In seventh grade, I had 7th period geography with Mr. McCammon. On the second day of class, I remember him giving us a lesson on how "the world is getting smaller". Being a naive seventh-grader, the first thing I thought he meant was that the physical size of planet Earth was shrinking. Of course, Mr. McCammon meant the size we felt the world was, not its actual size.
500 years ago, the world was getting bigger. Europeans had discovered a whole other side of the world. Ever since that doubling of the world, we've worked to make this planet smaller using new technologies from faster ships to telegraphs to planes to the internet.
I'm not sure that I had a truly great understanding of how small our world has become before going on this semester abroad. Despite being physically over 4000 miles away from home, I wasn't ever more than a computer away from being face-to-face with my mother over Skype. People used to go years between conversations with their parents. I rarely went over a week.
Being an American in this small world has its advantages. While abroad various "comfort" foods were always near-by. Sure, one has to jump through a few hoops and fight a few dragons in order to find a jar of peanut butter or a bottle of Mountain Dew in southern Germany, but I really could have eaten an "American" meal every single meal abroad. I didn't, however.
This brings up the disadvantage of being an American in this small world. With English being a world language and American culture spread over the West and then some, there is the tendency to not fully immerse oneself in other cultures. I'm guilty of this. My lack of German knowledge really held me back from wanting to fully jump into German culture. If I could do this over again, I really would have made more of an effort to learn German. I fell victim to the often repeated phrase "everyone speaks English over there". While that is fairly true, that fact shouldn't have been an excuse for me to not learn more of another language.
I think the best example of how small our world is occurred on my flight back to the States. While waiting for my Air India flight from Frankfurt to Chicago, a man commented on my Purdue shirt. He asked if I was a student there and various things like that. When he asked where I was from, I replied "southern Indiana". Seeming familiar with that area of the Midwest, he asked where in southern Indiana. When I asked if he knew where Terre Haute was, he replied, "Yea, my father was from Sullivan..."
I'm 4000 miles away, and I find someone whose family is from my town of 4000 people.
"The world is getting smaller."
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Monday, August 2, 2010
La Ville-Lumiere
Jason and I went to Paris this weekend to check out what all of the fuss was about. The City of Light did not disappoint. Getting there, however, was a bit disappointing.
Friday night a few of us went to see Inception (awesome movie, by the way). Afterwards, Zach, David and I crashed on the couches of my kitchen since we had all moved out of our rooms. Being a Friday night in a university dorm, there were a few hindrances to our sleep. This led to me sleeping through my alarm (though I think someone may have turned it off). Unluckily, Jason also missed his alarm. He woke me up and said something to the effect of "You may want to say 'Damn' now." I, of course, looked at the clock in time for it to hit 7:32, the time our train left.
After unsuccessfully waiting around for a while at the Hbf hoping to just hop on the next train to Paris, we were able to change our tickets with little expense. Since all of the Saturday trains from Karlsruhe to Paris were sold out (damn tourists), we were forced to go to Paris via Strasbourg.
Finally arriving in Paris in the late afternoon, we scurried to our hotel, ate dinner, left of the Eiffel Tower, went back to the hotel after realizing I left our tower ticket in the room, and then finally reached the Tower. We made a reservation ahead of time in order to skip the line. We were there from sunset to nighttime. The view and pics were great. I'll post them soon.
Sunday we woke up a bit late and went to Notre Dame first. The cathedral was nice, though, we did not go inside because we wanted to go to the Louvre. Here's a little travel tip. On the first Sunday of the month, the Louvre has free admission. Here's another travel tip. If you want to go to the Louvre on the first Sunday of the month, go before 9 a.m. Showing up at 11:30 a.m. will only leave you at the end of a huuuuuuuuge line and very disappointed. We decided to forgo the museum and continue our walking of the streets of Paris.
After seeing the Champs-Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, and the Tower again, we went to a bridge a bit further away from the Tower to get some pictures with it and the Seine. Little did we know that a car commercial was being filmed on the bridge. It was for a concept car by Renault, the DeZir. Here's a pic.
Friday night a few of us went to see Inception (awesome movie, by the way). Afterwards, Zach, David and I crashed on the couches of my kitchen since we had all moved out of our rooms. Being a Friday night in a university dorm, there were a few hindrances to our sleep. This led to me sleeping through my alarm (though I think someone may have turned it off). Unluckily, Jason also missed his alarm. He woke me up and said something to the effect of "You may want to say 'Damn' now." I, of course, looked at the clock in time for it to hit 7:32, the time our train left.
After unsuccessfully waiting around for a while at the Hbf hoping to just hop on the next train to Paris, we were able to change our tickets with little expense. Since all of the Saturday trains from Karlsruhe to Paris were sold out (damn tourists), we were forced to go to Paris via Strasbourg.
Finally arriving in Paris in the late afternoon, we scurried to our hotel, ate dinner, left of the Eiffel Tower, went back to the hotel after realizing I left our tower ticket in the room, and then finally reached the Tower. We made a reservation ahead of time in order to skip the line. We were there from sunset to nighttime. The view and pics were great. I'll post them soon.
Sunday we woke up a bit late and went to Notre Dame first. The cathedral was nice, though, we did not go inside because we wanted to go to the Louvre. Here's a little travel tip. On the first Sunday of the month, the Louvre has free admission. Here's another travel tip. If you want to go to the Louvre on the first Sunday of the month, go before 9 a.m. Showing up at 11:30 a.m. will only leave you at the end of a huuuuuuuuge line and very disappointed. We decided to forgo the museum and continue our walking of the streets of Paris.
After seeing the Champs-Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, and the Tower again, we went to a bridge a bit further away from the Tower to get some pictures with it and the Seine. Little did we know that a car commercial was being filmed on the bridge. It was for a concept car by Renault, the DeZir. Here's a pic.
Meow (Ecofriend.org)
We then went to see the small Statue of Liberty nearby and went to Sacre-Coeur for the sunset. It took us a while to find the cathedral and then climb up to it, but it was worth it. We paid five euro to climb the 300 steps to the top of Sacre-Coeur for a view of all of Paris. Super worth it. During the hour or two we were up there, maybe 20 other people came up. It was nice not being surrounded by a ton of people. Sadly, we were kicked out before it got really dark, so I don't have any pics of all the Paris (Tour Eiffel included) at night. Oh well...
Welp, I'm going to eat my last dinner in Germany. I'll update again when I am Stateside.
Until next time, Alles Gute.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Killing time
I moved out of my room today, so I've spent the past hour or so sitting in the kitchen killing time.
My last final went well. Woot.
I feel like I haven't done an adequate job describing some of the cultural differences of Germany and the States. While a lot of things are similar, I assure you that there are a lot of differences. Please note that I speak for only the area of Germany in which I live. Other areas may be different.
Stores
The majority of German stores close at 8 p.m., or sorry, 20:00 (Germans use the 24-hour clock.). The mall nearby my dorm has a advertisement on the door that boasts that the store is open until 22:00 (10 p.m.) on Thursdays. Most stores also aren't open on Sundays. It's similar to America back in the old days of walking uphill both ways to school and white-picket fences.
Cars
This is probably more well-known, but the majority of cars here are small. I have seen zero SUVS and maybe one or two pickup trucks. Also, most Germans with cars own German-made cars. Mercedes is a lot more common here than in the States, but they actually offer low(er) cost cars here and not just the luxury cars they offer in the U.S. The majority of delivery trucks are also Mercedes, which was weird seeing at first.
Drinks
Drinks are expensive at restaurants here. For about three euros, you can usually get 0.4 liters of Coke with zero refills. Beer is usually cheaper at restaurants.
Bottled water here is carbonated a lot of the time. I hate drinking carbonated water. I just don't think it is refreshing.
Walking
You know how when you are walking down the sidewalk in the States and you will be on a collision course with another person walking the opposite direction? And there is a mutual understanding between the two of you of "I'll go this way. You go that way."? Yea, that doesn't really happen here. I've had to almost jump out of the way of people before.
That's all for now. I'll add more later if I can think of some other things.
Until next time, Alles Gute.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
One more...
Since my last update, I've had two more exams, both for my mechanical design class.
You may remember me mentioning in a previous post that the mechanical design class I'm in is the fourth semester of a four-semester class. Besides the fact that we Purdue students were obviously three semesters behind anyway, the English lecture finished about four classes behind the German lecture. Because of this, we Purdue students didn't have clutches or hydraulics covered in the class. The professor scheduled make up classes and said, (and I quote) "You GEARE students are invited, but I don't think it is necessary for the exam."
None of us went to the make-up lectures because 1) we needed to study for other exams and 2) the professor flat out told us we didn't need to go.
Fast forward to yesterday and the sketch exam for mechanical design. Before the exam, one of the tutors sent us an email discussing what would be on both exams and gave us an example sketch problem. The example was a super simple boat transmission with a principal sketch of exactly what to draw. Sure, there were a few bevel gears, but besides that, all the parts in the example were things we were comfortable with and, more importantly, had covered in class. We walk as a group fairly calmly to the mechanical engineering building and pretty much expect to be in and out without any trouble.
Then the exam problem came out.
I struggled to read through exactly what was on the paper in front of me and then had a slight panic attack when I realized what we were expected to do. I will demonstrate with a chart.
Topic Covered in class? On exam?
Gears Yes No
Transmissions Yes No
Clutches No Yes
Hydraulic Pumps No Yes
Notice the theme.
The goal of the exam was to design a water pump driven by a crankshaft with a safety clutch between the motor and crankshaft. I stared at the exam for the first twenty minutes trying to figure out what to do before finally beginning. I managed to finish, and at least compared to the other students taking the exam with me, my drawing actually ended up looking decent.
Before the oral exam today, Dev and I did a few things in order to unregister from KIT. On the way to the exam building, we called Zach to find out how the exam went. Zach was the poor soul who had to go first and walked into a bit of a buzz saw. Word spread between our group about what things to quickly cram for before the exam, but most of us didn't do super well. Luckily, my drawing saved me, and I ended up with a good grade.
There's one more exam left. It's on Thursday of Product Development. I plan on updating again soon, possibly tomorrow.
Until next time, Alles Gute.
You may remember me mentioning in a previous post that the mechanical design class I'm in is the fourth semester of a four-semester class. Besides the fact that we Purdue students were obviously three semesters behind anyway, the English lecture finished about four classes behind the German lecture. Because of this, we Purdue students didn't have clutches or hydraulics covered in the class. The professor scheduled make up classes and said, (and I quote) "You GEARE students are invited, but I don't think it is necessary for the exam."
None of us went to the make-up lectures because 1) we needed to study for other exams and 2) the professor flat out told us we didn't need to go.
Fast forward to yesterday and the sketch exam for mechanical design. Before the exam, one of the tutors sent us an email discussing what would be on both exams and gave us an example sketch problem. The example was a super simple boat transmission with a principal sketch of exactly what to draw. Sure, there were a few bevel gears, but besides that, all the parts in the example were things we were comfortable with and, more importantly, had covered in class. We walk as a group fairly calmly to the mechanical engineering building and pretty much expect to be in and out without any trouble.
Then the exam problem came out.
I struggled to read through exactly what was on the paper in front of me and then had a slight panic attack when I realized what we were expected to do. I will demonstrate with a chart.
Topic Covered in class? On exam?
Gears Yes No
Transmissions Yes No
Clutches No Yes
Hydraulic Pumps No Yes
Notice the theme.
The goal of the exam was to design a water pump driven by a crankshaft with a safety clutch between the motor and crankshaft. I stared at the exam for the first twenty minutes trying to figure out what to do before finally beginning. I managed to finish, and at least compared to the other students taking the exam with me, my drawing actually ended up looking decent.
Before the oral exam today, Dev and I did a few things in order to unregister from KIT. On the way to the exam building, we called Zach to find out how the exam went. Zach was the poor soul who had to go first and walked into a bit of a buzz saw. Word spread between our group about what things to quickly cram for before the exam, but most of us didn't do super well. Luckily, my drawing saved me, and I ended up with a good grade.
There's one more exam left. It's on Thursday of Product Development. I plan on updating again soon, possibly tomorrow.
Until next time, Alles Gute.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Finals
It's finals week, or well, two weeks. Last week brought my first two exams, Production Management and Thermodynamics II.
Production Management is a course that is taught by three different institutes at KIT. Each institute teaches the class for a span of four weeks. The three topics covered were logistics, manufacturing, and process management.
The exam on Thursday was an hour-long oral exam split with 15 minutes in each institute and five minute break periods between each. I began my exam with IFAB, the process management institute. My oral exam went something to the effect of this.
Professor: What is the basic element of process management?
Me: An activity.
Prof.: No. Think wider.
Me: A process?
Prof: No. More general.
Me: System?
Prof: Yes. What is the basic element of a system?
Me: Activity?
Prof: No
Me: Process?
I think I attempted to say process roughly ten times before actually being able to answer his questions. The other two institutes went more smoothly (I dominated logistics.), and I received a 2.0, which transfers to Purdue as an A.
Thermodynamics on Friday was less of an exam and more of an exercise in futility. The "exam" (if we have to call it that) was a two-hour written exam that was fairly similar to those given at Purdue with about 2/3 the time needed. Before the "exam", I remarked to the others that I've never gone into an exam hoping for a 53% (enough for an A) and not been sure I would get it. I haven't received my grade yet, but I'm fairly confident that I'll never have to take thermo again. That's all I can really say. Let's hope that they look favorably on my exam and give me an A.
Studying for my last three exams has been minimal with me going to Das Fest, Karlsruhe's annual music festival on Friday and just kind of lounging around since. I'm gonna go study now.
Until next time, Alles Gute.
Production Management is a course that is taught by three different institutes at KIT. Each institute teaches the class for a span of four weeks. The three topics covered were logistics, manufacturing, and process management.
The exam on Thursday was an hour-long oral exam split with 15 minutes in each institute and five minute break periods between each. I began my exam with IFAB, the process management institute. My oral exam went something to the effect of this.
Professor: What is the basic element of process management?
Me: An activity.
Prof.: No. Think wider.
Me: A process?
Prof: No. More general.
Me: System?
Prof: Yes. What is the basic element of a system?
Me: Activity?
Prof: No
Me: Process?
I think I attempted to say process roughly ten times before actually being able to answer his questions. The other two institutes went more smoothly (I dominated logistics.), and I received a 2.0, which transfers to Purdue as an A.
Thermodynamics on Friday was less of an exam and more of an exercise in futility. The "exam" (if we have to call it that) was a two-hour written exam that was fairly similar to those given at Purdue with about 2/3 the time needed. Before the "exam", I remarked to the others that I've never gone into an exam hoping for a 53% (enough for an A) and not been sure I would get it. I haven't received my grade yet, but I'm fairly confident that I'll never have to take thermo again. That's all I can really say. Let's hope that they look favorably on my exam and give me an A.
Studying for my last three exams has been minimal with me going to Das Fest, Karlsruhe's annual music festival on Friday and just kind of lounging around since. I'm gonna go study now.
Until next time, Alles Gute.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
All in all, you're just another brick in the Wall
This past weekend I traveled with Zach and Steve to Hamburg and Berlin.
Before our journey we each bought a special 170-hour rail pass from Deutsche Bahn. This pass allows us to hop on any DB train from midnight July 8 to 7:00 a.m. July 16.
After leaving an 8 a.m. class early, we caught a train towards Braunschweig. We arrived in Braunschweig Hauptbahnhof to find an awesome site--Mountain Dew in Germany. Apparently, there is MD in northern Germany, but not southern. Boo.
After our Mountain Dew-induced delirium wore off, we hopped on a train to Wolfenbuettel in an attempt to visit the Jaegermeister factory. We did, indeed, visit the factory only to find out that one has to schedule a tour ahead of time. The receptionist was nice, though, giving us each a Jaeger sticker, sunglasses, lanyard, and blinky-thing. I call the visit a success based on the gifts.
After catching a couple more trains, we arrived in Hamburg, took a train then bus to our hostel, and got settled in. Due to the intense heat, we all took showers, and Steve proceeded to misplace the locker key. None of our stuff was in the locker at the time, so it wasn't a big deal in our six-person room.
It being early evening in Hamburg, we ate and then walked down the infamous Reeperbahn, Hamburg's red-light district. While it wasn't exactly family-friendly, I assure you (especially you, Mom) that it wasn't as bad as I'm sure many would assume. A fun fact about the Reeperbahn is that the Beatles got their start there, playing in Indra Musikclub and Kaiserkeller. We stopped by both places (though they were both dead, and we didn't go in) as well as Beatlesplatz where I did my best George-impression.
Before our journey we each bought a special 170-hour rail pass from Deutsche Bahn. This pass allows us to hop on any DB train from midnight July 8 to 7:00 a.m. July 16.
After leaving an 8 a.m. class early, we caught a train towards Braunschweig. We arrived in Braunschweig Hauptbahnhof to find an awesome site--Mountain Dew in Germany. Apparently, there is MD in northern Germany, but not southern. Boo.
After our Mountain Dew-induced delirium wore off, we hopped on a train to Wolfenbuettel in an attempt to visit the Jaegermeister factory. We did, indeed, visit the factory only to find out that one has to schedule a tour ahead of time. The receptionist was nice, though, giving us each a Jaeger sticker, sunglasses, lanyard, and blinky-thing. I call the visit a success based on the gifts.
After catching a couple more trains, we arrived in Hamburg, took a train then bus to our hostel, and got settled in. Due to the intense heat, we all took showers, and Steve proceeded to misplace the locker key. None of our stuff was in the locker at the time, so it wasn't a big deal in our six-person room.
It being early evening in Hamburg, we ate and then walked down the infamous Reeperbahn, Hamburg's red-light district. While it wasn't exactly family-friendly, I assure you (especially you, Mom) that it wasn't as bad as I'm sure many would assume. A fun fact about the Reeperbahn is that the Beatles got their start there, playing in Indra Musikclub and Kaiserkeller. We stopped by both places (though they were both dead, and we didn't go in) as well as Beatlesplatz where I did my best George-impression.
Saturday, we attempted to go the Ballinstadt Emigration Museum. Before leaving for here, my aunt Sharon gave me a bit of info on the German part of my mom's side of the family, the Schoemehl's. I had a good feeling that Peter Schoemehl, the one to come over from Germany, left through Hamburg Harbor. Sadly, I was unable to check the passenger lists as the museum attempted to charge us 12 euros instead of the expected 4 euros. Oh well...
We walked around the Altstadt a bit before catching a train to Berlin. The train ride was a bit warm. I'm not sure the ICE trains have that great of air-conditioning. We arrived in Berlin around 3, found our hostel after a train/subway ride, and went out to explore a bit of Berlin. We eventually ended up finding the International FIFA Fan Fest in Berlin and watched the third-place Germany-Uruguay game with about 100k-200k Germans. It was quite fun, though I couldn't help but think how crazy it would have been if Germany would have been in the final. Drat.
Sunday we joined a free walking city tour at 11 a.m. The company that runs the free tour is Sandemans NewEurope which does tours in other European cities, and I highly recommended it. Our guide was quite knowledgeable and worked on a purely tips-only basis. Some interesting facts from the trip:
--The Reichstag, Germany's house of parliament, has a glass dome above it that is free to the public to walk through and look down on the parliament. This signifies that the people come first.
--There's a lot of controversy surrounding the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, but the most controversial is the fact that the memorial has an anti-graffiti coating that just happens to be made by the same company that made Zyklon-B, the gas used at concentration camps.
--The former Nazi Luftwaffe headquarters became the first Soviet government building after WWII and is now the tax office for Berlin.
--Victoria, the Roman goddess of victory atop the Brandenburg Gate, looks directly at the French embassy after it was recovered from the Louvre after Napolean's defeat.
--Berlin's city motto translates to "Poor but sexy". The city is nice but will tell you up front that it has no money. The city is, get this, 67...billion euros in debt. Yes, that's a "b" on that "illion".
The tour really reignited my love of history (I really thought about being a history major.). I really liked the tour and would definitely go on one of the (not-free) more in-depth tours that are offered if I had more time.
Being exhausted by the four-hour walking tour in temperatures roughly between Mercury and Hades, the three of us bought slushies at the Hauptbahnhof before taking a nap at the hostel, which I should talk about before I forget. Both of our hostels in Hamburg and Berlin lacked air conditioning as we expected. This led to three long, hot nights with little sleep. Our hostel in Berlin also lacked much privacy in the shower room, being one step up from the gym showers of Sullivan High School. Each shower was covered by one curtain that began approximately 2 1/2 feet above the floor, or in other words, just low enough to be legal for TV-viewing.
After our nap, we went to the East Side Gallery, Berlin's largest "section" of the Wall. I say "section" because the East Side Gallery is a remake of the original wall. The city did, however, pay the original artists to redo their original wall paintings which is very cool. We then found a restaurant to watch the final and eat at. In the words of our friend Oscar, Go-ah Spain!
We caught the 8:32 train back to Karlsruhe on Monday. We barely made the train and didn't have time to grab breakfast before the five-hour ride. This was the beginning of a whole host of problems with our journey back. First, the train was full, so we all sat on the floor between seating sections. No big deal. Before too long, though, our train apparently developed some mechanical failure, and we were forced to switch trains in some little station. We hopped on the next train to Frankfurt. No big deal. Well, no big deal except the train was full before becoming even more full with the addition of riders from our original train.
Standing this time between the seating sections, we were slowly cooked on our two-hour ride to Frankfurt. Remember how I said that I wasn't sure the A/C on ICE trains is very good? Scratch that. It's awful. We did meet a nice Canadian girl from Vancouver named Geneva, though, that helped pass the time and situation with conversation.
We finally arrived in Frankfurt, medium to slightly medium-well. Luckily, a large group of our fellow sardines exited the train which allowed us to find seats for our "30-minute" ride to Mannheim before switching to a train to Karlsruhe. Our "30-minute" train ride turned into about a "2-hour" train ride because our train had to switch tracks and wait at another station for half an hour. Little did we know at the time, but apparently, there had been a "personal accident" (read: suicide) further up the track. Needless to say, we weren't as pissed when we heard about the reason for the delay.
Finally, our Odyssey was over as we arrived in Karlsruhe around 4:30, or three hours after schedule. Luckily, none of us had anything else planned for the day.
Welp, that's all for now. Until next time, Alles Gute.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Barca
So, I didn't exactly update about Barcelona as quickly as I was planning on. My bad.
A week ago last Friday, Zach, Steve, and I ventured to sunny Barcelona for the weekend. Being the hardened travelers we are, we took the long train/bus ride to the Karlsruhe airport, two hour uncomfortable Ryanair flight to Girona, and long bus ride from Girona to Barcelona with ease. Apparently in our experiences traveling, however, we forgot that one needs to know how to get to one's hostel (or at least the location of said hostel) before arriving in the city. Luckily, the bus station had an internet terminal, so we weren't left to wandering around Barcelona.
After checking in, we all quickly changed and went to the beach. It was quite the relaxing time with the bright sun, the cool water, and just the general ambiance of the area, though the endless stream of people trying to sell water, beer, pop, massages, etc. was a bit tiresome. Oh yea, we were asked on the beach a few times if we wanted to buy marijuana or cocaine. That was weird.
That night we watched the Uruguay-Ghana game in an Irish pub then turned in early. Saturday involved arising early and heading to Parc Guell, an urban park in Barcelona designed by the architect Gaudi. It was a really nice park providing nice views of the city, particularly from the cross at the top of the hill. We next went to see the Sagrada Familia, a Gaudi-designed cathedral. Then it was off to the beach.
About a third of the way to the beach, we suddenly came to the realization that none of us had put any sunscreen on. "Eh, we'll be fine if we're there for only a couple of hours."
Man, were we ever wrong.
After leaving the beach with the beginnings of our lobster-like skin tones, we met up with our Spanish friend Oscar who had lived in the ID a couple of months before. We all ate at a legit (read: no one spoke English) tapas place before watching the Spain-Paraguay game in a bar. The streets were packed and crazy after the game.
Sunday, we went to the beach again for about four or five hours. It was fun, though it did make my sunburn even worse. A trip to the castle/fort and a nighttime walk on the beach concluded our last night in Barcelona.
I really enjoyed Barcelona. This trip didn't involve a ton of touristy site-seeing. It was a nice and relaxing change-of-pace to just relax on the beach.
I'll update about this past weekend's trip to Hamburg/Berlin soon. (Promise!)
Until next time, Alles Gute.
A week ago last Friday, Zach, Steve, and I ventured to sunny Barcelona for the weekend. Being the hardened travelers we are, we took the long train/bus ride to the Karlsruhe airport, two hour uncomfortable Ryanair flight to Girona, and long bus ride from Girona to Barcelona with ease. Apparently in our experiences traveling, however, we forgot that one needs to know how to get to one's hostel (or at least the location of said hostel) before arriving in the city. Luckily, the bus station had an internet terminal, so we weren't left to wandering around Barcelona.
After checking in, we all quickly changed and went to the beach. It was quite the relaxing time with the bright sun, the cool water, and just the general ambiance of the area, though the endless stream of people trying to sell water, beer, pop, massages, etc. was a bit tiresome. Oh yea, we were asked on the beach a few times if we wanted to buy marijuana or cocaine. That was weird.
That night we watched the Uruguay-Ghana game in an Irish pub then turned in early. Saturday involved arising early and heading to Parc Guell, an urban park in Barcelona designed by the architect Gaudi. It was a really nice park providing nice views of the city, particularly from the cross at the top of the hill. We next went to see the Sagrada Familia, a Gaudi-designed cathedral. Then it was off to the beach.
About a third of the way to the beach, we suddenly came to the realization that none of us had put any sunscreen on. "Eh, we'll be fine if we're there for only a couple of hours."
Man, were we ever wrong.
After leaving the beach with the beginnings of our lobster-like skin tones, we met up with our Spanish friend Oscar who had lived in the ID a couple of months before. We all ate at a legit (read: no one spoke English) tapas place before watching the Spain-Paraguay game in a bar. The streets were packed and crazy after the game.
Sunday, we went to the beach again for about four or five hours. It was fun, though it did make my sunburn even worse. A trip to the castle/fort and a nighttime walk on the beach concluded our last night in Barcelona.
I really enjoyed Barcelona. This trip didn't involve a ton of touristy site-seeing. It was a nice and relaxing change-of-pace to just relax on the beach.
I'll update about this past weekend's trip to Hamburg/Berlin soon. (Promise!)
Until next time, Alles Gute.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Long Time Gone
Please forgive my recent lack of updates. The past couple of weeks have been a bit hectic, but I'm back. I'm sure you've all been waiting patiently for another post.
So here we go.
As I alluded to in my last update, I received the awful news from back home of my great friend Bryan's passing. Bryan had been fighting cancer for little shy of a year when that damned disease finally took him. This is the second person very close to me (the other being my father) that has been claimed by cancer in the span of three years. Needless to say, I'm a bit sick (no pun intended) of the disease.
But rather than mope about, I'm reminded of Bryan's "Activities" on Facebook.
"Activities: Life.
That's my big one right now. It will probably stay that way forever. I do some other stuff, but I like to live mostly."
I know that Bryan would like me to continue to make the most of this opportunity, so I'm going to do my damnest to do so.
As I mentioned, the past couple of weeks have been hectic. I flew back home for a week after hearing the news in order to go to the services. It was nice to see my family and friends and get to be home for a while. It's kind of a unique opportunity for a student studying abroad to go back home only to come back a week later. Seeing how things have changed, and more importantly, how my view of things has changed since leaving the country a few months ago was important. It is impossible to not compare the different aspects and customs of your home nation and your study abroad nation. It makes you appreciate the subtle (and not so subtle) differences between both.
After returning to Karlsruhe and sleeping the majority of the day, I was back to work on my design project. My team was a bit behind on the different goals we needed to complete for the coming Monday's meeting. The weekend was full of hard work and attempted hard work. I say "attempted hard work" because various factors (servers being down, computer labs being locked) prevented the team from getting any CAD work done on Saturday. Sunday was spent drawing for about 10 hours and trying to ignore the blaring of car horns outside after Germany's demolishing of England in the World Cup. Monday, the team gathered very early and quickly attempted to finish as much CAD as possible. The final result was a scooter with an full drivetrain and chassis but no side panels. This seemed to not matter much, though, as our tutor never looked at the team's CAD. We still received pretty good grades, so I was happy. I was even happier that the project is done. I'll attempt to post pictures of the scooter sometime.
Wednesday brought about a visit with about 25 fellow ID students to Europapark. Europapark is an amusement park near Freiburg, Germany which is about an 1 1/2 hours away by train. Each area of the park is themed after a different European country from Germany to Iceland. The park was a lot of fun, though on my second trip on Silver Star, a tall and fast coaster, my cellphone decided that it wasn't comfortable in my pocket and jumped out. Zach apparently heard a crunch, so I'm assuming that mein Handy ist kaputt.
That's all for now. I'll update soon about this past weekend's trip to Barcelona. I'm going to go ice my sunburn now.
Until next time, Alles Gute!
So here we go.
As I alluded to in my last update, I received the awful news from back home of my great friend Bryan's passing. Bryan had been fighting cancer for little shy of a year when that damned disease finally took him. This is the second person very close to me (the other being my father) that has been claimed by cancer in the span of three years. Needless to say, I'm a bit sick (no pun intended) of the disease.
But rather than mope about, I'm reminded of Bryan's "Activities" on Facebook.
"Activities: Life.
That's my big one right now. It will probably stay that way forever. I do some other stuff, but I like to live mostly."
I know that Bryan would like me to continue to make the most of this opportunity, so I'm going to do my damnest to do so.
As I mentioned, the past couple of weeks have been hectic. I flew back home for a week after hearing the news in order to go to the services. It was nice to see my family and friends and get to be home for a while. It's kind of a unique opportunity for a student studying abroad to go back home only to come back a week later. Seeing how things have changed, and more importantly, how my view of things has changed since leaving the country a few months ago was important. It is impossible to not compare the different aspects and customs of your home nation and your study abroad nation. It makes you appreciate the subtle (and not so subtle) differences between both.
After returning to Karlsruhe and sleeping the majority of the day, I was back to work on my design project. My team was a bit behind on the different goals we needed to complete for the coming Monday's meeting. The weekend was full of hard work and attempted hard work. I say "attempted hard work" because various factors (servers being down, computer labs being locked) prevented the team from getting any CAD work done on Saturday. Sunday was spent drawing for about 10 hours and trying to ignore the blaring of car horns outside after Germany's demolishing of England in the World Cup. Monday, the team gathered very early and quickly attempted to finish as much CAD as possible. The final result was a scooter with an full drivetrain and chassis but no side panels. This seemed to not matter much, though, as our tutor never looked at the team's CAD. We still received pretty good grades, so I was happy. I was even happier that the project is done. I'll attempt to post pictures of the scooter sometime.
Wednesday brought about a visit with about 25 fellow ID students to Europapark. Europapark is an amusement park near Freiburg, Germany which is about an 1 1/2 hours away by train. Each area of the park is themed after a different European country from Germany to Iceland. The park was a lot of fun, though on my second trip on Silver Star, a tall and fast coaster, my cellphone decided that it wasn't comfortable in my pocket and jumped out. Zach apparently heard a crunch, so I'm assuming that mein Handy ist kaputt.
Awesome
+
Awesome
=
Totally not awesome
That's all for now. I'll update soon about this past weekend's trip to Barcelona. I'm going to go ice my sunburn now.
Until next time, Alles Gute!
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Munich
(I started to write this last night before receiving awful news from back home. I'll elaborate later.)
This past weekend I traveled to Munich. I had been wanting to go since I've been here, so I was pretty well set on going. This eventually turned into me traveling there alone after the other three guys that planned on going backed out a couple of days before. Oh well.
After staying up late the night before figuring out my plans for the weekend/studying, I decided to catch the noon train to Munich. The day ended up being a good one as I'm pretty sure that I rocked my thermo test in the morning and the weather was beautiful in Munich. I first checked into my "hostel".
I say "hostel" because the name of it was "The Tent" which was a perfect description of the place. I slept in a huge tent on a bed that was more like a mat and bent into the shape of a U upon lying on it. This and the loudness of 50+ twenty-somethings on Friday and Saturday nights didn't exactly lead to the best nights of sleep, but considering that it was the only place not booked on Friday and only cost 10 euros a night, it wasn't too bad.
After checking in, I decided to head to downtown Munich. I bought an all-day public transport pass, so I could go all around. I started at city hall and just missed the moving of the clock at 5 by about 10 minutes. Luckily for me, I've heard from several people that watching the clock is about the second most overrated thing to do in Europe. I then ate at KFC before heading out to Olympic Village. I walked around there looking at the stadium and the other various sites. It was really nice out there.
The English Garden was the next place I went. It's effectively the Central Park of Munich. I walked past the Chinese Tower where there was a biergarten and a watch party for the France-Uruguay World Cup game. This was my first glimpse of World Cup Fever in Germany. Feeling my inner soccer fan calling, I tried to head out to AllianzArena, the home of FC Bayern Munich. The side of the stadium is covered in LED lights. I was hoping to see them lit, but as luck would have it, the lights weren't on when I got there. I went back to the hostel, talked a few people there, and hit the hay.
Saturday started off early as I woke up around 6. An hour-long train ride at 7:30 a.m. later, I was in Garmisch in the foothills of the Alps. I then caught a train up to Zugspitze, Germany's highest point. The air was clear and cool, and the ground was covered in snow. It was a relatively clear day, so the view was vast and beautiful. The cost of the train/cable car was a bit pricey (~50 euro), though.
After taking the cable car down, I caught a train to Fuessen to see Neuschwanstein, the castle that inspired the Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland. However, I just missed the bus up to the castle and had to wait about 45 minutes. Since I wanted to be back in Munich to watch the US-England game, I only had about 20 minutes around the castle. I was able to take a few pictures of it, another castle, and a lake but didn't have time to hike up the hill to the actual castle. Dag. I did get back to watch the game, though, and thanks to the English keeper, the US pulled off a draw.
I slept in a bit Sunday, checked out, and then headed to the Deutsches Museum, the largest technical museum in the world. I really liked the museum, though I spent way too much time at the beginning of it and ran out of time to enjoy other sections. If you ever go and really enjoy science and engineering, I'd suggest staying there for more than 4.5 hours. You could really spend a few days in there.
I arrived back in Karlsruhe shortly before the Germany-Australia game. A large group of the ID students watched the game in the basement and ventured out onto the streets afterwards. The amount of passion of German fans was pretty amazing with people driving around and hitting their horns and others singing in the streets. I fully intend to go to a large watch party somewhere for one of Germany's games. It should be a good time.
I think I shall be going now. Until next time, Alles Gute.
This past weekend I traveled to Munich. I had been wanting to go since I've been here, so I was pretty well set on going. This eventually turned into me traveling there alone after the other three guys that planned on going backed out a couple of days before. Oh well.
After staying up late the night before figuring out my plans for the weekend/studying, I decided to catch the noon train to Munich. The day ended up being a good one as I'm pretty sure that I rocked my thermo test in the morning and the weather was beautiful in Munich. I first checked into my "hostel".
I say "hostel" because the name of it was "The Tent" which was a perfect description of the place. I slept in a huge tent on a bed that was more like a mat and bent into the shape of a U upon lying on it. This and the loudness of 50+ twenty-somethings on Friday and Saturday nights didn't exactly lead to the best nights of sleep, but considering that it was the only place not booked on Friday and only cost 10 euros a night, it wasn't too bad.
After checking in, I decided to head to downtown Munich. I bought an all-day public transport pass, so I could go all around. I started at city hall and just missed the moving of the clock at 5 by about 10 minutes. Luckily for me, I've heard from several people that watching the clock is about the second most overrated thing to do in Europe. I then ate at KFC before heading out to Olympic Village. I walked around there looking at the stadium and the other various sites. It was really nice out there.
The English Garden was the next place I went. It's effectively the Central Park of Munich. I walked past the Chinese Tower where there was a biergarten and a watch party for the France-Uruguay World Cup game. This was my first glimpse of World Cup Fever in Germany. Feeling my inner soccer fan calling, I tried to head out to AllianzArena, the home of FC Bayern Munich. The side of the stadium is covered in LED lights. I was hoping to see them lit, but as luck would have it, the lights weren't on when I got there. I went back to the hostel, talked a few people there, and hit the hay.
Saturday started off early as I woke up around 6. An hour-long train ride at 7:30 a.m. later, I was in Garmisch in the foothills of the Alps. I then caught a train up to Zugspitze, Germany's highest point. The air was clear and cool, and the ground was covered in snow. It was a relatively clear day, so the view was vast and beautiful. The cost of the train/cable car was a bit pricey (~50 euro), though.
After taking the cable car down, I caught a train to Fuessen to see Neuschwanstein, the castle that inspired the Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland. However, I just missed the bus up to the castle and had to wait about 45 minutes. Since I wanted to be back in Munich to watch the US-England game, I only had about 20 minutes around the castle. I was able to take a few pictures of it, another castle, and a lake but didn't have time to hike up the hill to the actual castle. Dag. I did get back to watch the game, though, and thanks to the English keeper, the US pulled off a draw.
I slept in a bit Sunday, checked out, and then headed to the Deutsches Museum, the largest technical museum in the world. I really liked the museum, though I spent way too much time at the beginning of it and ran out of time to enjoy other sections. If you ever go and really enjoy science and engineering, I'd suggest staying there for more than 4.5 hours. You could really spend a few days in there.
I arrived back in Karlsruhe shortly before the Germany-Australia game. A large group of the ID students watched the game in the basement and ventured out onto the streets afterwards. The amount of passion of German fans was pretty amazing with people driving around and hitting their horns and others singing in the streets. I fully intend to go to a large watch party somewhere for one of Germany's games. It should be a good time.
I think I shall be going now. Until next time, Alles Gute.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Toe-may-toe or toe-mah-toe
I have a thermodynamics II quiz on Friday. We have four quizzes throughout the semester on which to earn a total of 15 points (out of 40 total) in order to qualify for the final exam. I received four on the first. That means that if I average that score on the three following quizzes, I will qualify by a single point. With this set of circumstances, I should be studying...
...but I'm not.
Herein lies the difference between KIT's educational method of only having final exams (and a design project) and Purdue's non-stop homework/exam marathon. I figure it was time that I detail the fundamental differences between the two systems.
Purdue
Those of you that I've kept in close contact with over the years know that while at Purdue, I usually have a pretty full plate. On top of my studies, I try to be at least somewhat involved in Pi Tau Sigma, ASME, and Purdue Solar Racing (maybe not so much on the last one) and try to actually enjoy my college years with friends.
Purdue University's School of Mechanical Engineering is pretty well-known for its meat grinder-esque approach. Sure, it can suck, but I know it's preparing me to be a good engineer. That's why a lot of companies hire from Purdue. The constant homework, quizzes, labs, and midterms help to reinforce material learned in lecture. Purdue's coursework juggles both theory and practicality with general concepts being taught first with their applications discussed secondly.
Purdue ME also focuses a bit more on gaining general knowledge of various engineering topics from management to thermodynamics to mechanics early on with design classes towards the end of the program. Everything culminates with a senior design project where students design and build a new product from scratch.
KIT
KIT's ME program is a bit different. The most glaring difference is the way courses are graded. Instead of having numerous parts (tests, homework, etc.) that go towards your final grade like Purdue, your final grade at KIT is solely dependent on the final exam. One exam, one grade. Rough. Sure, some classes (i.e. thermo) require a certain competency for qualification to take the final, but the final is still your entire grade. Also, class isn't really mandatory like it is at Purdue.
Lectures at KIT are supported by tutorials that either cover specific subjects or illustrate problems that can be solved with the concepts learned in lecture. My tutorials in thermo, for instance, involve a tutor working through two large problems that relate to what we've learned in previous lectures.
One big positive of KIT's curriculum is the focus on design from the very beginning. For the first four semesters, students take a four semester-long design course that is paralleled by a design project. This class is useful because you learn very practical things like bearing arrangements and shaft dimensioning. This is stuff that Purdue doesn't really cover, at least not until very late. The design project is also a great teaching tool. One learns the basic design of clutches, transmissions, drives, etc. There's also the sense of accomplishment in designing your own transmission. KIT also requires that students have both an internship and do a bachelor's thesis before getting their degree. Undergrad research and job experience are strongly recommended at Purdue but not mandatory.
How it affects me
I'm more so built for the Purdue model. I like having to do problems throughout the semester to reinforce what I've learned. I just don't have the motivation to study for an exam that is over a month away. I'm the stereotypical cram studier. To compare my study habits to track, I would run the 200 m on the exam track. I sure as hell wouldn't be running the 3200 m.
This has led me to not work as hard as usual. Sure, the allure of traveling around Europe and experiencing another culture is another detriment to my studies, but it's more so ingrained study habits. I'm hoping to begin studying for the exams soon, but we'll see if I can make this change.
But don't worry, Mom. I'll still try to pull out good grades in the end. It is study abroad and not a four-month vacation (though I wish it was). Anywho, back to studying.
Until next time, Alles Gute.
...but I'm not.
Herein lies the difference between KIT's educational method of only having final exams (and a design project) and Purdue's non-stop homework/exam marathon. I figure it was time that I detail the fundamental differences between the two systems.
Purdue
Those of you that I've kept in close contact with over the years know that while at Purdue, I usually have a pretty full plate. On top of my studies, I try to be at least somewhat involved in Pi Tau Sigma, ASME, and Purdue Solar Racing (maybe not so much on the last one) and try to actually enjoy my college years with friends.
Purdue University's School of Mechanical Engineering is pretty well-known for its meat grinder-esque approach. Sure, it can suck, but I know it's preparing me to be a good engineer. That's why a lot of companies hire from Purdue. The constant homework, quizzes, labs, and midterms help to reinforce material learned in lecture. Purdue's coursework juggles both theory and practicality with general concepts being taught first with their applications discussed secondly.
Purdue ME also focuses a bit more on gaining general knowledge of various engineering topics from management to thermodynamics to mechanics early on with design classes towards the end of the program. Everything culminates with a senior design project where students design and build a new product from scratch.
KIT
KIT's ME program is a bit different. The most glaring difference is the way courses are graded. Instead of having numerous parts (tests, homework, etc.) that go towards your final grade like Purdue, your final grade at KIT is solely dependent on the final exam. One exam, one grade. Rough. Sure, some classes (i.e. thermo) require a certain competency for qualification to take the final, but the final is still your entire grade. Also, class isn't really mandatory like it is at Purdue.
Lectures at KIT are supported by tutorials that either cover specific subjects or illustrate problems that can be solved with the concepts learned in lecture. My tutorials in thermo, for instance, involve a tutor working through two large problems that relate to what we've learned in previous lectures.
One big positive of KIT's curriculum is the focus on design from the very beginning. For the first four semesters, students take a four semester-long design course that is paralleled by a design project. This class is useful because you learn very practical things like bearing arrangements and shaft dimensioning. This is stuff that Purdue doesn't really cover, at least not until very late. The design project is also a great teaching tool. One learns the basic design of clutches, transmissions, drives, etc. There's also the sense of accomplishment in designing your own transmission. KIT also requires that students have both an internship and do a bachelor's thesis before getting their degree. Undergrad research and job experience are strongly recommended at Purdue but not mandatory.
How it affects me
I'm more so built for the Purdue model. I like having to do problems throughout the semester to reinforce what I've learned. I just don't have the motivation to study for an exam that is over a month away. I'm the stereotypical cram studier. To compare my study habits to track, I would run the 200 m on the exam track. I sure as hell wouldn't be running the 3200 m.
This has led me to not work as hard as usual. Sure, the allure of traveling around Europe and experiencing another culture is another detriment to my studies, but it's more so ingrained study habits. I'm hoping to begin studying for the exams soon, but we'll see if I can make this change.
But don't worry, Mom. I'll still try to pull out good grades in the end. It is study abroad and not a four-month vacation (though I wish it was). Anywho, back to studying.
Until next time, Alles Gute.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Costanza
Wait, that isn't right.
Lake Constance
That's more like it.
Yesterday, Zach, Steve, Jason, and I went to Konstanz, Germany on the German-Swiss border to see Lake Constance, or Bodensee auf Deutsch.
We missed our original train there but were able to catch one an hour later. I slept most of the three-hour train ride. The countryside I was awake to see, though, was very nice.
Our day trip to Konstanz basically involved us walking along the lakefront the majority of the time. It was nice to chill on the "beach". There wasn't really a sandy beach area, just a bunch of small rocky beaches. One beach had numerous rock sculptures where people had stacked stones into pillars. They were neat, though we all had to fight the urge to knock several of them down. I also climbed a tree.
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!
The walk along the lake was nice and relaxing, though it did lead to an odd moment when we, apparently, walked past a section of nude beach.
Yea...
Other than that, though, the day was a good one. One high point in particular was my first Slush Puppy since Little League (or at least high school). Damn, that was delicious.
We've begun thinking of future trips with Paris possibly this weekend, Munich (and Salzburg/Vienna?) the next weekend, Barcelona the first weekend of July, and Berlin/Hamburg the second weekend of July.
So many places, so little time.
Until next time, Alles Gute.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
When in Rome...
Sorry that I've put off this update for a while. I got back on Saturday and about two hours later had to start working on my design project. The project meeting went fairly well even though I was kind of slow after going to bed at 5 in the morning the night before.
And here we go...
Our journey to Rome began with Adam, David, Andreu, Dev, and I heading to the airport at around 6ish the day before our flight. We were flying out of Frankfurt Hahn Airport which, contrary to what the name suggests, is no-frickin'-where close to Frankfurt. We first took the train to the main airport of Frankfurt, switched to a train to the main train station, then caught a shuttle bus to the airport. The shuttle took about 2 hours. While waiting for the shuttle, we met this Australian guy whose name slips my mind that is studying in Genoa. He hung out with us until both of our respective flights were boarding.
After a fairly difficult night of sleep on the floor of Frankfurt Hahn, we caught our 6 a.m. flight to Rome. Andreu wasn't really prepared for the rough landing that seemingly always happens on a Ryanair flight as he was asleep and woke up quite startled. I'm beginning to think that Ryanair planes don't have suspension systems on their landing gear.
After surviving the rough landing, we caught yet another shuttle. This time it was to Rome city center. It was here that I found out that Roman drivers are bat---- crazy. The lines on the road didn't even seem to be suggestions, merely decoration.
We arrived at the city center, bought Roma passes, checked in to our hostel, and went to see the sights of Rome. At the Pantheon, we got the first glimpse that, apparently, all of Italy is under construction since the entire front of the building (and many other landmarks later in our trip) was covered in scaffolding. From the Pantheon, we wandered around some more, ate, and then went to the Coliseum. Our Roma Pass was good for two museum entries and all public transport in Rome. We used our first entry to walk into the Coliseum and the Roman Forum. Being a bit of a history geek, I enjoyed looking at the ruins and reading the different facts, though seeing so many ruins was a bit much. We were seemingly on Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum for forever before it began to rain. We scurried back to our hostel, showered, made one last venture at night to get pics of the Coliseum at night and the Circus Maximus (aka valley in the ground with gravel at the bottom), and called it a night.
Day Two in Rome consisted of going to the Vatican, waiting in long lines for the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's Basilica, and turning down countless people trying to sell tours for the different landmarks. I actually began to get pretty good at completely ignoring other people and brushing them aside. Thanks, Rome!
The museum at the Vatican was incredibly long with art collections from ancient Greece and Rome, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, and modern times. The designers of the museum, of course, put the main reason for going, the Sistine Chapel, at the very end of the tour. It was beautiful, though I struggled to sort out all of the roughly ninety bajillion scenes on the ceiling. Dev attempted to take pictures of the ceiling (which isn't allowed) and was kindly (or maybe not so kindly) asked to leave the Chapel. After the museum, we saw the Basilica which was pretty awe-inspiring. I really liked the Vatican as a whole, even though I didn't fulfill my goal of fist-bumping the Pope. Maybe next time. The night ended with David, Adam, two girls from Penn State that were in our hostel, and I going to a pub crawl. Knowing I had to wake up before 8 to catch a train to Pisa the next day, we came back fairly early. I did get a sweet t-shirt out of it, though.
Wednesday brought about Dev, Andreu, and I checking out of the hostel and heading to Pisa then Florence with the other two heading to Barcelona for the rest of the week. I fell asleep on the way to Pisa (though I did get to see some of the time the train was right on the coast--awesome), woke up when we got to Pisa, and, apparently in my sleepy state, left my jacket on the train. I didn't realize this until the next day when we were leaving our hostel in Florence. Trenitalia doesn't have a lost and found service anymore (discontinued last year), so it looks like I won't have a waterproof jacket the rest of this trip. Dag.
We spent about two or three hours in Pisa to see the Tower and a couple of other places before heading to Florence. I got the obligatory and cheesy "holding the up Tower" photo.
Once in Florence, we checked into our awesome hostel (it's too bad we were there for only one night) and began walking around Florence. The city was beautiful and had this unique charm to it. It was small enough that we were able to walk around all of it seeing the Duomo and Bell Tower then the city from Piazzale Michelangelo at sunset. We had a cheap, full Italian meal at an actual restaurant (I was getting tired of always eating pizza) and then ended our night.
The next day we attempted to head to Venice at around 9 or so only for every train to Venice until 12:30 to be sold out. We wandered around Florence and ate until our late train, caught the train, and finally arrived in Venice around 3. Venice was great even though we walked into dead ends countless times on the narrow "streets" (read: alleys) of Venice. It was neat walking through a completely pedestrian city as there are no cars or scooters or anything in Venice. The only transport are boats and the soles of your feet. We kept walking around until sunset, ate on the waterfront, and caught a vaporetto back to our hostel. Or well, we thought it was heading back to our hostel, but the line ended on a separate island, Lido. This led to us waiting around for about 45 minutes until a night line boat came to take us back. The entire ride I was paranoid because we didn't buy tickets and I didn't want to be fined an absurd amount.
The next day we stayed in Venice until about noon, so we could see Venetian glass-making on Murano before heading to Milan. My view of Milan was a bit sour at first since it didn't have the charm of Florence or Venice and I was tired. After resting a bit, my spirits and view of the city lifted. We looked in various stores of clothes and accessories that I'll never be able to afford from Armani to the Ferrari fan shop. To give you an idea about the ridiculous prices in the Ferrari store, they sold a pair of sunglasses with gold that cost about 20,000 euros.
Our Italy trip ended with us, once again, attempting to sleep on an airport floor. It didn't work out to well for me as I attempted to fight the cold of the floor (if only I had a jacket...), and a security guard yelled at us in Italian to move (I think that's what he said) since they had to clean the floor. These events resulted in about three hours of sleep and exhaustion the rest of the weekend. Maybe we need to rethink this sleeping in airports thing...
Some of us are going over to a German friend of ours place to have a barbecue later today. It should be a good time. We're throwing around the idea of going somewhere this weekend (perhaps Amsterdam?), but we'll see if that happens.
Until next time, Alles Gute.
And here we go...
Our journey to Rome began with Adam, David, Andreu, Dev, and I heading to the airport at around 6ish the day before our flight. We were flying out of Frankfurt Hahn Airport which, contrary to what the name suggests, is no-frickin'-where close to Frankfurt. We first took the train to the main airport of Frankfurt, switched to a train to the main train station, then caught a shuttle bus to the airport. The shuttle took about 2 hours. While waiting for the shuttle, we met this Australian guy whose name slips my mind that is studying in Genoa. He hung out with us until both of our respective flights were boarding.
After a fairly difficult night of sleep on the floor of Frankfurt Hahn, we caught our 6 a.m. flight to Rome. Andreu wasn't really prepared for the rough landing that seemingly always happens on a Ryanair flight as he was asleep and woke up quite startled. I'm beginning to think that Ryanair planes don't have suspension systems on their landing gear.
After surviving the rough landing, we caught yet another shuttle. This time it was to Rome city center. It was here that I found out that Roman drivers are bat---- crazy. The lines on the road didn't even seem to be suggestions, merely decoration.
We arrived at the city center, bought Roma passes, checked in to our hostel, and went to see the sights of Rome. At the Pantheon, we got the first glimpse that, apparently, all of Italy is under construction since the entire front of the building (and many other landmarks later in our trip) was covered in scaffolding. From the Pantheon, we wandered around some more, ate, and then went to the Coliseum. Our Roma Pass was good for two museum entries and all public transport in Rome. We used our first entry to walk into the Coliseum and the Roman Forum. Being a bit of a history geek, I enjoyed looking at the ruins and reading the different facts, though seeing so many ruins was a bit much. We were seemingly on Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum for forever before it began to rain. We scurried back to our hostel, showered, made one last venture at night to get pics of the Coliseum at night and the Circus Maximus (aka valley in the ground with gravel at the bottom), and called it a night.
Day Two in Rome consisted of going to the Vatican, waiting in long lines for the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's Basilica, and turning down countless people trying to sell tours for the different landmarks. I actually began to get pretty good at completely ignoring other people and brushing them aside. Thanks, Rome!
The museum at the Vatican was incredibly long with art collections from ancient Greece and Rome, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, and modern times. The designers of the museum, of course, put the main reason for going, the Sistine Chapel, at the very end of the tour. It was beautiful, though I struggled to sort out all of the roughly ninety bajillion scenes on the ceiling. Dev attempted to take pictures of the ceiling (which isn't allowed) and was kindly (or maybe not so kindly) asked to leave the Chapel. After the museum, we saw the Basilica which was pretty awe-inspiring. I really liked the Vatican as a whole, even though I didn't fulfill my goal of fist-bumping the Pope. Maybe next time. The night ended with David, Adam, two girls from Penn State that were in our hostel, and I going to a pub crawl. Knowing I had to wake up before 8 to catch a train to Pisa the next day, we came back fairly early. I did get a sweet t-shirt out of it, though.
Wednesday brought about Dev, Andreu, and I checking out of the hostel and heading to Pisa then Florence with the other two heading to Barcelona for the rest of the week. I fell asleep on the way to Pisa (though I did get to see some of the time the train was right on the coast--awesome), woke up when we got to Pisa, and, apparently in my sleepy state, left my jacket on the train. I didn't realize this until the next day when we were leaving our hostel in Florence. Trenitalia doesn't have a lost and found service anymore (discontinued last year), so it looks like I won't have a waterproof jacket the rest of this trip. Dag.
We spent about two or three hours in Pisa to see the Tower and a couple of other places before heading to Florence. I got the obligatory and cheesy "holding the up Tower" photo.
Once in Florence, we checked into our awesome hostel (it's too bad we were there for only one night) and began walking around Florence. The city was beautiful and had this unique charm to it. It was small enough that we were able to walk around all of it seeing the Duomo and Bell Tower then the city from Piazzale Michelangelo at sunset. We had a cheap, full Italian meal at an actual restaurant (I was getting tired of always eating pizza) and then ended our night.
The next day we attempted to head to Venice at around 9 or so only for every train to Venice until 12:30 to be sold out. We wandered around Florence and ate until our late train, caught the train, and finally arrived in Venice around 3. Venice was great even though we walked into dead ends countless times on the narrow "streets" (read: alleys) of Venice. It was neat walking through a completely pedestrian city as there are no cars or scooters or anything in Venice. The only transport are boats and the soles of your feet. We kept walking around until sunset, ate on the waterfront, and caught a vaporetto back to our hostel. Or well, we thought it was heading back to our hostel, but the line ended on a separate island, Lido. This led to us waiting around for about 45 minutes until a night line boat came to take us back. The entire ride I was paranoid because we didn't buy tickets and I didn't want to be fined an absurd amount.
The next day we stayed in Venice until about noon, so we could see Venetian glass-making on Murano before heading to Milan. My view of Milan was a bit sour at first since it didn't have the charm of Florence or Venice and I was tired. After resting a bit, my spirits and view of the city lifted. We looked in various stores of clothes and accessories that I'll never be able to afford from Armani to the Ferrari fan shop. To give you an idea about the ridiculous prices in the Ferrari store, they sold a pair of sunglasses with gold that cost about 20,000 euros.
Our Italy trip ended with us, once again, attempting to sleep on an airport floor. It didn't work out to well for me as I attempted to fight the cold of the floor (if only I had a jacket...), and a security guard yelled at us in Italian to move (I think that's what he said) since they had to clean the floor. These events resulted in about three hours of sleep and exhaustion the rest of the weekend. Maybe we need to rethink this sleeping in airports thing...
Some of us are going over to a German friend of ours place to have a barbecue later today. It should be a good time. We're throwing around the idea of going somewhere this weekend (perhaps Amsterdam?), but we'll see if that happens.
Until next time, Alles Gute.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Italy
Hey, all.
I'm in Florence, Italy right now at our awesome hostel. We were in Rome the past two days and Florence and Pisa today. Andreu, Dev, and I will be heading to Venice tomorrow then Milan on Friday.
It's been a fun trip thus far. I'll be sure to update afterwards, but I have to go now since my internet time is almost up.
Until next time, Alles Gute.
I'm in Florence, Italy right now at our awesome hostel. We were in Rome the past two days and Florence and Pisa today. Andreu, Dev, and I will be heading to Venice tomorrow then Milan on Friday.
It's been a fun trip thus far. I'll be sure to update afterwards, but I have to go now since my internet time is almost up.
Until next time, Alles Gute.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
When it struck me that I've been waiting since birth to find a love that would look and sound like a movie...
I hope you all know that I am posting this with the legitimate threat of death if I wake Dev (my roommate) up. It's not my fault that my hands type with the speed of the Road Runner and the loud thunder of Thor. But anyway, you're welcome.
So, London part two.
I left my tale of London with failing asleep on Saturday. Sunday morning, I awoke around 8:45 a.m., hurriedly put on pants for breakfast, and just beat the end of continental breakfast. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't eat my cereal (corn flakes) slowly in hopes that Emma, the aforementioned Irish girl, would come down and chat. Sadly, I think she had already checked out. Drat. It was pretty interesting to hear the Australians that ran our hostel rant about the English kids that have stayed there. I'm just glad it hasn't been Americans giving them trouble.
Around 11ish, I think, Jason, David, Zach, Steve, and I headed out towards London Bridge. We crossed the bridge (not much to write home about), took a few pictures, and then headed towards the Tower of London. We stopped by "The Monument", a Wren era monolith, as well as the original Roman trail towards the original London Bridge over the Thames. We then grabbed a bite to eat at a Wetherspoon pub near the Tower of London. My roast was absolutely delicious as well as the ale that I had.
After the pub, we walked around the outside of London Tower, a merchant sailor monument, and finally London Bridge. Luckily, we grabbed a few pics before it started to rain. Booooooo. Set in my ways, I was determined to go to the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, so I convinced the others to head out there. Sadly, we once again had no idea where we were going (maybe Brittney was right with me having a hobby of getting lost). It did provide some good as we saw the former Royal Navy Academy that we otherwise wouldn't have seen. Of course, it started to pour down rain as we walked up the large hill to the Meridian, and of course, I wasn't wearing my jacket and had only a t-shirt on. Needless to say, I was freezing. I did get to hop between the Western and Eastern Hemispheres, though, as I had hoped. Whheeeeeee!!!
We walked back to the DLR station to head back to our hostel. I took a shower and then Zach, Steve, and I headed to Piccadilly Circus. We saw the lights of the Circus, and I attempted to take pictures. Too bad that none really turned out that well. Having never been to Times Square in NYC, I will still compare Piccadilly to it and say that Piccadilly was a miniature Times Square. The three of us, from here on out referred to as the Three Musketeers, walked around, got asked by bums for money numerous times, walked through Chinatown, and ended up at O'Neil's Irish Pub. The pub had a live band playing and was quite awesome, indeed. Perhaps even better than 9 Irish Brothers in West Lafayette, but I'm not sure I'm ready to go that far. The Three Musketeers (ok, this is stupid. I recant calling us the Three Musketeers.) headed to another club, Sound, after being offered free admission to the typical seven pound cover bar. Nevermind the fact that we followed a guy that worked there down a semi-sketchy alleyway to get there. The place was lame, so we left and caught a bus back to the hostel and slept.
Monday morning, we checked out of the hostel. David and Adam headed to the Tower of London to tour the inside. Zach, Steve, Jason, and I went to go up the London Eye. All of us grabbed lunch at McDonald's which had the most amazing hand dryers invented by the human race. The Dyson Airblade, check it out.
We then walked along much of the same path as Saturday past Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and Parliament. I got my picture with the Abraham Lincoln statue near Westminster Abbey. It was neat considering that I am (distantly) related to Abe and because my father (miss you, Dad) was really big into our genealogy and our relationship with the sixteenth President.
We then headed to the Eye. The wait for tickets was longer than the wait for the Eye, a dramatic turn from the approximately two hour wait for the Eye on Saturday. Going up on the Eye provided a great view of the city. It was so high, in fact, that I got a bit nervous being on it. I have a very slight fear of heights, so I didn't walk around our pod a ton. The only problem with our "flight" on the Eye was that my camera began to die half way up the Eye. I had to ration my battery space the rest of the day, snapping pictures as soon as my camera would turn on.
The rest of the day we did a little more walking around i.e. past Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and Millennium Bridge, took a short nap by Bank Station, saw the Bank of England Museum, tried to see Robin Hood at the cinema, didn't go because it was expensive, and watched the sunset by Parliament. Eventually, we headed to the airport and attempted to sleep there.
We were awoken around 4 a.m. by the shopkeeper of the store that we were sleeping in front of. Grumpy and tired, we stood in line and checked in to our 7 a.m. flight. After waiting around for seemingly the same time as the next Haley's Comet, we boarded the plane and came back to Karlsruhe. I had a more than a slight scare when I couldn't find my passport after boarding the bus. After looking through the airport and my bag (it was stuck in a book), I found my passport and got back on the bus This was, of course, after me freaking out about having to do a ton of paperwork and going to the Munich U.S. Consulate to get another passport. Luckily, I was spared that ordeal.
The rest of Tuesday I slept. Today, I worked on my design project again then went to a restaurant with German GEARE students that just got back and ones that will go to Purdue this coming spring. It was a good time, though I apologize if it hampered my typing. ;)
Anywho, until next time, Alles Gute.
So, London part two.
I left my tale of London with failing asleep on Saturday. Sunday morning, I awoke around 8:45 a.m., hurriedly put on pants for breakfast, and just beat the end of continental breakfast. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't eat my cereal (corn flakes) slowly in hopes that Emma, the aforementioned Irish girl, would come down and chat. Sadly, I think she had already checked out. Drat. It was pretty interesting to hear the Australians that ran our hostel rant about the English kids that have stayed there. I'm just glad it hasn't been Americans giving them trouble.
Around 11ish, I think, Jason, David, Zach, Steve, and I headed out towards London Bridge. We crossed the bridge (not much to write home about), took a few pictures, and then headed towards the Tower of London. We stopped by "The Monument", a Wren era monolith, as well as the original Roman trail towards the original London Bridge over the Thames. We then grabbed a bite to eat at a Wetherspoon pub near the Tower of London. My roast was absolutely delicious as well as the ale that I had.
After the pub, we walked around the outside of London Tower, a merchant sailor monument, and finally London Bridge. Luckily, we grabbed a few pics before it started to rain. Booooooo. Set in my ways, I was determined to go to the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, so I convinced the others to head out there. Sadly, we once again had no idea where we were going (maybe Brittney was right with me having a hobby of getting lost). It did provide some good as we saw the former Royal Navy Academy that we otherwise wouldn't have seen. Of course, it started to pour down rain as we walked up the large hill to the Meridian, and of course, I wasn't wearing my jacket and had only a t-shirt on. Needless to say, I was freezing. I did get to hop between the Western and Eastern Hemispheres, though, as I had hoped. Whheeeeeee!!!
No, I'm not jigging, just hopping from one half of the globe to the other.
We walked back to the DLR station to head back to our hostel. I took a shower and then Zach, Steve, and I headed to Piccadilly Circus. We saw the lights of the Circus, and I attempted to take pictures. Too bad that none really turned out that well. Having never been to Times Square in NYC, I will still compare Piccadilly to it and say that Piccadilly was a miniature Times Square. The three of us, from here on out referred to as the Three Musketeers, walked around, got asked by bums for money numerous times, walked through Chinatown, and ended up at O'Neil's Irish Pub. The pub had a live band playing and was quite awesome, indeed. Perhaps even better than 9 Irish Brothers in West Lafayette, but I'm not sure I'm ready to go that far. The Three Musketeers (ok, this is stupid. I recant calling us the Three Musketeers.) headed to another club, Sound, after being offered free admission to the typical seven pound cover bar. Nevermind the fact that we followed a guy that worked there down a semi-sketchy alleyway to get there. The place was lame, so we left and caught a bus back to the hostel and slept.
Monday morning, we checked out of the hostel. David and Adam headed to the Tower of London to tour the inside. Zach, Steve, Jason, and I went to go up the London Eye. All of us grabbed lunch at McDonald's which had the most amazing hand dryers invented by the human race. The Dyson Airblade, check it out.
We then walked along much of the same path as Saturday past Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and Parliament. I got my picture with the Abraham Lincoln statue near Westminster Abbey. It was neat considering that I am (distantly) related to Abe and because my father (miss you, Dad) was really big into our genealogy and our relationship with the sixteenth President.
We then headed to the Eye. The wait for tickets was longer than the wait for the Eye, a dramatic turn from the approximately two hour wait for the Eye on Saturday. Going up on the Eye provided a great view of the city. It was so high, in fact, that I got a bit nervous being on it. I have a very slight fear of heights, so I didn't walk around our pod a ton. The only problem with our "flight" on the Eye was that my camera began to die half way up the Eye. I had to ration my battery space the rest of the day, snapping pictures as soon as my camera would turn on.
The rest of the day we did a little more walking around i.e. past Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and Millennium Bridge, took a short nap by Bank Station, saw the Bank of England Museum, tried to see Robin Hood at the cinema, didn't go because it was expensive, and watched the sunset by Parliament. Eventually, we headed to the airport and attempted to sleep there.
We were awoken around 4 a.m. by the shopkeeper of the store that we were sleeping in front of. Grumpy and tired, we stood in line and checked in to our 7 a.m. flight. After waiting around for seemingly the same time as the next Haley's Comet, we boarded the plane and came back to Karlsruhe. I had a more than a slight scare when I couldn't find my passport after boarding the bus. After looking through the airport and my bag (it was stuck in a book), I found my passport and got back on the bus This was, of course, after me freaking out about having to do a ton of paperwork and going to the Munich U.S. Consulate to get another passport. Luckily, I was spared that ordeal.
The rest of Tuesday I slept. Today, I worked on my design project again then went to a restaurant with German GEARE students that just got back and ones that will go to Purdue this coming spring. It was a good time, though I apologize if it hampered my typing. ;)
Anywho, until next time, Alles Gute.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
I was waiting for a crosstown train in the London Underground
'ello, chaps and chappettes.
I'm back from London, and after my five hour nap, I'm ready to talk about the excursion of Steve, Zach, Adam, David, and me.
This weekend's trip began with catching a tram from Karlsruhe to Baden-Baden. All six of us, except Jason who was still in the shower, left the ID to catch our 5:27 p.m. tram at about 5:20 p.m. We were more than a little surprised when we saw our tram pulling into the stop at 5:21 with us being a block and a half away. One frantic sprint later, we were on the tram to Baden-Baden...or so we thought. About halfway to Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof, Zach realized that he didn't have his boarding pass. He got off at the next stop and headed back to the ID. At least Jason would have someone to go with to Baden-Baden.
Well, we would have went on different trains if the one we were on didn't have to be serviced at the bahnhof. It turns out that the tram we ran so frantically after wasn't the one we wanted to get on since this one was stopping before Baden-Baden. Ours was actually running a bit late since Jason and Zach were still able to catch it near the ID at about 5:30 p.m. The other four of us hopped on at the bahnhof.
Finally arriving in Baden-Baden, we went and got our bus to the Baden Airpark which was a ways away. The bus took us on a nice little tour of Baden-Baden which seemed like a fairly nice town, though there wasn't anything special about it. We did like it so much though that we saw it twice. Disregard the fact that the reason we saw the town twice was because we took the bus in the wrong direction. Sigh.
We arrived at the airport about two hours before our flight and killed time until we could check-in. After seeing that Ryanair uses the same people for both the check-in desk and the boarding gate at Karlsruhe-Baden, I kind of see why the flight was so cheap. I'm kind of surprised the two ladies at the gate didn't fly the plane as well.
The flight went well, though our landing was a bit rougher than one would like. We went through passport control and made our way to the airport shuttle ticket office. At the desk, David apparently forgot that we didn't need to speak in German since he paused and thought about what to say at the desk. After about an eight second pause, he realized that, well, London isn't in Germany and that he could speak English. The shuttle took us to Liverpool Street Station in Central London. From there, we had to take two Tube (subway) trains to our hostel. Thankfully, our shuttle wasn't late because we caught the last two trains that we could have. We checked-in at the hostel, grabbed some food at McDonalds, some chat with the staff in the common room/pub, and attempted to sleep in the fairly hot room.
Awakened by the burning hot sun coming directly into my bunk from the eastern window of the room, I ate some breakfast and got ready for Saturday's shenanigans. We started out at Trafalgar Square, which gave some nice pictures.
Big Ben isn't really that big
We continued walking around, possibly being followed by the aforementioned old English guy (we saw him everywhere). Near the London Eye, there were a lot of street performers. There were two awesome groups. One was a group of guys that, from their looks and accents, I'll venture to guess were from Africa. They did everything from juggling to acrobatics to being super flexible. One guy was able to wrap both legs around the back of his head and walk around on his hands. After numerous little kids failed at doing so, I got the chance to punt a soccer ball at another one of the performers. He caught it on a stick he was holding in his mouth. Very cool. The other awesome group of performers were break dancers including one guy who could do the robot better than Johnny 5.
After heading back to the hostel for a bit, Jason and I went to a pub, ate, had a couple of nice English brews, and watched the FA Cup. The pub was just how I hoped it would be with fans from both teams cheering and jeering and the food being great (my giant cheeseburger was absolutely delicious). In another location, Steve and Zach watched as they lost their 10 pound bets on Portsmouth winning. Tough luck, guys.
We then attempted to go to a museum which ended up being closed and met up with Adam's fellow Purdue cheerleader, Liz. Liz and several other Purdue management students are in London right now for Maymester. We hung out at their flat for a while then walked around looking for a pub. After walking around for a long time, we finally found one. Too bad that it closed within fifteen minutes. We then walked around for a bit longer, took Liz back to her flat, and took a taxi back to the hostel. I may have peed a little on the taxi ride considering all the weaves, turns, and close calls we had. A drink at the hostel's pub, a conversation with a lovely Irish girl by the name of Emma, and a poor night of sleep due to a group of rowdy, punk English teens ended my Saturday in London.
Tomorrow, I'll try to update on the events of Sunday, Monday, and early today.
Until then, Alles Gute.
I'm back from London, and after my five hour nap, I'm ready to talk about the excursion of Steve, Zach, Adam, David, and me.
This weekend's trip began with catching a tram from Karlsruhe to Baden-Baden. All six of us, except Jason who was still in the shower, left the ID to catch our 5:27 p.m. tram at about 5:20 p.m. We were more than a little surprised when we saw our tram pulling into the stop at 5:21 with us being a block and a half away. One frantic sprint later, we were on the tram to Baden-Baden...or so we thought. About halfway to Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof, Zach realized that he didn't have his boarding pass. He got off at the next stop and headed back to the ID. At least Jason would have someone to go with to Baden-Baden.
Well, we would have went on different trains if the one we were on didn't have to be serviced at the bahnhof. It turns out that the tram we ran so frantically after wasn't the one we wanted to get on since this one was stopping before Baden-Baden. Ours was actually running a bit late since Jason and Zach were still able to catch it near the ID at about 5:30 p.m. The other four of us hopped on at the bahnhof.
Finally arriving in Baden-Baden, we went and got our bus to the Baden Airpark which was a ways away. The bus took us on a nice little tour of Baden-Baden which seemed like a fairly nice town, though there wasn't anything special about it. We did like it so much though that we saw it twice. Disregard the fact that the reason we saw the town twice was because we took the bus in the wrong direction. Sigh.
We arrived at the airport about two hours before our flight and killed time until we could check-in. After seeing that Ryanair uses the same people for both the check-in desk and the boarding gate at Karlsruhe-Baden, I kind of see why the flight was so cheap. I'm kind of surprised the two ladies at the gate didn't fly the plane as well.
The flight went well, though our landing was a bit rougher than one would like. We went through passport control and made our way to the airport shuttle ticket office. At the desk, David apparently forgot that we didn't need to speak in German since he paused and thought about what to say at the desk. After about an eight second pause, he realized that, well, London isn't in Germany and that he could speak English. The shuttle took us to Liverpool Street Station in Central London. From there, we had to take two Tube (subway) trains to our hostel. Thankfully, our shuttle wasn't late because we caught the last two trains that we could have. We checked-in at the hostel, grabbed some food at McDonalds, some chat with the staff in the common room/pub, and attempted to sleep in the fairly hot room.
Awakened by the burning hot sun coming directly into my bunk from the eastern window of the room, I ate some breakfast and got ready for Saturday's shenanigans. We started out at Trafalgar Square, which gave some nice pictures.
Jason and I snapping pictures at each other in Trafalgar Square
Towards Big Ben from Trafalgar Square
We then went to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. It's too bad that we, apparently, stood on the wrong side since we could barely see anything. Oh well. After some wandering through London, talking to some old English guy about American soldiers, and plenty of picture taking, we headed towards Parliament and Big Ben.
Big Ben isn't really that big
We continued walking around, possibly being followed by the aforementioned old English guy (we saw him everywhere). Near the London Eye, there were a lot of street performers. There were two awesome groups. One was a group of guys that, from their looks and accents, I'll venture to guess were from Africa. They did everything from juggling to acrobatics to being super flexible. One guy was able to wrap both legs around the back of his head and walk around on his hands. After numerous little kids failed at doing so, I got the chance to punt a soccer ball at another one of the performers. He caught it on a stick he was holding in his mouth. Very cool. The other awesome group of performers were break dancers including one guy who could do the robot better than Johnny 5.
After heading back to the hostel for a bit, Jason and I went to a pub, ate, had a couple of nice English brews, and watched the FA Cup. The pub was just how I hoped it would be with fans from both teams cheering and jeering and the food being great (my giant cheeseburger was absolutely delicious). In another location, Steve and Zach watched as they lost their 10 pound bets on Portsmouth winning. Tough luck, guys.
We then attempted to go to a museum which ended up being closed and met up with Adam's fellow Purdue cheerleader, Liz. Liz and several other Purdue management students are in London right now for Maymester. We hung out at their flat for a while then walked around looking for a pub. After walking around for a long time, we finally found one. Too bad that it closed within fifteen minutes. We then walked around for a bit longer, took Liz back to her flat, and took a taxi back to the hostel. I may have peed a little on the taxi ride considering all the weaves, turns, and close calls we had. A drink at the hostel's pub, a conversation with a lovely Irish girl by the name of Emma, and a poor night of sleep due to a group of rowdy, punk English teens ended my Saturday in London.
Tomorrow, I'll try to update on the events of Sunday, Monday, and early today.
Until then, Alles Gute.
Friday, May 14, 2010
London Calling
Leaving for London in T-minus 8 hours. I can't remember if I mentioned this in an earlier post, but the tickets cost 22 euro round-trip. Yes, that is awesome.
What's not awesome is the fact that we have to catch a tram to Baden-Baden at 5:30 p.m. Germany seems to have a thing for saying that an airport is in one city (in this case, Karlsruhe-Baden Airport) when it is really about an hour away in another city (Baden-Baden). Luckily, the Karlsruhe tramlines go to Baden-Baden, so it's free since the wonderful city of Karlsruhe gave me a one semester KVV tram pass.
We're staying in the Journeys London Bridge hostel for three nights and London Stansted Airport the fourth night. The pub in our hostel was actually in a couple of Guy Ritchie films, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. I've only seen the former (watched it last night), but we'll see how closely the pub looks to as it did in 1998.
We plan to do the usual tourist-y things in London like visit Parliament and Big Ben, but for the most part, we don't have things planned. We'll see how it turns out.
I'm not taking my computer with me, so chances are that I won't update until Tuesday or so.
Until then, Alles Gute.
What's not awesome is the fact that we have to catch a tram to Baden-Baden at 5:30 p.m. Germany seems to have a thing for saying that an airport is in one city (in this case, Karlsruhe-Baden Airport) when it is really about an hour away in another city (Baden-Baden). Luckily, the Karlsruhe tramlines go to Baden-Baden, so it's free since the wonderful city of Karlsruhe gave me a one semester KVV tram pass.
We're staying in the Journeys London Bridge hostel for three nights and London Stansted Airport the fourth night. The pub in our hostel was actually in a couple of Guy Ritchie films, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. I've only seen the former (watched it last night), but we'll see how closely the pub looks to as it did in 1998.
We plan to do the usual tourist-y things in London like visit Parliament and Big Ben, but for the most part, we don't have things planned. We'll see how it turns out.
I'm not taking my computer with me, so chances are that I won't update until Tuesday or so.
Until then, Alles Gute.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Stras...Bourg, Bourg!
Yesterday, I made my first foray out of the Fatherland to go to Strasbourg, France. I was originally going to go with Dev and Andreu, whose train left at 8 a.m. I woke up but didn't have time to get in the shower, so I just waited to go with Adam and David.
After taking the slow tram to the train station, we were pressed for time before our 9:30 train and ran to the ticket machine. We struggled a bit trying to figure out the TGV reservations and couldn't book them before the booking window closed, so we were forced to take the slightly later and much slower regional trains. Our one minute lateness in booking the TGV resulted in an hour and 20 minutes lateness for Strasbourg.
The train ride to Strasbourg included two transfers, the second of which wasn't known to us or on our ticket. Luckily, a conductor came on and told everyone to switch trains, so we weren't stuck in Wissembourg, France. As soon as we crossed the border into France, I could almost feel like we were in France, though the signs in French helped that feeling.
After two hours on the train, Adam, David, and I finally arrived in Strasbourg. We searched around the train station for, oh, fifteen minutes before finding a city map. We plotted our journey and began our walk through the city.
Highlights of the day included:
-The amazing architecture and layout of Strasbourg - I took over 100 pictures (check the photo album)
-Having my first truly French quiche Lorraine
-Using my high school French for the first time in three/four years (Thanks, Mrs. Murdock!)
-Visiting two cathedrals, St. Thomas and the Strasbourg Cathedral
-Seeing a Charlie Chaplin mime
-Watching tens of street performers that were awesome
-Walking the canal system
-Taking an hour-long nap in front of the Gare Centrale
The Strasbourg Cathedral was particularly moving with its candles, statues, and sheer immenseness. As of right now, Strasbourg may be my favorite city.
Before ending this post, I'd like to wish my wonderful mother, Carla Lincoln, a happy Mother's Day. I'm sorry that I'm not there this year, but I hope our Skype conversations and pictures will ease your missing of your favorite child...
(in Germany).
Until next time, Alles Gute.
After taking the slow tram to the train station, we were pressed for time before our 9:30 train and ran to the ticket machine. We struggled a bit trying to figure out the TGV reservations and couldn't book them before the booking window closed, so we were forced to take the slightly later and much slower regional trains. Our one minute lateness in booking the TGV resulted in an hour and 20 minutes lateness for Strasbourg.
The train ride to Strasbourg included two transfers, the second of which wasn't known to us or on our ticket. Luckily, a conductor came on and told everyone to switch trains, so we weren't stuck in Wissembourg, France. As soon as we crossed the border into France, I could almost feel like we were in France, though the signs in French helped that feeling.
After two hours on the train, Adam, David, and I finally arrived in Strasbourg. We searched around the train station for, oh, fifteen minutes before finding a city map. We plotted our journey and began our walk through the city.
Highlights of the day included:
-The amazing architecture and layout of Strasbourg - I took over 100 pictures (check the photo album)
-Having my first truly French quiche Lorraine
-Using my high school French for the first time in three/four years (Thanks, Mrs. Murdock!)
-Visiting two cathedrals, St. Thomas and the Strasbourg Cathedral
-Seeing a Charlie Chaplin mime
-Watching tens of street performers that were awesome
-Walking the canal system
-Taking an hour-long nap in front of the Gare Centrale
The Strasbourg Cathedral was particularly moving with its candles, statues, and sheer immenseness. As of right now, Strasbourg may be my favorite city.
Before ending this post, I'd like to wish my wonderful mother, Carla Lincoln, a happy Mother's Day. I'm sorry that I'm not there this year, but I hope our Skype conversations and pictures will ease your missing of your favorite child...
(in Germany).
Until next time, Alles Gute.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Back to Stuttgart
This past week included playing soccer, watching soccer, hanging out, and having a send off party of sorts for a Spanish friend of mine that was moving back to Valencia. It did not include any work in the slightest. Sure, I went to class, but with my MKL group not meeting this week, I didn't really do anything productive.
After what may have been my laziest week as a college student, we decided to go to Stuttgart to attempt to go to the Stuttgart game versus Mainz yesterday. I apparently slept through/turned off two alarms because Steve and Zach walked into my room at 11, the time we said we were going to leave. I, of course, was still asleep. A few muttered curse words and putting on a pair of pants later, we were on our way to the train station. We missed the train we originally planned on taking, but luckily, there was another train that we didn't know about leaving soon.
After arriving in Stuttgart, we made our way to the stadium. A good tip for someone who is in a new place is to profile people. Now, I'm not saying that this is a good practice for airport security officials, but it's a lot easier to find the right train to the soccer stadium if you follow the people with soccer jerseys. Just sayin'.
We arrived at Mercedes-Benz Arena about two hours before kickoff and went to the ticket booth. Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, they were sold out. Well, at least they were sold out for "home" fans. The guy working in the ticket booth said that we could try Kasse 5 which was "somewhere in that direction" to try and buy away fan tickets.
A common practice in several European countries is for soccer stadiums to be built in such a way that large groups of home supporters and visiting supporters never come in contact immediately before, during, or after a game. Considering the usual drunken belligerence of some sports fans, this separation is a good idea. The downside is just how out of the way visiting supporters must go to arrive at the stadium. We walked past the west end of the stadium then, per the signs, began verging more and more west and north of the stadium. I suggested that perhaps "Kasse 5" is code for "walking back to Mainz". Luckily, the path twisted more "stadium-ward".
Having made it through Daedulus' labyrinth, slaying the Minotaur, and seeing enough police to feel more than a little nervous, we finally arrived at Kasse 5. The tickets were fairly cheap at 23 euros. The food was also cheap as I had a delicious brat for about 3 bucks. We ate then made our way into the actual stadium. It was the usual security entrance like in the States with a quick pat down and an "On your way". Well, it would have been if I hadn't forgotten that I strapped my camera to my belt like a holster. Since my shirt was covering it, I was a bit confused when the security guard kept patting my side. As you can probably tell by me updating, I was able to assure him that I, in fact, had a camera and not a 9mm.
We found our seats about an hour before kickoff. The stadium was still pretty empty. A solo Stuttgart fan braved the odds and sat next to us in the away section. As kickoff drew closer and more people arrived, the atmosphere became electric. About 15 minutes before kickoff, the stadium burst into "You'll Never Walk Alone". I've been in Mackey Arena during big games with an amazing atmosphere, but the supporters of VfB Stuttgart definitely top that.
The game was good and ended in a 2-2 draw. I must say, though, it was a bit awkward to cheer and celebrate goals in the away section as I was more so pulling for Stuttgart. Mainz scored twice at first, so we'd stand up and clap then. We couldn't really do too much of that when Stuttgart scored twice to even things up.
All in all, I had a great time, and the other guys (Zach, Steve, and Andreu) did, too. It's too bad that it's already the end of the season. I'd love to regularly go to games. I think my Boilers will suffice (JJ, please stay!).
Until next time, Alles Gute.
After what may have been my laziest week as a college student, we decided to go to Stuttgart to attempt to go to the Stuttgart game versus Mainz yesterday. I apparently slept through/turned off two alarms because Steve and Zach walked into my room at 11, the time we said we were going to leave. I, of course, was still asleep. A few muttered curse words and putting on a pair of pants later, we were on our way to the train station. We missed the train we originally planned on taking, but luckily, there was another train that we didn't know about leaving soon.
After arriving in Stuttgart, we made our way to the stadium. A good tip for someone who is in a new place is to profile people. Now, I'm not saying that this is a good practice for airport security officials, but it's a lot easier to find the right train to the soccer stadium if you follow the people with soccer jerseys. Just sayin'.
We arrived at Mercedes-Benz Arena about two hours before kickoff and went to the ticket booth. Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, they were sold out. Well, at least they were sold out for "home" fans. The guy working in the ticket booth said that we could try Kasse 5 which was "somewhere in that direction" to try and buy away fan tickets.
A common practice in several European countries is for soccer stadiums to be built in such a way that large groups of home supporters and visiting supporters never come in contact immediately before, during, or after a game. Considering the usual drunken belligerence of some sports fans, this separation is a good idea. The downside is just how out of the way visiting supporters must go to arrive at the stadium. We walked past the west end of the stadium then, per the signs, began verging more and more west and north of the stadium. I suggested that perhaps "Kasse 5" is code for "walking back to Mainz". Luckily, the path twisted more "stadium-ward".
Having made it through Daedulus' labyrinth, slaying the Minotaur, and seeing enough police to feel more than a little nervous, we finally arrived at Kasse 5. The tickets were fairly cheap at 23 euros. The food was also cheap as I had a delicious brat for about 3 bucks. We ate then made our way into the actual stadium. It was the usual security entrance like in the States with a quick pat down and an "On your way". Well, it would have been if I hadn't forgotten that I strapped my camera to my belt like a holster. Since my shirt was covering it, I was a bit confused when the security guard kept patting my side. As you can probably tell by me updating, I was able to assure him that I, in fact, had a camera and not a 9mm.
We found our seats about an hour before kickoff. The stadium was still pretty empty. A solo Stuttgart fan braved the odds and sat next to us in the away section. As kickoff drew closer and more people arrived, the atmosphere became electric. About 15 minutes before kickoff, the stadium burst into "You'll Never Walk Alone". I've been in Mackey Arena during big games with an amazing atmosphere, but the supporters of VfB Stuttgart definitely top that.
Yes, that is barbwire around the away section
All in all, I had a great time, and the other guys (Zach, Steve, and Andreu) did, too. It's too bad that it's already the end of the season. I'd love to regularly go to games. I think my Boilers will suffice (JJ, please stay!).
Until next time, Alles Gute.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
MKL Workshop I and Permit Problems
Hallo, my faithful readers.
I apologize for the week-long hiatus from my blog. I was busy last week with MKL (my design project) and as well as having no idea as to what to write about. I am back now, though.
First order of business, my first poll for this site asked how many objects I would realize that I had forgotten when I arrived in Germany. I believe the most chosen answer was three, if I remember correctly. It's been about three weeks since I moved here, and off the top of my head, I have realized that I forgot my calculator, extra folders, and my micro-sized umbrella. There have been other things that I didn't bring but didn't realize I would need; therefore, they don't really count as being "forgotten". This includes such things as triangles, a ruler, a protractor, etc. Considering we never do much sketching or technical drawing at Purdue, I didn't even think about bringing my old drafting supplies from high school.
On the subject of things that KIT does differently than Purdue, I have still yet to receive my student ID. I'm currently still using a temporary ID. The fact that it takes three weeks to receive an ID by mail is a bit ridiculous to me seeing as how I got my Purdue ID about two hours after having my picture taken for it.
More so on the subject of my studies, KIT's mechanical engineering, or Maschinenbau in German, curriculum is quite different than Purdue's. Sure, both schools learn about thermodynamics, mechanics, heat transfer, design, etc., but KIT starts design in the first semester of the program. Their design classes also focus a bit more on things like what bearings or gears to use, how to arrange said bearings to direct force and energy flow through stronger portions of the design, and so on and so forth.
This brings me to my first workshop for Mechanical Design IV. We GEARE students jump right into the last semester of mechanical design for KIT students despite not ever having a real design class at Purdue. The workshop is basically a project meeting that you have once a month. Each workshop has certain deliverables about the project that are required for that specific workshop. Each team is assigned a tutor that goes through what work you've done so far and asks questions about your project. They can also ask anything they want about material that has been covered in any of the lectures of this semester or the previous three. Considering the GEARE basically know nothing from previous classes, my group's tutor didn't ask Steve or me anything concept wise. This led to Steve and I receiving slightly lower scores for the "knowledge" section of the report. We still did fairly well, though. However, I am a bit disappointed that one team member who shall remain unnamed (not a Purdue student) that didn't do anything of note for the project received a higher score than I. This is despite me (with some help from other groups members) developing both transmission concepts as well as our shifting mechanism. Grrrr....
Anywho, other than spending hours upon hours sketching and discussing my project with my group, I haven't been up to too much since the last update. We didn't travel anywhere this past weekend since half of us had our workshop on Monday. I've played soccer behind the palace a few times since I've been here, including one time with a group of German guys. It's fun, even though I'm nowhere near the physical fitness I was in during high school soccer.
This morning I made my way to the visa office in the western part of Karlsruhe. Adam and I were given appointments to meet with someone and receive our residency permits. I walked into Adam's kitchen to find him cooking at 10:15. He had forgotten that our appointment was at 10:30. After scurrying to find the needed papers, he hurried to catch a tram to the office. We were a little late and hurried to what we thought was the information desk. A woman there spoke some English and directed us to Room 018. I don't think she realized that we had scheduled appointments because upon arrival at Room 018, Adam and I were greeted with a "Please do not enter" sign that encouraged us to take a number. We did so and stood around for five minutes.
Being anxious that we had no idea what we were doing, I went back to the information desk to fruitlessly explain our situation only for the woman there to have no idea what I meant. More mindless standing around occurred before I went and sat outside what we thought was the office of our contact. We eventually met with her and received our visas, but it's times like these that I remember it was stupid of me to not learn more German before coming here.
I'm off to play Fussball. Until next time, Alles Gute.
I apologize for the week-long hiatus from my blog. I was busy last week with MKL (my design project) and as well as having no idea as to what to write about. I am back now, though.
First order of business, my first poll for this site asked how many objects I would realize that I had forgotten when I arrived in Germany. I believe the most chosen answer was three, if I remember correctly. It's been about three weeks since I moved here, and off the top of my head, I have realized that I forgot my calculator, extra folders, and my micro-sized umbrella. There have been other things that I didn't bring but didn't realize I would need; therefore, they don't really count as being "forgotten". This includes such things as triangles, a ruler, a protractor, etc. Considering we never do much sketching or technical drawing at Purdue, I didn't even think about bringing my old drafting supplies from high school.
On the subject of things that KIT does differently than Purdue, I have still yet to receive my student ID. I'm currently still using a temporary ID. The fact that it takes three weeks to receive an ID by mail is a bit ridiculous to me seeing as how I got my Purdue ID about two hours after having my picture taken for it.
More so on the subject of my studies, KIT's mechanical engineering, or Maschinenbau in German, curriculum is quite different than Purdue's. Sure, both schools learn about thermodynamics, mechanics, heat transfer, design, etc., but KIT starts design in the first semester of the program. Their design classes also focus a bit more on things like what bearings or gears to use, how to arrange said bearings to direct force and energy flow through stronger portions of the design, and so on and so forth.
This brings me to my first workshop for Mechanical Design IV. We GEARE students jump right into the last semester of mechanical design for KIT students despite not ever having a real design class at Purdue. The workshop is basically a project meeting that you have once a month. Each workshop has certain deliverables about the project that are required for that specific workshop. Each team is assigned a tutor that goes through what work you've done so far and asks questions about your project. They can also ask anything they want about material that has been covered in any of the lectures of this semester or the previous three. Considering the GEARE basically know nothing from previous classes, my group's tutor didn't ask Steve or me anything concept wise. This led to Steve and I receiving slightly lower scores for the "knowledge" section of the report. We still did fairly well, though. However, I am a bit disappointed that one team member who shall remain unnamed (not a Purdue student) that didn't do anything of note for the project received a higher score than I. This is despite me (with some help from other groups members) developing both transmission concepts as well as our shifting mechanism. Grrrr....
Anywho, other than spending hours upon hours sketching and discussing my project with my group, I haven't been up to too much since the last update. We didn't travel anywhere this past weekend since half of us had our workshop on Monday. I've played soccer behind the palace a few times since I've been here, including one time with a group of German guys. It's fun, even though I'm nowhere near the physical fitness I was in during high school soccer.
This morning I made my way to the visa office in the western part of Karlsruhe. Adam and I were given appointments to meet with someone and receive our residency permits. I walked into Adam's kitchen to find him cooking at 10:15. He had forgotten that our appointment was at 10:30. After scurrying to find the needed papers, he hurried to catch a tram to the office. We were a little late and hurried to what we thought was the information desk. A woman there spoke some English and directed us to Room 018. I don't think she realized that we had scheduled appointments because upon arrival at Room 018, Adam and I were greeted with a "Please do not enter" sign that encouraged us to take a number. We did so and stood around for five minutes.
Being anxious that we had no idea what we were doing, I went back to the information desk to fruitlessly explain our situation only for the woman there to have no idea what I meant. More mindless standing around occurred before I went and sat outside what we thought was the office of our contact. We eventually met with her and received our visas, but it's times like these that I remember it was stupid of me to not learn more German before coming here.
I'm off to play Fussball. Until next time, Alles Gute.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Life... is full of disappointments
Dan in Real Life
As I mentioned in my previous update, a group of us Purdue students traveled (I still feel like that should have two L's) to Stuttgart today. We went in two groups with my group (Steve, Zach, Wei, and I) leaving about an hour after the other group. We took the Laender ticket for Baden-Wurttemburg while they bought IC tickets.
I feel like I should explain the difference between our methods of travel. My group's "Laender-ticket" is essentially a group ticket that lasts for one day. Deutsche Bahn offers this lovely deal (as well as a weekend long, "Schoenes-Wochenende", ticket) for up to five passengers. The ticket allows all five of you to travel anywhere within the German state for which you bought the ticket for, in the Laender-Ticket case, 28 euros which is split up to five ways. The ticket covers all regional and local trains and buses.
Well, all the regional trains that aren't IC (Inter-City), ICE (Inter-City Express), or EC (Euro-City). These trains are typically faster and make fewer stops. Hence, they are more expensive. I say they are typically faster because my group's lowly Inter-Regio Express train took the same amount of time as the other group's IC train. Correction: it took a whole minute more for less than half the price.
Anywho, upon arrival in Stuttgart, we did the typical lost tourist routine and desperately searched for a map. We finally found our El Dorado and figured out what buses to take to the Mercedes-Benz Museum. We, of course, didn't realize that there is a train that runs directly between the Hauptbahnhof and the area of the museum. Oh well. If we had taken the train, we wouldn't have seen this:
Bier Bike -- a multi-pedal vehicle on which people drink large amounts of beer
We walked to the museum and past the soccer stadium, Mercedes-Benz Arena. The ticket booths were still closed, so we went ahead to the museum. It was only four euros for admission to the giant six-story museum. Being an engineer and a history nut, I really enjoyed the museum, though it was a little long. The free audio tour (in English!) was very helpful at times. Disappointment number one of the day was the closure/remodeling of the super cars area of the museum.
After leaving the museum and getting a little grub at the restaurant there, we walked back to the arena with about 30 minutes to go until kickoff. We walked up to the nearest ticket booth to find out that the game was a sellout. With there being four of us, it would have been impossible to find scalped tickets all together or even in groups of two on the cheap. We talked to a couple of guys selling tickets, but they didn't have enough. I suggested we stand in front of the arena until after kickoff to see if there would be anyone really wanting to get rid of tickets. This fruitless endeavor was disappointment number two as we longingly stared at the stadium like puppies in the animal shelter.
The day was not lost, however, as we decided to forgo the Porsche Museum and go to the Fruehlingsfest (spring festival). We spent a good amount of the time ogling at the impressive rides which we deemed too advanced/dangerous for the typical carnival worker to correctly, and safely, put together. Eventually, all of us summoned up the courage to ride one of the roller coasters.
When I say roller coaster, I don't mean the small Matterhorn "roller coaster" you typically see at county fairs. I mean a real coaster with trains, a chain-lift, and, why not, a loop. No wait, make that two loops. And it pulls 4 G's. It was enough to make me question my decision to ride as we reached the summit. This uneasiness was probably increased due to my lack of trust in the ride builders/operators. Luckily, all of us survived the coaster. We then grabbed some pizza and made our way back to the Hauptbahnhof.
What we neglected to remember was that the soccer game had just ended. Inconveniently, our train to the Hbf also picked up at the stadium. After watching three trains filled to the brim go by, we tried our luck at the fourth. The hot, packed train made for an uncomfortable ride that was prolonged by frequent stops due to traffic. Eventually, the train station was in site, and we eventually hopped on our train back to Karlsruhe.
Having been back in Karlsruhe for a few hours, Zach, David, Steve, Adam, and I decide to go to Hooters at 11. We had seen a poster that said "American Dream: free admission and wings with American ID". We were a bit stumped by the "admission" part, but hey, other things are different in Germany. Why not Hooters? We awkwardly walked into Hooters, sat at one table, realized that we would never be seen there, and sat at another table. This was when our waitress informed us that "American Dream" is a discothek that Hooters was going to deliver wings to later in the night, thus completing the list of disappointments. Don't get me wrong. It was a good day overall, and the wings were still really good. But things didn't go quite as well as planned, and wings never taste as good when you have to pay for them. C'est la vie.
I should be getting to bed. We begin really working on the project tomorrow at 11. Gute Nacht und Alles Gute.
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