It's been a few weeks since I've been back now, but I thought I'd post some pictures from my trip to China. In addition to spending the work weeks in Dongguan and Fuzhou, we were able to make it to both Shanghai and Beijing on the weekends. In Shanghai we walked around the city and did a tour to one of the water cities on one of the old canals an hour away, and in Beijing we were able to see the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, some of the Olympic venues (although not from too close-up and they were still all blocked off to the public), and the Great Wall, in addition to the serious pollution...
Set on Flickr
Since I've been back, we had our friend Josh from Norway and Katie from Seattle visit, and we took them to the Herzogenaurach Beerfest (the town where adidas is headquartered). Next weekend we are headed down to Italy, to Milan and down to the Italian Riviera south of Genoa, towards CInque Terre. Looking forward to the sun and the food!
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Sunday, July 6, 2008
NYC + VT
This post is long overdue ... its a little report on our trip to New York and Vermont several weeks back!
We spent several days in New York, and had a fantastic time. I had never walked over the Brooklyn Bridge before - and it was really very neat. We ate pizza on the way over there, and that was delicious. That was a very New York day. After getting lots of shopping done, we drove up to Vermont, trying really hard to obey the non-autobahn level speed limits.
John went fishing on the White River with all the guys. I think the ladies were busy eating antipasti and amazing food at pane salute with the bride at that point.
The wedding locale and the bridal party in front of the barn. It was sort of rainy, but I think the umbrellas made the photos look really cool! It was such a good event, and we all had tons of fun.
Even though we had to head home to Germany a few days afterwards, we still made time for a trip to Quechee Gorge. I had definitely missed the scenery of Vermont! We headed home, and arrived safely only to discover our car, which had been parked legally on the street, was missing. Crime, in general, is extremely low around here, so we were almost convinced it hadn't been stolen. After enlisting some help from German speakers, we find out that our car had been towed due to some road work in the area. We drag our tired, jet lagged selves over to the towing place, which looks more like a junk yard with smashed up cars and metal parts all over the place. Sure enough, our little car was parked by the "still in tact" cars. Manage to find someone who spoke enough English to communicate, and he says "come inside" ... now call us silly, but the picture below was not exactly what we were expecting to see.
Yes, this was "the office". And yes, that is a medieval toilet chair thing in the back complete with a candle. Yes, there were candelabras and armor. Now imagine a large parrot squawking every 10 seconds, coming from the next room. Now imagine the air filled with cigarette or cigar smoke. You can now see how proud of ourselves we were when we got our car back in one piece, fairly quickly, without having to pay anything! These are the experiences we'll remember down the road when we're back in the states and going to pick up a towed car is a boring, dreary affair where you have to pay a lot ...
We spent several days in New York, and had a fantastic time. I had never walked over the Brooklyn Bridge before - and it was really very neat. We ate pizza on the way over there, and that was delicious. That was a very New York day. After getting lots of shopping done, we drove up to Vermont, trying really hard to obey the non-autobahn level speed limits.
John went fishing on the White River with all the guys. I think the ladies were busy eating antipasti and amazing food at pane salute with the bride at that point.
The wedding locale and the bridal party in front of the barn. It was sort of rainy, but I think the umbrellas made the photos look really cool! It was such a good event, and we all had tons of fun.
Even though we had to head home to Germany a few days afterwards, we still made time for a trip to Quechee Gorge. I had definitely missed the scenery of Vermont! We headed home, and arrived safely only to discover our car, which had been parked legally on the street, was missing. Crime, in general, is extremely low around here, so we were almost convinced it hadn't been stolen. After enlisting some help from German speakers, we find out that our car had been towed due to some road work in the area. We drag our tired, jet lagged selves over to the towing place, which looks more like a junk yard with smashed up cars and metal parts all over the place. Sure enough, our little car was parked by the "still in tact" cars. Manage to find someone who spoke enough English to communicate, and he says "come inside" ... now call us silly, but the picture below was not exactly what we were expecting to see.
Yes, this was "the office". And yes, that is a medieval toilet chair thing in the back complete with a candle. Yes, there were candelabras and armor. Now imagine a large parrot squawking every 10 seconds, coming from the next room. Now imagine the air filled with cigarette or cigar smoke. You can now see how proud of ourselves we were when we got our car back in one piece, fairly quickly, without having to pay anything! These are the experiences we'll remember down the road when we're back in the states and going to pick up a towed car is a boring, dreary affair where you have to pay a lot ...
Exercise
One can imagine that, working where we work, there are a lot of people who exercise. A lot. In my group, the popular activities are (#1) Running at lunch. I have not been able to get myself to participate in this one. Number 2 activity is biking to work. This doesn't sound like a big deal if you think about biking from one neighborhood to another in the same city. However, our commute is 26 kilometers, which usually takes us about 25-30 minutes with traffic. There are people who regularly bike to and from work several times a week. Last week, my coworker and I decided we should try biking in since we weren't too busy at work, John was still in China, and it'd be good for us. Since last week it was very very hot, we carpooled home one day, and met at 7 am the next morning to bike to work. It took us just under an hour and a half. Since her car was still at work, we didn't have to bike home when it was 90 degrees out!
If you click on the below link, you can see the route we took. Work is definitely in the middle of the country, so most of the way was next to the river Pegnitz, or a canal. After that, it was through farmland and small villages until we got to work!
Map of the route to work
If you click on the below link, you can see the route we took. Work is definitely in the middle of the country, so most of the way was next to the river Pegnitz, or a canal. After that, it was through farmland and small villages until we got to work!
Map of the route to work
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