… grobe Schätzung der unteren Grenze.

After most of the other EILC people left on sunday I decided to go to Edinburgh on Monday, 17th of december, despite the train ticket prices which reminded me of the german train companies prices.

From the train station Edinburgh Waverly I first went a bit around without any orientation, then ended up at the castle somehow where I decided not to spent 12 Pounds for visiting the castle, somehow I was also no in the mood to go a museum, the weather was really nice, sun, almost no clouds, some fog and temperatures around zero.

Visited some churches …

Changed to the other side of the town, already having in mind that hill on the west side from Waverley station as seen on the second picture.

There I sat quite a while on a bench in the sun, watching the old town and the small hill on the other upto which I later decided to walk. Going there I passed a summer castle of the queen and the scottish parliament.


View back on the first hill ….

Edinburgh down there somewhere in the fog …

Again along the scottish parliament …

and seeing some flares from maybe oilcompanies on the other shore of the the nordic sea, walking around a bit in town, but somehow it wasn’t really looking interesting anywhere. Thus back to the train station, back to Newcastle for one night and then continuing to London and then Frankfurt, Heidelberg the next day.

Biggest plane I’ve flewn with so far, not only 3 or 4 seats in one row *g*. Passing Frankfurt Airport trainstation I arrived somewhen on wednesday early morning in Heidelberg.

Bild in Anlehnung an Kristallwelt.

Tavallisesti voidaan nähdä siitä Odenwald kuin siellä. Mutta nyt ei. Pilvet tai ‘korkea sumu’ eivät ole korkeampi.

Olin tänään uudelleen saunassa Dossenheimissä, mutta saksan sauna ei ole oikea sauna. Nainen saunassa kysyi: ‘missä on kylpypyyhe jalkoidesi ja puun välissä ?! Sillä tavalla on liian epähygieenista !’ … istuin jo kylpypyyhen päällä, mutta … voi voi. Ja jos ei voida heittää mitään löylyä, vain yksi kerta tunissa tulee joku veden kanssa – omituista.

Huomenna takaisin pohjois-saksaan.

Bilder aus England online hier und da.

Zurück aus England …

After 5 hours in the train I arrived a bit late at the ‘new’ main station of Berlin, an interesting train station, but as before, I’m missing a simple clock I can see from outside. But it got now a crystal christmas tree in the foyer, with a lot of japanese tourists standing in front of it taking thousands of photos. I preferred a position from which the name of the company cannot be seen *g*

Antonia picked me up at the train station, Phil came by car, Mitfahrgelegenheit, and arrived at almost at the spot we went to just when he called us. No, not from his own mobile phone. Damn. Would have given some nice photos.
After drinking some coffee with or without milk, we continued to go back to Antonia’s place. With nice orange stripes on the walls and sima in the fridge.

The next day we started to do some kind of tourist program. Toni had to be at university and Phil and me had to fight some navigational problems which were not at all due to the size of the town or our orientation, but due to the simple human following behaviour we already exploited sucessfully in Rovaniemi, but this time, we accidently weren’t so aware of doing that, so that everybody thought the other is knowing where to go. Somehow the way got a bit more zigzag like, but still, we arrived e.g. at the old ‘Palast der Republik’ and the red townhall.

And then: Pohjoismaiden Suurlähetystöihin ! One of the embassies which is not protected by walls of concrete or nice fancy LED-covered protection systems. The combined embassy for the northern countries also contained a common house in which we wanted to visit an exhibition of a finnish designer. Actually also the embassy itself is worth a look.

… positioning in front of the embassy under the finnish flag, the official one, with the finnish coat of arms.

The shovel in the yard might not be the most practical one, though.

Is there some rule saying modern nordic buildings have to contain a lot of white balconies ?

Phil-Harmonie

After we finally found the smelly tunnel to the ‘siegessäule’ we had of course to climp to the top of it and looking at several mosaics. The little museum inside somehow hasnt caught much of attention …

The view from the top was fine, even though the weather could have been better. But I guess it’s been anyway still better than in Finland during that time, we havn’t had too much rain …

Then we crossed the Tiergarten towards the Phil-harmonie and arrived at Potsdamer Platz spending some time to take photos of all three of us in some christmas decoration. After that we continued to the TV and cinema museum.

The Sony centre has an interesting roof which is illuminated in different colors at night.

In the museum there are a lot of rooms with many walls covered with mirrors while in this picture for example this room was used to show a movie about different epochs in german TV. since the movie was designed in a certain number of tiles next to each other it was also possible to watch the movie partly thru the mirros and partly directly, all in all a nice experience. That specific movie would’ve been nevertheless also been nice without the mirrors ….

There were also parts of the museum without mirrors, but still sometimes looking strange. And before I forget, Antonia gladly took her camera with her to the museum and hasnt had left it outside, thanks again

Mirrors, ‘stupid’ tshirts, and ‘windows’ … a great combination

I always knew that this way started somewhere started in Berlin

On the right side there is a reflector construction to get daylight into the room of the parliament, also with some possibility to block parts of the sun. Interestingly the upper part of the construction is not heated but the temperature is more or less the same as outside.

Since our tour was touristlike, we have to take on the maybe most typical touristphotos.

Ohne Kommentar.

From Prague Zuzan had given me some poppyseed cake which was somehow everyday in berlin something we waited for when we have been on the way back to Antonias flat. Since it was over at some point, we had to find and buy some more. In the shop we all saw them, Phil and me were discussing if we should buy them while Antonia was buying some bread and maybe hasn’t heard us discussing, but still she seemed to buy that cake immediately anyway …

Berliinin Tuomiokirkko:

The old red townhall from the cathedral.

On the museum island we havn’t had much time to watch everything, but since nofretete is going back to egypt and we were around there anyway, we made a fast visit. Everybody btw with tshirts having some finnish texts on them. everybody of us three of course only.

Eating some sort of Chili-con-carne in preparation for a concert of knucklebone oscar, a finnish band I guess nobody of us knew before.

The following day we already had to leave, after having checked our means of transportation.

And having seen ‘helsinki road’ …

… and Toni having bought a hesari.

Somewhen short before midnight I arrived back in my dormitory in heidelberg, right next to the neckar. The rain had stopped, even though on the way from berlin to heidelberg it was quite strong which didn’t stop the driver to go with 180km/h. but well, you never know what kind of driver you get when using something like ‘mitfahrgelegenheit’.

Halbwegs unvorsortierte Bilder gibts wie immer in der Gallerie.

Mal ein reiner Essenspost, letzte Woche gab’s …. :

Mal wieder Putenfleisch in Kokoscurrysauce mit Sojabohnen (in Anlehnung an). Man beachte den Sima im Hintergrund

Heute mal ein wenig experimentelle Pizza, Pizza mit Sauerteigbrotteig als Boden. Der Rand war ein wenig hart, aber ansonsten sehr schön.

Und heute einem Mitbewohner beim Zimtschnecken machen geholfen, er hatte das Rezept von seiner (schwedischen) Mutter bekommen, anscheinend aber den Teig noch nie selber gemacht.

Von sonstigem Fraß hier wie bspw. einen einfachen Mohnkuchen und ‘nem Sesamsauerteigbrot fehlen mir bisher noch vergleichbar schöne Bilder

Olin tänään ensi kerran saunassa Saksassa. Tuntee vähän omituiselta jos joku menee saunaan, heittää löylyä ja sitten lähtee saunasta. Ja vain yhden kerran tunnissa. Mutta koska siellä oli kaks saunaa, me mentiin aina sinne missä heitettiin löylyä  Lisäksi siellä oli väri-sauna, missä ei voida heittää mitään löylyä, koska uuni on seinässä. Mutta sauna Dossenheimissa on kuitenkin kiva, siinäkin on kivoja kaakelija, voidaan istua ulos ja se ei ollut täysi, lauantai illalla. Opiskelijoille se maksaa 6€/2h. (weiterlesen…)

Last week I have been on a short trip to Prague, since it was somehow on the way and additionally Zuzan had been some times at my flat in Helsinki. Actually I picked maybe one of the worst days to pick, nevertheless it was really nice and interesting, although 2,5 days are pretty damn short. But let’s start at the beginning:

After a usual monday at university with about 5 hours of exercise sessions but skipping a lecture, I left around eleven towards the busstop in Heidelberg, it was raining a lot, felt like early autumn in Helsinki. The bus left half past eleven and arrived in Prague a bit before seven.

On the way there was a lot of snow to be seen and also in Prague there was still some new snow from the night. Strange feeling to arrive in a strange town on a bus stop before seven, before sunrise. Zuzan said I should just drop my stuff at her flat, but somehow it felt strange to drop it there at this time of the day, especially since she was at work and I would have to wake some of her flatmates. So I walked towards the city center, westwards, google-earth had prepared me well enough for first orientation.

The normally tourist covered Karls-bridge was still quite empty, the sun was finally up when I arrived there.

I spent some time there watching the people passing by, a lot of workers carrying some drilling machines, some stressed looking fast walking people. and about 3 tourists maybe.

The quarter of town towards the castle near to the old center seemed also still to be asleep.

But some of the bridges were already awake. In Prague there are at least three different types of trams, those old ones seem somehow comfortable, somehow friendly and nice. The newer ones somehow look different, more technically, more neutral. Inside the old ones have been modernized as well, though.

Walked into some little park, passing a monument for the victims of communism. And some trees looked as if it was springtime. In the background Prague’s Eiffel-tower. 1/6 of the size of the original one, but on a hill, thus as high as the french version.

Walking in this park was a bit exhausting because I had all my luggage with me and the paths were all very slippery and frozen over. The view over Prague was very nice, though.

Somewhen before noon zusan returned from work. We met at her flat, felt like the old farmhouse I lived in once upon a time with my family, maybe it was only the temperatures. Quite a lovely flat and also 4 nice people living in it.

Zusan had to leave again to university for an exam (as I said, everything timed really well, more like an ambush from my side) so I had time to explore the town a bit more after having left my stuff in the flat and warmed up by some tea.

In the evening there was a concert by some Rock/Funk/Jazz/whatever band (that’s how a friend of my host described the music), which was great, even though in the end, i.e. before we left when they were still playing, the couldn’t somehow find it. the end. After running though town the whole day and not really having slept well in the bus – that’s maybe only possible for people smaller than 1,60m – I was also quite tired. maybe.

The following day we visited an exibition about czech press photography, interesting and containing some really touching pictures. We also visited the ‘new town’, the other castle, went to take a closer look at the small tower on top of the hill.

When I arrived Zuzan had some sweet bread filled with poppy seeds, which was really nice. When I left she had got another one, which we ate in Berlin distributed over several days, so we had always something to look forward too when going back home to Tonis flat. But as far as I remember Zuzan had also to ‘suffer’ from a lot of cake when she was in Helsinki, like rhubarb-cake

On Thursday I walked the way from the flat to the train station to see also that part of town. Some builduings were from the Expo ’58, and a nice big park with already partly frozen lakes was on my way and being visited.

The train station from which I was leaving on a 5h trip to Berlin, arriving there somewhen around seven in the evening, reading ‘Pippi Longstocking’ in finnish and Nordermoor (in german) …

More pictures can be found in the gallery.

(Actually I wanted to write this first in finnish and then write a summary in english, but somehow time is at the moment nothing I have lots of.)

Letzte Woche war ich ein wenig unterwegs …

Bilder aus Prag gibts hier
… und Bilder aus Berlin dort.