Well we're in Vienna, and I'm attending the YAPC::Europe conference here while Yumi explores Vienna by herself.
We've have both been too busy to update the blog much of late, but I have managed to upload a heap of photos while connected to the WU university connection at the conference, so if you want some photos (without commentary) - then check them out as they should be almost up-to-date now.
Last night we went to a Wine Tavern Serenade Tour - an evening tour by one of the local companies which took us to the Reisenrad (giant ferris wheel) built here in 1897, where we had a ride and then to a lovely little wine tavern where we had a meal and listened to musicians and opera singers sing for us - it was lovely.
We've booked train tickets to go to Prague on Friday, and we've organised our accommodation as well, so that's going to be our next stop on this trip - then Berlin after that (though we've yet to book anything for that part of the trip yet)
Will add more when I can.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Rome - Day 2: Vatican and the Colloseum
A full day in Rome!!
Early start at 7.30am heading to the Vatican. We get to go in before it opens to the public at 10am. That's one of the advantages of going in a tour group. Despite that, it was still a fair queue of bus loads of people from various tour groups.
We met up with Carlo, who would be our local tour guide for the day. Cheerful Italian guy, who was an absolutely excellent tour guide. You could almost believe that he was one of the Romans, hearing him talk about the Colloseum.
Now the Vatican is a country inside Rome. It is the world's smallest country at 1118sqm, with the Pope as head of state. A fair bit of security there, with visitors having to go through metal detectors and x-ray screening of bags. The crowd was fairly thick by now, even though it was only open to tour groups, and being a hot day outside, it was really warm. Each of us had our 'FBI headsets' on, to enable us to follow what the tour guide was saying in the noisy crowds. Really cool idea as it means everyone can hear clearly and the guide does not have to shout.
We started at the Marble statues, followed by the cool tapestry room. This particular areas was air-conditioned to protect the delicate tapestries. Huge pieces of art hanging up on the walls, absolutely stunning. Following on to that was the Geographical Maps Room, a long corridor lined with painted maps of each section of the world on the walls. Interesting to see and I tried to pick out Malaysia on one of them. It had a similar shape, based on the other countries around it. The big highlight was the Sistine Chapel. No photography was allowed in this area, just time to admire and absorb the beauty of the place. Michaelangelo took 4 years to complete the big wall painting, and a further 3 years to complete his painting of the ceiling. Each had its own story to tell from the bible, which was explained quite extensively by Carlo, allowing those of us who are not 100% familiar with the Holy Bible to gain a better understanding of the paintings. In the bottom right corner of the wall painting, Michaelangelo was quite naughty, and painted the face of one important person he did not particularly like in hell. Artistic license, eh?
Next we went down to the burial chambers under the Vatican. This is where the Popes and important Catholic kings and queens are buried. Each had their own sarcophagus elaborately decorated. This is where Pope John Paul rests as well. He had a marble headstone with potted plants surrounds it, very nice.
After this we head over to St Peter's Basilica, passing the Pope's personal Swiss body guards. The Pope has Swiss body guards who serve him for 2 years only. The Swiss are renowned for their mercenary skills, and historically have been hired to protect Kings and castles. Interesting though they had on some really funny uniforms, colourful and striped and almost clown-like. They did have pretty cool gold swords though, and quite good looking! :P
St Peter's Basilica is the biggest church in the Western world. When you stand just outside the doors of the church, you are flanked by 2 of the most influential Emperors for Catholicism. Inside the church, there is a throne for St Peter straight ahead, being lifted by 4 personages from the Bible ( sorry I do not remember their names, maybe my Catholic friends can help fill this in? ) and a dove with stained glass, giving it a haloed effect above the throne. When the light from the sun hits those stained glass windows the whole church is illuminated, reflecting off the gilded paneling inside the Church. To the left is a Baptism fountain ( no water now though ) and to the right is a statue of the Virgin Mary holding on to Jesus Christ after his crucifixion. This symbolises the Holy trinity, water/baptism, blood and we see the light. I was very impressed with the whole story line for the decorations inside the church. On the top of the church there are letters 7 feet high, made out of mosaic, although it looks almost painted. This was why it does not fade, as it is not paint.
After our tour of St Peters Square we had some free time. The restaurants and cafes in the Vatican are extremely expensive - don't be surprised if you get charged 6 euros for a glass of orange juice in this neighbourhood! So we walked along...mind you it was a very hot day, in search of cheaper food.
Not far away from St Peter's Basilica, there is St Angelo's Palace, with a full moat and all. We didn't get to visit this place, just a quick drive by. However, what is interesting is that St Peter's Basilica had a secret tunnel to St Angelo's Palace, in case the Pope was attacked he cold escape via this route. Cool stuff! It'd certainly be interesting if they opened up this secret tunnel for people to visit!
Then we hop on the bus to be driven in air-conditioned comfort to the Collosseum. What an amazing structure!! It is located smack in the middle of the city, so there are roads and cars driving past it every day! Imagine that... This place was slowly being vandalised and torn apart. One of the Pope's wanted to save this structure, so he declared that Christian blood had been spilled here, during its days of glory when it was used as a fight-to-the-death ring, so it was considered scared ground. There is no documented evidence of this, but nevertheless, a cross was erected in the Colloseum and it was a crime to further tear apart this amazing place. Thus the Colloseum could be preserved till this day for us to admire. Its actual name is Amphitheatrvm Flavim.
The cobblestones surrounding it is put on an iron spike and then driven into the ground. The hot metal contracts, leaving loose space, hence allowing it vibrate if there was an earthquake, thereby preserving the structure. Pretty smart for thousands of years ago!
The Colloseum itself is made of limestone, with lead poured into the centre to strengthen it. It was then covered with marble pieces, secured by iron rods, hence the holes in it, as per the pictures. The marble has since been "recycled", i.e. torn down during the time when it was vandalised and used in other buildings built in olden times. The top floors are made of brick, layered into thick brick walls. The floor was built upon a labyrinth of little corridors. This enabled them to flood the area for water themed performances, or to let exotic animals out from cages during a fight as a surprise element. A rather bloody and cruel practice, but that was what the Colloseum was all about. It is really amazing, you have to be there to truly experience it!! Helps that we were shown the movie Gladiator before we got to Rome!
All in a very very tiring day, plus the heat had us all exhausted, but very satisfied being able to see these little glimpses of history.
Note: in Rome, it is common to see the old ruins that has been excavated, left there to be seen. Current day Rome is built upon olden day Rome, hence this city cannot have an underground subway system, as there is countless archaeological sites beneath this city that will never be excavated and explored, due to the buildings on it now.
- YM
Early start at 7.30am heading to the Vatican. We get to go in before it opens to the public at 10am. That's one of the advantages of going in a tour group. Despite that, it was still a fair queue of bus loads of people from various tour groups.
We met up with Carlo, who would be our local tour guide for the day. Cheerful Italian guy, who was an absolutely excellent tour guide. You could almost believe that he was one of the Romans, hearing him talk about the Colloseum.
Now the Vatican is a country inside Rome. It is the world's smallest country at 1118sqm, with the Pope as head of state. A fair bit of security there, with visitors having to go through metal detectors and x-ray screening of bags. The crowd was fairly thick by now, even though it was only open to tour groups, and being a hot day outside, it was really warm. Each of us had our 'FBI headsets' on, to enable us to follow what the tour guide was saying in the noisy crowds. Really cool idea as it means everyone can hear clearly and the guide does not have to shout.
We started at the Marble statues, followed by the cool tapestry room. This particular areas was air-conditioned to protect the delicate tapestries. Huge pieces of art hanging up on the walls, absolutely stunning. Following on to that was the Geographical Maps Room, a long corridor lined with painted maps of each section of the world on the walls. Interesting to see and I tried to pick out Malaysia on one of them. It had a similar shape, based on the other countries around it. The big highlight was the Sistine Chapel. No photography was allowed in this area, just time to admire and absorb the beauty of the place. Michaelangelo took 4 years to complete the big wall painting, and a further 3 years to complete his painting of the ceiling. Each had its own story to tell from the bible, which was explained quite extensively by Carlo, allowing those of us who are not 100% familiar with the Holy Bible to gain a better understanding of the paintings. In the bottom right corner of the wall painting, Michaelangelo was quite naughty, and painted the face of one important person he did not particularly like in hell. Artistic license, eh?
Next we went down to the burial chambers under the Vatican. This is where the Popes and important Catholic kings and queens are buried. Each had their own sarcophagus elaborately decorated. This is where Pope John Paul rests as well. He had a marble headstone with potted plants surrounds it, very nice.
After this we head over to St Peter's Basilica, passing the Pope's personal Swiss body guards. The Pope has Swiss body guards who serve him for 2 years only. The Swiss are renowned for their mercenary skills, and historically have been hired to protect Kings and castles. Interesting though they had on some really funny uniforms, colourful and striped and almost clown-like. They did have pretty cool gold swords though, and quite good looking! :P
St Peter's Basilica is the biggest church in the Western world. When you stand just outside the doors of the church, you are flanked by 2 of the most influential Emperors for Catholicism. Inside the church, there is a throne for St Peter straight ahead, being lifted by 4 personages from the Bible ( sorry I do not remember their names, maybe my Catholic friends can help fill this in? ) and a dove with stained glass, giving it a haloed effect above the throne. When the light from the sun hits those stained glass windows the whole church is illuminated, reflecting off the gilded paneling inside the Church. To the left is a Baptism fountain ( no water now though ) and to the right is a statue of the Virgin Mary holding on to Jesus Christ after his crucifixion. This symbolises the Holy trinity, water/baptism, blood and we see the light. I was very impressed with the whole story line for the decorations inside the church. On the top of the church there are letters 7 feet high, made out of mosaic, although it looks almost painted. This was why it does not fade, as it is not paint.
After our tour of St Peters Square we had some free time. The restaurants and cafes in the Vatican are extremely expensive - don't be surprised if you get charged 6 euros for a glass of orange juice in this neighbourhood! So we walked along...mind you it was a very hot day, in search of cheaper food.
Not far away from St Peter's Basilica, there is St Angelo's Palace, with a full moat and all. We didn't get to visit this place, just a quick drive by. However, what is interesting is that St Peter's Basilica had a secret tunnel to St Angelo's Palace, in case the Pope was attacked he cold escape via this route. Cool stuff! It'd certainly be interesting if they opened up this secret tunnel for people to visit!
Then we hop on the bus to be driven in air-conditioned comfort to the Collosseum. What an amazing structure!! It is located smack in the middle of the city, so there are roads and cars driving past it every day! Imagine that... This place was slowly being vandalised and torn apart. One of the Pope's wanted to save this structure, so he declared that Christian blood had been spilled here, during its days of glory when it was used as a fight-to-the-death ring, so it was considered scared ground. There is no documented evidence of this, but nevertheless, a cross was erected in the Colloseum and it was a crime to further tear apart this amazing place. Thus the Colloseum could be preserved till this day for us to admire. Its actual name is Amphitheatrvm Flavim.
The cobblestones surrounding it is put on an iron spike and then driven into the ground. The hot metal contracts, leaving loose space, hence allowing it vibrate if there was an earthquake, thereby preserving the structure. Pretty smart for thousands of years ago!
The Colloseum itself is made of limestone, with lead poured into the centre to strengthen it. It was then covered with marble pieces, secured by iron rods, hence the holes in it, as per the pictures. The marble has since been "recycled", i.e. torn down during the time when it was vandalised and used in other buildings built in olden times. The top floors are made of brick, layered into thick brick walls. The floor was built upon a labyrinth of little corridors. This enabled them to flood the area for water themed performances, or to let exotic animals out from cages during a fight as a surprise element. A rather bloody and cruel practice, but that was what the Colloseum was all about. It is really amazing, you have to be there to truly experience it!! Helps that we were shown the movie Gladiator before we got to Rome!
All in a very very tiring day, plus the heat had us all exhausted, but very satisfied being able to see these little glimpses of history.
Note: in Rome, it is common to see the old ruins that has been excavated, left there to be seen. Current day Rome is built upon olden day Rome, hence this city cannot have an underground subway system, as there is countless archaeological sites beneath this city that will never be excavated and explored, due to the buildings on it now.
- YM
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Rome - Day 1
23rd July - Update: Hi everyone - brief rundown - we're in Paris at the moment and now finished our tour - however we've had very little internet access during most of the tour and we've also been so busy the entire trip too - so not had time to go through all the photos yet, upload them or finish writing our blog entries for each of the places. I hope to get a chance to do this over the next week now that things have slowed down a bit. We said farewell to our Trafalgar friends this morning and got four more days in Paris before we're off to Vienna.
Rome!
A bit of a sleep in this morning and then we drove off to Rome. Spent most of the day in the bus really, arriving in Rome at 4.30pm. After a brief rest at our hotel (Hotel La Pergola) we headed into the city centre to do our optional tour of Rome.
We got dropped off near the Spanish Steps (all 132 of them) - the main meeting place of Rome. We were given headsets so we could wander around a bit from the guide while still hearing directions and given a history tour of the place.
Now the Spanish steps is not only a common meeting place for couples, but also where up-and-coming actors hope to get noticed by movie directors or picked up by talent scouts. Major fashion labels also get launched here, with models parading down here.
We headed down designer row after this for some window shopping - with brands like Dior, YSL, Gucci, Prada, Bvlgari, Salvatore Ferrogamo, Valentino, etc. We finally arrived at Trevi fountain, truly an incredible display - and certainly jumps out at you as soon as you round the corner and feast your eyes on the beautiful marble statues and flowing water. Absolutely amazing.
The local superstition goes that you can throw three coins into the Trevi fountain for luck.
If the first one goes in, then you will be back to Rome someday.
If the second one goes in then you will have lots of luck.
If the third one goes in you can make a wish.
Next off, we headed towards the Pantheon - it was getting close to closing time for this so we rushed there a bit and made it with 5 minutes to spare. This gave us enough time to wander around the inside of the place thoughand get a short history spiel. What an incredible building - 16 columns in front three of which are restored columns as they were destroyed in a fire, all the rest though are in their original state from 700 BC.
Each column is a single piece of marble, incredibly heavy columns (6 tonnes) and the domed roof is 42m in diameter and if it was inverted it would fit perfectly into the inside area, barely skimming it's surface. The pantheon has an open top, so there are two holes with metal plates in the centre of the floor where the rain water could drain away - amazing demonstration of both precision and mathematics and engineering ability of the time.
We headed to the Piazza Navonna after this - a lovely plaza filled with more beautiful statues, artists and craftsmen, street vendors and performers - not to mention many many restaurants offering lovely food and a chance to watch people as they strolled by. Yumi and I had Pasta and Pizza together with a glass of wine and had a great time, then finished it off with some lovely desert. Yumi had some Gelati, while I tried the local delicacy Tartufo - a thick chocolate cake with ice cream and more chocolate and a hint of rum throughout and topped off with cream - deliciously decadent and I had to share it with several others to be able to finish it.
We then had a quick stop off to see St Peters Basilica at night before heading to our hotels to sleep.
Venice!
Well we had another early start today and drove from Innsbruck, Austria down through into Italy. The northern part of Italy is traditionally where the rich people live, it's not half as hot as the southern portion, with large farms and deluxe villas. As you cross the border you notice subtle changes in the way the houses are built and laid out the further we went south. We also noticed a huge change in the way the service stations/food halls work here.
Instead of picking out what you want from their cafeterias and food halls as you do everywhere else, in Italy you go to the counter to pick out the sandwich you want and remember the name of it. You then go to the counter and order the thing you want, reciting the name of it and they give you a receipt once you've paid.
Then you go back to the counter once more and hand the receipt to the person behind the counter and once more recite the name of the thing you want and they'll then give it to you. Of course you then have to show the receipt once more on the way out if you want to take it outside. Now you can do this for most things, but some things you can simply pick up (like drinks) from the shelves and pay for it directly. All in all, rather confusing to say the least and very much Italian.
After a brief stop for lunch - we arrived at the docks and parked the bus. Now Venice (called Venezia by the locals) is a collection of islands (about 70) which have been joined up and to create one massive floating city. You can only get to Venice via boat - and the only boats allowed to do this are the motorscarfi, so we had a boat organised to get us there. We strolled down to the quay where our tour guide beckoned to one of the boats out on the water and it came in to pick us all up and take us to the island of Venice. We had a lovely view from the boats, but soon we arrived on the island itself.
Now Venice was busy. Incredibly busy - though unfortunately more so today as the catholic churches were all celebrating the previous day as special holiday (Assumption Day). It was also rather hot - about 34'C or so today and we could feel it beating down on us. After being sunburnt in Rotterdam I was not keen to get burnt again so the first thing on my agenda was to buy a hat - which I did from one of the many stalls around while everyone was assembling.
We walked to St Mark's Basilica first, though because it was closed for the last two days the queues were incredibly long.
Our tour guide showed us the main locations and where a few things were, including the Doges Palace, the Rialto Bridge, the church tower and how to navigate around Venice. We then headed to a special glass blowing demonstration at the Murano glass factory. Venice is apparently well known for it's glass making skills, the art being passed down from generation to generation. In addition to seeing how he blew the glass into the right shape, we also saw how they added colour to the glass. Red glass in particular is interesting as they use 24carat gold to get the colour - this is also why red murano glass is worth more.
After the glass demonstration we had free time to wander around on our own.
It wasn't worth waiting to go into St Marks Basilica really, the lines were just too long and we simply didn't have enough time to wait, so first up we climbed the church tower and decided to get a view from above. Access to the top of the church tower was via elevator, so after a short queue we were at the top and admiring the view - and it was pretty impressive.
We headed to the Rialto bridge after that to check out the shopping area next. Finding your way around in Venice is a little different from everywhere else. There's rarely street names anywhere, and every place is interconnected via canals, bridges and lots and lots of alleyways. To find your way anywhere you follow the little signs to get to the place you want - and these are simply arrows pointing in a direction as if to say 'up there somewhere'.
In some places there additional signs written in chalk - which got you to the place still, but went through tiny little alleyways and meandered a bit in some places. We followed one of these and I think it was written by one of the shop stalls to give them some more traffic.
After the Rialto we went back to San Marco Square and found that the queue to the Basilica was still really long, so instead we decided to go to the Doges Palace. This place was incredible - the Doge was effectively the ruler of Venice back in the day, and this place was created to not only house him, but also was where the Councils and magistrates/judges of the time all worked. Furthermore, below his palace were the prisons.
These rooms were amazing - decked out with gilded ceilings, beautiful paintings and decorations on the walls. They also had a huge map room with maps all painted on the walls and huge stone globes with everything on the world mapped out on them at the time.
We then met up for our Gondola ride - where we cruised along the canals of Venice. We'd organised musicians to join us on the cruise too - so we had the sounds of music and singing following us as we drifted along the canals. Was a lovely end to the day, and we were very sad to see the end of Venice after that.
Instead of picking out what you want from their cafeterias and food halls as you do everywhere else, in Italy you go to the counter to pick out the sandwich you want and remember the name of it. You then go to the counter and order the thing you want, reciting the name of it and they give you a receipt once you've paid.
Then you go back to the counter once more and hand the receipt to the person behind the counter and once more recite the name of the thing you want and they'll then give it to you. Of course you then have to show the receipt once more on the way out if you want to take it outside. Now you can do this for most things, but some things you can simply pick up (like drinks) from the shelves and pay for it directly. All in all, rather confusing to say the least and very much Italian.
After a brief stop for lunch - we arrived at the docks and parked the bus. Now Venice (called Venezia by the locals) is a collection of islands (about 70) which have been joined up and to create one massive floating city. You can only get to Venice via boat - and the only boats allowed to do this are the motorscarfi, so we had a boat organised to get us there. We strolled down to the quay where our tour guide beckoned to one of the boats out on the water and it came in to pick us all up and take us to the island of Venice. We had a lovely view from the boats, but soon we arrived on the island itself.
Now Venice was busy. Incredibly busy - though unfortunately more so today as the catholic churches were all celebrating the previous day as special holiday (Assumption Day). It was also rather hot - about 34'C or so today and we could feel it beating down on us. After being sunburnt in Rotterdam I was not keen to get burnt again so the first thing on my agenda was to buy a hat - which I did from one of the many stalls around while everyone was assembling.
We walked to St Mark's Basilica first, though because it was closed for the last two days the queues were incredibly long.
Our tour guide showed us the main locations and where a few things were, including the Doges Palace, the Rialto Bridge, the church tower and how to navigate around Venice. We then headed to a special glass blowing demonstration at the Murano glass factory. Venice is apparently well known for it's glass making skills, the art being passed down from generation to generation. In addition to seeing how he blew the glass into the right shape, we also saw how they added colour to the glass. Red glass in particular is interesting as they use 24carat gold to get the colour - this is also why red murano glass is worth more.
After the glass demonstration we had free time to wander around on our own.
It wasn't worth waiting to go into St Marks Basilica really, the lines were just too long and we simply didn't have enough time to wait, so first up we climbed the church tower and decided to get a view from above. Access to the top of the church tower was via elevator, so after a short queue we were at the top and admiring the view - and it was pretty impressive.
We headed to the Rialto bridge after that to check out the shopping area next. Finding your way around in Venice is a little different from everywhere else. There's rarely street names anywhere, and every place is interconnected via canals, bridges and lots and lots of alleyways. To find your way anywhere you follow the little signs to get to the place you want - and these are simply arrows pointing in a direction as if to say 'up there somewhere'.
In some places there additional signs written in chalk - which got you to the place still, but went through tiny little alleyways and meandered a bit in some places. We followed one of these and I think it was written by one of the shop stalls to give them some more traffic.
After the Rialto we went back to San Marco Square and found that the queue to the Basilica was still really long, so instead we decided to go to the Doges Palace. This place was incredible - the Doge was effectively the ruler of Venice back in the day, and this place was created to not only house him, but also was where the Councils and magistrates/judges of the time all worked. Furthermore, below his palace were the prisons.
These rooms were amazing - decked out with gilded ceilings, beautiful paintings and decorations on the walls. They also had a huge map room with maps all painted on the walls and huge stone globes with everything on the world mapped out on them at the time.
We then met up for our Gondola ride - where we cruised along the canals of Venice. We'd organised musicians to join us on the cruise too - so we had the sounds of music and singing following us as we drifted along the canals. Was a lovely end to the day, and we were very sad to see the end of Venice after that.
Munich
Off to Munich!!
We had an early start, and it was a long drive from Frankfurt to Munich. There was road works which made the traffic worse.
All said, we only had an hour an a half in Munich. Not enough time to do justice to this very busy and interesting place.
A quick orientation of the place by our tour guide, and we were off climbing the church tower for a bird's eye view of Munich. Get those legs working after sitting on the bus for five hours. Great view from the top, as per the photos. After working off some energy we went in search of food. The Hofbraushaus had been recommended by the tour guide Kyle. It is a big beer hall capable of seating 1800 people on a busy night. If you include the upper levels which is not normally open, it can seat 3500 people in this 3 story high building. Pretty amazing. The inside was decked out in typical German style, serving the mandatory wursts and saurkraut, among other things on the menu. People were deep into their cups, even though it was only lunch time. Beer gets served in 1 litre glasses (steins), being drunk like it was water. You have to be there to truly appreciate the atmosphere. During Oktoberfest, these beer halls are packed full, with more tents being set up for people to pile into and drink more beer!
So we ordered our bratwurst and saurkraut meal, accompanied by a small glass of 0.5L of beer ( shared between Jesse and me ). I don't know how those people can down a whole litre and more of beer!! It was extremely busy and we had trouble getting the attention of the waiters. A local guy sat down and shared our table, and got chatting to him. He helped us out by flagging the waiter, and we got our orders in quick, as we were running short on time. Apparently bratwurst must be eaten with mustard, so we got some mustard to go with it, and I must stay it did taste better.
Quick lunch then it was back on the bus to Austria. Crossing the border from Germany, the landscape changes from flat to quite mountainous. We stopped at a little town named Innsbruck in Austria for a wander around. The local must trys are Sacher-torte (a decadent chocolate cake, some flavoured with a little bit of ru), schnapps (burns down the throat, purportedly useful in curing a sore throat, or any ailments for that matter! :), and apple strudel and a visit to Swarovski crystal ( largest store ).
We stayed at a quaint little hotel up in the hills, and were served local fare of Turkey Schnitzel and apple strudel for dinner.... yummmmmm.......
- YM
We had an early start, and it was a long drive from Frankfurt to Munich. There was road works which made the traffic worse.
All said, we only had an hour an a half in Munich. Not enough time to do justice to this very busy and interesting place.
A quick orientation of the place by our tour guide, and we were off climbing the church tower for a bird's eye view of Munich. Get those legs working after sitting on the bus for five hours. Great view from the top, as per the photos. After working off some energy we went in search of food. The Hofbraushaus had been recommended by the tour guide Kyle. It is a big beer hall capable of seating 1800 people on a busy night. If you include the upper levels which is not normally open, it can seat 3500 people in this 3 story high building. Pretty amazing. The inside was decked out in typical German style, serving the mandatory wursts and saurkraut, among other things on the menu. People were deep into their cups, even though it was only lunch time. Beer gets served in 1 litre glasses (steins), being drunk like it was water. You have to be there to truly appreciate the atmosphere. During Oktoberfest, these beer halls are packed full, with more tents being set up for people to pile into and drink more beer!
So we ordered our bratwurst and saurkraut meal, accompanied by a small glass of 0.5L of beer ( shared between Jesse and me ). I don't know how those people can down a whole litre and more of beer!! It was extremely busy and we had trouble getting the attention of the waiters. A local guy sat down and shared our table, and got chatting to him. He helped us out by flagging the waiter, and we got our orders in quick, as we were running short on time. Apparently bratwurst must be eaten with mustard, so we got some mustard to go with it, and I must stay it did taste better.
Quick lunch then it was back on the bus to Austria. Crossing the border from Germany, the landscape changes from flat to quite mountainous. We stopped at a little town named Innsbruck in Austria for a wander around. The local must trys are Sacher-torte (a decadent chocolate cake, some flavoured with a little bit of ru), schnapps (burns down the throat, purportedly useful in curing a sore throat, or any ailments for that matter! :), and apple strudel and a visit to Swarovski crystal ( largest store ).
We stayed at a quaint little hotel up in the hills, and were served local fare of Turkey Schnitzel and apple strudel for dinner.... yummmmmm.......
- YM
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Amsterdam, Cologne, Boppard, St Goar, Hiedelberg...
Trafalgar Tour Catchup...
Finally got internet access, but not really enough time to do a full catch up - so this is just from the first couple of days.
So Sunday was the day we were to catch up with our tour. Our plan was to go to the hotel we were to be staying at that night and hopefully meet up with them at some point that evening. Joeri kindly drove Yumi and I to the hotel we were to be staying at - it was a nice 5 star hotel, but not an easy one to get to with all of our luggage.
We arrived there and checked in, dumped our luggage, then headed in to Amsterdam.
First stop was the tourist info center where we learnt that the Anne Frank Museum was fully booked out that day. We decided to head to the museums first, and even though I'd been to the Rijiksmuseum before, I was more than happy to go again and thought Yumi should see it. So we wandered around there for a while admiring the Rembrandts and other pieces of artwork, then had lunch in Museum Park before we visited the Van Gogh Museum.
After leaving the Van Gogh Museum we were greeted with a flood from the heavens, it absolutely poured down with rain for about 30-40 minutes at least.
We decided to head to the Hemp and Hash Museum next, and headed off in search of that - and after getting more than a little lost we finally found our destination - on the edge of the Red Light District. The inside the Hemp Museum was very warm, and we were greeted with all sorts of hash related paraphenalia - including a view of the hydroponics lab for the place next door (Sensei Seed Bank) which is shown to the side here.
We had dinner in Amsterdam after that and headed back to the hotel to try and catch up with our tour guide.
Next day we headed to Cologne (Koln) where we got to walk around the huge The Dom church - one of the largest Gothic churches in Europe. Then we headed to the boat and headed up the Rhine River on a cruise from Boppard to St Goar. Along here we saw many castles from the Germanic "Robber Barons" where they would attack the boats going past if they didn't pay their tolls.
After that we got to spend a little time wandering around Heidelberg - a beautiful city and we climbed up to the Roman Garrison on top of the hill as it gave a wonderful view of Heidelberg below.
More later!
Finally got internet access, but not really enough time to do a full catch up - so this is just from the first couple of days.
So Sunday was the day we were to catch up with our tour. Our plan was to go to the hotel we were to be staying at that night and hopefully meet up with them at some point that evening. Joeri kindly drove Yumi and I to the hotel we were to be staying at - it was a nice 5 star hotel, but not an easy one to get to with all of our luggage.
We arrived there and checked in, dumped our luggage, then headed in to Amsterdam.
First stop was the tourist info center where we learnt that the Anne Frank Museum was fully booked out that day. We decided to head to the museums first, and even though I'd been to the Rijiksmuseum before, I was more than happy to go again and thought Yumi should see it. So we wandered around there for a while admiring the Rembrandts and other pieces of artwork, then had lunch in Museum Park before we visited the Van Gogh Museum.
After leaving the Van Gogh Museum we were greeted with a flood from the heavens, it absolutely poured down with rain for about 30-40 minutes at least.
We decided to head to the Hemp and Hash Museum next, and headed off in search of that - and after getting more than a little lost we finally found our destination - on the edge of the Red Light District. The inside the Hemp Museum was very warm, and we were greeted with all sorts of hash related paraphenalia - including a view of the hydroponics lab for the place next door (Sensei Seed Bank) which is shown to the side here.
We had dinner in Amsterdam after that and headed back to the hotel to try and catch up with our tour guide.
Next day we headed to Cologne (Koln) where we got to walk around the huge The Dom church - one of the largest Gothic churches in Europe. Then we headed to the boat and headed up the Rhine River on a cruise from Boppard to St Goar. Along here we saw many castles from the Germanic "Robber Barons" where they would attack the boats going past if they didn't pay their tolls.
After that we got to spend a little time wandering around Heidelberg - a beautiful city and we climbed up to the Roman Garrison on top of the hill as it gave a wonderful view of Heidelberg below.
More later!
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Rotterdam
So today we went to Rotterdam and what an amazing city.
We decided to do a Harbour Tour with Spiro first - and got some amazing shots of the port and ships in the area - also got some photos of the dry docks and lots and lots of containers. I can now see where de_rotterdam came from! :)
After that we wandered up through the streets to Euromast - this is a 185m high mast that sits above the city and I climbed it eagerly. Yumi got up midway (about 95m) - but was too scared to try the Euroscoop which lifts you up to the very top and spins around so you get a full panorama view of the top. Awesome view and I took a couple of 360' panoramas I hope to stitch together sometime.
We then wandered up the streets and enjoyed the Dance Parade they had going on that day - with heaps of trucks, loud music and people dancing on the trucks as they made their way through the city. Was pretty cool to see.
Lastly, we made our way to the Kube houses - a set of crazy houses made from tilted cubes!
After this we just wandered around for a bit more before heading back - more than a bit sunburnt unfortunately (well, me anyway - Yumi was fine)
Off to Amsterdam to join our tour today - so no idea when I'll get a chance to post more photos or blog!
We decided to do a Harbour Tour with Spiro first - and got some amazing shots of the port and ships in the area - also got some photos of the dry docks and lots and lots of containers. I can now see where de_rotterdam came from! :)
After that we wandered up through the streets to Euromast - this is a 185m high mast that sits above the city and I climbed it eagerly. Yumi got up midway (about 95m) - but was too scared to try the Euroscoop which lifts you up to the very top and spins around so you get a full panorama view of the top. Awesome view and I took a couple of 360' panoramas I hope to stitch together sometime.
We then wandered up the streets and enjoyed the Dance Parade they had going on that day - with heaps of trucks, loud music and people dancing on the trucks as they made their way through the city. Was pretty cool to see.
Lastly, we made our way to the Kube houses - a set of crazy houses made from tilted cubes!
After this we just wandered around for a bit more before heading back - more than a bit sunburnt unfortunately (well, me anyway - Yumi was fine)
Off to Amsterdam to join our tour today - so no idea when I'll get a chance to post more photos or blog!
Friday, August 10, 2007
Yumi in Delft
Well Yumi arrived safe and sound in Delft - and Joeri and I picked her up from their airport this morning.
Luckily she'd managed to get a bit of sleep on the plane, as I had a big day planned and gave her the rushed tour of Delft.
After dumping her bags at the hotel and having a quick shower to freshen up, we tackled the churches first - as they're probably the focal points of Delft really. We wandered through the Old Church first, then through the New Church.
Yumi was hesitant to climb to the top of the church initially, but the lure of getting some great photos from above was too enticing (though I think she regretted it half way when her adrenaline was pumping!)
Once at the top though it was all worth it, with a beautiful view all around. I got busy with Yumi's 10-20mm Sigma lens - and took a heap of wide angle shots from above, while Yumi took lots of great shots with her very crisp 24-105mm lens. We even got photos of each other up top just to prove it.
After that we grabbed some drinks and a couple of unusual dutch style sausage rolls for lunch from the supermarket and sat beside one of the canals to eat. Yumi decided she wanted to go on one of the Canal Boat Tours through Delft, so we did that next - taking a tour that took a unique perspective of Delft - from the canals themselves.
This was very interesting and the tour guide gave us lots of history of the area - though it was pretty warm in the hot sun by the end.
After that, we headed back to the hotel where Yumi decided to have a lie down - we've meeting a bunch of the guys from Oqapi and ProcoliX for drinks and dinner tonight in Delft, so she's having a bit of a power nap to get her strength back :)
Luckily she'd managed to get a bit of sleep on the plane, as I had a big day planned and gave her the rushed tour of Delft.
After dumping her bags at the hotel and having a quick shower to freshen up, we tackled the churches first - as they're probably the focal points of Delft really. We wandered through the Old Church first, then through the New Church.
Yumi was hesitant to climb to the top of the church initially, but the lure of getting some great photos from above was too enticing (though I think she regretted it half way when her adrenaline was pumping!)
Once at the top though it was all worth it, with a beautiful view all around. I got busy with Yumi's 10-20mm Sigma lens - and took a heap of wide angle shots from above, while Yumi took lots of great shots with her very crisp 24-105mm lens. We even got photos of each other up top just to prove it.
After that we grabbed some drinks and a couple of unusual dutch style sausage rolls for lunch from the supermarket and sat beside one of the canals to eat. Yumi decided she wanted to go on one of the Canal Boat Tours through Delft, so we did that next - taking a tour that took a unique perspective of Delft - from the canals themselves.
This was very interesting and the tour guide gave us lots of history of the area - though it was pretty warm in the hot sun by the end.
After that, we headed back to the hotel where Yumi decided to have a lie down - we've meeting a bunch of the guys from Oqapi and ProcoliX for drinks and dinner tonight in Delft, so she's having a bit of a power nap to get her strength back :)
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Museums
Went to a few museums over the last couple of days - including Stedelijik Museum Het Prinsenhof - where there is a complete history of the house of Orange, and this is also where William the Prince of Orange was assassinated (you can still see the bullet-holes in the wall - and they're not small!)
William of Orange is largely regarded as the founder of the Republic of Netherlands and they included a lot of information about how he rose to power and his battle against Prince Phillip of Spain.
Unfortunately you weren't allowed to take photos in the Museum, so I had to be content with that.
I next went to the House of Lambert Van Meerten, who had a beautiful house he'd devoted towards his collection of artwork including tiles, paintings and furniature. Also a museum where you couldn't take photos tho unfortunately - a shame as the garden behind it was a picture of beauty.
Lastly, I went to the Army Museum - where they have an extensive collection of every kind of weapon imaginable - from swords and halberds, plate armor, helms and shields to rifles, pistols, flintlocks, matchlocks, blunderbuses, canons, machineguns, tanks and APC's.
They start with weapons from the roman ages and work their way through all of the wars, including the first and second world wars and to current times. Quite an extensive collection and cool to see.
As you were allowed to take photos (but no flash photography) I took plenty and you can see these in my flickr account.
William of Orange is largely regarded as the founder of the Republic of Netherlands and they included a lot of information about how he rose to power and his battle against Prince Phillip of Spain.
Unfortunately you weren't allowed to take photos in the Museum, so I had to be content with that.
I next went to the House of Lambert Van Meerten, who had a beautiful house he'd devoted towards his collection of artwork including tiles, paintings and furniature. Also a museum where you couldn't take photos tho unfortunately - a shame as the garden behind it was a picture of beauty.
Lastly, I went to the Army Museum - where they have an extensive collection of every kind of weapon imaginable - from swords and halberds, plate armor, helms and shields to rifles, pistols, flintlocks, matchlocks, blunderbuses, canons, machineguns, tanks and APC's.
They start with weapons from the roman ages and work their way through all of the wars, including the first and second world wars and to current times. Quite an extensive collection and cool to see.
As you were allowed to take photos (but no flash photography) I took plenty and you can see these in my flickr account.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Amsterdam
So today I met Bart at the train station and went to visit Amsterdam. It was a lovely day - pretty hot actually. The train ride in from Delft took about an hour and before we arrived at Amsterdam Centraal station. We found out after we got there that there was a Gay and Lesbian parade on that day - so the city was pretty busy with tourists and locals alike. Bart and I decided to go to the Rijiksmuseum first - a museum famous for it's collection of the dutch masters - Rembrant, Leiden, Vermeer and others. You weren't allowed to take any photos or anything in the museum - but it was amazing wandering around and looking at these beautiful pieces of artwork.
We spent a good bit of time wandering through this building and when we came out we were quite thirsty and a bit hungry too, so we wandered through Museum Park (which is the park in the middle of all the museums obviously) - until we found a supermarket, grabbed a few things for lunch and then wandered along until we came to Vondelpark. This park is beautiful with lush green grass, plenty of trees, a beautiful lake and obviously a spot that the locals enjoy.
Lots of people were lying around the lake sunbaking and enjoying the lovely weather. While we were eating our lunch I saw two guys fishing in the lake too, and was amazed when one of them pulled in a fish that quite literally filled both of his arms - about 50-60cm long and 30cm or more wide - unfortunately I wasn't able to get my camera out in time as he simply posed for a photo by his friend and then released the fish back into the lake.
We saw a little of the Gay and Lesbian Parade - this comprised of a number of barges full of men and women dancing as they headed along the canals of Amsterdam - lots of flesh from both sexes being shown here.
The place was very crowded by this time though - and it was hot in the sun, so we decided to go to a museum of a different nature after this - The Torture Museum - a collection of torture instruments used during the middle ages - many of them during the Spanish Inquisition.
There was some pretty scary stuff here - and the descriptions indicated that they were used for almost any indiscretions you cared to name.. most of the time in the name of religion too.
After that we saw a bit of the red light district - which as it has a policy of no cameras allowed I didn't really get any photos of.
Even more flesh being shown here obviously - with girls in little window booths beckoning as you walked past - wiggling their body parts or calling to you trying to get your attention. There were a lot of empty window booths though - so I guess the place was pretty busy on that day.
Bart and I were both pretty tired by this point - having walked around all day in the hot sun, so we headed back to the train station after this and caught the train back to Delft. By the time we got back it was getting close to 8pm (though the sun was still out) - so I thanked Bart for showing me around all day and we each headed off home.
After a shower and a bit of a rest I wandered out for dinner on the markets and had some Spaghetti Bolognaise and a Wiekse beer to wash it down with - then headed back to my hotel to get some sleep.
We spent a good bit of time wandering through this building and when we came out we were quite thirsty and a bit hungry too, so we wandered through Museum Park (which is the park in the middle of all the museums obviously) - until we found a supermarket, grabbed a few things for lunch and then wandered along until we came to Vondelpark. This park is beautiful with lush green grass, plenty of trees, a beautiful lake and obviously a spot that the locals enjoy.
Lots of people were lying around the lake sunbaking and enjoying the lovely weather. While we were eating our lunch I saw two guys fishing in the lake too, and was amazed when one of them pulled in a fish that quite literally filled both of his arms - about 50-60cm long and 30cm or more wide - unfortunately I wasn't able to get my camera out in time as he simply posed for a photo by his friend and then released the fish back into the lake.
We saw a little of the Gay and Lesbian Parade - this comprised of a number of barges full of men and women dancing as they headed along the canals of Amsterdam - lots of flesh from both sexes being shown here.
The place was very crowded by this time though - and it was hot in the sun, so we decided to go to a museum of a different nature after this - The Torture Museum - a collection of torture instruments used during the middle ages - many of them during the Spanish Inquisition.
There was some pretty scary stuff here - and the descriptions indicated that they were used for almost any indiscretions you cared to name.. most of the time in the name of religion too.
After that we saw a bit of the red light district - which as it has a policy of no cameras allowed I didn't really get any photos of.
Even more flesh being shown here obviously - with girls in little window booths beckoning as you walked past - wiggling their body parts or calling to you trying to get your attention. There were a lot of empty window booths though - so I guess the place was pretty busy on that day.
Bart and I were both pretty tired by this point - having walked around all day in the hot sun, so we headed back to the train station after this and caught the train back to Delft. By the time we got back it was getting close to 8pm (though the sun was still out) - so I thanked Bart for showing me around all day and we each headed off home.
After a shower and a bit of a rest I wandered out for dinner on the markets and had some Spaghetti Bolognaise and a Wiekse beer to wash it down with - then headed back to my hotel to get some sleep.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Canal views
Didn't do a huge amount today - continued working on WebGUI and started planning how we can start syncing and exposing other parts of Filemaker.
Had lunch with Koen and Bart again and then had a chat with Martin when he arrived at the office in the afternoon.
Bart and I agreed to meet at the train-station the next day at 10.30am, and then we'd head in to Amsterdam together to wander around.
After work I really had no plans, so decided I'd wander around Delft some more and see what else I could do around here. Ended up in the little square with the colourful cow and there was a large ensemble playing some lovely music there so sat down at one of the tables nearby and thought I'd have a beer while listening to the music.
I think I must have sat there for at least 15-20 minutes and neither of the two waiters would catch my eye or acknowledge me at all, so I ended getting up and walking to the next cafe (about 10m away) and sat down there instead. Here I was served promptly and ordered half a litre of Grolsch to drink while I listened to the lovely music.
I ordered a light meal after that and sat there for a bit longer before wandering back to my hotel for the evening.
Bart called me about 8pm and asked if I wanted to join him and hit the bars a bit - so I met up with him an hour later and we started drinking. He knew I was interested in trying a few different beers, so we tried a number of different ones tonight - including Leffe (Triple) - which was the one Patrick recommended, Le Chouffe (a pretty strong beer at 8%), another Grolsch, a Heinekin and a Jupiler pils. Needless to say I was needing some more food by that point so grabbed a doner kebab (which they made with a round roll, not pita bread) from one of the few places still open. We'd been moving around from bar to bar all night to sample these beers, and it was just after midnight, so we headed to his society building (now I'll never spell this right, but it sounds like cornbers or something like that) - Bart, Joeri, Martin, Marijn, Koen and those guys are all longstanding members of the society which is somewhat akin to a drinking fraternity or something like that. They have their own building in the centre of town - a huge building with horned bull statues projecting from it and from the history of the place it used to be a meat market. Martin and Marijn had shown me the place a few nights earlier, but tonight it was set up as somewhat of a disco for young people. I felt out of place here really, most of the kids there in their late teens and early 20's - so I stuck around long enough to have a final drink, said my farewells to Bart and then headed back to my hotel - pretty tired and while not actually drunk - a bit buzzed. :)
Had lunch with Koen and Bart again and then had a chat with Martin when he arrived at the office in the afternoon.
Bart and I agreed to meet at the train-station the next day at 10.30am, and then we'd head in to Amsterdam together to wander around.
After work I really had no plans, so decided I'd wander around Delft some more and see what else I could do around here. Ended up in the little square with the colourful cow and there was a large ensemble playing some lovely music there so sat down at one of the tables nearby and thought I'd have a beer while listening to the music.
I think I must have sat there for at least 15-20 minutes and neither of the two waiters would catch my eye or acknowledge me at all, so I ended getting up and walking to the next cafe (about 10m away) and sat down there instead. Here I was served promptly and ordered half a litre of Grolsch to drink while I listened to the lovely music.
I ordered a light meal after that and sat there for a bit longer before wandering back to my hotel for the evening.
Bart called me about 8pm and asked if I wanted to join him and hit the bars a bit - so I met up with him an hour later and we started drinking. He knew I was interested in trying a few different beers, so we tried a number of different ones tonight - including Leffe (Triple) - which was the one Patrick recommended, Le Chouffe (a pretty strong beer at 8%), another Grolsch, a Heinekin and a Jupiler pils. Needless to say I was needing some more food by that point so grabbed a doner kebab (which they made with a round roll, not pita bread) from one of the few places still open. We'd been moving around from bar to bar all night to sample these beers, and it was just after midnight, so we headed to his society building (now I'll never spell this right, but it sounds like cornbers or something like that) - Bart, Joeri, Martin, Marijn, Koen and those guys are all longstanding members of the society which is somewhat akin to a drinking fraternity or something like that. They have their own building in the centre of town - a huge building with horned bull statues projecting from it and from the history of the place it used to be a meat market. Martin and Marijn had shown me the place a few nights earlier, but tonight it was set up as somewhat of a disco for young people. I felt out of place here really, most of the kids there in their late teens and early 20's - so I stuck around long enough to have a final drink, said my farewells to Bart and then headed back to my hotel - pretty tired and while not actually drunk - a bit buzzed. :)
Friday, August 3, 2007
View from Above
The weather was a bit cooler when I woke up this morning.. the sky was pretty overcast on the ride in and was a bit of a haze over the horizon.
The office was quiet too - Joeri was working onsite with a customer today (he does every thursday) and so it was just me in the office (Martin was supposed to come in today but didn't turn up). In the ProcoliX office it was much the same, with Bart being the only one there.
I continued to work on my plans for total WebGUI domination, and had a chat with Bart over lunch. Bart suggested a number of places we could go to visit on Saturday: Rotterdam, Den Haag, the beach - though we eventually decided we'd go spend the day in Amsterdam as he hadn't seen that much of it either so was keen to do so as well.
After work I headed to the Delft Markets - as Thursday is Market day. I also wanted to get a chance to check out the churches and climb the church tower.
I went to the Oude Kerk (Old Church) first - and this place was full of beautiful stained glass windows and is the burial place for a number of notable persons, including the famous painter Johannes Vermeer who was born and worked in Delft.
The same ticket to get into the Old Church also gets you in to see the Niewe Kerk (New Church) - so I headed there next. The New Church didn't have as many stained glass windows as the Old Church did, but it did have an elaborate burial for William The Orange and the rest of the royal family over the centuries.
After this I wandered around the markets below for a bit - they sell a lot of different stuff here - Fruit/Veg, Cheeses, Fish (including raw herring which is apparently a delicacy here tho I wasn't game enough to try), Clothes, Watches, and even Vacuum cleaner parts.
I wandered around the markets for a while, then saw people up the top of the New Church - which reminded me that you could climb it too. So I bought a ticket to go up and got directed to the base of the stairs.
It's a tiny little staircase going up - the steps are circular with a diameter of about two metres - so each step is barely a metre long and probably only 25-30cm on the outside (it tapers in the middle to about 5cm)
So there's a lot of climbing involved as you have to go up a long way. In addition the same set of steps are used to go down too so you have to squeeze by people or families going the other way too.
Once you're at the top though - what a beautiful view!
It's a shame there was a bit of a haze over the city, as I expect on a clear day you could see a long way - as it was I still had an impressive view of the city below and I went right around the whole tower taking photos for you all to enjoy.
After that I wandered back to my hotel where I had a shower and changed clothes. It was getting cooler by this stage, so a light jumper and long pants were called for. I met up with Joeri, Martin and Marijn for a beer first, then we headed to a restaurant they recommended called 'De V'.
Had a great time with them all, chatting about languages, people and everything else. The highlight of the night was when I explained that we had a Dutch guy working for us back in Perth, and when I said his name was Gooitzen they laughed and thought that an odd name even in Holland and they'd never heard it before.
Sorry Gooitzen! :)
The office was quiet too - Joeri was working onsite with a customer today (he does every thursday) and so it was just me in the office (Martin was supposed to come in today but didn't turn up). In the ProcoliX office it was much the same, with Bart being the only one there.
I continued to work on my plans for total WebGUI domination, and had a chat with Bart over lunch. Bart suggested a number of places we could go to visit on Saturday: Rotterdam, Den Haag, the beach - though we eventually decided we'd go spend the day in Amsterdam as he hadn't seen that much of it either so was keen to do so as well.
After work I headed to the Delft Markets - as Thursday is Market day. I also wanted to get a chance to check out the churches and climb the church tower.
I went to the Oude Kerk (Old Church) first - and this place was full of beautiful stained glass windows and is the burial place for a number of notable persons, including the famous painter Johannes Vermeer who was born and worked in Delft.
The same ticket to get into the Old Church also gets you in to see the Niewe Kerk (New Church) - so I headed there next. The New Church didn't have as many stained glass windows as the Old Church did, but it did have an elaborate burial for William The Orange and the rest of the royal family over the centuries.
After this I wandered around the markets below for a bit - they sell a lot of different stuff here - Fruit/Veg, Cheeses, Fish (including raw herring which is apparently a delicacy here tho I wasn't game enough to try), Clothes, Watches, and even Vacuum cleaner parts.
I wandered around the markets for a while, then saw people up the top of the New Church - which reminded me that you could climb it too. So I bought a ticket to go up and got directed to the base of the stairs.
It's a tiny little staircase going up - the steps are circular with a diameter of about two metres - so each step is barely a metre long and probably only 25-30cm on the outside (it tapers in the middle to about 5cm)
So there's a lot of climbing involved as you have to go up a long way. In addition the same set of steps are used to go down too so you have to squeeze by people or families going the other way too.
Once you're at the top though - what a beautiful view!
It's a shame there was a bit of a haze over the city, as I expect on a clear day you could see a long way - as it was I still had an impressive view of the city below and I went right around the whole tower taking photos for you all to enjoy.
After that I wandered back to my hotel where I had a shower and changed clothes. It was getting cooler by this stage, so a light jumper and long pants were called for. I met up with Joeri, Martin and Marijn for a beer first, then we headed to a restaurant they recommended called 'De V'.
Had a great time with them all, chatting about languages, people and everything else. The highlight of the night was when I explained that we had a Dutch guy working for us back in Perth, and when I said his name was Gooitzen they laughed and thought that an odd name even in Holland and they'd never heard it before.
Sorry Gooitzen! :)
Thursday, August 2, 2007
More news from Delft
So I rode in to work by myself today, and it was a nice ride in. Got to see a revolving bridge on the ride which is in my photo stream for anyone interested - though I think the photos got jumbled around a bit in the upload.
Once at Oqapi I threw myself into writing the code for profile synchronisation with Filemaker.
While doing so I did discover that the email addresses seem to have a few wierd characters and some with spaces on the end - I think we need to configure filemaker a bit better so this is not possible - or alternatively I can add some parsing at this end and strip all emails of special characters, spaces, and force all emails as lowercase (as I noticed a few differences that way too).
The building pictured here is TU Delft - and if you read the description this is where we have lunch every day. I had a nice ham and salad roll, an apple and a mango yoghurt drink for lunch today.
After lunch Martin joined us - he's the resident WebGUI expert at Oqapi - having developed a number of things for WebGUI over the years, including the commerce system and sql form. I asked for his help with the workflow I was writing and he helped point me in the right direction with which functions to use and I managed to get the new workflow (written as a macro so it would be easier to debug) up and running.
After work we all met up for beers at a little place in Delft that they all knew and I met Martin's girlfriend Marijn and a few of their other friends.
Bart made an offer to show me around on Saturday if I was interested and I quickly said yes.
I tried a nice German wheat beer that they recommended - and it was very nice so I ended up having two tall glasses of it. I also had a sample of a few other beers, including a Belgian sour beer - which tasted like it was off to me, but apparently is a taste that grows on you.
I've never really been much of a beer drinker, but I enjoyed these and was good to chat to everyone. Most of the people with us slowly headed off home until it was just me, Martin, and Marijn. We decided to go for food after that as the alcohol was starting to hit us a bit, so we went to a noodle place they recommended and I had Teriyaki beef noodles for dinner. After that Martin's girlfriend headed off home and Martin and I played a couple of games of pool before we did the same thing.
Once at Oqapi I threw myself into writing the code for profile synchronisation with Filemaker.
While doing so I did discover that the email addresses seem to have a few wierd characters and some with spaces on the end - I think we need to configure filemaker a bit better so this is not possible - or alternatively I can add some parsing at this end and strip all emails of special characters, spaces, and force all emails as lowercase (as I noticed a few differences that way too).
The building pictured here is TU Delft - and if you read the description this is where we have lunch every day. I had a nice ham and salad roll, an apple and a mango yoghurt drink for lunch today.
After lunch Martin joined us - he's the resident WebGUI expert at Oqapi - having developed a number of things for WebGUI over the years, including the commerce system and sql form. I asked for his help with the workflow I was writing and he helped point me in the right direction with which functions to use and I managed to get the new workflow (written as a macro so it would be easier to debug) up and running.
After work we all met up for beers at a little place in Delft that they all knew and I met Martin's girlfriend Marijn and a few of their other friends.
Bart made an offer to show me around on Saturday if I was interested and I quickly said yes.
I tried a nice German wheat beer that they recommended - and it was very nice so I ended up having two tall glasses of it. I also had a sample of a few other beers, including a Belgian sour beer - which tasted like it was off to me, but apparently is a taste that grows on you.
I've never really been much of a beer drinker, but I enjoyed these and was good to chat to everyone. Most of the people with us slowly headed off home until it was just me, Martin, and Marijn. We decided to go for food after that as the alcohol was starting to hit us a bit, so we went to a noodle place they recommended and I had Teriyaki beef noodles for dinner. After that Martin's girlfriend headed off home and Martin and I played a couple of games of pool before we did the same thing.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Views from The Ruif
So I spent the first half of the day learning a bit of the webgui api and a little perl - scanning through webgui source code trying to understand the functions they provide for doing sql calls - and then trying to learn the perl syntax so I can actually write code using it - fun stuff in anyone's book I'm sure.
After that Koen from ProcoliX asked me if I wanted to take a trip into Amsterdam with him to see their datacenter and give him a hand. I've never really been in a proper datacenter before, so said yes. Koen likes to drive, and took me in his silver BMW 540 - it's an older car, but cruised very nicely on the Amsterdam highways. I got to take a photo of a few more dutch windmills as we went past - one old one, and two new ones and it was a smooth drive in with not too much traffic (as a lot of people over here is on holiday this time of year prettymuch).
Koen explained that one of their client's servers had gone down, and they needed to find out what had happened to it - as a remote reboot hadn't helped and these were old servers so couldn't do anything else remotely.
When we got to the building he signed me in as ProcoliX employee and we got badges and then headed up to the datacentre. We had to put shoe covers on before we could enter the room too - apparently to stop dirt and some sort of anti-static measure. Koen didn't think much of it really.
The datacentre was fully temperature and voltage controlled, brightly lit with rows and rows of racks. Procolix had three racks at this datacenter - and run all of their servers from here.
When we hooked a monitor and keyboard up to the server and restarted it, it appeared one of the scsi drives on the raid had failed - and the other was corrupted. Koen tried a few things to get it to work but without much success. He'd already moved a copy of the data onto another server, so he was content simply to take the failed hard drive out and head back to the office.
Koen said he wanted to replace those servers anyway, so this was a good reason to look at getting a bunch of new blade servers.
We headed back t the office after that and I headed home not long afterwards as it was getting late.
Now I'd ridden in with Joeri that morning, but here was my chance to ride home by myself. Luckily I have TomTom (GPS navigation Software) on my phone with all of the european maps, including Netherlands.
I don't have a GPS though, so it's kinda like a portable map - with a few extra features like automatic route calculation. I'd plugged in the office address and my home address, so generated a bicycle map and checked it with Joeri - he said it was almost right, but we took a more direct route. I tried generating it again and this time selected walking method and this time he said it was the same route we'd taken this morning. Armed with a map I was prepared to head off home.
Of course I still took a couple of wrong turns and got a little off track, but I was able to retrace my steps and correct myself once I realised and soon I was home.
I dumped my laptop, changed clothes and then headed out again for dinner as it was getting close to 6pm by this time. I took a meandering route and took a few photos along the way - this time on 100 ISO (not 1600 ISO like I'd inadvertantly done the day before). Joeri had suggested a restaurant for dinner near the New Church in Delft called The Ruif, so after wandering around for a bit I headed there for a meal. I ordered a lovely meal for which I don't remember the full name (except the bit 'alles is best') - but consisted of a couple of shishkebabs with meat in a satay sauce, a salad and chips on the side. I washed this down with a big glass of Jupiler league.
The Ruif, like many restaurants around here, has a large boat platform that sits on the canal - I sat right in the corner with lovely views of the canal and a bridge over it - so I got to see lots of people strolling along over the bridge and heading off to their destinations as I sat and ate - was nice.
When I got back to the hotel I found that though I could now connect to the wireless link they had - their internet link itself was down - so I settled back in bed and watched a little tv then headed to bed.
After that Koen from ProcoliX asked me if I wanted to take a trip into Amsterdam with him to see their datacenter and give him a hand. I've never really been in a proper datacenter before, so said yes. Koen likes to drive, and took me in his silver BMW 540 - it's an older car, but cruised very nicely on the Amsterdam highways. I got to take a photo of a few more dutch windmills as we went past - one old one, and two new ones and it was a smooth drive in with not too much traffic (as a lot of people over here is on holiday this time of year prettymuch).
Koen explained that one of their client's servers had gone down, and they needed to find out what had happened to it - as a remote reboot hadn't helped and these were old servers so couldn't do anything else remotely.
When we got to the building he signed me in as ProcoliX employee and we got badges and then headed up to the datacentre. We had to put shoe covers on before we could enter the room too - apparently to stop dirt and some sort of anti-static measure. Koen didn't think much of it really.
The datacentre was fully temperature and voltage controlled, brightly lit with rows and rows of racks. Procolix had three racks at this datacenter - and run all of their servers from here.
When we hooked a monitor and keyboard up to the server and restarted it, it appeared one of the scsi drives on the raid had failed - and the other was corrupted. Koen tried a few things to get it to work but without much success. He'd already moved a copy of the data onto another server, so he was content simply to take the failed hard drive out and head back to the office.
Koen said he wanted to replace those servers anyway, so this was a good reason to look at getting a bunch of new blade servers.
We headed back t the office after that and I headed home not long afterwards as it was getting late.
Now I'd ridden in with Joeri that morning, but here was my chance to ride home by myself. Luckily I have TomTom (GPS navigation Software) on my phone with all of the european maps, including Netherlands.
I don't have a GPS though, so it's kinda like a portable map - with a few extra features like automatic route calculation. I'd plugged in the office address and my home address, so generated a bicycle map and checked it with Joeri - he said it was almost right, but we took a more direct route. I tried generating it again and this time selected walking method and this time he said it was the same route we'd taken this morning. Armed with a map I was prepared to head off home.
Of course I still took a couple of wrong turns and got a little off track, but I was able to retrace my steps and correct myself once I realised and soon I was home.
I dumped my laptop, changed clothes and then headed out again for dinner as it was getting close to 6pm by this time. I took a meandering route and took a few photos along the way - this time on 100 ISO (not 1600 ISO like I'd inadvertantly done the day before). Joeri had suggested a restaurant for dinner near the New Church in Delft called The Ruif, so after wandering around for a bit I headed there for a meal. I ordered a lovely meal for which I don't remember the full name (except the bit 'alles is best') - but consisted of a couple of shishkebabs with meat in a satay sauce, a salad and chips on the side. I washed this down with a big glass of Jupiler league.
The Ruif, like many restaurants around here, has a large boat platform that sits on the canal - I sat right in the corner with lovely views of the canal and a bridge over it - so I got to see lots of people strolling along over the bridge and heading off to their destinations as I sat and ate - was nice.
When I got back to the hotel I found that though I could now connect to the wireless link they had - their internet link itself was down - so I settled back in bed and watched a little tv then headed to bed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)