Munich!

So I promised that I'd talk a little bit about my weekend in Munich. Lots of sights to see for such little time, but Matt and June and I managed to get through many of them, and kind of get a feel for the town. Would I come back? Certainly! (especially for Oktoberfest...) But here are some pictures, and I figure I will just narrate as I go along.

This is Marienplatz -- smack in the middle of old Munich, it's quite the sight to behold. The work on it is really intricate...and this is also the site of the Glockenspiel, the old decorative clock that's on the tower that has moving figures and stuff.

We went to the Deutsches Museum, which is a massive museum of science and technology. When I say massive...it's HUGE! The thing is like a giant cross between a museum and Science World. We took about 5 hours in the place, and we only managed to cover about half of the place. This is June and me in front of a really reflective thingy...and possibly the coolest-looking piano ever. In fact this was built so that it could be played as an acoustic piano, but also accepted plugs for effects pedals and computer control (a la guitar pedals and stuff).

This is part of the Residenz, which was a living-place for nobility of old. It was a beautiful day too, luckily...it had rained on the way out and in the morning, so we were really worried that we'd be trudging along in the rain for some of this outdoor stuff. However, we lucked out!

This cool-looking statue was on one side of a massive town square, which was really cool. We were kinda puzzled because as we were here during the day, there were people setting up sound, lighting, PA...little did we know that as we crossed this area again in the evening, they were just playing some dance music and people were dancing in the street! (Including one member of our party of three, who just kept spinning and spinning and spinning...)

In the middle of the Residenz was a really beautiful park, the Hofgarten. The old buildings, meticulously well-kept, and everything...it's a really nice town. I can definitely see why the people rank Munich right up there as a top city to live in, in terms of quality of life.

My travelling companions, Matt and June. Their tired look can probably be attributed to a 5:00am wake-up time to catch the early train, plus a lot of beer.

The next morning we took a train out a little ways and visited the memorial for the Dachau concentration camp. The lettering on the door reads "Arbeit macht frei," or roughly, "Freedom through work". Walking through the exhibits was quite disquieting and disturbing...I didn't really want to take many pictures.

Upon our return to Munich, we visited the BMW Headquarters and museum, which is possibly the coolest-looking building I have ever seen. It practically looks like something right out of Sim City! The permanent museum was under renos so we went to their temporary exhibition which was pretty cool anyway. I swear the entire purpose of the museum is to make people love BMW and want to buy one, because that's certainly what I felt when I walked out of it!

Of course, I had to take that aerial photo of the BMW building from somewhere, and that somewhere was the Olympic tower, right across the street. It's something like 200 metres tall, and the view from up there is definitely spectacular. We tried to pick out the sites we had gone to see over the past two days from the top of the tower, but it was rather difficult...we were reeealy high up.

...where to go next?

Out and About in Wuerzburg

Long time no post! Everything has just been really busy lately so I haven't had the time to type something up and get the pictures and everything. So the first weekend that we got here, we explored the town here a little bit more. It's really a nice place...I've some pictures!

This is a view of the Alte Mainbruecke (Old Bridge over the River Main) on Saturday...there was some kind of market or fair going on so the bridge was packed!

Another view of the bridge, this time taken from the surface. The sides of the bridge are lined with statues of the old ruling prince-bishops, and at night it's really cool; there's only one set of lights for each opposite pair of statues on the bridge, but the interference pattern is such that both of them are lit up...it's hard to explain but I'll get a picture sometime.

This is the microstructure laboratory at the University. I don't personally do much work in this building (the main Physics building looks kinda boring) but I've been in it and it's really cool. It's kinda like AMPEL back home...though this building probably looks cooler from the outside.

The castle up on top of the hill is really cool. I've pictures from when we went up there but maybe I shall post those another time.

Last weekend I went to Munich! I will post about that, with pictures, later. In the meantime, I have to get back to work!

Mass update

[Delayed Posts due to lack of internet connection] Time: 1:09am May 3/06 Frankfurt time, 4:09pm May 2/06 Pacific So here we are, 39000 feet above the Atlantic. At last we're heading to Germany! It was a little hairy getting onto the plane though; our connecting flight was running late so we had to run from gate to gate just in time for the final boarding call. It's all good now though, had a decent meal (hooray for international flights and decent food), and a magnificent sunset just outside our window. So, packing was kind of crazy. I should have started earlier but of course, it's kind of hard to start right after finally getting some time off; nevertheless everything that I should need is (hopefully) on its way to Frankfurt with me! Really not much to report since last post though -- I'm pretty much bored on this plane so I figure I might write an entry while I'm at it and have nothing to do. This is a half-decent flight, not uncomfortable or anything, and I don't have to pee too badly yet. Go Oilers! Way to knock off the Wings...I had originally predicted Detroit in 5, claiming myself a realist, but I'm back on the bandwagon. Woo! In other news, a Happy Birthday to my Dad! --- Time: 10:23pm, May 04/06 Well, I'm sitting in the youth hostel that is my current home (for the next 4 days or so), enjoying some simple downtime. It's been so long since we have had real bona fide downtime, and it's great! Last night when we all arrived here, we headed out to downtown Wuerzburg (it's just a stone's throw away, literally down about a block and across a very nice footbridge) and had dinner and chatted a while. It's nice to be relaxed; I suppose when I get all of this downtime and general relaxation out of my system I will be able to head out (like some of the guys did tonight) to enjoy the nightlife and everything. For now I'm content to just sit back, write something up for the blog, and do a bit of reading... especially reading that German tutorial book. I guess that I'm very much a guy who likes to know what is going on, etc. so I really find it disquieting when I know absolutely nothing about what is going on. I had never felt quite as lost and alone as when I was waiting for the train to here from Frankfurt. There we were, waiting for the train that we were "pretty sure" was going to come because we "followed" the train info peoples' "directions"...luckily it did and it was good after that. I will definitely be working on some survival German; I just can't stand looking like a total idiot when I have no idea what is going on, or worse yet, when the hostel keeper or other renderer of service simply doesn't speak English and I can't even do anything. Wuerzburg is a really pretty city. The old architecture is really cool, like the bridges that connect two sides of the river that the city lies on. The downtown is nice too -- in the evenings, everyone is just out on the street, walking, sitting in the grass overlooking the river, having drinks on patios...it's really refreshing to see. Hopefully when we move into our 'permanent' place (a month or so from now), I will get an Internet connection so I will be able to actually post updates in real time instead of waiting for being at the lab or something before I can upload.