Super Short Post

Okay, I went and looked around a bit downtown last Sunday, and took a few pictures. They won't really fit in the next post, so I'll have to give them their own short post. Here goes...

Here's a weird statue of Einstein. And no, I have no idea why his disembodied head is attached to a rocket-ship with water coming out of it.

This is a monument where Einstein was born. His original house has been torn down, I'm told. I guess they didn't get the memo that it's freaking Einstein!

Here's a close-up on the inscription on the monument, in case any of you can understand German, or are motivated enough to type it into Google Translate.

Oh, and here's some fake cows. Just because. Moo!

Okay, that's it for now. I just went to Stuttgart today, so expect some photos from that trip. I'm not going to tell you when to expect them, but expect them. Tchüs!

The Ulm Münster Steeple

On Sunday, I climbed to the top of the Ulm Münster Steeple, the tallest steeple in the world. I'm just now getting around to blogging about it. (But Matt, it's only been two days.) Wrong, hypothetical reader. It's been nine; I climbed it last Sunday.

To refresh your memory, this is the steeple in question.

And this is where my journey begins. Notice how narrow the stairway is. It's a tricky situation when I run into someone on his way down.

Whew, I've been climbing for a while. How high am I? Oh...

It's so spirally!

Getting higher. Time for another out-the-window picture!

This is the first resting spot. It's not really possible to sit down, but I get to walk horizontally for a bit instead of vertically.

I'm now here, at the arrow.

Everyone's so small!

Some of the German countryside, behind their uniformly pointed roofs. Okay, enough "resting," time for more climbing.

At this point, a wonderfully cheerful thought popped into my head: What if I slip? Think Samwise Gamgee falling down the Winding Stair in Return of the King, and add about 10 minutes and several broken bones. Okay! More climbing!

Now I'm at the next stopping point, which is roughly...

here.

Now this is a view.

(This is also a view, but it's different than the last one, and it's partially obstructed.)

(This view is different still, and even more obstructed.) This is the rest of the church.

Time to climb some more. This stairway is darker than the previous ones.

Ooh, this is a much better picture of the rest of the church, out one of the windows in the stairway. (Then why even include the previous one?) Because, hypothetical reader, I forgot I had this one, and I don't want to go back and erase it now.

Emerson said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Well, this guy is the hobgoblin of the Ulm Münster. Which, if you ask me, is a lot cooler than a little mind. This hobgoblin lucked out.

Finally, I'm done climbing! Time to take some pictures and--

Whaaaat?!?! More stairs??

I'm only here! Okay, calm down, Matt. What would Carl do? Okay, let's do this!

Now I'm at the top. Wow, what a sight! That church slightly to the left of center is St. George's, the Catholic church I go to on Sundays.

For those wondering, I'm now here.

The Danube! On the other side is Neu-Ulm. Halfway across the river is a little island. There's a coffee shop there that my PhD student and his wife took me to the first weekend I was here.

Another angle of the Danube. If you follow it far enough in that direction, you'll find the part of it I photographed a few weeks ago, and the Fort near which I got lost.

It's a loooong way down...

Check out how much taller the steeple is compared to the rest of the church.

My dorm is somewhere around that red oval.

That there, in the middle, is the Ulm "main street." I think it's called Bahnhofstraße.

There's the train station, towards the back. No, not that far back, that's the horizon. Closer...closer...there ya go!

When I took this picture, I could see a train waaaaaaaaay out in the distance. But it doesn't really show up in the picture. So instead, you get another cool picture of Ulm and the surrounding countryside. Although I think there's some wind turbines back there too, if you look closely.

After taking those pictures, I began the long journey back down to ground level. I counted the steps on the way down: 789 total. Wikipedia says 768, but I don't think they're counting the steps that go straight from the third resting spot to the final spiral stairway. Either way, it's a lot of steps. My legs were really shaky on the way down, which was mildly terrifying, but I made it all right. I was so proud of myself for getting the the top and back, that I bought myself an ice cream cone as a reward. Mango flavor! I even took a picture of it.

But don't tell my camera that, because it though I wanted to take a picture of the chair behind it.

Again, sorry for the long period of no posts on the blog. I should have another post up at some point in the not-too-distant future. Say, before August... Tchüs!

Munich

Yesterday, I took a trip up to Munich. I just missed one of the trains going there, so I had to wait an hour in the Hauptbahnhof (train station). While I was there, I went into a book shop, and saw this:

So, the train finally arrived, and I got on. Luckily I got on as soon as it got there, because it filled up quickly. Some people had to stand. And this was before we took on more passengers at the stops along the way. Okay, time for some pictures.

This is a random building in Augsburg. It's also an ion cannon, for when the Star Destroyers attack.

The train station in Munich is huge.

A fountain.

A much more exciting fountain!

Der Polizei are here! No clue why, but there's a whole bunch of them.

Down the street a bit was a church called St. Michael's. Here's some pics.

Down the street a ways was the Church of Our Lady, one of Munich's landmarks.

Under the sanctuary, there was a chapel.

(It's a bit dark in the chapel.)

(Not sure if this guy is buried here or what. There were a couple other stones like this one.)

Here's a blurry version of what the church is shaped like. For some reason, I could not get a clear picture of it no matter how many times I tried.

Then I explored some more outside.

Here's one of those guys who pretends to be a statue. When you put money in the box, he makes bird noises.

Some more performers. I was standing there listening, and thinking to myself: This kind of sounds like Ennio Morricone. And sure enough, they were playing the theme to For a Few Dollars More.

Here's the New Townhall in Marienplatz, which is kind of like the town square of Munich. Apparently something happens with that clock tower at 11:00AM, 12:00PM, and 5:00PM. But it was already after 12 when I got to the square. We'll come back to this later.

This is Viktualienmarkt, where they have all kinds of gourmets and beer gardens.

This is a giant red ring. Not sure what it's purpose is, but it's fun to take pictures of other things inside of the ring. For example...

There's a building inside the ring! And with some patience, I was able to get...

A tour bus in the ring! Okay, enough of that.

"Oy! Who's knockin' on my door?"

An obelisk. And, surrounding it is a roundabout!

Roundabout!

Roundabout!

Rounda-rounda-roundabout! You'll notice that the tram tracks have a roundabout inside the street's roundabout. Which means there's a roundabout around a roundabout. (Say that last sentence out loud for the full effect.)

This is a torch. So what's the symbology here? No clue.

A windmill!

There's a bunch of shops set up. I guess it's some sort of festival. A bunch of people are there.

Even this guy on a horse came!

This guy was not invited, though. And he looks pissed.

So he sent his lion to gate-crash.

Here's a temple to Diana. (Not sure what it's doing in Germany, though. I thought she was Welsh. What? Oh, never mind.)

Inside the temple, a man plays violin.

A faun. He's smiling for two reasons:  he stole my grapes, and he's naked in public.

I went into the Munich Residenz, which was a palace for Bavarian rulers from the 1300s to the 1900s. Here are some pictures:

(This is a layout of the Residenz.)

Family tree of rulers.

When "Got your nose!" becomes literal.

Oh, whoops. This is a picture of the dishes in my room. Not sure how it got here...

Okay, I'm gonna be honest. The picture I took of this hallway came out really blurry, so this is one I took from Wikipedia. (Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8a/Antiquarium_residence_munich.jpg)

This is the Black Hall, or the Perspective Room. Why the Perspective Room? Check out the ceiling.

If you stand in the middle of the room and look straight up, the ceiling looks higher. But that darn chandelier makes photographing the effect difficult.

A card table, where one could play chess, or some variant of Roulette.

Royal Audience Chamber.

And then outside, I saw this:

The man portrayed here is...long dead. (I don't know who he is.)

I went into a bookstore to relax for a bit, and saw this.

Es gibt nur einen Herr der Ringe, und er hat nicht die Macht teilen!

(There is only one Lord of the Rings, and he does not share power!)

Then I went outside, into Marienplatz square.

It's 4:59. In one minute something's gonna happen.

The clock struck 5, and the bells in the tower started playing a song.

And then this happened.


And after that, this happened.

And then finally, I got on a train and came back to Ulm. The end. Tchüs!