BBQ, France, and hanging out:

This weekend was relatively laid back after the last couple. On Friday night I went to a BBQ with a small group of people from the college group at church. We went to a small park SE of Stuttgart [Here], with a view out over the city. One of the guys (Micah) is able to get stuff from on base (near the church), so we had good 'ole american burgers. (He also hooked me up with peanut butter... the main american staple I was missing.) Both Micah and another guy (Martin) play guitar so we made sure there were a couple acoustics out there and jammed late into the night until we got rained out at around 2 by a thunderstorm.

On Saturday I took my token trip to France for the summer. I went to Strasbourg (The "Capital of Europe"), which is just over the border from Germany--about a 2 hour train ride [Here]. It dates back to medieval times, and quite a few of the buildings and a few towers have survived. They were having a huge flea market thing where half the city was trying to sell cheap sandals, flashy clothes, and glitzy jewelry to the other half of the city and the tourists. There were endless booths clogging the streets block after block in the old city and it got somewhat oppressive.

Tallest cathedral in France

The old city was nice enough when I could get free of the congestion. It has the tallest cathedral tower in France, in the gothic style. Several waterways meandered around the area, and there were many flat-bottomed tourist barges navigating the locks and channels. There were also a lot of pedestrian streets lined with buildings that could have dated from the medieval times.

European parliament

I wandered along the main river out to the European parliament buildings. This is the central meeting point of the EU. It was a modern campus [Here], right at the crossing of two waterways. After this, I wandered back around to the remaining towers on the other side of the old city, chilled at a park for a while, then caught a train back at around 5:00.

Medieval fortifications

Everyone's heard stories about the French, but after going there myself, I believe half of them. I don't speak a word of French, and even though I was less than a mile from the German border, they simply would not respond in anything but French. (I found out German is no better than English here... both would get annoyed looks and a slur of french in return.) So yeah. France. Been there, done that.


Sunday I went to church, then about a dozen of the college group went out and grabbed Döners--a delicious turkish fast food consisting (usually) of pitas stuffed with flavorful meat, veggies, and an indescribably unique but good sauce. (They are all over in Europe... I can only hope they make it to America sometime soon!) We all went to a nearby park and ate. Coincidently a couple acoustic guitars had been thrown in, so a good portion of the rest of the day was spent hanging out in the park playing guitar. All in all, it was a good weekend of jamming on guitar, chilling with people from church, and forming my own opinions about France.

Swiss Alps (AKA heaven on earth)

I am sitting on a wooden bench, high in the Swiss Alps. The sun twinkles through the leaves above and a gentle alpine breeze disturbs the warm air. My eye traces down the colorful meadow falling steeply before me, soon lost in the tips of trees as the terrain drops to the hidden valley floor far below. On the other side, forest and meadow quickly give way to rushing waterfalls and shear rock faces, capped by glaciers and jagged spires. The three sunstreaked peaks loom far above me, flanked by rugged ridges and framed by deep blue sky, so close I can feel their magnitude. Flirting butterflies draw my attention back, as a friendly local tiger-striped cat settles next to me on the bench for a nap. As I close my eyes, I listen to the gentle tinkle of cowbells and the distant rushing waters and deeply breathe the wildflower-scented alpine air. This is about as good as it gets.

...and that was just yesterday.

I'm not sure how much more needs to be said about my long weekend in Switzerland, but for the sake of filling in between pictures I'll give it a shot. I took off Saturday morning (alone) by train and arrived in Zürich, Switzerland (or "Züri to the locals) late morning. I took a couple hour layover here and walk around the downtown area. Zürich [Here - train station at top, N tip of lake at bottom] is a very nice city, with the highest standard of living in the world. It is situated right on the edge of a large turquoise-blue lake and is known for banking, cheese and chocolate. Saw a couple cathedrals, some cool buildings, etc, but this is not what I was searching for on this trip.

Zurich Lakefront

I caught a local train down to Luzern (Lucerne), then a scenic train to Interlaken. The scenic train went through heavily mountained regions, from lush river valley, through a tunnel to a deep blue lake through another tunnel to another valley, etc. Interlaken [Here] translated directly means "between lakes", and the reason should be readily apparent from the satellite view. After a quick layover, I caught a local train up to Lauterbrunnen [Here] where I would spend the next two nights. I was greeted by a torrential thunderstorm. Things got better from there, though!

View from my hostel room... not bad!

*Since google maps is low res in this region, from here on you can refer to a local map of the jungfrau region, found here. This is an external link*

My hostel was right in the middle of the valley, on a small rise with a beautiful view up a valley which shames Yosemite. (Especially since there were only some tourists, not floods!) That evening I walked up the valley a mile or two to view several of the 800+ foot waterfalls cascading down. The tallest waterfall (1000 feet) is right above Lauterbrunnen, and a path was hollowed out of the cliff wall to walk behind it. Once outside the town, the countryside was dotted with quaint local farmhouses and barns. The weather was moody, and I barely made it back to my room before the next thunderstorm hit.

Walking up the valley

Sunday, the weather was a bit better. I got up early, and hiked up the steep valley walls to Wengen (a car-free town accessible only by train) then on up to Männlichen. After just under 3 hours of hiking, I was 5000 feet above Lauterbrunnen but probably not much more than that away from it on a 2D map. (lots of switchbacks!) The hike led through woods that could have been in the Pacific NW, then into high steep alpine meadows carpeted with wildflowers and dotted with grazing sheep.

Looking down on Wengen and Lauterbrunnen (below)

The sky was patched with clouds, and a small raincloud formed right in the direction I wanted to hike (toward the mountains). So I got a little wet, but only for a few minutes. I continued on to Kleine Scheidegg and then to Eigergletscher, right at the base of the sheer rock cliffs of Eiger mtn.

Raincloud between me and the mountains

All these locations are accesible by train or gondola (so there were quite a few other people up there), but this also meant I could hike all day from point to point and always have water sources. Of course there was food available, too, but I had brought mine (cheapest meal I saw was in the range of 25 franks or $20). There is a world-famous train ride up to Jungfrauhoch at 11,000 feet (observatory, restaurant, glaciers up there), but it came at a price that would have tripled what I spent for the entire weekend, so I opted out of it this time.

Some of the abundant alpine wildflowers

I then hiked back around to Wengen through Wengeralp and returned to Lauterbrunnen at around 7pm, to make an 11 hour hike in all. The next day (Monday), I checked out of the hostel, loaded up on food from the grocery store again (Where food is much more reasonably priced), and set off up the other side of the valley toward Winteregg.

Goats at the foot of Eiger

Looking down the valley from Mürren

After the 2500 foot climb out of the valley, the trail was (relatively) flat, and I enjoyed the picture-perfect sunny weather. This side of the valley had fewer tourists, more forest, and more fabulous views of the mountains. (First three pics of post) All too soon, it was time to head back to Lauterbrunnen to catch the 4:00 train out. After the seven hour hike, I was ready to have the scenery come to me, as I enjoyed the rail trip out. This time my route took me through Bern and back to Zurich, where I nailed a close connection to get me back to Stuttgart at around 10:00.

Overall, it was the best weekend I've had in quite a while. Despite Switzerland's reputation for expensiveness, I was able to do the entire weekend for less than 60 Fr (~$50), not counting the Eurail pass. Not a bad deal for a weekend surrounded by such amazing beauty...

Haven't quit my day job yet...

So with all these travel posts, I suppose it is not obvious that I'm still working here in Germany. I am in fact holding down my full-time job just fine. The work is still quite interesting and varied. The most notable thing I've done is build my first ultrasonic motor. It is a very simple design, but upon throwing ~120 volts at 26 KHz at it, the rotor spun at a decent 150 RPM or so. It's certainly not the most effecient motor (the heat generated melted the first generation plastic tensioning device!), but its a clean, simple demonstration of ultrasonic power.

My first ultrasonic motor (1st gen). If you are interested in how it works, email me.

I'm already hard at work on a more complex but much stronger linear motor. The realtime labview computer system still hasn't shown up, so I haven't been able to play with closed loop control of these motors yet. I still enjoy the people I work with, as well. The annual BBQ for my institute (maybe 10 working people plus students and families) was last Thursday out at a park, and was quite enjoyable.

Heidelberg Conference:

This weekend marked two important events of the summer. First, its the halfway point of my time here in Germany (already!) and secondly, all the North American students who are here through the same program (about 200) met for a conference in Heidelberg. I left Stuttgart Thursday afternoon and got to the youth hostel [Here] by 3:00. Opening remarks for the conference happened later that afternoon at the nearby University of Heidelberg (the oldest university in the world).

Heidelberg old city and Castle from across river

Saturday, the majority of the day was spent doing a company tour. Groups went to several different comanies in the area, and I was with the group going to Heidelberger Druckmaschinen. They make large commercial printers (the type that print 150,000 pages in an hour, fill a whole room, and cost over 3 million euro), which are apparently the highest quality on the market. Their factory was huge and they were making a lot of large, high precision parts, but truthfully I couldn't really get excited about printers. It was interesting, but compared to the Porsche factory, well... enough said.

That evening, the whole group went to the Heidelberg Cultural Brewery for dinner. The next day (Saturday) there was another short meeting, then the conference concluded with a guided tour of the town and castle. The town is very touristy, with a couple cathedrals and a long shopping street, but the central point is really the castle [Here]. We got a bunch of history thrown at us, but in short the castle has been around a long time and was partially destroyed/rebuilt more than once. The castle still shows heavy damage, but parts have been rebuilt even in the last several decades. The castle also holds the world's larges wine barrel, with a capacity of 220,000 liters (20 feet dia x 35 long)



Damaged fortifications of Heidelburg castle

What happens when Civil engineers don't do their job (or the French set off the powder armory) ->

After the tour, I struck off for the afternoon hiking up the hills on both sides of the river (1000/1500 feet above the river). On one side [Here] were some ruins of varying epochs, going as far back as the Roman Empire. One ruined middle ages cloister had a tower rebuilt which was open to climb. There were also some fairly extensive ruins of a monastery and a Nazi pagan worship ampitheater known as a thingstätte. On the other side of the river [Here] was a viewpoint accesible by vernicular, although I opted to take the trail, with 1200 some odd rock steps along the way.

Monastery ruins. The small semicircle in the middle is the location of an older Roman temple

The weather was absolutely perfect both Saturday and Sunday, hanging right around 28 degrees (85 F) without a cloud in the sky. After checking out from the hostel on Sunday, several of us went to a nearby swimming pool/park and just chilled for most of the day. After dinner back in the old town we all went to the train station and headed home. It was a long weekend and a good chance to meet students from all over the USA and Canada, and Heidelberg is a nice little town to spend a weekend in.

Porsche Heaven:

Well, its been a busy week for blog posts! This morning I had a factory tour of the Porsche factory in Zuffenhausen (a suburb of Stuttgart). Upon stepping out of the S-bahn station, I was immediatly surrounded by brand spanking new Porsches: Carreras, Cayennes, and Caymans. As I walked through the complex to the Porsche museum (the meeting point for the tour), a couple GT3's cruised by with the protective film still on the fenders, having been finished just minutes before.

The tour was incredibly interesting for an engineering student who loves Porsches, and I can only begin to go into the interesting things I saw. (No pictures were allowed inside the production area.) Every Porsche is custom ordered and the cars are built to spec (on the same production line!) in exactly the order they were ordered. Everything is thoroughly modern and computer monitored, but most of the assembly is done by skilled workers who can accomodate the different models. They turn out 150 cars per day, and it takes only 400 minutes to assemble a complete Porsche on the two-level assembly line.

Because the facility is extremely compact with no room to grow, everything operates on a "just in time" principle. This means, for instance, that there is room for only 6 sets of axles in the queu. A car goes by every 5 minutes, so the delivery truck comes from the supplier every 30 minutes preloaded with the next 6 pairs of axles that go with the next 6 cars that are on the line. The carpets, the interior pieces, and every other thing that can be customized is delivered in order ready to seamlessly meld into the apparently random order of the assembly line. Its amazing it works at all, but apparently problems are rare.

The engine shop was also very interesting. All the engines for every Porsche come from Zuffenhausen, and each is hand assembled by one worker from start to finish. The ones destined for cars assembled on site are lined up according to the assembly line order and taken two at a time to the assembly building.

911 Turbo engine cutaway in the museum

Our hour-and-a-half tour finished back at the small but well-equipped museum, where about 20 porsches were displayed, from vintage to racing cars to the modern supercar (Carrera GT). I think the Carrera GT is about the best looking car ever created, so seeing one in person was amazing. I bought a nice hardcover coffee table book covering the 911 for a quite decent price of 15€.

Wow. So many Porsches in one morning. All of them beautiful, even in the early stages of assembly. Its been a good day...

One of 1400 Carrera GT's that will ever exist

A nice Sunday afternoon:

After church at IBC on Sunday, I went over to have dinner with Wolfgang Schmidt and family. It was quite nice to have some home-cooked food and conversation. After dinner, Wolfgang took me on a walking tour of a nearby part of Stuttgart where he grew up. Stuttgart is surrounded by hills which yield nice vistas of the city, and our tour took us up and down several. We descended into Stuttgart on a cogged (geared) railcar down the steep slope, then proceeded through several small suburbs connected by Stäffele, or staircases over the hills.

Stuttgart panorama: TV tower visible at right

Along the way, Wolfgang pointed out such things as the house he grew up in, his kindergarten, the family garden up on one of the hills, etc. It was quite interesting to hear and see what had changed over the years and what was the same. We re-ascended the large perimeter hill of Stuttgart on a cable-drawn railway to complete the loop. It was a nice long walk which took a good portion of the afternoon, and we went back to the Schmidt house for supper.

Somewhere along the way I mentioned missing having a guitar here in Europe. As it turns out, Monica (Wolfgang's wife) had one I could borrow that had been just sitting in a closet for years. It was in good shape, and with some restringing it was good to go! So now I feel much more at home, having a voice for my itching fingers... I must have played for at least 2 hours last night. It was beautiful!

Schloss Neuschwanstein:

Ever since I was a child and my aunt brought me a poster of Neuschwanstein from Germany, I have wanted to go there and see the fairy tale castle. On Saturday, I was able to fulfill this wish. It was quite the travel itenerary to get there, because it is in a very out-of-the-way location. [Here, but low-res] In each direction it took a S-bahn, an ICE (fast) train, a large local train, then a small local train, a bus ride, and (for us) a 5 km walk. (We could have taken a bus this last leg, but at tourist rates. The walk was along a nice bike trail) However, all the transfers were smooth and it took only 4 hours each way.

Neuschwanstein from Marienbrücke (bridge)

We (for the most part) lucked out on the weather. It was raining right before we got there, and it began raining while we were walking back to Füssen (to catch the bus home), but in between it was nice and the sun even came out hazily from time to time. When we got there, we purchased our tickets for the interior tour (a relative bargain at 8€ for the student rate) and then hiked up the hill the castle is situated on.

View from the castle up the gorge

One thing that is not evident in most of the pictures is the sheer ruggedness of the mountian right behind it--most pictures are taken from this direction pointing away from the mountain. The view from the castle this way is several hundred feet of sheer granite cliff. There is also a bridge (Marienbrücke) crossing the gorge with amazing views.

Front facade

The tour inside the castle was amazing, but no photos were allowed so I will attempt to paint a picture with words. Most of the interior was richly decorated with dark, ornate carved wood trim, muted reds, greens, and blues, and paintings of scenes from Richard Wagner's operas. King Ludwig and Wagner were good friends, and the whole interior of the castle is dedicated to the fairy tales of Wagners operas. It was said that Ludwig (mentally insane by the time he died) was trying to create his own fairy tale world within the castle. The paintings on the walls throughout the castle are lucious and colorful, depicting vivid scenes. The throne room was in the Byzantine style, with an abundance of gold, the heavens painted on the ceiling above, a huge chandelier, and a 10 million piece mosiac for a floor. His private chambers were medieval style, with even more ornate wooden trim all around and on his bed. Then there was an artifical cave leading from his room, and the singers hall, which took the entire top floor of the castle and was decorated with marble and rich colors. Absolutely amazing.

Inside the castle courtyard

View from above. Neuschwanstein is just behind the shoulder of the mountain, level with my head.

After the tour, we hiked up the mountain (Hohenschwangau) right behind the castle quite a ways. It got beautifully rugged towards the top, and (even better) we left all the tourists behind. A couple of us got up about 2500 feet above the town which got us some very good views of the castle (practically on top of it!) and the surrounding lakes.

Schloss Neuschwanstein (lower right) and surroundings

It was an amazing hike and a good chance to see some of the Bavarian alps. After we decended, we made tracks back to Füssen and did the 4-hour journey in reverse. You meet alot of interesting people on the trains around Europe. On one leg coming back I chatted with a lawyer from Australia for while, on another with a german guy who goes around the world designing opera sets. Very interesting.

View to the south into the alps. Germany on the left, Austria on the right.

To round off the day, we pulled into Stuttgart right as the world cup game was ending... Germany was playing Portugal for third place and ended up solidly beating them 3-1. Since the fan fest was only a couple hundred meters from the train station, we walked on through the throngs of thousands of exuberant German fans. It was quite the experience... Hosting the World Cup has really united Germany with national pride that has not been present since before the world wars, if ever.

All in all it was an 18 hour day of solid travel, walking, and seeing things. Doesn't get much better than that...

Lange Nacht der Wissenschaft:

The University of Stuttgart had an interesting event on Friday night, which translated directly is "long night of Science." It's basically an open house where all the labs are open late into the night showing off their cool stuff. The university is very applied, so there was plenty of interesting stuff to see. One was a model-scale wind tunnel in action (complete with smoke wand testing of a model). They have a world class full size wind tunnel, but it was in top secret mode because an unnamed car company was doing testing at the time.

Small wind tunnel at Uni Stuttgart

Also of interest was a huge (!!!) laser shining from the tall physics building. After dark, they pointed it the local Max Planck Instutute, well over a mile away. It made a huge green dot and could be easily traced all the way there through the atmosphere. (I don't suppose this was any sort of warfare since the scientists at Max Planck did not retaliate.) The line came nearby my apartment and it was incredibly erie to have a perfectly straight green line sticking through the night nearby.


Target of huge laser in the night from my balcony (No photoshop - it was that bright!)

There was plenty of other interesting stuff to see, especially in the large automotive department, but its not necessary to go into detail. It was a fun evening to just see what kind of stuff is going on in a German university.

5th of July

Last night I was treated to a plasma show that far eclipsed the the pyrotechnics of the night before (see 4th of July post). I was out walking around the campus at around sunset last night and the horizon began getting very dark... in the direction the sun should have been setting. By the time I got back to my room it was dark, the wind was gusting at probably 40 mph, and there were almost constant lightning flashes on two sides, although the rain had not hit. We're talking flashes every second or so... enough to make a celebrity jealous.

I went on up to my partially covered balcony (which again conveniently faced the right direction), grabbed my camera, and watched the show. It went on for probably an hour, with lighting literally all around, even bolts stretching across the sky overhead. One thunderclap was intense enough that it felt like someone actually pushed me back a little. I don't think I have ever experienced such an intense lightning storm, and the sheer energy of it was amazing.

Lightning show from my balcony (fully nighttime)

This morning it was bright and sunny again. I went on a factory tour (with my lab) of PI, the world leader in micro and nano postioning devices, piezo motors and several other things. They had a very nice facility near Karlsruhe [Here - so new its just just a vacant lot in the satellite image], about a 45 minute drive away. They had some very nice demos set up and it was very informative. Even though all the speaking was in German, a couple of the powerpoint presentations and all the posters were in English, because they had been used at conferences. They design and manufacture everything from motors as small as 3mm in diameter to 6-axis positioning stages a couple feet high. Overall, I was able to figure out most of what was going on, so that made things much more interesting.

4th of July

Well, for those of you wondering whether there's a 4th of July in Germany, the answer is yes. However, they don't normally celebrate anything. This year was an exception since Germany was playing in the semifinals, but the fußball crowd was a bit subdued as Italy claimed the victory 2-0. (On a side note, this means Germany will battle the winner of today's game for 3rd place, happening here in Stuttgart on Friday.)

However, I got a pleasant taste of home last night. There was a relatively large fireworks show at the US military base about a mile away (near the church) which I had a decent view of from my balconey! The first couple booms at around 10pm drew me out of my room and I greatly enjoyed the 10 minute show. Obviously, it was missing a few factors, such as friends and a BBQ, but it was way better than what I expected for the 4th (nothing).

Still not sure where I'll go this weekend, but probably somewhere in the country. Neuschwanstein perhaps...

Fireworks view from my balcony

No kangaroos in Austria...

Yes, it's a sad but true fact that a T-shirt in Salzburg stated, but I had a wonderful weekend in Austria despite the lack of marsupials. Myself and two other american students (Chad and Dallas) caught the four-hour train from Stuttgart at 5:50am. (yes. I know. but we wanted as much time as possible there.) In Salzburg we met up with a couple other american students in the same program, one of whom lived nearby, and set of to see the city.

As a whole, Salzburg [Here, but winter for some reason] has a lot to see, but its all packed into a fairly small area by the River Salzach and flanked by substantial hills on both sides of the river. One of these hills has been fortified since the before the middle ages and the entire hill seemed to have walls and towers growing out of the rock. The top is dominated by the multi-tiered Hohensalzburg fortress, which exudes a very commanding precense of the area.

Hohensalzburg Fortress, from across the river

There were several amazing cathedrals all within a couple blocks of each other. A couple of these were amazingly ornate, with delicate stone carving all the way to the lofty arches and huge paintings on the ceilings. The feeling a walking into these lofty, delicate stone vaults is indescribable. Somewhere halfway between a vast cave and a palace/museum.

Largest cathedral in Salzburg. The display visible at the end is about 4 stories tall

Nearby was St. Peter;s, another smaller cathedral that dated from several epochs earlier. It was nestled right up against the shear fortified cliffs but several buildings were built up into the cliff face over a shallow system of caves known as the catacombs. Crypts were visible form inside, but no artifacts on display.

Catacombs at St. Peter's from below. Don't miss the very upper left part.

After perusing most of the other sights in downtown (Including Mozart's birthplace and Mozart's residence and Mozart's this and Mozart's that), we hiked on up the fortress hill which provided views of both the city and of the different lines of fortifications that had been built up over the years. Many were just like I'd imagined: Old castle walls and arches overgrown but reasonable intact. The walls of the main fortress were nothing short of monumental from up close, and it was hard to tell where the cliff ended and the walls began.

Old remains of a wall on the fortress hill

We were lucky enough to be at Salzburg the weekend of a big festival there, but compared to the World Cup festivites in Germany, it seemed downright tame. But we got to see a parade and get some of the street food (roasted half a chicken... so good!) that Salzburg is supposedly well known for. We hiked up the hill on the other side of the river, got a beautiful sunset, then checked into our hotel and (finally) met up with the other student from Stuttgart who was planning on coming with us. (Life is different without cell phones!)

After a restful night at the hotel (quite nice and not extremely expensive... all the hostels had been booked so it was actually the cheapest place available) and a good breakfast, we set out for our Sunday activities. Turns out the student from the Salzburg area had a company car to use, so all six of us drove about 40 kilometers along the edge of the alps to the seven lakes region. There are a series of seven large (scale of kilometers) lakes nestled in the foothils of the alps, right [Here]. Did I mention it was absolutely beautiful?!

Wolfgangsee in Austrian alps foothills

All of us decided to opt out of the 26€ train ride to the top of a nearby mountain, but instead those of us feeling energetic blasted up a trail for a bit over an hour and probably got close to 3 miles in and 2000 feet up. Got into some absolutely cliche alps territory! Goats and little houses and steep slopes... Even hit some snow in a ravine with some (small) ice caves. I cannot wait to get deeper into the alps some future weekend!

A (flat) meadow in the Alps

After that, we drove back to the city to get one of girls to her train and the rest of us just chilled in a park and played cards for an hour or so until we caught our train back to Stuttgart. I think I will always remember this weekend as the trip that everything "just worked out." (There are more reasons for this than mentioned... close connections, not knowing how to contact each other, etc) But literally everything worked out nicely and I am left with great memories of Austria!