20091012-0937 CEST - Berlin (again)

Sorry for the lack of updates. Life is hectic as usual. My parents are here in Germany for 10 days. We're in Berlin right now, about to head out to a couple museums and the free walking tour. Tuesday we'll drive down to Munich, and from there into the weekend we'll go to Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, France, and Luxembourg. No rest for the traveler! I'll post more when I get back to Wiesbaden and my life settles down a bit. Oh wait. My life never settles down. ;)

20090829-2232 CEST - Berlin

Yay! This is the last post to catch up for when Jannine and Nathan were here. Finally! I'm pretty tired, and need to get up at 4:00 am to leave on a work trip, so I'm not really going to write much about our trip to Berlin. I'm pretty much just going to post the pictures, and give you a link to the free tour that we went on. Here are the pictures:

I already posted this last one back in March, right when I got back, but here it is again to refresh your memory.

That's it for now. I'll be back in a week, and then if plans hold off to Luxembourg for the holiday weekend. I still need to stitch and post pictures from Turkey, Köln, Poland, Scotland, Norway, Iceland, and Poland again, as well as a few other odds and ends that I've taken along the way. You have so much to look forward to. ;)

20090816-1515 CEST - Dresden

These have actually been stitched for a long time, and I just got around to posting them. Back in March, when Jannine and Nathan were visiting, we stopped in Dresden on the way from Prague to Berlin. We were only there for a few hours, but I managed to snap several panoramas. (Surprised?) The first is the three of us in the main square:

After we took that picture, Jannine wanted to do some shopping, so Nathan and I headed up into the church that you can see in the square. I took four panoramas up there:

The weather was kind of boring, and they wouldn't let me use a tripod, so they came out kind of blah. After we were done taking pictures, we met up with Jannine, piled into the car, and headed off to Berlin. I have a little more work to do on the Berlin pictures before posting them, but I should be able to get them done this week.

20090810-2228 CEST - Blinds (finally!)

Guess what I did tonight instead of working on pictures!? I put up some roller blinds in my living room. I had been living like a bachelor, for the last year and a half, with blankets up in my windows.

I'll repeat that.

I HAD BLANKETS IN MY WINDOWS!!

If you ever needed proof that I suck at life, there you have it. A year and a half, and I finally put up some blinds. Mind you, they are not decorative. They are functional. They exist to block out light so that my projector can be used in the day time. Well... and in the "evening." In the summer it doesn't get dark until 10:00 pm or so.

Ok, ok. I see your point. Yes, I'm still living like a bachelor. Well... news flash: I am a bachelor. ;) Maybe someday I'll put up some curtains to spruce the place up a bit. Maybe in another year and a half. To prove that I actually did put up the blinds, here's a time lapse video that I took while I was putting up the blinds on the second window. The first one took a little longer, because I hadn't figured out a good way to measure where I was supposed to put them and keep them level. The instructions from Ikea showed putting the two end caps on, then somehow, maybe with my third arm, holding the roll in place while marking where the plastic clips were supposed to go on the wall. I discovered it was much easier to figure out where I wanted the first clip, put it up, then hold up the blind from the other side, level it, and figure out where the other clip needs to go. Take that Ikea! Here's the video:

I also put up a shower fixture in my second bathroom. It only had a tub, with a clip to hold a shower head on the wall, about two feet higher than the bottom of the tub. For some reason, they didn't want people taking a real shower in there. I bought a fixture to match the other bathroom, drilled through the giant stone tiles on the wall, which took f-o-r-e-v-e-r, and put up the new fixture. Now I just need to buy a curtain rod and a curtain, and I'll have two real showers in my apartment! I will probably buy those tomorrow, which means Wednesday I'll be showering in a big shower instead of my little tiny one.

Alright, it's time for me to go to bed. I have three more blinds to put up, which I will probably try and get done tomorrow. It's almost like I live here now! ;)

20090808-2202 CEST - Pictures are coming...

... sometime. Most of my spare time the last couple weeks has been spent playing Call of Duty and watching So You Think You Can Dance. I actually managed to get caught up on SYTYCD, and watched the finale today! I still haven't watched the American Idol season. It's in my queue of things to do. Along with...

... pictures! I still need to post pictures of Dresden, Berlin, Turkey, Köln, Poland, Scotland, Norway, and Iceland. Boy... it made me tired just typing out the list of places I haven't posted pictures for. A lot of the post-processing is done for some of those, and I have barely even started the post-processing for some of the other ones. I will try to post them in the order the trips occurred, but we'll see what happens.

I also have a few projects around my house that I've been working on. I bought a fixture to hold a shower head in my second bathroom, and I (finally) bought some shades to put up in the living room. Now I just need to borrow someone's hammer drill to actually put them up. Measure once, cut twice! Or was it the other way around?

The other exciting news is that my parents will be coming out to visit me in October! I booked tickets from them to come out October 8-19. I'm not sure who is more excited: me or them. I think we'll probably end up doing the tourist thing around Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, with possible trips to France, Luxembourg, or Belgium, just because they're so close. We might even end up just winging it. I think the most fun part for me will be watching them and their reactions to all the things they'll be seeing. The three of us always have a good time together on vacation.

Well, I'm off to bed. I've got a long day of... well... nothing really. Now that I've actually been home for a couple weeks in a row, I think I got all the screwing around out of my system, and I'm ready to try and catch up on a lot of stuff around the house. Hopefully I'll be productive!

20090719-0106 GMT - Iceland map

We're back in Reykjavik after an awesome week in Iceland. I took about 50GB worth of pictures and video. We drove all the way around the island, stopping numerous times to take pictures of course. Iceland is the most amazing place I have ever been, bar none. Any single day taken on it's own would have made the trip fantastic. Put together, the result is unbelievable. I have never seen so many different types of terrain in such a short amount of time. I can't wait to get home and go through all the pictures. To hold you over until I get some posted, check out this map of where we went. It doesn't quite show everything, because I forgot to turn my GPS on a couple times, but it's pretty close.

20090710-0840 CEST - On the way to Norway and Iceland

I got back from Scotland on Monday, and I'm now sitting in the lounge waiting to fly to Oslo. I'll be in Oslo until Sunday morning, when I fly to Iceland. Unfortunately, I'll be sitting in the lounge a little longer than planned. We got to the airport two hours early, like I always do, and went to the lounge to wait for our 0755 flight. Our tickets said boarding started at 0725. So, we left the lounge at 0725, expecting to breeze through passport control and get right to our gate in time to board. Well, we didn't realize that we had to go through security as well to get to our gate. (We had already gone through security before going to the lounge.) We got to our gate at 0745, and we were told that boarding had closed. :( So, we had to go to ticketing and rebook for the next flight out, at a cost of 50 euros each! :( :( I definitely learned my lesson. Stupid gate location.

I had a great time in Scotland. The picture taking was... well... I don't know how many really good ones I'll have. I didn't even really have a chance to go through the pictures yet, because I was only home for three days, and most of that was spent getting ready for the next trip. I did manage to get at least one panorama stitched while I was still in Scotland. Here it is:

I'm not sure what kind of Internet access will be available in the middle of nowhere in Iceland, but I don't have my hopes up. If one of our hotels has Internet access, I'll try and post a couple of pictures during the trip. I'm now officially way behind on posting pictures. I still have some from March that I need to post! Once I get back to Germany on July 19, I'll be back for a month or so, and will hopefully have some time to get stuff posted. Until then...

20090619-2210 CEST - Poland (another mid-trip post)

Hey again. I'm in Poland. I flew to Warsaw on Wednesday, and took a train to Krakow today. I'm really tired, and about to go to bed, but wanted to post a couple pictures real quick. Here is a bridge and river from the Wilanów Palace grounds, and the old town square from Warsaw:

Alright. I'm off to bed. It's looking like I'll only have a chance for pretty short posts until July 20, when I'll be getting back from Iceland. I've had a very busy travel schedule recently. Lots of time to take pictures, not much time to process them and get them posted. :( Sorry.

20090527-2302 EEST - Turkey (a rare mid-trip post)

Hello! I'm sitting in a hotel room in Bodrum, Turkey. We actually have free Internet in the hotel! I don't have much time, because I need to get to bed, but I wanted to post a few pictures real quick.

Here's me in front of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (more commonly known as the "Blue Mosque"):

Here are two more shots of me in front of mosques. One is the Blue Mosque again, and the other is Aya Sofya:

Here is my dinner from last night:

And finally, here is me at the former site of the Mausoleum of Maussollos, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world:

That last shot was part of a full 360-degree panorama that I haven't stitched yet. We also plan on seeing Ephesus on this trip, and hence the Temple of Artemis, another of the seven wonders. Two wonders in one trip! I'll post some more when I get a chance. See ya.

20090510-2345 CEST - Ahhhhh!

I have no time! Remember those posts I promised you? I lied. Tonight I spend my second of five total nights in my own bed in the month of May. I leave tomorrow on a work trip, and my brother Jeff just booked our flights to Turkey for May 24-31. Part of the Turkey trip is going to be sitting on a beach doing nothing, so maybe I'll have a chance to get some stuff typed up. Haha. Yeah right. Just like all the other times I've had a chance to type stuff up. ;) Don't look for anymore updates until June. Sorry.

20090426-2056 PDT - Prague

Boy am I behind on getting these pictures posted. I took them over a month ago! Better late than never. :)

Jannine and Nathan got to Germany on Saturday night March 16. We spent a couple days putzing around Wiesbaden, and then on Tuesday morning got on the road headed for Prague. We arrived at our hotel around 4:00 pm. I had to fold my side mirrors in to fit my car through the tunnel that led to the parking area! We didn't do much the first night except wander around a bit and grab some dinner. We also sat down and figured out what we wanted to do the next two days.

After breakfast on Wednesday morning, we went to the opera house and bought tickets for the Thursday night performance of Carmen. Then we went to find where our walking tour was supposed to depart from. The walking tour covered the main parts of town, and ended with a short boat ride (don't watch that video Mom--you won't like it) on the Vltava River ("Moldau" in German). While we were in the main square I took this vertical pano of the astronomical clock:

Since it was cold, we stayed inside for most of the boat ride. However, after we made a turn on the river, our tour guide suggested that we go to the upper deck to enjoy the view. They started playing Smetana's "The Moldau over the sound system. It was cool to hear the song while actually on the river. Here are a few shots from the boat:

After the tour was over, we walked across the river and headed for the Prague Castle. We stopped along the way to eat some lunch at a little cafe. We climbed quite a bit on the walk up to the castle, and were rewarded with a great view when we got up there.

We also stopped at the entrance gate of the castle to take some pictures. You can see Nathan taking a picture of Jannine in this shot:

We spent some time in the main church on the castle grounds, and by the time we came back out, it was almost closing time for the rest of the castle grounds. We decided to come back the next day to actually visit the museums and other attractions at the castle. We rode the light rail back to the main square and got some dinner. After dinner, I took a nighttime 360 degree panorama of the main square. Make sure to click in the picture and look around!

The next morning after breakfast, we headed back up to the castle to finish exploring. We bought a ticket that would allow us to visit all of the attractions around the castle. Our first stop was the Golden Lane, which was a street filled with tiny houses. The houses looked like they were built for children to live in. I had to duck to go in the doors.

We also went to the castle museum, a couple of churches, and a couple of towers. We finished up with the castle around 1:00 pm, and headed back towards the old town. As we headed down the hill, I stopped to take this picture:

After lunch, Jannine wanted to do a little shopping, so Nathan and I bought tickets to go up in the old town hall tower. (It's the single tower in the 360 degree panorama above.) It provided an absolutely breathtaking view of the city, and it happened to be a gorgeous day, with beautiful puffy clouds and blue sky. Unfortunately there wasn't room in the tower to set up a tripod, so I had to shoot handheld. But, the results were still pretty good. Check out the view!

That last picture of the church is 140 megapixels! I borrowed Nathan's 70-200mm lens, zoomed in as far as I could, and shot enough pictures to stitch together what you see above. Here is a 100% zoom of the gold plaque in the middle of the building:

After our afternoon events, we headed back to the hotel and got ready to go to the opera. We went and had dinner, then went to the show. The inside of the opera house was beautiful, as was the performance of Carmen. After the show, we were all exhausted, so we called it a night and headed for the hotel. The next day, we took off after breakfast, headed for Berlin, with plans to stop in Dresden along the way. While we were driving, the GPS took us through a little town as a shortcut between two highways. While we were driving through the town, I saw this dilapidated old building on the side of the road, and had to stop and take a picture of it. The sky was ominous above it, too.

Well, that's it for this post. Look back somewhat soon for pictures from Dresden and Berlin.

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