On Tuesday, we went to Trier (wikipedia here and here). Trier is one of the oldest cities in Germany, founded in 15 BC. With a lot of history, there are a lot of sights to see. I was most interested in -- and we focused on -- the Roman stuff. Actually, I was ridiculously excited about Trier and worried that it wouldn't be as cool as I hoped. In fact, it was cooler.
This is the Porta Nigra, the "black gate." Built between 180 and 200 AD, it is essentially two towers with a narrow courtyard between two sets of gates. In the Middle Ages, the gates were saved from disrepair when it was incorporated into a church (they took down the church later).
Somewhat embarrassing personal aside: Before my trip, the presence of the Porta Nigra was the only thing I knew about Trier and the only thing on my 'must see' list. This is probably not in small part because this is the logo of the high school I went to.
The other side of the gate: 
Looking up from between the gates:
Looking down from the upper floors:
Looking across:
Inside one of the towers:
The view south to the Hauptmarkt (the tower is the church in the Hauptmarkt):
Just east of the Hauptmarkt is the Dom. Standing outside, my friends were unimpressed but changed their minds after seeing the interior.
A little south of the Dom is the Konstantinbasilika built in 310 AD. It was the throne hall of Constantine and its dimensions are 67m long, 36m high (11(?) stories!). It was part of the prince-electors' residence and now it is a Protestant church. 
Attached to the south side of the basilika is the rest of the prince-electors' residence. 
The Kaiserthermen (Imperial Baths) built in the 4th century AD are just south of the basilika. I should mention that all the Roman things we visited charged 2.10 euros for entry, and we bought a discount card for all of them for 6.20 euros (saving us 2 euros!). Okay, I don't know how the baths were organized or the history (Googling suggests that they were never finished), but this was the coolest place (possibly ever).
On one side was the remnants of the building.
On the far side, a lawn. In the middle, there were a maze of paths on the surface and tunnels just below to explore. 
Here you can see some students (there aren't a lot of tourists in Trier in March) heading down. 
Heading toward that dark hall. 
Underneath, the halls are lit by tiny skylights ...
which you can see on the grass. 
We also went to the Amphitheater. 
The stairs in the center allow tourists to see the rooms underneath.
The Viehmarktthermen were discovered during construction of a parking garage. They built a big glass cube over it. 
Here the remains of monastery (back) that lies over the Roman ruins (wall in foreground).
Unfortunately, we only had the one day there. There were sights that we didn't get to and definitely we could have spent more time at the ones we did see. We had dinner in Trier at a restaurant that advertised recipes inspired by a 2000-year-old cookbook discovered during excavations. I noticed that we were the only ones in the restaurant eating the "Roman" fare. But it wasn't bad.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Trier
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Marksburg Castle
With some friends visiting, I took Monday off, and we went to Marksburg Castle. A little south of Koblenz in Braubach, the castle advertises as "the only hill castle on the Rhine that has never been destroyed." The oldest parts of the castle date to the 12th century and it's rather awesomely medieval-y.
You have to take the tour to see the castle, but -- unlike a lot of other castles on the Rhine -- it's open year round. In general, the tour is German-only (with an information sheet offered in several different languages). A lot of English speakers happened to show up when we were there and the tour guide very kindly did the tour in both English and German. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to take a lot of pictures.
The Riders' Stairway (ride your horse into the castle and straight to the stable):
Old cannons: 
The walls are incredibly thick. My information sheet says 4.5m, although I thought the tour guide said 3.5m. At points, they cut into the walls to make window alcoves. This also meant that it was pretty dim inside and not so good for taking pictures.
This is the great banqueting hall. It's pretty small (maybe the size of my 40 square meter apartment). That door leads to the bathroom. In typical medieval castle style, the toilet hangs over the outside of the castle walls so the waste drops outside. The door wasn't for privacy. It was never closed unless the castle was under attack. Then, it was locked to prevent enemy soldiers from climbing the castle walls and into the castle through the toilet. 
There was a lot of other cool stuff like a collection of armor from 600 BC to 1500 AD, the torture chamber, and the tiny stone stairway that was designed to be too small for invading soldiers to draw their swords.
There's a ton of castles on the Rhine. Here's a picture of what I think is a fortress right above the Koblenz train station. 
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Tübingen
Tübingen is the adorable little town that Sean has been looking for in Germany. Bonn is too big, too modern. Heidelberg has a nice castle, but is a tourist trap. This is what wikipedia says about the charms of Tübingen: "The highlights of Tübingen include its crooked cobblestone lanes, narrow-stair alleyways picking their way through the hilly terrain, streets lined with canals and well-maintained traditional half-timbered houses."
Cute little street:
Bridge to building (not the cutest one, a couple of planks which crossed a tiny canal to what can only be described as a hobbit-sized door): 
Fachwerkhaus with lots of different dates on it and some sort of clock:
Rathaus with astronomical clock:
Markt am Rathaus:
We stayed at a hotel down the street from Schloß Hohentübingen. Here's the entrance to the Schloß: 
We took an excursion (conference excursion) to Hohenzollern Castle, a 40 minute drive away. Here's an awesome day/night picture of it.
From afar:
It's a pretty steep climb to the top. The view: 
The coiled path (through many gates) to the top: 
The chapel and some of the central courtyard: 
We took a pretty cool tour, which did not, however, explain this statue: 
Then, it snowed. 
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
In Bruges
Sean and I were in Brussels for the weekend and took a day trip to Bruges. You know, this place:
(Other cool bits to watch are here and here.)
Bruges is in the Flemish part of Belgium and features a lot of medieval buildings. Sean and I were rather lackadaisical about the sightseeing, just walking around, going up to the top of the belfry and taking a boat tour through the canals.
The Belfry:
From the top of the belfry:
On the boat:
Basilica of the Holy Blood:
Monday, February 16, 2009
Turning German
The cord on my MacBook power adapter melted some time last night. After exhausting all the possibilities that didn't involve riding my bike in the rain to the German Apple Store equivalent, I did just that and got a new power adapter. So over two years after I moved to Germany and a mere 8 months before the end of my job contract, my MacBook now has European power plugs. I'm sure they are going to come in handy in the U.S. 
This, of course, was the (inappropriate and inaccurate) song I was humming on the way back to my apartment:
Not useful for my mix.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Make a Mix for Me
What I really need to power through the next month or next few months is the right playlist. I'm thinking indie-electropop-dance, if I actually knew what that meant. So I'm throwing down the gauntlet: make a mix for me. I'll even get it started:
Ladyhawke - Magic (not an official video, duh):
Matt & Kim - Daylight
[Updated Feb. 17, 2009] Wow, you guys really went to town with the suggestions and I just spent an absurd amount of time clicking around youtube. So I'm going to keep this post updated with songs that piqued my interest. And I'll throw a couple songs on at the end that people can voice their opinion on. With the abundance of cool (and totally new to me) songs, I'm thinking that I'm straying from my original concept, but I guess you got to go where the road takes you.
Songs based on suggestions:
Alphabeat - Boyfriend (slick cheesy 80s pop song, but too slick?)
Santogold - L.E.S. Artistes
Parts & Labor - Nowheres Nigh
[Updated Feb. 20, 2009] Okay, still processing all the suggestions, but I thought I'd throw up one more song. I also added some comments about songs already posted. Then, for kicks, Yaz: doesn't fit on my playlist, but I enjoy the nostalgia.
Bloc Party - Banquet
Catchy or annoying?
MGMT - Kids (current verdict: annoying, but insidious)
Yeasayer - 2080 (current verdict: not annoying, but not sufficiently danceable)
Yaz
Only You
Bad Connection (how could anyone resist this?)
Totally irrelevant to the task at hand, but as long as I'm embedding videos
Amanda Palmer - Oasis
Monday, February 09, 2009
Construction
Today marks the beginning of a month-long construction project in the hallway right outside my office door. I can see them moving equipment into place already and I'm getting nervous. When they're set up, the only access to my office will be through the stairwell and through the construction zone (through possibly some sort of dust containment zone). Fantastic.
The plan is to install fire doors that will automatically close when smoke is detected. This is a long delayed and very important project given the current state of fire safety in this building. For one, all the fire doors to the stairwell are continuously propped open -- i.e., not so useful in a fire. But that's the kind of situation you find in buildings everywhere. The far more entertaining (and blogworthy) situation is that there are no fire alarms. Period. There is one button in the stairwell on the third floor. I have no idea what it does. What it doesn't do is set off audible alarms in the building to warn people. I know this because there are no speakers anywhere. Instead, on every floor there is a big locked box (opened by any building key). Inside this box is ... a megaphone. That's right, a megaphone. Hilarious.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Very Lazy Blogger
My last post was over a month ago ... how mortifying. Since then, I spent 3.5 weeks in the U.S. (didn't blog about that) and returned to Germany where unbelievably there's snow on the ground and the temperatures were below freezing for a week (took no photos and did not blog about that either). I'll get my act together eventually (I have high hopes for February through April).
In the meantime, a question. Should I try to watch and keep up with Joss Whedon's new show Dollhouse? Presumably, I have the time, and the technological/geographic difficulties can be worked out one way or another. I predicted correctly that Joss's last television show would have a quick and ignominious death and didn't watch it until several years later. The newest one doesn't scream 'cancellation' quite as hard, but still it's hard to be optimistic.
[Updated 7:12 PM] There is an old post entitled 'Lazy Blogger' (LB). I changed the title of this post from 'Extremely Lazy Blogger' (ELB) to 'Very Lazy Blogger' (VLB), so I could reserve ELB and maybe EVLB for the future. Dorky or brilliant? You decide.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Munich
I went to Munich last weekend to visit a friend. Here's the two-day tour.
On Saturday, we went to the center of town to see the Residenz. Right outside we saw the Theatinerkirche and Feldherrnhalle. The Residenz is a ginormous palace that housed Bavarian rulers from 1385 to 1918 (thanks Lonely Planet!). There are over 100 rooms open to the public. It's pretty ridiculous (and maze-like!) and we were tired of it way before we ran out of rooms to look at.
When we finally stumbled back out, we went to Marienplatz, the center of the Altstadt. Here's view of the Neues Rathaus from the Christmas market.
This being Germany in December, there was a Christmas market at the Residenz and another a few blocks away at Marienplatz. This one, however, was packed. Random aside: In Bonn, a Christmas market is called a Weihnachtsmarkt. In Munich, it's Christkindlmarkt.
We went to a late lunch at what Googling suggests was Weisses Brauhaus. They serve Schneider Bier (yum), and for what must be a very touristy place seemed remarkably German. We mostly wandered from Christmas market to Christmas market for the afternoon and had very yummy Indian food for dinner.
On Sunday, we had somewhat greater tourist aspirations. In the morning, we went to Nymphenburg. On the walk from the train, we saw this car and had to take a picture of it. 
Schloss Nymphenburg is ginormous. Here's the front of the main building.
But turning around, you can see that the outer building (the yellow ones) are very very far away. Behind the main building, the grounds and gardens are also huge. 
Unlike the Residenz, there are only something like 20 rooms to view. The most impressive is the first you see. 
One of the most famous rooms currently houses the Gallery of Beauties, a collection of 36 portraits of women whom Ludwig I (1786-1868) considered beautiful. According to the sign in the room, the collection has always been open to the public (classy!) and includes portraits of a shoemaker's daughter and Lola Montez, Ludwig's mistress. There is an incredibly entertaining (but probably half apocryphal) bio of her in my friend's Lonely Planet.
In the afternoon, we went to Dachau. It's a 20 minute train ride from the center of town.
The gate: 
Wall and guard tower: 
One set of barracks has been reconstructed: 
A museum has been installed in the maintenance building and in the back there are several churches and the crematorium.
After, we went back to Marienplatz and had some glühwein. It is remarkably good and good for keeping you warm even though you (and many, many others) are idiotically standing outside in the cold.