Installment 1 : Summer in the States

 
 
 
 
  
Ok. So here we are back in July on my whirlwind tour of the east coast, attempting to see at least 90 percent of my relatives within a two week period.

Stage one took place in good old Upstate New York. These are photos from my Grandparents place, where a spent a few very relaxing days camping on the beach and also visiting my mom. The hands belong to my cousin Mackenzie, holding a refugee from her 'nature museum'.

From there we (mom, George Travis and I) set off on a little road trip down to North Carolina to see my other grandparents My sister met us there for a couple of days on the beach and visiting.

LOOK TRAVIS! YOU'RE ON THE INTERNET!

Then I left with my sister to go down to Savannah to finally get to see Georgia Southern, which she has just graduated from (congrats again Abby!). She showed me around there, and then took me through Savannah, which is a wonderful city. Really really beautiful.

Afterwards, it was on to Atlanta for the last stage, to spend some time with my Dad.

Nice trip, though a bit fast. It was great to see all of you! For those I missed, I'll put you on the list for the next round.

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New Look for a New Year

Hello All! It seems like I'm always behind on this thing. Ah well. I am going to start a series of installments to catch up. It looks like I have the entire summer and fall to do! Yikes! Might take a while. Hopefully, I haven't lost all of my readers!

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New Apartment

So, playing a bit of catchup. I have a new apartment! As of about a month ago. I didn't move too far, but made the act of moving into quite the adventure. Oh how things add up. I have WAY more stuff than I thought I did. However, stubborn as I am, I wanted to move by myself. So, I rigged up a little wheel cart out of a piece of luggage and began hauling things onto the train, down two stops, over two blocks, and up 5 flights of stairs. What a process. Took forever. But, I'm finally done and loving the new place.

They crazy lamp came from Morocco, with much pain (both in carrying it around and the money it cost to ship it home). So, naturally, and rather insanely, I brought it along to Germany. But, boy, does it look good on the ceiling. I attempted to hang its twin yesterday with much less success. Half way through the procedure, the hook ripped out of the plaster, sending this glass lamp falling to the floor. I managed to catch the lamp in mid air, but in doing so, crushed all its sharp metal points into my stomach. I have awesomely painful geometric brusing :)

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My Garden

It is a bit small ;), but I like it.

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Sunday Hike

Yesterday I hiked up to the little lakes just outside of the city. Stuttgart is cool like that. I can be in the woods in a 5 minute walk from my apartment door and there is a seemingly endless series of trails which go all over the place. The Barensee (bear lakes) are about an hours walk away. This is I think the most popular destination. It is always packed. I made friends with some very noisy bubble-headed frogs :)

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Austria!

Here are a couple of photos from my awesome office trip to Austria this week. They took the entire office by bus through the alps, and down to a small village in Austria called Bad Kleinkircheim, where we (Behnisch) have just completed a thermal bath / sauna building. The photos aren't great, because they asked for us to wait until the public left before we started taking them. Fair enough I suppose.

The building is beautiful. Lots of wood and stone. Very simple, but well done. Lots of little pools and saunas which look like big white stones. There are lots of outdoor areas too with great decks and pools and all sorts of stuff. There totally need to be more of these buildings in the world.

So, it was totally awesome, but, visting a sauna in Europe can be a bit wierd with your co-workers. The saunas here are nude, though you walk between them with bathrobes and towels and such. Still. Can make for some interesting situations. To counter this, I hung out with a group of 4 girls and we would post a watchwoman in front of whatever room we took over. Worked quite well. They let us have the place to ourselves after closing hours, and then we could wear our bathing suits. That made the American crowd very very happy. :)

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Easter Weekend in Berlin

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Trip to Freiburg

Two weekends ago we took a day trip over to Freiburg, which is west of us in the Black Forest, near the French border. Cramer and I joined two of his co-workers early in the morning, and caught a train out. We had a beautiful day. One of the first really nice days of the year. In Freiburg, we met up with a super smart professor who showed us around two areas of the city which are famous for passive residential housing, and alternative car-free living. They were amazing. Then we walked around the city center. The city has these awesome channels running through the streets. They were the old sewage channels, but are now storm water drains and water is pumped through them on special days (market days and holidays in the summer). They were running when we were there. It really adds something to the city.

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New York State of Mind

Couple of shots out the train window on the trip from Albany to New York just after the New Year. Trying out my awesome new camera!

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Fall in Baden Baden

Some pictures from a couple of weeks ago. It was my first day off in months, just after finishing a competition, so I decided to treat myself.

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Halloween in Deutschland!

Last night I was feeling Halloween deprived... the don't so much celebrate here (though I did see two kids dressed as Harry Potter). So, I took three tiny pumpkins over to my friend Steffi"s apartment, and met another friend there. Being from Germany and Italy neither had ever carved a pumpkin. Needless to say, we all got way to into it. The results were quite amusing.

(sorry the photos are so awful... forgot the camera, so I had to take them with my phone)

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Being Silly

Ah. Almost forgot. I promised to post these. Aren't they pretty? I think that if Craig's next computer is a Mac, this program will be the reason.

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Slacking

You know you havn't been posting enough when your grandmother's blog has more posts than your own. The 21st century is a strange time.

So, updates. We had 4 friends from RPI here last week. Erin, Jenna, Russ and Craig. We had a kicking time visiting the south of Germany, and actually half decent weather for once! I am home sick today with a head which will not move more than 2 degress in any direction... except to the right. Strange thing. So, catching up on some stuff.

We spent most of our time in Bavaria, which is as beautiful as you hear. The mountains are like nothing I have ever seen. They rise up so fast, out of nothing and tower above the flat green landscape which is dotted with brown cows. Really different from the gentle rolling vinyards of Stuttgart.
















We had great fall weather, crisp and clear... though a bit chilly some days. We rented a car, which was definitally the right decision. The drives were intensely beautiful, and it gives you a different experience of the countryside. Got a bit hairy at times... lots of construction and sort of playing by ear.. but we had no major mishaps.

So, on to the itineray. We left Stuttgart and took the train to Freiburg, the "capital of the black forest". I, however, screwed up the trains that day, and we had time for dinner and a quick look around the old city before we had to jump in the car and drive to Fussen. We arrived at 1 in the morning or so. Next morning did the two famous castles in Fussen (or Hohenswangeu... or wherever we were) followed by a cable car to the top of a mountain and then the alpine slide. Yes, we are still children. Next day we went way way east, to the austrian boarder to a wonderfull lake called Konigsee. Really really fanstastic. Stayed in a little farmhouse up in the hills... which was nearly impossible to find thanks for my awful German skills. Next day we were off to Munich where we met up with Cramer. Toured the city the first day, and on the second did some things further afield, then made our way back to Stuttgart.

Fantastic trip.

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Bad Aibling Building Opener

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Retiring the old Desktop Pict

I have had this one on my machines for so long... didn't feel right not to have it somewhere.

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Esslingen

Couple of pictues from Esslingen.. which to my shame I only just visited a few weeks ago when mom and George were here. It is truly beautiful, and very very close. They say that Stuttgart used to look like this.

Oh, and, the giant hill? Mom wanted to climb it, not me. I swear. Really.

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