Mannheim and Faschings

Mannheim
I went to Mannheim last weekend. From what I understood, Mannheim is the largest city around here, only 15 minutes on the train. And yes, there are plenty of shops. I've been told that the city was destroyed, which explains the lack of street names in the middle of the town. Each block has a letter and a number. It actually makes a lot of sense because D1 is right next to D2. Street names do not correlate with each other in any way, which makes getting around just a little harder. But if you're standing on P2, you know that P3 is the next block! 

Wasserturm in Mannheim. 

This past weekend was also the last weekend of Faschings. Or Carneval. Or Karneval. Or Carnival? I'm not sure. So in Mannheim, there were stalls (food, of course) lining the streets. Interesting mix of new shops and old things. Lots of Wurst, Crepes, more Wurst and so on.

Nutella Crepe! Doesn't look like much, but yummy when hot. 

Faschings
I'm still not quite sure what this is all about, but it seems like a lot of fun. It all officially ends tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, and so things are seemingly closed tonight. I've seen lots of people in fancy dress, big hair, weird glasses, cool shoes and the like. 


Back Altstadt Heidelberg, there are lots of old churches. One in particular was advertising a Faschings Orgelkonzert, so off I went. 

Yes, the concert did actually start at two minutes past five. 

In hindsight, I don't think I was expecting anything in particular, which was probably a good thing. First thing I see when I walk inside is a guy wearing a clown suit, big clown feet, a wig and a funny nose. Inside a church. I then see the organists wearing blue and green wigs and funny ties. Definitely not anything resembling a church service. Once inside, I was handed a program of sorts, a sheet with questions (alles auf Deutsch), a pencil, a balloon and a toothpick. We were meant to answer questions in response to snippets of music. The only questions I did manage to answer were the Disney-themed ones. Yes, kid-at heart. 

The organists at Providenzkirche.

Oh and the balloon! We had to blow them up. Not easy, because they were tiny. And then pop it at the right time. It's quite difficult to get 50 balloons to pop at the same time. All a bit of fun. 

My balloon. And my (very blank) question sheet. 

Other things
I've settled into my room and into my fume hood now. I'm hoping Lady Luck extends to Germany and my fume hood, in particular. There will be a chemistry-centric (mythbusting) post at some point in the future, which will probably make a few eyes glaze over. But in short, everything I have here, I can get at home. Chemicals still behave the same way, Schlenk lines still work the same way and solvents still have the same polarity. All good.




So here's to you, my "We want more blog posts!"-friends. I know entries have been a long time coming. They will get there eventually! Quite probably in reverse order too...

Heidelberg for real

So this is it! I'm in my new room (home!) and I finally have internet. So I think all is well. Almost. I'm living with three other people (2 Germans, 1 Italian) in a little apartment, which is new for me. I've just realised that I've never really lived with anyone else. Speaking of living with people, weekly chores have just come out and I'm in charge of one of the bathrooms this time. So yes, I have a room, in an apartment, which means I have a postal address...if anyone is interested. 

I'm only 5 minutes away from the lab, which means that I will be uber-productive once I figure out where everything is. I'm trying not to think about it now, but going home and getting used to having to travel an hour each way will be hard to get used to again. Then again, I don't have bench space or a fume hood in Sydney at the moment, so who knows where I'll end up.

Over the next few weeks (maybe months...) I will be writing more about the various places I've been and also putting up more photos. There are still so many stories and pictures. And so much snow! 

More soon.

Stockholm

We've only had two or so days in Stockholm, but it was immediately obvious that it is a well-developed city. And like Vienna, expensive. I guess it's like being in Sydney, except that it is much colder, the people speak Swedish and that the public transport is much better.

Flying in to Stockholm, it was all trees and snow. Christmas trees! There were so many of them. It was also strangely dark. That is something I'm not sure I'd ever want to get used to, sunset by 4 pm or so. I like sunlight and blue sky. The sky ends up a dusty red colour, but still "dark". Conducive to staying inside.

Accommodation here was in a jail! An old, converted jail, that is. We had a 2-bed cell and it was fantastic. I should like to think that it will be one of the only times I'll be "in jail".












More detailed update with more pictures later.

Vienna

Vienna is everything they said it would be. Pretty, fashionable, tasty. And expensive. I guess it is no more expensive than Sydney, but after visiting Prague, Krakow and Budapest, just about anything would be expensive.

Schloss Schönbrunn was amazing. This palace was the home of the ruling family of Austria, the Habsburgs, until they lost power. In particular, Franz Leopold and Elisabeth lived there. We only managed to see part of the palace, but it was obvious that the cost of things didn't really matter. Still pretty nonetheless.




We had Wiener schnitzel one evening, at a little place away from the city. The schnitzel (turkey and pork) was good, except that there was enough meat for a week on our two plates. Most people need to make use of the paper and bags to take the rest home, which is what we did.



Schloss Belvedere was a bit of an eye-opening experience. I thought it was going to be another palace, like Schönbrunn, and it was, in that it was a magnificent building. But this palace houses art. I don't know much (or anything?) about art, except that I'm not very good at it. Renoir, Monet and Manet live there, as well as Klimt. We only had time to look at a part of the palace, which was a shame.

More pictures soon!

Mini-Budapest

Some more minor things about Budapest.

It is a city that is very much different to the previous cities we've visited. It seems a lot older, yet still has young bits. I had no idea, but Buda is on the west side of the Danube and Pest is on the east side of the Danube.

The transport systems are fantastic here. The trams, metro and buses link everything together. Like everything else, it takes a little getting used to, but it works.

Everyone seems to smoke here! It's hard to eat with people smoking, but that's the way it is.

We are spoiled in Australia, when it comes to fruit. The choice and quality is better than anything I've seen here.

Those delicious twist things we found in Krakow are apparently traditional Hungarian and not Polish! Here is one with walnuts.




If something is open 24 hours a day, it is open "0 - 24" or "non-stop".

The labyrinth in Buda is a bit of a scam. They claim to have human footprints from 40 million years ago, with shoe tread marks! Really? "Homo consumeres" apparently. That and rocks with imprints of mobile phones and computers.

More pictures when I have a proper computer.

Budapest

Even quicker quickie than I thought. Limited interweb access here, so just a hello from Budapest.






We're heading to Vienna this morning, day time train! More from Wien.

Krakow

Krakow is fantastic. It's quite different to Prague and other cities, more relaxed and modern. I'm definitely not going to be learning Polish any time soon; the language is a bit of a tongue twister. I'm having trouble saying hello, let alone other things. 

Wawel Cathedral
We arrived at about 6am and headed up to Wawel Cathedral shortly after. There is a lot of history here, as they seem to have been very much a religious country, with various cardinals and so on buried within the Cathedral. No photos of the inside, unfortunately, because it is ultimately, still a place of worship. 

The largest bell in Poland. Something about over 11 tonnes. 

 

Statue of Pope John Paul II outside the Cathedral.

 

Cathedral from the outside.

 

View of Krakow from the top of the hill.

There is apparently a dragon here at the top of the hill, in the dragon's den. And apparently, said dragon was killed by some smart people who made it eat a bag of hot sulfur. Apparently! Either way, we didn't get to see the dragon breathe fire, because he doesn't work if it gets below 0 C. And that is everyday here at this rate, so no dragon. Still, the dragon lives on in the city and plush green reincarnations are available. 

Wieliczka Salt Mine

The other main attraction here in Krakow is the salt mine, on the list of UNESCO's special places. Everything is made of salt. Except maybe the toilets, which are the toilets that are the furthest down on Earth at a depth of 120 metres below sea level. There are many salt statues in the mine, telling stories of what happened in the mine over 500 years ago. The mine was discovered by a princess who threw her engagement ring down a mine shaft in Hungary, only to have it dug up again in Poland, where the salt was found. I don't know how well jewelery travels underground, but that is a good way of doing things.

 

The outside of the mine. It's a little below zero outside, but about 14 C underneath.

 

The princess being reunited with her ring.

 

The gnomes hard at work.

 

Inside the mine, all the salt looks brown, but under a decent amount of light, it comes up white. Crystalline? 

We were lucky enough to visit on a day when a special Mass was held in the main chapel. The Cardinal of Poland (important guy?) was there to open a new tourist route through the mine. The mine has its own brass band (with token woodwind) and so they were playing, the Cardinal was talking and so on. There are plenty of little chapels throughout the mine, because the miners were often devoutly religious. The chandeliers are all made out of salt, with some crystals making me jealous that I can't make anything near that nice in the lab.

The Cardinal of Poland during Mass. Salt sculpture of the Last Supper in the middle, on the left.

More about Krakow later. We're heading to Budapest tonight on a sleeper train. They are quite useful, because you get transport and accommodation in one, but they do go rather slowly. We're traveling 250 km, requiring 11 hours.