant juice that Mike bought duty-free in Poland. Once Bettina showed up, we went out on the town! We walked through Old Town and across the Charles Bridge in the dark. It was very crowded with tourists, but very beautiful.

The next day was really full! We started at the Museum of Communism, where we learned about Jan Palach who lit himself on fire to protest communism. Took the guy four days to die. After that, we took a hike around the city. The Prague Castle and the view from St. Vitus Cathedral were particularly amazing.

At noon, we watched the Prague Astronomical Clock chime (I made a video).

My favorite part of the trip came next: Bodies!

Bodies features humans which have been dissected and plastinated so every tiny detail is completely life-like. It's an amazing experience. There were exhibits for all the primary systems (nervous, skeletal, etc) as well as athletically-posed bodies. The reproduction exhibit included embryos and fetuses at all stages of development which had been treated with calcium dyes to show developing bones. There was also a body which had been cut head-to-toe into thin, evenly-spaced cross sections which was really cool, and a body where the skeleton had been removed from the soft tissue to look like two people holding hands, but it's really one guy holding hands with his own skeleton. Nothing is covered or removed, but everything is presented in a scientific light with a strangely artistic flair. My mom would have loved it.

After Bodies we went to a pub Charity had discovered. (Charity didn't come to Bodies, but I was glad Bettina went. She's a Vet so she gave us a much more interesting tour than my silly audio guide). I tried a few sips of absinthe and a plate of traditional Czech food (cheese, anchovies, pepper, paprika, and bread, all soaked in beer) to go with my excellent Czech beer. At dusk, we climbed up a nearby hill where a gigantic statue of Stalin used to stand, but now there's a crummy giant metronome covered in graffiti and necking teenagers. It turned out to be exactly the right place to be because a fireworks show started not long after we arrived. (The city was launching fireworks. Not the teenagers.)

The next morning we visited the Czech Technical Museum. Only we didn't. We were confused by the Czech signs and went into the museum across the square, which was the Czech Agricultural Museum. We spent about a half hour looking for something technical beyond tractors before we realized our mistake. But we did find this drawing on a tack-board covered in children's sketches. Apparently Prague is a tough town.

After the museum debacle we went down to the river and rented a rowboat. Bettina and I rowed while Mike and Charity took pictures. I let Charity row long enough to get this photo.

We saw the Dancing House from the river and all the marvelous Czech architecture. For lunch we stopped in a non-English speaking pub and ordered beer and random menu selections. Turns out we got fried spam, chicken and dumplings, and lots of mashed potatoes. Nice farm food.

This mistranslation was the source of innuendo for the next half hour or so, particularly when Mike "happened" to get a picture of Bettina's face just below the writing.

I left Prague at 8:00PM, sharing a seating car with four other people. I slept by spreading myself out on the floor and not caring who stepped on me, and arrived back in Köln at about 7:00AM. From there, I was one train-stop from a shower and the lab. Whew!

A Day with Saskia, an evening in Köln, and the Nachtzug to Praha!

2007-06-15T01:47:00.000-07:00

Wednesday night I met up with Saskia in Aachen. We had fresh pasta for dinner and then watched her uncle perform a terrific two-man comedy at a small local theater. It was tricky to understand German acting, but I think I got about half the jokes.

I spent the night at Saskia's house and had salmon and tomato omelets for breakfast. Yum! We went back to Aachen and visited the Lindt chocolate factory, where I bought an entire kilogram of high-quality German chocolate for 3.50 Euro!! After that, we bummed around cafes and bakeries downtown, dodging rain showers until about 2:00 when I took the train to Köln (Cologne). I had problems buying my ticket because my bank locked down my credit card after my trip to Paris. (I'd only told them I'd be using the card in Germany). Saskia was awesome and bought the ticket for me and lent me 100 Euro for the trip. What a sweetheart!

Köln is lovely! The cathedral is astoundingly huge and I climbed all the way to the top. I tried to visit the Chocolate Museum, but they closed just as I walked in the door. Choco-Nazis. Instead, I went to a concert with the Köln Philharmonic Orchestra that was broadcast live over WDR (German national radio station). Very nice!

I think I've finally figured out how to photograph stained glass.

The night train was uncomfortable, but now I'm in Prague! More later!

More memories from Paris

2007-06-11T23:33:00.000-07:00

Last night I remembered a few more little things from Paris.

The first thing Jonathan and I did was visit a small cafe that looked like something straight from the 1920s. (Jonathan said he sometimes sees movies being filmed there). There was a notice in the window, which Jonathan translated thus: (please imagine a sexy French accent)

"Ah! Someone's cat is missing. It is a small cat. It's name is Lu-Lu, and it is the sort of cat you can hold to your face and snuggle with your nose. It has white fur."

Later, when our beer was served....

"My boss always says 'American beer is like the piss of a cat' .... but of course, he wasn't talking about a cat like Lu-Lu. This is a mean American cat that pisses on your shoes. Not a white cat like Lu-Lu."

I also remembered the name of one of the Italian painters I particularly liked: Giuseppe Arcimboldo. He did these really creative portraits composed of natural objects. This series was my favorite:

I also liked Pompeo Batoni.

Here's a picture of the Thalys high-speed train I took from Paris to Aachen.

My birthday cake! A "Bombe Chocolate", the richest chocolate cake I have ever tasted. I don't know what it was exactly, but it tasted like dark Lindt chocolate mixed in rich chocolate pudding, spread over a bed of milk chocolate on a piece of dense vanilla pound cake, and dusted with coca powder. De-lish-us!

Paris and my 23rd birthday!

2007-06-11T02:04:00.001-07:00

June 6th I turned 23, and what better way to celebrate than take a train to Paris? I was particularly lucky, since the 6th - 10th were public holidays in Germany! So that afternoon, I boarded a Thalys high-speed train to Paris from Aachen. Three hours later I was in the City of Light.

My friend Jonathan Kalafatis met me at the station. Jonathan and I were neighbors in the Donaldson Brown Graduate dorms at Virginia Tech and had a weekly ritual of watching LOST together. Good times!

Jonathan took me first to a small cafe for some fine French beer (very light and nutty). Afterwards we took a small walking tour of the neighborhood, including the magnificent Basilique du Sacré Coeur. There was a guy on the steps, totally drunk, who was singing "I must stop Vodka!" over and over in French. I felt very much that I was in Paris.

I spent most of the next day at the Louvre (Jonathan had to work). This was such an amazing experience! The Louvre is HUGE! It's like a maze, but at every dead end and wrong turn you experience priceless artworks from around the world. I particularly loved both the French and Italian galleries, though I'm not sure what I liked better: the Italian paintings or the Italian sculpture. Perhaps my favorite piece was Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss by Antonio Canova, but all the paintings from the Italian masters were so vibrant that they seemed to glow. Once, I had been looking at a portrait of a beautiful Italian woman when I glanced over to see a woman in the gallery. My immediate thought was "Is she OK? She looks sick!". At second glance I could see she was healthy and even attractive, but she looked sick compared to the fantastic glow of the portrait's skin.

Napoleon's dining room. Almost big enough for my family!

Everyone's seen this picture before. I found this one in Napoleon's apartments.

Proof-positive that they had Walkmans in the 18th century.

After the Louvre, I bought a map of the city from a small souvenir shop and took a walk up to the Arc de Triomphe. You can go to the top for 8 Euro, but there was so much fog I didn't bother.

From the Arc, I took a 40min walk along the Seine river to the Cathedral Notre-Dam. This was absolutely amazing, though actually smaller than some of the other cathedrals I've visited (Aachen, Berliner Dom, and St. Paul's felt larger, though Westminster might have been smaller). There was a mass in progress, and strangely, they didn't throw out the tourists. That was fine by me, because I got to hear some gorgeous music and smell the incense. The robes, stain glass, and ethereal hymns felt very holy and awe-inspiring.

Jonathan comes from Normandy, so that night he introduced me to some good ol' fashioned Normandy food. Dinner was a massive "salad" of two fried eggs, about 1/2lb of three kinds of ham, lots of goose liver and some goose meat, all piled on about half a cup of romaine lettuce and served in a gigantic wooden bowl with chopped apples and oil for dressing. It was delicious, but quite impossible to finish (Jonathan had his down 15min before I was halfway through). That evening we met one of Jonathan's lovely lady friends (a coworker) at a local travel-themed jazz cafe (lots of antique bikes and suitcases). Jonathan's friend spoke perfect British English and our first conversation went something like this:

Me: Your English is excellent! You have a very nice British accent.
Her: Thank you. I studied in Briton for two years.
Me: That's great!
Her: Yes. You have a very nice American accent.
*pause*
Her: I hate American accents.

A few minutes later she said my accent was tolerable, and we got along very well. We three sat on an indoor balcony over the band, drinking corona and discussing how we would save the world.

The next day was another work day for Jonathan so I was on my own again. I hadn't visited the Eiffel Tower yesterday because of the fog, and today wasn't any better, but it was my last chance. At 8:00 I sent some post cards and set off in the morning gloom for the famous symbol of Paris.

The tower was quite impressive, and it was really funny to see all the fat American, Italian, and German tourists standing in line for hours to use the elevator, while I happily climbed the stairs after a 5 minute wait. On the way up, I met a terrific pair of Germans from Munich (Linda and Mathias) who were celebrating Mathias' 12th birthday. We immediately became good friends and spent the rest of the day together, speaking German the whole day.

After the tower, I went with my new German friends to Les Invalides, to visit the sarcophagus of Napoleon Bonaparte. While Les Invalides is nice, it's really not prepared for tourists who can't speak French. (Well naturally, the grave sites of American leaders are not prepared for tourists who can't speek English, so what did I expect?) We spent 6 Euro a piece to get in and see the sarcophagus, but couldn't really appreciate any of the exhibits without a translator. Oh well.

The next stop was infinitely better, and definitely my favorite place after the Louvre: Les Carrières de Paris, The Catacombs of Paris! Here we found enormous piles of human bones in gigantic rows. It was a little like a supermarket for human bones -- aisles and aisles of bones stacked 4-feet high. In many places the skulls were arranged in patterns: hearts, faces, symbols, and geometric patterns. You could get right up in the bones, touch them, pick them up, whatever (as long as you were discrete). I found three skulls which were perfectly tuned for a little drum-beat action. Mathias was very impressed and wanted me to play again, using two leg bones for drum sticks. I deferred to the approaching security guard and declined my encore request.

I put my camera inside one of the skulls to take this picture looking out through the eye sockets.

Chillen' out with the bones.

After the Catacombs, Linda and Mathias headed back to their apartment and I went to borrow a suit from Jonathan, because we were headed to the opera! Unfortunately, my subway car broke down on the way to the show and we missed our chance for last-minute tickets. To salve our disappointment, we went in search of a nice place for dinner and wound up at a small restaurant strategically opposite one of Jonathan's favorite dessert bakeries. I had a lovely three-course meal: goat cheese wrapped in sweet crepes, grilled perch, and chocolate creme and espresso for dessert. Afterward, we bought a "Bombe Chocolate" from the dessert bakery and took it back to Jonathan's place where we watched the season finale for LOST season 3. It was a fantastic evening and a perfect conclusion to my Parisian vacation.

Weekend with Saskia

2007-06-04T02:44:00.002-07:00

I spent last weekend with my good old friend Saskia Triesscheijn (Zas-kia Tree-shine). We were neighbors in the graduate dorms at Virginia Tech last year, but after her graduation she went back to Germany and it was hard to keep in touch. She's a heptathlete (200m/800m run, 100m hurdles, shot put, javelin throw, high jump, and long jump) training for the Olympic games, and fortunately her sports club is only a few kilometers from Jülich! We visited Aachen for a day and took a look inside the Hohe Domkirche, a gorgeous old cathedral. They had several supposed holy relics on display there, including the diaper of Jesus (Holy crap! Sorry, had to say it...). The relics only come out every 7 years so we were lucky.

Sunday Saskia had a competition in high jump, shot put, and 1000m relay. Her goal was to improve her high jump so we were very excited when she scored a personal record of 1.80m! While she did the hard work, I was busy meeting cool people: Shiela (sprinter who was fluent in five languages and conversational in three more), and Eugene (decathlete who wasn't born; he was carved). It was a lingual adventure since you didn't know if the person you greeted to would answer in English, German, or Dutch.

In Aachen, I finally found a power adapter for my camera so I can get some pictures of Jülich!

Forschungszentrum Jülich

2007-06-04T02:44:00.001-07:00

The research center at Jülich is really impressive. I'm working with Daniel Becker on time stamp syncronization for highly-scalable post-mortem performance analysis, and it looks to be exciting! They have two major computers here: an IBM p690 cluster with 1312 Power4+ CPUs and an IBM BlueGene/L 8192 PowerPC 440 CPUs. There's also a data center with three 670 TeraByte tape silos and tons of other goodies. There's a nuclear reactor somewhere on campus, but it's being decommissioned. There's also a particle accelerator and major medical research equipment.

The center is completely hidden deep in a forest near Jülich. I think it must have been a military institution when it was founded, because it's so hidden and there are military warehouses and old equipment scattered throughout the neighborhood. It's a really cool place to work.

Orientation in Budapest!

2007-05-29T07:33:00.001-07:00

Whew! It's been a long time since I was able to post anything, so I hope I can remember it all...

Bye bye Berlin...

The CESRI orientation in Budapest was certainly one of the highlights of my life. May 20th I survived a terrifying cab ride from the airport to the Fortuna "Botel", a boat turned hotel, on the Danube river. Every room is named after a famous mariner (I had Fabian Bellingshausen) and to use the shower you have to stand in the toilet (almost). There was a free English newspaper in the room with the welcoming headline "Hungary's dire domestic rap situation!". I felt right at home. By 7:30 nine of ten of the CESRI fellows had arrived and we went to dinner with Chris and Agi, our orientation hosts. Dinner included bone marrow on toast.

Buda on the banks of the Danube river.

Our first day included a walking tour with Jeff. Jeff is an immediately-likable history PhD student and professional tour guide with a clip and sardonic manor. He showed us the principle churches and interesting statues on the Pest side only, because we didn't have time to visit Buda. Lunch was in a strangely hip cafe, and the waiter gave me a weird look for ordering apple juice with my fish.

The group!

Flags of the EU, Budapest, and Hungary

For dinner the first day we went to Bor la Bor, a wine-lovers heaven ("Bor" is Hungarian for "wine"). We ate cock testicles and drank to our hearts content and our head's dismay. The 3km night-walk to the hotel was stunning, documented here thanks to Eric's invention of the Trashpod.

The Chain Bridge and the Royal Palace. Probably my favorite photo of the week.

The CESRI office is near this building, the Hungarian Academy of Science. We visited on the second day, but really didn't see much. Our tour guide was obsessed with showing us portraits of the university founders, so we spent an hour looking at wild Hungarian facial hair.

Our visit to the Eötvos Loraand University was considerably more fun. The labs were all a dingy dentist-chair green and frighteningly "eastern". These white bricks are made of lead to protect the researchers from nuclear radiation from this miniature reactor. Cool.

That night we had front-row seats to a concert at the Hungarian Opera House. This was the greatest concert I have ever attended, and the highest-point of the orientation. The conductor was a crazy old Asian guy with a fantastically expressive face. Sometimes he even growled at the orchestra. They played "The Firebird" and at intermission we had desert wine on the Opera House balcony. Fantastic!

On the third day we got up at 5:00AM to catch a train to Bratislava. We spent the day there with the Fulbright commission and took a wild tour with a half-crazed pro-socialist guide. Bratislava is kinda touristy and after Budapest wasn't much of anything. Still, I bought a cool Bratislavan mug!

The Royal Hotel of Bratislava, along with the "National Tree".

Our last day in Budapest we went to the Széchenyi Bath, the largest medicinal bath in Europe. It wish I had some pictures, but cameras were, obviously, not welcome. There were hot baths, cold baths, sulphur baths, and a whole series of spas and saunas. They had a row of baths kept at an exact posted temperature and three fantastic out-door pools. My favorite was to go in the sauna for about 8 minutes and then jump in the ice bath and rub ice cubes on my forehead. Sounds crazy, but you've got to try it!

Bettina after the baths. You can see the energizing effect.

Our last dinner in Budapest was on a tour boat on the Danube. The champagne was lovely and we presented Chris and Agi with a bottle of Uniqum and some flowers.

A group dinner on our own. Post!

East Side Gallery, KaDeWe

2007-05-18T12:41:00.001-07:00

Today was really chill. I spent the morning cleaning Ute's house and doing laundry. In the afternoon I went to the East Side Gallery, the largest remaining portion of the Berlin Wall. It was slightly disappointing, because all the original art has long since been defaced out of existence, and many of the restorations are going to. It's not at all like you see in the pictures, but it was still interesting because of it's historical significance.

After the Wall, I successfully found KaDeWe. Wow oh wow oh wow. Think shopping mall squared plus European flair times seven floors. I spent several hours on the Gourmet Floor, sampling chocolate, tasting wine, and enjoying the sights and smells. There is a shop for every possible food item: fish, pork and beef, fruit and vegetables, cheese, pasta, chocolate, wine, olives, peppers, tea and coffee, and even ketchup and salad dressing. The best part is that at most of the shops you can have something cooked fresh right there. The smell was absolutely astoundingly amazing. I had traditional German food for dinner. I don't know what I ordered, I just asked the lady what her favorite dinner was and she brought me this:

It was really really good, but very salty. I spent another few Euro on a "Chocolate Coffee": an espresso stirred into a melted chocolate bar and served with a tiny but extremely strong chocolate square. It was delicious.

Museumsinsel

2007-05-18T00:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a Feiertag (public holiday) because of Christi Himmelfahrt (Assention Day, literally "Christ's Sky Journey"). I visited three out of five Museums on Museumsinsel (Museums Island): Bode, Old National Gallery, and New Museum.

My favorite was the Old National Gallery and it's marble sculpture. A close second was the ivory collection in Bode Museum. The Egyptian collection in Old National Gallery was also interesting.

After the museums I checked out the local churches. Unfortunately, the most impressive church had bouncers for tourists so I never got inside.

How to cure jetlag

2007-05-17T23:08:00.000-07:00

The problem with being a gradstudent is that I'm used to working at weird times and with very little sleep. This makes it extremely hard to overcome jetlag. So to get myself on local time, I decided to go for complete exhaustion. Yesterday I drank beer for lunch and dinner, and didn't eat or drink anything else all day. In the afternoon, I ran for an hour through downtown Berlin, a very exciting experience for both me and the locals. It's not every day they get to see a gigantic redhead in bright orange Virginia Tech running clothes tearing down Unter den Linden, and it's not every day I get lost in downtown Berlin. If it wasn't for the detailed maps at every bus stop, I might never have made it home! The "cure" worked a charm. I passed out at about 11:00PM and woke up at 6:45 sharp, just like home.

Reichstag, Aquarium, K. W. Gedacht. Kirche, German Beer, Döner Kebap, and Humboldt University

2007-05-16T12:44:00.000-07:00

Today's weather was amazingly good today and I was feeling chipper, despite three hours of sleep. (I. Hate. Jetlag.)

I set off determined to get into the Reichstag Dome today, and after a 45 minute wait managed to do so. Security pulled me out of line when they detected a wrench and screwdriver in my backpack. (I'd used them earlier to adjust Ute's bike and forgot they were in there.) After explaining that I was just another stupid American and I had the passport to prove it, I was allowed into the dome.

Wow! I mean WOW! The view was absolutely beautiful. Reichstag is interesting because it is a vital political location, yet it is open to the public. In the States you can barely get into the Capital building since Sept. 11, but here there's a cafe with an amazing view right on the roof.

I visited the Berlin Aquarium next. I was hoping for a repeat of the London Aquarium, one of the high-points of my UK trip, but was slightly disappointed. The aquarium was much smaller than it was hyped for, but still very interesting. There were some fantastic jellyfish and plenty of coral. Jellyfish are vampires. You can't photograph them.

Next I went inside Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedaechtnis-Kirche. The old building's murals were beautiful but badly damaged. The new building was intact, but lacked the creativity of the old building. However, the blue light was like visual incense and very beautiful. I didn't care for the statue of Jesus much though, as it looked both dead and angry.

I spent a long time trying to find KaDeWe. With Ute it was easy, but alone it's like trying to find a particular tree in the forest. The whole district is nothing but shopping! I paused my weary quest to enjoy my first German beer: a half-liter of dark Franyiskaner Hefeweiyen. Oh wow. By far the best beer I'd had in many moons. I'm here to tell you though: under no circumstances should you drink German beer on an empty stomach and then try to decipher a map of Berlin. Resuming my search for KaDeWe I was completely confused and wound up in front of a row of strange Turkish shoppes. So I gave up my search and ate a cheap Turkish dinner: Döner Kebap with Becks beer.

I was pretty tired, but I decided to go to Museumsinsel, a cluster of museums near the middle of Berlin. It took me so long to get out of the shopping district though, that I gave up and went to Humboldt University instead. The place where Hitler burned the University library is marked by a window into the old library, now full of nothing but empty shelves. It was very touching.

Museumsinsel am Morgen! As before, more photos here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2132166&l=96e87&id=6226307

Berlin, Take 2

2007-05-15T17:40:00.000-07:00

Unaccustomed as I am to retarded operating systems, I wrote long and thoughtfully about my second day in Berlin until Windows Vista happily crashed. I went to bed, but I am also unaccustomed to 6-hour jet lag, so it's 3:00 AM and I've given up trying to sleep. Instead, I'll see what I can remember....

Ute left for Saskia early this afternoon. I carried her luggage to Hauptbanhof (Berlin's central train station) and then headed out on my own. Hauptbanhof is extremely impressive, with high-speed, inter-city, and subway trains on several floors. The whole is enclosed in a massive geometric glass structure which makes you feel like you are a pencil sketch on graph paper. Way cool.

Ute gave me two letters to mail, but didn't say how to recognize a German mailbox. After almost depositing them in a trashcan, I had to ask a local what a mailbox was. I then discovered that German mailboxes are rather complex (at least in Berlin) and can actually print stamps. Chances are, I actually stuck the letters in some kind of souvenir printing machine. Sorry Ute...

My first stop was Checkpoint Charlie, where in 1961 the Soviets and the United States had a tense little tank stand-off for 16 hours before JFK reached a diplomatic solution. It was strange to stand there and think that only 46 years ago the world as we know it almost ended. I never before appreciated just how cool JFK was. There are bits of the Berlin wall on display. An old Soviet propaganda pamphlet proudly proclaims the wall as the "8th wonder of the world." I think Komrad Kurt is perhaps trinking not da same vodka as I be trinking.

From Checkpoint Charlie, I wandered down Under den Linden to Brandenburger Tor. Brandenburger Tor is the gateway between East and West Berlin and has just been restored. The East and West are no longer easily distinguishable, since most of the Eastern architecture has been completely rebuilt in the Western style. (No loss by all accounts.) But East Berlin still has streetlights fitted for gas (though they use electric) and the crosswalks are signaled by little green and red silhouette boys in official hats, which is kinda cute.

From Brandenburger Tor I walked to Reichtstag, the home of the German parliament. Reichstag is an enormous, beautiful building covered in sculpture and intricate stone work. On top is a massive transparent dome which tourists would excitedly ascend to gaze down on the city, were it not for the hundreds of excited tourists queued up to ascend the dome. Better luck next time! Reichstag was somehow important when it caught fire and gave excuse for the Nazi revocation of basic human rights (my German was not good enough to completely understand the connection there).

I took a bus from Reichstag toward the massive Berlin Tierpark (zoo) and stopped at Hotel Berlin. From there I walked to Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedaechtnis-Kirche, a famous new church built next to the impressive ruins of an old cathedral which was bombed out of existence by the Allies during WWII. The church had closed when I got there, but the sunset turned the ruins a beautiful rose color.

I needed money for a train ticket back to Ute's apartment, so I walked over to the Reisebank (currency exchange) a few blocks away. I found it next to Berlin's 5th most visited museum: the Beate Uhse Erotik-Museum devoted entirely to sex of every kind. The museum is three floors of pornographic sex education, but alas, this institution's gainful and valuable collection was outside my academic relm, making a complete inventory an unjustified waste of university resources. However the anatomically correct homosexual mannequins in the window displays were quite informative. I have all sorts of new associations with Speedos.

The German mentality is hilarious when it comes to traffic regulations. There are an astounding number of cyclists in Berlin, and they happily weave in and out of full speed traffic. American cyclists supposedly have the same rights as motor vehicles (a little known fact), but for fearing for their lives, stay carefully out of the way. In Berlin, everyone acts as if they could actually see a car there. Ironically, many Germans don't wear helmets.

The other thing is crosswalks. Many streets don't have them, so pedestrians cross wherever they like regardless of personal safety. However on streets with crosswalks, pedestrians will patiently wait until they are given permission to go, even if the street is completely empty. I saw one old Nordic Walker, complete with shoes, scarf and hat in 80-degree weather, who got half way across the walk, realized the light was red, and turned around and went back.

Tomorrow I'll try to get into the Reichstag dome and the Berlin aquarium. You can see all my photos here: http://vt.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2132166&l=0616d&id=6226307

Berlin!

2007-05-14T12:42:00.000-07:00

Well, I've made it! 1:20PM I left Dulles air port for JFK, and from there to Berlin. The flight was good, but very bumpy. My good friend Ute Triesscheijn (pronounced Oo-ta Tree-shine) picked me up at the air port 10:00 AM Berlin local time the next day (2 hour flight, 4 hour layover, 7 hour flight, 2 hour delay in JFK). We spent the rest of the day in a whirlwind Berlin tour. Checkpoint Charlie! Brandenburg Tor! Reichstag! Unter den Linden! KaDeWe! Berliner Dom! It feels like a dream here. We had dinner in a nice cafe near Checkpoint Charlie in East Berlin, and I discovered authentic sauerkraut, white asparagus, Gaswasser, and what the locals call "tepid potato salad with vinegar", which was quite nice. I'm smashed but looking forward to tomorrow! I'll post some pictures soon as I know how to charge an American battery on a German power circuit.....