Zürich, Switzerland

Kiran and Chris were spending a month in Zürich and so I decided to visit. Quick summary: Switzerland is filled with sparkling glacier-fed lakes, towering mountains, charming towns, and expensive everything.

The scenery along the Limmat river and the harbour area of the Zürichsee, although the locals all shorten it to Zürisee. The church spires of St. Peter’s Kirche and Frau Münster are visible in the background.

The Swiss have very funny names for places sometimes. A sweet picture of Chris and Kiran on top of the Üetliberg (pronounced OO-ET-LEE-BEERG) with great views of Zürich and the surrounding countryside.

On Saturday we followed part of the “Weg der Schweiz” (the path of Switzerland), part of the Vierwaldstättersee. The “Weg der Schweiz” derives its name from the negotiations taking place at this lake in 1291 which lay the groundwork for Switzerland. Three cantons agreed to defend each other against advancing armies. William Tell of the legends is also rumoured to have landed in the area. It was a pretty laidback combo of hiking, boat trips and a funicular.

View out onto the Vierwaldstättersee.

Going up the funicular.

As a very early birthday present from my Dad, Kiran, Chris and I went to dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant with a beautiful view overlooking the Zürisee.

Hamming it up outside the restaurant.

Sunday we enjoyed the sunny weather and headed to the charming town of Rapperswil.

Other miscellaneous:

• In comparison with Germany or even Canada for that matter there are flags everywhere, including on the hats of McDonald’s employees. People are pretty darn proud of being Swiss.
• The national soft drink is Rivella. I was unsure at first since it’s 33% milk serum, but it’s surprisingly good and tastes kind of like liquefied rocket candies.

• Everyone was pretty excited about the America cup sailing competition going on against New Zealand. I find it a little ironic that Switzerland, a country with no coast, has won the world’s most prestigious yacht competition twice in a row.

TerraSAR-X Satellite Launch Party

This was a once-in-a-lifetime invitation to a satellite launch party for Germany’s first radar satellite called TerraSAR-X. The launch took place in Kazakhstan early in the morning on June 15th, so that with the time difference, the party started at 2:30 am, the launch was at 4:14 am, and first contact with the satellite was made around 5 am. (Artistic view below: courtesy DLR website).

My research isn’t directly tied with this satellite, although some people at my institute had invested 5 years of their life into developing it. There were plenty of excited, nervous-looking people looking amazingly alert for 4 am.

There were periodic broadcasts from the control room (a few buildings away….but open for VIPs only) and then live footage from Kazakhstan for the launch itself. Unfortunately the Russians couldn’t get the sound connection working and we missed the countdown, but it was neat to see the rocket slowly climbing upwards. At first I was worried since it seemed to be going diagonal, but the camera was just a little titled. Cheers, sighs of relief and champagne followed shortly after as well as a live band and a German breakfast buffet completely with soft pretzels, beer, and sausages.

At around 6 am I dragged myself upstairs to my office and began to work….not the easiest thing in the world, but my commute is one hour each way and I needed to head off to a tournament relatively early Friday afternoon.

The first images and more of a write-up can be seen here on DLR’s website (my institute, the German Aerospace Center). More personal images below:

Waiting for the launch and pressing our thumbs that everything will go well (the German equivalent of crossing your fingers).

The Dnepr rocket taking off! (yes, there is only one vowel in Dnepr and sometimes people even write it Dnpr) (Photo: courtesy DLR)

What it looked like from my viewpoint….

Celebrating with champagne. Donata (to my left) has been doing shift-work since the launch to ensure everything with the satellite start-up runs smoothly.

The first image a few days after launch of an area of Russia, west of Volgograd. These are the type of images I look at ALL day long. Agricultural fields are visible as well as settlements (bright white) along the river. The bright smear in the upper left is due to extremely heavy cloud cover that they were unable to remove at the first processing.

Miscellaneous Germany

A lot of people have wanted to hear more about life in Germany and not just my gallivanting around Europe on trips! Well, here are a few pictures from day/weekend trips I’ve done within Germany, as well as visiting friends and things I’ve stumbled upon in Munich.

World War I graveyard I found during a bike ride in southern Munich.

Marienplatz: Central plaza in Munich. It still impresses me every time I emerge from the subway station below.

Olympiapark: Stadium for the 1972 Olympic games in Munich with a funky twisted plastic roof.

Weekend trip to Weimar to visit some friends. Zeke has a great breakfast nook and we’re just about to dig in…

A day-trip to Füßen near the border with Austria. Below is the Hohen-Schwangau castle where crazy King Ludwig II grew up.

Göteborg, Sweden

I recently played a tournament with the German national team in Sweden, one of the rare European tournaments with a women’s division. And yes, for those I haven’t spoken with yet, I’m very excited to have made it past try-outs to represent Germany at the European championships at the beginning of August. I can’t wait to get our jerseys with “Deutschland” across the back.

Since the only cheap flights were in mid-afternoon, I took a day of vacation and actually had a chance to look around Göteborg, a rarity for an ultimate tournament. Göteborg is an old port city with lots of brick, which I found attractive. The harbour area is huge with not only an industrial section, but also Scandinavia’s largest Maritime museum (with lots of rotating radars on boats which caught my eye) and a more touristy section complete with pleasure-boats, floating restaurants and the opera. Göteborg harbour with the nicknamed "lipstick tube" in the background.

My arrival coincided with high school graduation day which involved hundreds of drunks teens with hired drivers riding around in convertibles or rented buses dressed up as sailors.

I think I discovered the bat cave….

Oslo, Norway

I only had a few hours to enjoy Oslo during a stopover on the way back to Munich from Svalbard, but I made the most of it and got a chance to tour Vigeland Park, a huge park and outdoor gallery of bronze, granite and wrought iron sculptures from Gustav Vigeland, depicting life, death, anger, joy, love and movement.

From the beautiful…

to the bizarre.

The focus of the park is on the 12 m monolith with 121 human figures intertwined in the background.

One of the first days of spring in the park.

I also had a chance to see the Harbour area filled with boats, sculptures, and people sitting around the wharf and on benches reading in the sun.

For those who know about my sign collection, I found another interesting addition. Caution, fat pigeons?

I really liked Oslo and it was one of those rare places I could actually picture myself living. It has a relatively small population of ~600,000, interesting architecture with balconies jutting out, lots of coffee shops and green space.