Germania

I mentioned a few posts ago that I had been asked to travel to Germany for work -- well, I have returned from said trip, and let me tell you, it was fantastic. Though I was in various meetings during most daylight hours and had little free time for sight-seeing (or, ahem, yarn shopping), it was amazing just to be there, to meet the people and eat the food, and rush to work on the train with the locals. The aforementioned lack of free time unfortunately resulted in few and unremarkable photos, mostly taken out the windows of various forms of transportation. Though there is also little knitting to show from the trip, I thought I'd post some of the less unremarkable ones for anyone who might be interested. :)


On the way, a couple hours away from our destination, the sun rose over Greenland.


Bonn is the birthplace of Beethoven.


I passed this church in Bonn several times but, embarrassingly, do not remember its name.


A Rainy Day Sock, knit on the plane. To avoid freaking out the people of Bonn, I took my modeled FO shot in my hotel window, rather than in public.


I did get to sightsee in Köln briefly -- behind me is their utterly beautiful and massive cathedral (Kölner Dom). (I am actually wearing Snow White in this photo, under my jacket, with sleeves rolled up.)


There were tons of castles to be seen along the Rhine during my train ride from Bonn to Stuttgart.


From the top of Stuttgart's Hauptbahnhof (main train station).


My friend/colleague took me to see her friend's band play. The bar was a tiny, apartment-like spot above a falafel joint. It was über hip.


The guy on the far left used this giant piece of tungsten for his doctoral thesis back in the day (something about plasma windtunnels....?). The guy on the far right (the Big Boss of the program I work on) had refused to leave until he saw it, exclaiming several times that it must be the biggest piece of tungsten in Europe. Testosterone levels were high as each colleague of mine took turns trying to lift it. As you might imagine, this sort of thing is completely lost on me, however I did find their boyish excitement over a hunk of metal absolutely hilarious. (Also note that being a huge dork is requisite to working at NASA. We're all like this in some form or another...)


Back home again...