Day 6 - Stuttgart

Today we finally woke again to beautiful weather.  Beautiful blue skies and just a few clouds floating by.  We got a late start and headed to the Mercedes Museum.  This was one of our first times riding the S Bahn with this group and they did fine.  The museum was pretty good, but I felt rushed.  We had a good guide, but we could have spent a little more time on a few topics.  More importantly, Andi and I realized two very significant things: the A class mercedes looks nice on the outside but is really poorly designed and constructed inside.  And the Mercedes mini-van is basically a shambles compared to anything in the US.  I guess we won't be importing either any time soon.

After a quick lunch, we headed out to the Porsche museum.  While Mercedes had a lot of history as the inventor of the internal combustion engine and automobile, Porsche is all about speed.  The racing enthusiasts loved it.  Others, not so much.  One fun highlight, we tried to make the 4:31 so we had to run and catch it.  A few were late, so Andi and I waited with them for the 5:01.  We eventually met up with everyone in the palace park near the main train station in the beer garden for dinner.  After dinner, many of us hit the spa to relax with some steam and heat.

I have not uploaded more photos for two days because the internet here in Stuttgart is free but limited.  I will probably pay to get full access Sunday night and dump three days of pictures at once.

Andi reports that her pedometer says 7.7 miles, 11 floors, 17,290 steps.

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Day 5 - Freiburg to Stuttgart

Today was a travel day, so things were a bit quiet.  We left Freiburg at noon by train to Karlsruhe.  We had an hour there to eat lunch, then catch the train to Stuttgart.  We had to carry our bags about half a mile up a hill to our hotel, but it was worth it.  This is the nicest hotel we will stay in the whole trip.

We regrouped and left the hotel before 4.  The afternoon was free.  I had hoped to go to the zoo, but the weather was gray and cold.  We went into town, thinking the museum in the castle would be something to do but it was a bit expensive (last year it was free due to construction).  So we just dispersed and went our separate ways in Stuttgart.  Stuttgart is bustling with activity compared to Freiburg.  Andi and I tried to meet up with a friend from when we lived in Stuttgart but we had some communication troubles.  We went back to the hotel after dinner and enjoyed the spa, along with a few of the students.

Despite being a down day, Andi's pedometer reports 6 miles, 12 floors, 13,500 steps.

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Day 4 - Fraunhofer

Today we toured the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy in Freiburg.  This is a cutting-edge applied R&D lab that works on government and private industry contracts.  They do a lot of photovoltaic work, setting world records for efficiency in different categories.  They work on traditional silicon, focused light solar, multi-band PV, thin film, and dye based PV systems.  They do work on infrastructure materials as well as solar thermal.  We saw a PV production system and got to go into the clean room.  After lunch, we toured a biomass gasification reactor and saw a hydrogen powered fuel cell Mercedes.  They have installed a hydrogen fueling station that makes hydrogen using PV energy and electrolysis.

We met up with some USC professors and took our host from Fraunhofer out to dinner at Martins Brau, a local brewery.  Every single student opted to go to dinner together, so we had a good time.  However, after dinner almost everything in Freiburg was closed.  Andi and I along with a couple of students got drinks and sat at the train station watching freight trains fly by at 80+ mph just feet away from us.

Andi reports from the pedometer: 6.9 miles, 11 floors, 15,500 steps.

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Day 3 - Freiburg City Tour

Today was another solid day in Freiburg.  We met our guide Steffan at 9:00 AM for a quick lecture on some of the history of Freiburg, considering the significant investment in energy efficiency and sustainability.  After the lecture, we took a walking tour of Freiburg and went inside the church in the central part of town.  After the walking tour, we went back to the train station where we were able to rent bikes.  We rode off to see two different environmental communities, Riesenfeld and Verbaun.  Freiburg has great infrastructure for bike travel, so on the way out we had very little traffic to deal with.  We stopped for lunch in a nice little Indian restaurant 

The bike tour went through some nice parks near downtown.  It also went through some beautiful woods.  The total distance for today was 25 km biking, about 15 miles.  The last part of the ride was in bike lanes next to a busy road, but everyone  made it just fine.

Tonight Andi and I went to the Red Bear for dinner.  This is a Freiburg restaurant that has been continuously operated in the same location since 1120, almost 900 years!  Dinner was outstanding.  We were going to meet up with the students after, but apparently they claim to be tired and heading in early.

Andi's pedometer says today was equivalent to 29 flights of stairs, 11.1 miles, 24,951 steps.

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Day 2 - Freiburg Region Tour

Today was supposed to be an easy day.  We did not start officially until 12:30, but we encouraged the students to go check out the awesome market by the base of the church in the morning.  I think most of them did.  Lots of flowers, fruits, vegetables, meats, and woodent implements.  A real neat place!

We met Herr Schulz at 1:00 and got on the bus for our tour of the black forrest.  We toured a couple of energy efficient farms.  One uses agricultural producs and manure to produce natural gas, which is then used to run a nengine and make electricity.  The other farm uses a heat exchange to extract nenergy from the milk of cows.  They also used wood pellets to heat the farm and generated a lot of electricity from solar power.

Finally we got to go see a couple of wind turbines up close.  They really are amazingly tall and huge.

We had dinner in a 200 year old mill, eating locally produced meats, cheeses, and drinks.  This was a neat experience, but  a couple of people had some tummy troubles.  We finished up the day with a quick tour of Burg Hochburg, one of the largest castles in the region, now in ruins.  Overall, it was an amazing day.  The weather was great and the students all got to see a lot of interesting stuff.

Stats from Andi's pedometer:  8.05 miles, 18,143 steps, 26 flights of stairs.

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Day 1 - Freiburg Settling In

We made it!  Last year we had a direct flight from Charlotte to Frankfurt.  This year, we left from Columbia through Atlanta to Frankfurt.  The extra leg just adds to the difficulty.  Everyone traveled just fine.  One thing we tried to show the students is how difficult it is to use mass transit.  Rather than arriving in Germany and hopping on a tour bus, sleeping in transit, then getting off at your hotel we had a more difficult route.  We had to take a bus to the train station near the airport, catch a train (which was delayed) to Mannheim, then wait because we missed our connection, then catch a train to Freiburg, then get our bags from the hotel to the room.  There is limited relaxation as we have to make sure to get to our next connection.

Once we were in Freiburg we feasted on Doner Kebabs, saw the main market, hiked up to the top of the church, walked to the local observation tower, found a beer garden, then had some gellato.  Good day overall, but we are a bit on the tired side...

Andi's pedometer said 6.22 miles and 14,022 steps, 58 flights of stairs.

Tommorrow morning we have to sort out our cell phones and do some business before we start our tours at noon.

Pictures updated as soon as they are uploaded...

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Welcome to 2013 Maymester Blog for Energy and Sustainability in Europe Course

Tomorrow we begin the journey and we hope for a fabulous, safe adventure for all!  Stay tuned for daily updates and links to pictures.

Drs. Gatzke (Ed and Andi)