I ran across this on BoingBoing today. It’s quite the video. Personally, I would have been more satisfied if the robots had continued eating one another.
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Tags: BoingBoing, Germany, robots
One night we got a nice lightning storm. I snapped a couple of photos and managed to catch a couple of bolts.
Tags: Germany, Karlsruhe, Lightning, Summer 2005
One morning I woke up to a very pretty pink sky in Karlsruhe.
Tags: Germany, Karlsruhe, Summer 2005
Rather than go to Budapest as I had planned, I ended up partying with my old exchange student sister, Nina, at Das Fest. The place was totally packed with people and music. I’m sad I missed Budapest but I am very glad that I got to go to Das Fest.
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Tags: Das Fest, Germany, Karlsruhe, Nina, Summer 2005
I was lucky enough to get a few minutes at the Bahnhof Uelzen to wander around. The train station had been remodeled a number of years ago by the architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser. The place is an interesting mix of standard German train station and whimsical eclecticism.
Tags: Banhof Uelzen, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Germany, Summer 2005
In high school I participated in the German American Partnership Program and went on exchange to Germany. My host family lived in the village of Trebel near the town of Lüchow. The only international claim to fame that the region has is a radioactive materials storage facility. But boy is the area ever beautiful. Several hours of trains from my home base in Karlsruhe got me to a town with a train station near Lüchow. Half an hour in the car put me in Trebel with my old host family.
The little pond outside the living room.
The side of the house near the pond.
The front of the house.
At a little village several kilometers away. A famous prince came from here. There is also one of the few surviving pre-war synagogues in this village.
Up on the hill where a castle once stood a thousand years in the past.
Looking out across the Elbe River.
Looking down into the little village below the castle site.
My old host mom.
My look.
The road to the next village.
On the main road through Trebel.
The local church. It has an absolutely beautiful organ inside.
My old host father.
A teacher from my high school in America that was visiting with the latest group of high school exchange students.
Dinner on the patio.
Tags: Elbe River, Germany, Lüchow, Summer 2005, Trebel
In Heidelberg I caught a couple of the popular tourist sites such as some of the cathedrals and churches, the castle, and some of the old town. It sure was nice of the Americans to not bomb the town very heavily during the Second World War Here are a few pictures of the town and surroundings.
Tags: Germany, Heidelberg, Summer 2005
As part of the program that brought me to Germany I got the chance to tour the Mercedes Benz museum in Stuttgart. At the time it was still housed in the old museum facilities while the new museum was under construction. Being an engineer I had way too much fun checking out all of the wonderful cars and other motorized contraptions that Mercedes Benz has made over the years. Here are a ton of pictures from the museum.
Tags: Germany, Mercedes Benz Museum, Stuttgart, Summer 2005
One weekend I decided to take an afternoon ride across the Rhein river into France. Equipped with my boss’s mountain bike and my camera I set off without a map or any idea of what lay ahead other than that there was a bridge near my apartment and a ferry further up the river.
Crossing the Rhein. It was a few more kilometers to the border with France. Karlsruhe is right in the crux of the piece of France that juts into Germany. Had the world wars not happened, the whole Rhein river valley would still belong to Germany.
Looking out across the Rhein from the center of the bridge.
At the border crossing between France and Germany. This is looking back toward the German side.
The sign marking the border. No border or customs stations exist anywhere near this crossing. The old German customs house is an American 50s style diner now. A soccer field even crosses the border. And the town that is bisected by the border seems to not care a bit that half are French citizens and the other are German. Everyone spoke a heavy dialect of German. They also didn’t particularly like to speak to me in German and in fact I had to generally communicate in French or English. They all could understand me just fine. They just didn’t want to since I was speaking high German like that taught in the public schools and spoken at home in the northern parts of Germany.
A little concrete marker showing the border. 1991 was when this particular border crossing was opened. Now the marker serves as a good place to park a bicycle.
This cute little ferry took me back across the Rhein into Germany. Shortly before the ferry a carload of Germans pulled up alongside me and asked for directions in very bad French. I answered them in equally poor French that I wasn’t from there and had no idea where the town was that they were looking for. This ferry was built on top of old pontoon boat things left over from World War II. In fact the whole contraption appeared to be straight out of the American Army Corps of Engineers playbook. A few more kilometers of riding after I crossed the ferry and I was back at my apartment, tired but none the worse for wear.
Tags: bicycle, France, Germany, Karlsruhe, Rhein River, Road Ride, Summer 2005
During the first few weeks that I was in Karlsruhe I was lucky enough to watch the end of one of the stages of the 2005 Tour de France. In spite of le Tour being a French affair, it occasionally finishes or starts in non-French areas. Several hours of anticipation brought the entire city out into the streets to watch as the advertising cars rolled through followed by the police escorts followed by the team cars and finally followed by the actual racers. For only a couple seconds of blurry spandex riding by there certainly is a lot of buildup.
Big screen TVs were setup around the city along the route.
The route through the middle of town. The streets and trains were shut down for the day.
Some sort of promotional event had people riding stationary bicycles in full spandex.
Close to the finish line near the city convention center.
The finish line was underneath the advertisement.
A helicopter came in for a landing in the field near the finish line.
One of the first sponsor vehicles to roll by.
Most of the sponsor cars stopped to pass out free things.
They even passed out free beer.
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Things started to speed up as the peloton neared.
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This French advertiser really knows how to party!
Some people found clever vantage points to watch the race.
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The course was just about cleared and ready for the riders.
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The racers blew through so fast that they were just a blur. Somewhere in the pack was Lance Armstrong.
The finish line after the fact.
Buses with the riders going to the hotel for the night.
That is a very expensive bike.
Inside the convention center where a great many vendors had booths setup.
Who needs a seat when you are a downhiller?
Strange semi truck.
Quite a mess was left on the highway.
Tags: Germany, Karlsruhe, Lance Armstrong, Summer 2005, Tour de France
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