In retrospect:

Link: Full Res Europe travels map

Wow. To think all this happened from a department email that I almost mindlessly deleted. ("Research in Germany this summer" *del- wait, that sounds like fun!) This summer has been without a doubt one of the best experiences of my life thus far. Everything just worked out so well, and I've been blessed in so many ways its ridiculous. Not only did God provide for all my needs in a foreign country, I really can't think of any wants he left unfulfilled! I had a great job I enjoyed and learned from, a good place to live with miles of jogging trails right outside, a great english speaking church within walking distance, good friends (by the end of the summer), and the means to travel and see beautiful creations by both man and God, the master builder.

Well, I suppose a quick summary of the last couple days is in order. Monday afternoon I met up with Julian and we went to downtown Stuttgart for a bit. I had seen less of downtown Stuttgart than several of the other cities I had visited, so it was good to squeeze this in. Then we played mini golf up on one of the hills above town and went back to his parent's place for dinner. After a relatively short night of sleep, we woke up at 4:30 and Julian drove me to the nearby airport at 5:00. And thus began my long day of travel (Stuttgart->London->Philidelphia->Ithaca).

The tally for the trip? 4 X-ray security checkpoints, 2 friskings in London-Heathrow, 2 hands-on bag searches, 2 US customs stops, and one lost bag, which thankfully showed up the next day. I wouldn't call it uneventful, but at least everything was reasonably on schedule. Once in Ithaca, I was able to find and get a key for my apartment, and by the time I went to bed it had been pretty close to a 24 hour day.

So, I'll try to tie this up into some overall thoughts. First, what will I miss about Germany/Europe?

-The friends I made (and getting to see Julian again!)
-The local food and drink in southern Germany
-The windows that hinge both on the side and the bottom (ask me if you're curious... they're awesome!)
-Piling into a car with friends, a map, and a bunch of camping gear
-The autobahn (without stau!)
-Sunsets from my balconey
-2 Euro coins
-International Baptist Church - Stuttgart
-Being able to get anywhere in Europe by train

Things that I'll remember for a long time:
-World cup... being in Schlossplatz in Stuttgart right after Germany took third there!
-Porsche factory tour and the Mercedes museum
-The camping trip to Austria/Zugspitze
-100km bike ride in Hannover
-Long train rides
-staying up late jamming with Micah, Martin, and the crew
-Swiss Alps

Things I won't remember
-The names of any of the cathedrals
-All the differences between german and US keyboards
-I forgot the rest

So it's been a great summer, and I hope you faithful blog readeries have enjoyed my descriptions, perspectives, and pictures of my international adventure in Europe. At this point, my eyes are peeled for opportunites to go back! So, I'm signing off Eur06, but NY06 has already begun! NY06jh.blogspot.com

Exit Weekend:

Life is set to start moving fast. I checked out of my room this morning, and have been running around taking care of all the formalities. Tomorrow morning at 7:00 am (10pm Pacific time) my flight leaves from the Stuttgart airport. By 6:00pm (eastern time) I should be in Ithaca and (if all goes as planned) be in my apartment by 8:00pm ET. This would only be a 20 hour travel day in all, but I'm flying through London-Heathrow (recent terrorist attempts) so anything could happen. The day after tomorrow, I figure out what I want to do at Cornell this semester and try to find my way around a brand new place, then classes start the next day, on Thursday. Then, less than a week later I'm skipping a few days of school to fly back to Seattle to be in Tim's (friend from UW) wedding and see everyone, both of which I'm really looking forward to.

Life is crazy, but I love it.

Anyhow, I've been making use of my quickly dwindling time here. This last weekend, I went with the crew from church up to Nürnberg for a last weekend of adventures. We crashed at Martin's parents' house and truthfully spent most of the weekend just hanging out, playing guitar, and playing games. But we ventured into the city Saturday afternoon and saw the usual... a castle, a few cathedrals (one with the pipe organist praticing for the next day), and bunch of old building, etc. It really is a nice town, but I don't have time to upload any pics today.

This afternoon and evening I plan to spend with Julian and family (not sure what we'll do yet), then I'll sleep at their place since (1) I had to check out of my room today and (2) they live very close to the airport. Its amazing how everything this summer has just worked out nicely like this.

Well, I don't know when I'll have internet access next, but hopefully by the end of the week I'll post a conclusion to the summer and get the last of the summer pics up. But the adventure's not over... Tomorrow, enter NY06!

Mercedes-Benz Museum:

Besides Porsche, Stuttgart is also home to Mercedes-Benz (Nowdays part of the Daimler-Chrysler conglomeration). Their prescence is widely felt here, and even the main train station tower is topped by the 3-pointed star. Near their main production plant, there is a world-class museum that just opened earlier this summer.

Although I am not usually a big fan of modern achitecture, I was impressed by this 8-story building. It is in the shape of a rounded triange, with a huge open space at the core and the galleries housed in the lobes. The path through the museum starts at the top, then spirals down in a very organic manner, always with views of the next galleries from above. Both the interior and the exterior are characterized by broad, sweeping curves that just flow nicely throughout the building.

Mercedes-Benz Museum

By no means can I cover all the amazing exhibits (I spent nearly 4 hours there), but I'll try to concisely hit some of the highlights. Every visitor is given a PDA/headphone set that can download info from specific exhibits and introduce an exhibit when you walk in. It was like a tour guide that only talks when you want, about the things you want. It was nice.

Anyhow, Daimler and Benz both independently developed a "horseless carraige" within a few months and a few miles of each other around 1875. It wasn't until the post WW1 era that the two companies merged. In the early years, they fitted their new, light gas engine to everthing: Bicycles, boats, some early balloons, and of course carraiges and streetcars. Impeccably restored examples of all were on display.

As I worked my way down the spiral, I progressed through the decades and eras. Displays of world events between galleries completed the timeline effect. As to be expected, there were many rare and impeccable models... with guards well interspersed through the galleries. They had three examples of the rare and extrodinarily beautiful 300sl, which is my all-time favorite Mercedes.

In no way was the museum limited to just cars. Everything Mercedes has made, from trucks, busses, fire engines, car transporters, and snow plows, to bicycles, pope-mobiles and Dinosaur-proof SUV's (the Lost World) was represented. Of course the company's racing history was on display as well, with a sweeping "race track" holding 30+ models from many different series over the entire course of its history. Of interest to me were cutaways of an (actual) 1960's race car and a modern F1 car. My, how design philosophies have changed!

To round things out, they had several recent concept cars on display and a good technical exhibit of the processes used to make some of the parts (also of interest to me as an engineer). Back on the ground floor was a sales lot of sorts ("investigate" our current models, too!), but they had an SLR Mclaren ($450,000 dollar supercar) on display, so it was worth going by. Overall, I was very impressed with the museum and would recommend it to everyone... not just car nuts!

Road trip!

Well, only for a weekend. But the more significant part is that I was able to spend a weekend with friends from church and escape the inflexibility of rail travel. Four of us decided we'd go camping down in the Austrian/Bavarian alps, and set off Friday evening in Micah's old VW Jetta stuffed with camping gear and a couple guitars.

Its been abnormally cold and rainy in Europe the last couple weeks (highs in the 50's in Stuttgart!) so we were prepared for the wet and cold as we set up camp after dark Friday night. We were somewhere around [here] in Austria, well off the road near a small riverbed that looked like it gets serious water in the spring.

Plansee in northern Austria

The next morning we broke camp in dry weather and stopped to see the nearby Plansee [here] in the daylight. Then we headed around towards Garmish [Here], a sizable Bavarian town nestled in the mountains. Nearby is the highest mountian in Germany (The Zugspitze... 10,000ft [Here]) where we hiked around. The trail we picked started off along a large creek, then began rising abruptly as we reached the shear cliffs at the end of the valley. But partway up was a small "hut" that was accesible by trail blasted out of the rock. There are huts all through the mountains in Europe, and they are basically sophisticated hiking shelters that usually are staffed and have food available. This hut guarded the entrance to a deep, narrow gorge (Höllental- valley of hell) that we would return by.

^ Hiking around the Zugspitze. The location of the hut (far below) is noted.

Valley, looking toward the Zugspitze >

Trail "crossing"... The other trail was down about 200 feet!>>

The trail then turned to "experienced hikers only" as a sign warned of dangerous terrain and for those with fear of heights to turn back. This latter was justified with a precarious section of the trail with cliff up and down from the trail. As we progressed up a steep, narrow valley, what appeared to be rejoining of the trails on the map was in fact a 200ft miss... in the vertical direction!

We eventually rejoined the pale blue stream that threaded through the massive shoulders of the mountians and began following it down into Höllental. All I can say is WOW! The gorge was on average maybe 30ft wide and 200-300ft deep, and it had severe contortions from the action of the raging stream. The trail was either a shelf blasted safely above the stream or a serious of narrow tunnels with openings every few yards.

Gorge from the bridge

Trail in Höllental... more than a mile of this! ^

Bridge from the gorge. It didn't rain on the hike, but it was pouring down here.

After emerging from the gorge at the hut, we made our way back to the car. Micah stopped into the US compound at Garmish and picked up fixings for good 'ole american burgers. (Handy traveling with an american with such priveleges!) This time we found a road heading way up the side of a hill (actually not to far from where we spent the previous night) and BBQ'd up some monster burgers.

The next morning (Sunday now) we got up at the crack of dawn, packed out, and drove back to Stuttgart (3 hours) in time to get Martin to church to play in the second service. The autobahn is amazing early sunday mornings. Except that Jettas seem to have limiters at 135mph. After a great service, a bunch of us went out for döners again, and after getting a shower, we went over to Martin's place for jamming, games, and a movie to round out the weekend. I think I'm gonna miss these people.

Schwarzwald (Black Forest):

After some productive days at work, I took today (Wednesday) off to go on a long-awaited trip to the Black Forest with Wolfgang (Julian's father). Technically, the north end of the Black Forest comes within 15 miles of where I live. However, the most scenic parts are in the south, not all that far from the Swiss border (about a 2.5 hour drive from Stuttgart... without Stau). The Black Forest is characterized (botanically) by an unusually high density of fir trees which grow close together in places and let little light through (hence the name). This is actually quite unusual in Europe, although relatively common in the Pacific NW.

Typical Black Forest countryside. Belchen is the highest point shown.

Typical Black Forest dwellings. Characterized by steep, beveled roofs and located in valleys.

We set out hiking around 10:00 and progressed through several kilometers of black forest. Our goal was to climb Belchen [here], the second highest mountain in the forest. Although at 4500 feet some might consider it a "high hill", we nonetheless ended up with a very nice 360 degree view of the rolling coutryside. The area has been settled for a long time, and there was more meadow (carved out of the forest at some point) than I expected, but it only served to enhance the views of the forest. We had lunch at the Gasthof (inn) near the top (there was a gondola to this point), and I chose a selection of local meats and wursts, which included Black Forest Ham of course.

We returned a different way through several small villages nestled in the valleys and a small lake. All in all, it was a good 15km hike through some of the most beautiful parts of the Black Forest. After rounding out the day with some delicious Schwarzwaldkuche (Black Forest cake), we headed on back to Stuttgart.

Authentic Black Forest cake... makes me hungry just looking.

First familiar face:

Wow. After 8 weeks of new faces, it was nice to hang out this weekend with someone I've known for longer. Julian came to Washington to visit my family a couple times in the last few years for long enough to become friends. His family is from Stuttgart (See several previous posts), but he is studying to be a doctor up in Hannover (about 4 hours north by train). Now that his exams are over, we had the time to hang out for a whole weekend.

I caught the high speed (250 kph) train Friday afternoon, and we met up at the station and walked over to his flat [Somewhere around here]. The first two weeks of August, Hannover has a huge festival that stretches around a large man-made lake (Machsee... here) near the middle of town. We went on down there, grabbed some food, and caught up on the last couple years before heading back to get some sleep for the next day.

Machsee at dusk

Julian, ready to roll!

Saturday, I borrowed a bike from one of his flatmates and we packed some lunches and set off to see one of the largest lakes in Germany: the Steinhuder Meer. Despite a 70% chance of rain, the day began beautifully as we traced the bicycle paths out of the city and deep into the countryside. Northern Germany is much flatter than the southern part, but still beautiful in its own way. By lunchtime we had made it to the lake [here], some 40km away. It is a popular tourist spot for people around the region, and there were uncountable sailboats out on the water.




Steinhuder Meer

We circled the lake, got ice cream at one of the small tourist towns on the shore, and headed back towards Hannover as the clouds began rolling in. We managed to dodge all but one of the roving rainstorms, but there was a convenient underpass to wait it out under, so all was good. By the time we got back at 5:00, we had done close to 100 km (on mountain bikes!) and both of us were exhausted. We went back to the Machsee later that evening to watch the local swimming clubs swim the length of the lake (maybe 3km) with torches. In true German fashion, they floated their beer along with them on little rafts.

Torchlit procession in the Machsee

Sunday was a bit more laid back. We walked the old city in the morning, then got back on the bikes (ouch) after lunch and rode through the local forest to Julian's university/hospital. After more ice cream we rode around the Machsee and made it back for dinner before I caught my train back in the evening. Fortunately Julian is coming back to Stuttgart here in under a week, so I'll have more opportunities to hang out before I leave for New York in about two weeks.