Pictures

I have had troubles this year with pictures, both due to internet and Google/Picasa issues.  I finally got the good folders uploaded and online. I posted 1800 photos of 5000 I took, not including any of the many GBs of GoPro footage Andi took (to be put online later)

The link to all the albums at once (for 2014 and 2013) is here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/gatzkemail

Day 13 - Free Day in Munich

Saturday started out a bit cloudy, but later the weather really picked up and it became a beautiful day.  We checked in with all the students in the morning.  Some were headed to Dachau concentration camp and some were just bumming around downtown Munich.  Andi and I went out to the Nyphenberg palace to walk the grounds.  We had seen the palace years ago.  We ended up at the Hirsch Garden, the largest beer garden in Germany.  We had learned that in German beer gardens, you can bring your own food but you are expected to buy their drinks.  They also serve food, so we had chicken, schweinhaxen, and grilled fish on a stick.  We ran into some of the students back at the hotel getting ready to watch the soccer game.

There is some construction on the subway, so we are concerned that they leave plenty of time to get to the airport on Sunday.  It is not confusing once you figure out what is happening...

Day 12 - Deutsches Museum

Today we went to the Deutsches Museum, the German technical museum.  They have collections on everything technical, including steam engines, planes, rockets, electric motors, chemistry, physics, chemical processing, textiles, ceramics, pharmaceuticals, photography, plastics and many many more.  We did not have a traditional tour guide, as in years past the guide was usually a bit boring, especially at the end of the trip after we have talked about solar power and nuclear power and wind power and energy many times over.  So today, we tried something new: a treasure hunt.  Find the biggest steam engine.  What color is the V2 rocket?  One fun activity was walking through the 700 m mine, which was very realistic and included salt, ore, and coal mining sections.  For lunch, many of us hit a local all-you-can-eat sushi place, then some of us went on to the Deutsches Museum Transportation museum.  That museum was tiny in comparison, we made a quick run through it in less than an hour.  Tonight is our dinner at Hoffbrauhaus, then tomorrow is free.

Day 11 - Zugspitze

Today, we set out for the top of Germany, the Zugspitze!  We caught the U-bahn train to the S-bahn train to a regional DB train to a cog wheel train to a bus around rail construction to another cog wheel train to a gondala to the top of Germany!  We had a chance to play in the snow near the glacier on the mountain.  The Germans snow ski here all summer.  The very top was a bit windy, and the Austrian side was completely closed for some reason.  But the views were terrific!  Very clear, a bit hazy at spots.  A long day.  One minor disaster, I left our backpack at a train stop on the way down, but the train officials were able to find it and get it back to us.  I blame the bus without climate control.  In the valley, it was around 80 or 85 and even in the snow at altitude it was still pretty warm.

Day 10 - TUM IPP

On Wednesday, we went out in the morning to the Technical University of Munich to visit the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.  We met our physics graduate student Alex who gave us a very nice lecture on the basic issues related to fusion power generation.  We then went over to see the flywheels, control room, and fusion reactor.  Since it is not radioactive, we were able to stand 30 feet from the reactor in the same room.  Alex talked a bit about the ITER tokamak reactor they are building in France.  The IPP just completed a "stellarator" design on the Baltic sea.  But still, fusion power is at least 20 years away, as it has been for 50 years... 

After the IPP, we had lunch at the TUM cafeteria and tried to use the slides at the TUM Math building, but they were locked up.  Their math building has slides from the fourth floor to the ground floor, usually open to anyone.  After TUM, some students went to the soccer stadium and some went to the Chinese Tower in the English Garden.

Day 9 - Munich BMW

Today we went to the BMW museum and BMW plant tour.  We have a new hotel location this year in Munich, and it is a bit further away from the city center, but it does seem to be in a nicer neighborhood.  We had no trouble getting over to BMW for the tour, although some students almost missed the museum tour because they were straggling along way behind.  The factory tour was also interesting as we saw some new portions of the plant, including watching a speed test as they take a new care off the production line and run it up to about 100 MPH.  After BMW, most of the students went with us to the Munich Olympic Park to go up the TV tower.  It was a beautiful view!  We could even see the Zugspitze, the tallest mountain in Germany.  We hope to go there Thursday.

The internet in this hotel is also a bit off for us.  We can barely check email or get blogs posted, pictures online will have to wait.

Day 8 - Stuttgart to Ulm to Munich

Today started out very nice.  We had great weather and we got to the train in Stuttgart with plenty of time to spare.  We made it to Ulm and climbed to the top of the Minster, the tallest church in the world.  Ulm is also the birthplace of Albert Einstein.   Our trip to Munich was uneventful, but the train was quite hot.  After being so cold in Freiburg, things have turned around with respect to the weather.  The students took a quiz on the train going over 100 MPH, an atypical examination location.

Our tour guide met us at the train station in Munich and he lead us to our hotel.  Our hotel is not near the main train station this year, which may be good as the neighborhood near the main train station is a bit questionable.  However, we are a bit further out and will need to always ride the train into downtown.  We are closer to a few activities, like BMW and IPP/TUM.  After we dropped off bags, the tour guide took us to a wide variety of locations, some off the beaten path.  We walked for miles and miles and miles.  I love the energy of this tour guide when he talks, but I think he physically pushed us too far today.  We all survived and I hope the students had a good time.