Fortunately enough, earlier during the week – while waiting for some data to make its way to Jülich from the other side of Atlantic Ocean – Walter had taken me for an afternoon ride towards Aachen. My camera did not like the heavy rains throughout the afternoon and cloud cover removed any/all contrast I was hoping to get He also took me across the border to Netherlands and Belgium but again rains, overcast conditions forced the watch tower to close early. Though some might consider this as a failed attempt to see Aachen, Vaals, Drielandenpunt…. there were many positive outcomes as well:

1. Walter had taken me through the important streets in Aachen and Vaals – so, if I decided to revisit them, I would know exactly where to go and where to find the food I can eat/enjoy!
   
   
   

   Walter, searching for something on the map, in rain…

   
   

2. If it wasn’t for this rainy, overcast, foggy conditions, I wouldn’t have gotten the picture below:
   
   
   
   
   
3. Visiting the Brown Coal Mining area in the outskirts of Jülich was particularly impressive – from an architectural / engineering / machinery perspective:
   
   
   

   Monster Machine — bulldozer at the very bottom (supposedly 20 feet tall) looks like a miniature toy! Height of the monster machine is just the tip of the iceberg compared to the depth of the mining valley itself!!

   
   

Not having good enough pictures in Aachen/Vaals as well as its proximity (geographically to Jülich & financially to my pocket) meant that I would use this Saturday to re-visit that area. As always, starting early helped to reach Aachen before the tourist crowd came in and the streets were mostly filled with localites. Weather was still cloudy and did drizzle every now and then, but parts of the clouds cleared up making way for some blue skies every now and then as well – lugging around my backpack (camera backpack) was definitely useful and below are some pictures from the Aachen area:

Düren – waiting for the train towards Aachen

A historic township with Coal Power Plant in the background

Aachen Market Place

Aachen Timeline in Architecture…

While walking around Aachen…

A short bus ride and the same weird experience (of not having my passport checked while crossing borders), I found myself at a pretty familiar place – a fast-food restaurant in Vaals (Netherlands). Thanks to Walter bringing me here earlier, I knew exactly what to eat

Bami – a crisply (and deep) fried stuff, stuffed with all vegetarian noodles

Once the hunger was taken care off, then started a nearly 12 km (about 7 miles) hike through the streets of Vaals and up & down the hill (highest elevation point in Netherlands) to Drielandenpunt – a point from where one can see, weather permitting, few towns each in Belgium, Germany and Netherlands. Hike seemed quite long and tedious – given that a 10 kg (about 20 lbs) backpack was hanging off my back – but I was pleasantly surprised by all that I got see and shoot pictures off. Some pictures from this hike, excluding views from Drielandenpunt, are below:

The view from Drielandenpunt itself is quite amazing – matching every description Walter had given me before but climbing up the stairs can be quite a process, especially with the kind of gusting winds I had to encounter today. While I was repenting my decision of not taking an elevator, the heavy backpack added some extra weight to my body – barring which, I would have flown to Aachen from the top of watch tower

Belgium

Germany (behind the grid)

Netherlands

Just when I was assuming that I had seen all that Vaals and Aachen had to offer – at least for a short visit such as mine – I got more First one was more a physical thing – the fanciest pancake I have ever eaten:

Pineapple Pancake in Vaals

Next one was more a scientifically geographic yet quantum mechanically philosophical thing – a general proof that one can exist in multiple places at the same time. Although the fact that there is no border between some of these countries (thanks to Schenghen Treaty/Agreement) takes away all the scientifically geographic yet quantum mechanically philosophical thing about it

At once, in Netherlands as well as Germany…

Returning back to Jülich via Düren was pretty much a text-book thing – got the required trains on time and something that I will definitely take home from this day… the pure joy of walking across countries, although the YooPer version would have to be the pure joy of walking across counties

Towards Cologne…

Cathedral – each of these towers is about 150m (about 500 ft) tall and tower on the left is few centimeters taller than the right…

After having discussed with a friend of mine, I was to take the guided tour of brewing (beer brewing) houses in Cologne (other option was to tour the Cathedral). The best part of the tour, as described by a fellow tour-taker, was the guide herself. She did a good job of taking us through the less traveled streets of Cologne, explaining many interesting and some not so well known facts from Cologne’s history. With the flood of questions from the audience never seemed to stop, I am more than sure – as were few other tour takers, that she would never want to be a guide to a bunch of scientists/geeks ever again!

Best part of the guided tour of breweries… the tour guide!

Part of the audience… intently listening to the the guide’s narration

A colorful street of Cologne

When it was the time to say sayonara to our beloved tour guide, she had left us right in front of a quite popular brewing house. Interiors had a very nice ambience and reminded me of restaurants in the Western Ghats of India – one of the differences being a container used to serve water (in Western Ghats) is used to serve the locally brewed Kölsch! I was pleasantly surprised to find (very tasty) vegetarian food (thanks to Tatjana and Walter for the recommendation) although it was the Kölsch (and photography) that kept me more occupied all through the evening

Brewery

Interiors

Kölsch galore…

My dinner – Kartoffeltaschen – an assortment of vegetables along with stuffed (crisply fried) potatoes

While I was busy with my third Kölsch that Walter explained some mathematically not so obvious tricks of the trade – used by the brewing houses/bars in Cologne (I bet it’s true elsewhere as well). A 100 litre barrel of beer often fills about 130-150 one litre jugs (a.k.a. pitchers) while each one litre jug (pitcher) fills about six 200 ml glasses. It’s so much about the appearance of the glass (or the pitcher) being full rather than it’s actually being full!

One of my Kölsch servings

Shooting along side another (needless to say, a very proud) Nikonian made things a lot easier – especially when it came to fixing shooting parameters and such. It would be an understatement to say that everybody (at least the workshop participants) had quite a bit of fun.

Sandeepan Mohanty – a fellow Nikonian

Some proof that people had fun and lots of it…

Like every other good thing, I didn’t keep track of how many servings of Kölsch I had. But the fact that I walked a non random walk back to the bus (near Cologne Train Station – few hundred steps away) from the brewing houses while seemlessly discussing archives of Ph.D Comics with fellow participants clearly indicated that I didn’t drink as many as I should have! Anyways, return journey to Jülich had quite less people on the bus (no, we didn’t loose them – they headed off to their homes from Cologne).

Saturday Sun is already warming up Jülich air and /me, sitting in a breakfast club with fellow Houghtonites, is wondering what direction to head today & rest of the weekend – may be the Citadel and the lesser known streets of Jülich…

PS #0: These and other pictures from the trip to Cologne can be found here.

PS #1: If you were on this trip and would like to have any of the above pictures (or the ones in the gallery), please send me an email or leave a comment here. I will mail them to you as soon as I can.

For those of you who have been quite regular at reading these posts, my trip to Germany is kinda old news. Unlike my previous attempt, weather gods in UP (Michigan’s Upper Peninsular) were more than kind and none of the flights had any technical difficulty (FYI – technical difficulty does not necessarily/always mean technological difficulty. It’s often a very lame excuse given by Airlines when their flights are under-booked and they don’t want to fly!). Journey from Houghton to Minneapolis in the twin engine carrier, as always, was quite a bumpy ride – thanks to some not-so-rare atmospheric phenomenon. What was unusual and took me by a great deal of surprise was the fact that the computer did not randomly select me for extra security check! Trans-Atlantic flight was fun too – needless to mention that these carriers have individual on-demand display units but the choice of movies kinda sucked this time. Having four trainee flight attendants on board meant that pretty much everybody, who wanted to, got first class service in economy class seating.

Amsterdam, unlike all my previous visits, greeted me with warm weather. However, a technical difficulty prolonged the continuing flight to Düsseldorf by an hour but nevertheless gave me an opportunity to get the first official meal in Europe! Fact that some one from the Neumann Institute of Computing was kind enough to work on May Day meant that the journey from Düsseldorf to Jülich was much shorter and a convenient one.

Coffee looks like the coffee I was once used to…. Sandwich looks like the one I am used to…

Classic country-side… on the way from Düsseldorf to Jülich

Around The Town

This smallish but quite historic (both in terms of the general and science/technology) town makes just about any one stop and take pictures of pretty much everything there is to see. Some that have captured the attention of my camera are below:

Hexenturm – no wonder the hotel I am currently staying is called Am Hexenturm (By The Witch Tower)

Early morning…

Market place – early morning…

In the vicinity of Am Hexenturm

In the vicinity of Am Hexenturm

While walking around the town

While walking around the town

CBSB ’07 Workshop

Set amidst very beautiful and picturesque surroundings, campus of Neumann Institute of Computing reminds me of Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. Although I was never really part of IISc., tea in the café and 20% discount at the Tata Book House along with occasional public lectures organized by the Indian Academy of Sciences made sure that I frequented the IISc. campus, quite often at that Like one of my teachers usually explained and as has been my own experience at IISc., worlds outside and inside of such institutes is quite (and literally) different – almost everybody, including yours-truly, likes the inside one… Apart from the opportunity to meet people who laid foundation for this field few decades ago as well as those who are conducting frontier research, this From Computational Biophysics to Systems Biology workshop has introduced me and made me (lot) more interested in certain molecular visualization packages.

Towards NIC, Jülich

Towards NIC, Jülich

NIC Campus – water of this pond once served as a coolant for nuclear power plant

NIC Campus – Auditorium where the workshop was held

Some proof that I actually attended the workshop!

Some more proof that I actually attended the workshop!

Title Explained…

First off, switching back to SI Units of measurements. During past five years or so, I have been used to miles, feet, fahrenheit, pounds, etc… while pretty much completely forgetting about (kilo)meters, (kilo)grams, celcius, etc… Traffic signs were the first to remind me of poor memory and I will post some pictures later in the gallery about some of these. Stay so far in Jülich has been reminding me of what staying in Bangalore felt while growing up — not really big town but not really small either, kinda self contained unit. Next comes food – this is where I have gone really back to THE BASICS! There have been multiple occasions (lunch/dinner) where appetizer was a fresh salad while the main course was a baked version of pretty much the same vegetables. Don’t get me wrong – I am not complaining at all; but instead, I am very glad that I am eating as healthy a food as one can get Realization of the fact that a good beer can make eating just about anything easier has never been more re-realizing!

Hmmmm…..

Hot and spicy chillies, other leafy vegetables, cheese, bread… and BEER – quite literally a deadly combo!

Coming from Houghton, pretty much everybody (at least every other Houghtonite) can understand and appreciate our desperation to see more people. While the early morning rush of good looking people riding bicycles to respective educational institutions (nostalgic memories of MES, Mount Carmel, Jyoti Nivas, NMKRV… here) was giving me the impression that most good looking people here are really young, one of the CBSB ’07 workshop session chairs, during a lunch session, reminded me of the basics of Statistics I once learnt….

Arithmetic mean (or the average) of a statistical sample is a good measure but can often be misleading. This quantiny, arithmetic mean, is mostly a physically meaningless number but can make some sense once the standard deviation as well as the mode of the statistical sample are specified…

Sounds confusing? Let me explain. Like I mentioned, my assumptions were that much of the Jülich’s population was good looking and that most of the good looking people here were young. Apparently, I was only considering the average quantities based on a smaller sample size. However, according to people who have done much more extensive and scientific research, out of their own interest and with no income, it turns out that the population (as in a statistical population) of good looking people here follows a bi-modal distribution with 27 as the average age and very very importantly, the standard deviation of this distribution is 15! If it’s true that a picture is worth a thousand words, the graph below should give you a lot more information.

Approximate schematic representation

Anyways, I am not complaining and in fact, /me is having a wonderful time, revisiting all the basics and learning new things. As of writing this, the last session of the workshop is drawing to a close and we will head to Cologne (for a guided tour of brewery – and more importantly to taste the beer for myself and on behalf of my friends) very soon.

Part 1: Houghton, MI → Marquette, MI

Well, some of you might have known about this for a while – either heard from me directly or read in my recent blog entry. Anyways, I got the VISA last Sunday (which, in itself, was rather surprising), got all the required paper work from our University, packed all my stuff and joyfully shopping in Wal*Mart with a buddy of mine on Tuesday night… when my cell phone rang and at the other end of the call was a NorthWest Airlines representative. I hear … Sir, all our flights out of Minneapolis have been canceled due to bad weather. Earliest we can get you out is Thursday and from Marquette. Would you like to do so? Having not too much to choose from, /me accepted the offer – this gave me just about enough time to do some things that I would have otherwise not done, I managed to start my journey just after the predicted blizzard started its trailer (trailer as in a movie trailer) in the area. Driving in these blizzard-like conditions, warned by the National Weather Service as hazaradous, was nowhere close to fun. Gusting winds, often carrying snow with them, made it quite an experience – especially in the open areas as well as lake shores. Following are some of the pictures shot during this treacherous 100 mile journey:

Blizzard across Michigan’s Upper Peninsular – seen while driving along US41

While searching for a place to eat… Downtown Marquette, MI

Blizzard’s finally here; Marquette Airport, MI

/me had a pretty good dinner in a recently introduced eatery in Downtown Marquette and when I reached the airport, a very pleasant sight awaited me — all but my flight, scheduled to leave at 11:14 am EST, were cancelled. Although the strengthening blizzard didn’t give me much hope, I somehow thought that snow would disappear by morning and decided to stay over in a nearby motel. Trick/Tip taught by fellow grad student during NorthWestern rendezvous helped me again The hotel itself was pretty cozy and helped me get some good sleeping time…

Red Fox Inn; Marquette Airport, MI

Part 2: Marquette, MI → Detroit, MI

Part 2: Marquette, MI → Houghton, MI

Waking up to about 15 inches (and increasing) of pure white stuff all around did hint at something NorthWest Airlines website was about to tell me – all flights out of Marquette were canceled. After a short discussion with Ralph, my advisor and NorthWest representative, I accepted the trip cancellation with full refund offer – as more snow and backlog of passengers wouldn’t let me fly till later part of next Tuesday

Shoveling knee-deep snow around and footlong snow on my car; Marquette Airport, MI

With this change in plan, my trip to Germany might have to wait for a while – it’s so faaar, yet soooo close kinda thing but I am glad that it got cancelled in the very first stage of the journey. Things could have been lot worse, if I had gotten stuck either in Detroit and/or Amsterdam… So, I headed back to Marquette – had breakfast at the same place where I had dinner before…

Gophers Cafe; Marquette, MI

Gophe’s Cafe; Marquette, MI

Gophers Cafe; Marquette, MI

A good breakfast, strong coffee and short but interesting chat later, /me started the 100 mile journey back to Houghton through the blizzard (this was blizzard, not its trailer). This was probably the slowest speed at which I have driven between Marquette and Houghton. Since it’s not everyday that we get blizzards and white-out conditions, I took about 3 hours but with innumerable stops, mostly for shooting pictures and one for food Since I cannot show you the food, I will post the pics below (or some of them at least):

Near Bay of Baraga, US41

Snow covered White Pines; In Baraga along US41

Snow covered trees along US41

Snow covered trees along US41

If one wants to know what it feels like driving in Heaven, at least during winter, one should come up and drive through such hazaradous blizzards Fact that Michigan Tech (and Northern Michigan too) was closed should hint at the magnanimity of this blizzard, for it hasn’t happened in a looong time and it (school closures during winter) is a measure of the harshness of the winter times… Good news is that I am back in Houghton, in one complete piece. Probably a good drink, preferably from the KBC, should be a nice way to end the day. And, if you are wondering about rest of the pictures, they will be here sometime soon….