Second week.

So far I have been trying to go swimming in the pool here a bit everyday. It's kinda nice to try and relax floating in the water.
Here is two pictures of the pool area at the place I am staying.







Last wednesday I met up for coffee with Uta, who stayed next door to me for a year in highschool when she was an exchange student in Portage la Prairie. She was visiting her sister in San Carlos. Here is a picture of us at the Red Rock Coffee Co.




The wireless internet here continues to be slow and unreliable. I think that it is mainly an issue of not enough bandwidth for the number of people trying to use is. I was considering going downtown to see if I can get a better connection from the wifi there.

San Francisco

Yesterday I took the CalTrail in to San Francisco to wander around and see what was to be seen.
I didn't see the whole city, but plan to return on other weekends.


Mostly I explored around Chinatown, which was pretty cool.



Lots of random shops filled with stuff. The bulk spice/herbal medicine shops where kinda strange and smelled weird, though. I bought a rough silk scarf for Bonnie, and some "silver" coins. They say 1 Troy ounce Silver .999, but are really just solder plated bronze.
I did see a shop that sold authentic "Wisconsin Ginseng". I though that was odd.



Later I climbed Telegraph Hill, and saw a fog-covered Golden Gate Bridge.



Also, I called up Bonnie who told me from the internet that Telegraph Hill is home to some feral parrots. I managed to get a couple of blurry photos of, though they may have been mating at the time...


On my way back to the train station, I saw a street light banner that was advertising that the art museum here has some Impressionist pieces on loan from the Mus ée D'Orsay!!! I will certainly be going back to check that out on future weekends.

Also, a mini TARDIS.

New Adventure

I have a new traveling adventure. This summer I will be working at NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in Mountain View California.
I just got in yesterday, and haven't been to the base yet, but here are some pictures of where they are putting me up.

Here is the Kitchen;


The Living Room;


And the view outside the Balcony;

Back from Orlando.

I'm back from my conference in Orlando.
I arrived there already a bit tired from adventures, so I was a little less inclined on going out and doing things than the rest of the crew,
The conference was good, though, and I gave my presentation.
I'll have some pictures up as soon as I find the USB cable for my camera.

Finally I'll now have a chance to be at home for a bit.

The Voyage Home

December 30

We didn't end up taking the same flight back and our planes were leaving at different times. Due to world events, it was recommended that people flying to the U.S. arrive "early" to the airport. I was leaving first (10:20) so I thought that getting there for 7:00 would be best, I'm sure glad that I did - There were quite long, slow lines. Vladimyr however, was not leaving until 12:45 and was able to check in right away with no waiting. The flights for both of us were uneventful. No real stories from that. I finished knitting a scarf and I am almost done crocheting a doily. That's about it. Since I got in first, I took the light rail/bus home and then got the car to pick up Vladimyr when he came in. When we got home, Vladimyr finally got to open the Christmas gifts from me.



We are home safe, the cat and mouse are fine and we are happy. :-)

Last Day

December 29

This was our last day in Germany. It was a busy one. Vladimyr had a lot of things to finish up - we mailed a few packages to ourselves, a few things that wouldn't fit in the suitcases, he had a drop off his work keys and then we had to pack and clean up the apartment. Vladimyr's Christmas gift to me (besides the cute teddy bear) was to give me money to go shopping in Aachen. While he was running a few errands, I did a little bit of shopping - fully putting my bad German language skills to the test. I bought some cute shoes, a few nice shirts, more scarves and a bit of yarn.

In the late afternoon we took the train to Frankfurt. We first took the train from Aachen to Cologne then changed trains in Cologne to get to Frankfurt - the train from Aachen to Cologne was scheduled a little later then we had a first thought so it didn't give us much time between trains in Cologne - but it all worked out.

We stayed overnight at the Sherton hotel attached to the Frankfurt Airport.
We had dinner in the hotel lounge - it was a cute presentation

Maastricht

Monday, December 28

Vladimyr got up early and had to go to the government office here in Aachen, basically to check out, or let them know that he was going to be leaving. After he got back from that, we headed off to have another adventure.
This time, we took the bus to a town in the Netherlands called Maastricht. From what I understand, this town is the next closest big town to Aachen and there is a direct bus service between the two cities.

We spent a lot of time trying to figure out the bus (online, beforehand) but didn't end up spending really any time looking at what to do there - which is fine, it just meant more wandering around.

We had to cross the River Maas to get from the bus station to the city center. We stopped to take a picture and the birds were not having it.


A statue of some guy (?) holding a flaming thing (?)


The "Winter Festival" was still going on (very very similar to a Christmas Market) and this one had a Ferris Wheel (Riesenrad!!) We got a nice view of the city from there.


Ofcourse there was a Church. This one still had the incense smell from a service and Vladimyr felt that this made being a tourist in the a church seem weird. The other churches that we had been in were just buildings but that the smell really made this one seem like a real church so that walking around it was strange. I thought it was pretty.



We walked around for a little bit then stopped for a beer before catching the bus back


Tonight is cleaning up, tomorrow we clean, shop and pack then we will be catching the train to Frankfurt. We will be staying overnight in Frankfurt so we can make it to the airport nice and early on Wednesday.