Day 5 & 6 - Stuttgart

We successfully traveled on Friday to Stuttgart via two different trains.  And after checking into our hotel, a tour into the city and the Schlossplatz (park) was given so everyone knew where to go for major things through the coming days.

Saturday we toured the Porsche and Mercedes-Benz museum.  Much information was given and the students were engaged all the time.  Student reviews of which was better were mixed, depending on their own preferences.  Porsche was mostly about cars and their history of development, while the Mercedes museum adds more context.  Both had interesting displays on electric / fuel cell / clean technology, but the Porsche museum was surprising about the amount of early electric (100 year old) cars and technologies they worked on.

Sunday will offer a day of exploration where many have opted for their day off to go to the zoo and a palace in Ludwigsburg.  They also know of a place to do laundry...

Total mileage for two days:  16 miles

Day 4 - Freiburg

Thursday we spent all day at the Fraunhoffer Institute in Freiburg.  This is one of the world leaders in developing photovoltaic technologies.  We saw a few labs where they make and test solar cells, we talked about other energy research initiatives, and we saw their hydrogen fueling station and a fuel cell car.

Day 3 - Freiburg

Today was a physically demanding day.  We started out late (be on time!) in the rain, headed to a quick tour of the little town of Freiburg.  We learned about the history and background of this little town, how they decided in 1973 to make the downtown area a pedestrian only shopping district.  We explored the old church and learned about the history of Freiburg.  We then spent some time in a lecture hall with a tour guide learning about the two of the local energy efficient neighborhoods.

We left there and went back toward the hotel to get our rental bikes.  We managed to make it to lunch at the Indian restaurant and then headed out to tour the two new energy efficient neighborhoods.  One is more like US apartments and the other is very highly integrated.  We ended up riding our bikes about 15 miles and walking about 7 miles on this day.  Everyone survived, although a few of our folks are not very good at riding a bicycle. 

Tomorrow is the Fraunhofer Solar institute...

Day 2 - Freiburg

On Tuesday, we let the group sleep in a bit to recover from traveling.  However, we encouraged them to eat the expansive buffet at the hotel and wander over to the main church square to see the big German market with flowers, fruits, vegetables, meats, and other vendors.

Around noon, we took our bus out to a castle.  The rain started as we headed up the hill, but the clouds parted just in time to take photos at the castle.  Our main guide showed up after the castle and took us off for the afternoon.  We stopped at a farm producing heat and electricity from biogas (created from agricultural waste and corn energy).  Then we went to a farm where they use heat from dairy milk to preheat water, along with wood chips.  This farm also has an excess of photovoltaic cells and rents land to the local windmill co-op.  Again, it rained a bit.

We went to visit two large windmills. We could go inside the towers, but we could not go up for safety and time reasons.  Once more, thunder threatened so we had to run for the bus.  We did stop briefly at a new windmill.  They put the final 20 ton blade on today as we watched! 

Our final stop was a 200 year old mill where we had local foods for dinner.  Black Forest Ham, blutwurst, leberwurst, fleischwurst, applejuice, bread, butter, cheese, jam, and apple wine.   After dinner we toured the old mill and watched it in operation.

Overall, a great day considering the weather.  We were able to do all the activities when it was not raining, so I call it a success.

Total miles this day: 7.5 miles. 

Day 1 - Frankfurt to Freiburg

We met with all students arriving to Frankfurt at the Fernbahnhof in the airport.

Our train changed tracks at the last second and we found ourselves sprinting up escalators and stairs, across a platform, and back down the escalator/ stairs.  Very exciting!  And nerve wracking ...  But, we are a good group already and we all made it on the right train!

When we got to our hotel in Freiburg, the rest of the students were awaiting our arrival.  Our group is now complete with 22 students.

After checking into our rooms, we began our walk to the city, up the church tower (google Freiburg Minster), into the church, up a small mountain, then a rest afterward at the bottom of the mountain in a quaint Biergarten.

Now we eat dinner and head to bed for a good night's rest.

Total miles walked today:  7.3 miles

2014 Maymester - Contact Information

We made it to Germany!

The following numbers have been confirmed as working, if you or your parents need to reach us:

803-220-6572 (this is also a FaceTime contact)

803-468-3115

Both are USA phone numbers.

The German phone we have here hopefully will be activated by tomorrow.  It is a third form of contact and should be dialed from the USA as follows:

011 49 15777994294 

We also get real-time email at:

Gatzkemail@gmail.com

We very much look forward to seeing you on Monday morning in Frankfurt!

Look forward to the exercise....we have been up for 29 hours and have already logged 5.8 miles since we landed, with a lovely walk around some beautiful lakes and a small hunting palace.

Tschüß!

-Andi and Ed

Day 14 - Going Home

Everyone scheduled to go to Atlanta made it through security and onto the plane.  As I blog, the plane should be landing very soon...  Then most are flying to their personal destinations.

To summarize our personal ENERGY efforts this trip:  We each walked ca. 102 miles, 229,673 steps, and 327 flights of stairs!