To those in Australia: I’ll see you soon.
To those in Germany: it seems highly probably that I will see you in the not-too-distant future.

On Thursday afternoon I went to Braunschweig with my colleagues from the university. After a vehicular tour of the town, we enjoyed coffee and cake at our professor’s house and met his wife. We then made our way to the Christmas market for some local cuisine. The market—and the town in general—has a really nice atmosphere. It is extremely popular in the area, occasionally we found ourselves in bottlenecks like one would expect at an open air concert. And it was cold. Feet and hands turn promptly to ice blocks. This can be battled somewhat by glühwein and chilliwurst. But despite the cold we had to wait for the snow.

Also, Braunschweig is essentially the same name as Brunswick, so it was like visiting my new home.

It’s currently -14ºC and I’m off to Berlin soon. I’m wearing ski pants, 3 pairs of socks, 2 jumpers, 1 Jacket, scarf, gloves, beanie.

Another highlight was the spit-roasted boar, which had been shot at the request of the young couple. And then there was the four-person fire juggling extravaganza. Some genuinely impressive skills with poi, double short staff, devil sticks, ropes, fire-breathing and a strange kind of levitationesque device.

I checked out the Magdeburg Christmas market this evening, tried some local food. It wasn’t the best I’ve had, but I’ll try again since it’s on the way home.

A couple weeks ago I presented some of my research at a faculty colloquium. This didn’t result in a lynching so I’m going to call it a success.

Recent movie recommendation: Looking for Eric.

Not-so-recent (but nonetheless great) book recommendation: Cryptonomicon (Neal Stephenson)

Otherwise I’ve been burying my head in running simulations and writing for university.

The thesis itself was amazingly presented. I can’t say much about the content because I’ve not read it. One hundred professionally bound pages, with a brilliant red silk cover sourced from the lining of a century old Kimono. A number of late nights went into preparing the page layouts, each of which was accompanied by soup/sushi/pasta and increasingly severe flu symptoms. But the final product was truly impressive—great work Claudi!

Our dinner was a walnut and brie salad, followed by a  cream-cheese-herb filled chicken breast wrapped in prosciutto, and finished with a chocolate ice-cream and raspberry sauce. Delicious.

I can't wait 'til Tuesday

Actually, all of the lost items relate to riding. But I won’t let this deter me.

The second item is myself (important for existing). I often take a quick look at a map before leaving home, and sometimes even make a few rough sketches. But this time the sketches were insufficient. Unlabelled squiggly lines make more sense when you’re looking at a real map—an hour later they’re close to useless. In summary, after a number of defeated phone calls I incrementally made my way to breakfast.

The fact that I hadn’t eaten yet explains nothing, as immediately after breakfast I got lost again. I should emphasise I don’t see any of this as a bad thing, it’s quite fun exploring, and the occasional map-equipped bus shelter usually puts me back on track. I was trying to get to Claudia’s work, which is approximately the third point in an equilateral triangle (the other two being home and breakfast café). But I ended up back at home before I realised where I was. No problem, good exercise.

Later that day I collected a hand-edited copy of Claudia’s partial thesis (i.e. very important document). I stowed it ‘safely’ in my hoody pocket, and began the ride home. As you have probably guessed, it wasn’t there when I got home. Damn it. And I didn’t even take a direct route home. It was also dark at this point. After another half hour of back-tracking I learnt how ineffective my hoody is as a document transporter; I found the thesis practically at the pickup point (very relieved).

The next item was found before I knew I’d lost it. I had borrowed a very nice scarf (treasured) on a cold movie night, and left it at the home of the projectionist. Being a cold night, I had also been wearing my favourite beanie! That was where I had left it. And like that my scalp was warmed again. Good thing too, because it is starting to get really cold here.

I also saw a really cute hedgehog family foraging in the garden at Claudia’s Grandmother’s house (Magdeburg).

And special congratulations to Lachie and Ali — Lucy Meredith was born on Tuesday morning!

After a few rounds of Fußball we made our way to a previously popular Russian disco, which actually played a lot of old US rock music.

Early the next morning Claudi and I went with a friend to a top secret factory outlet. You need to be a level 5 celestial being—with ranks in fashion—just to be granted access (or have a friend with such a status). Enthused by the strong Australian dollar I made a number of bargain acquisitions. Some in preparation for the impending German winter, others more accurately reside in the fun category.

Back in Magdeburg I’ve not done much besides uni, which is coming along reasonably well. Two friends who spent time in Melbourne last year successfully defended their respective theses last week. I’ve been putting most of my efforts into writing a simulation for district heating networks, the results of which are going into a paper I’m writing. I hope to present it (or a reduced version of it) at the International Conference on Applied Energy in Singapore next year.

In local news, last night the mayor (Bürgermeister) held a town meeting to present the plans for some major changes to a large section of the city center. The bridge connecting trains to the main station is at the end of its life. So the idea is to use the opportunity to do something spectacular. However, if the objections of the local professors and engineers are well founded, and one has good reason to believe they are, then the whole project is only going to increase congestion in town and cost far more than necessary to do so. Anyway, it seems like there are a number of hidden beneficiaries to the proposed project. And the council are happy to lie to the people and suppress attempts to consider alternatives.

He joined me in Magdeburg during the week, which meant our evenings were well stocked with DOTA. We even managed a D&D session, DMed by our guest.

Friday night we were out of town again enjoying both the old and new districts in Dresden. A friend of Claudi’s showed us some local evening activites, including the mandatory Kebap shop and rainy beer garden.

In the morning we were off on a riverboat through some unbelievable valleys past the summer homes of kings and other castle-like constructions. After 6 hours and 30 km we abandoned ship in the little town of Königstein. The lady in the information office laughed when I asked if there was a map of the town we could buy, “This is the town [points at the street out front], and that is the castle [points at castle]“.

Anyway, after finding the hostel we’d planned to stay at, which was actually a pretty decent walk along the river, we learnt a booking would have been a good idea. No problem, they suggested another one further up the road. But it was full too. Hmm, … this was starting to get a little concerning. And it was hot. And at least one of us had a heavy bag. How about calling the one in the Lonely Planet Guide (thanks Mum), nup all full. Lets go back to the first one and ask if they can rent-a-tent. Nope. Ok, rent-a-tent seems unlikely, but I want another excuse to say it, so we call the LPG hostel again and ask if they can rent-a-tent. Now I’m pretty sure nobody anywhere does this, but, after a little discussion he hesitantly admits they could probably fit us somewhere.

At this stage the idea of sleeping in a laundry or living room wasn’t sounding too bad, better than sleeping in the castle jail. But now there’s another problem, the hostel is on the other side of the river. But we saw a ferry when we arrived, so we’ll try that. Except the hostel is 3km from where the ferry would drop us. And we want to see the castle on this side of the river before turning in for the night.

The hostel guy says he can pick us up. I wasn’t sure what this meant. But a horse/bicycle/Sherpa sounded more likely to get us there and back before the castle closed. So we crossed the river and awaited our transportation assistance. After 20 minutes we decided at least walking had a finite duration. So we set off assuming we’d see him on the way. And sure enough 1km down the road we were met by motor-vehicular based burden alleviation.

The hostel was swarming with children, which were undoubtedly the reason for our hostel host’s hesitance at taking on more guests. Especially since the room he gave us was great—a converted attic with great views and mattresses.

We dumped our bags and prepared for a mountain climb. Telling our host we were off to see the castle he suggested we borrow some bikes. Minutes later we were peddling through the countryside past an idyllic river/castle/apple-field  and towards our ferry.

As we rounded the bend we saw the ferry almost ready for departure. One bike had steering lag and the other had but a single gear (damn you fixies), but we made good speed and rode down the ramp straight onto the ferry. A highlight like you wouldn’t believe. This was a Steve McQueen–The Great Escape moment, kind of. And the fact that the ferry goes every 10 minutes by no means lessens the experience.

Anyhow, the climb to the castle was nice exercise (see pictures). And from up there it is very easy to believe no one ever attempted a siege.

On Sunday we caught the train to Prague and saw Radiohead.

Very late Sunday night I caught a train back to Magdeburg, but not before spending a few cold and tired hours waiting for the train station to open.

An amazing trip, as you’ll see in the photos, and a few ruffians make an appearance too.