Day three: Wien - Peterskirche, Mozarthaus, Stephansdom, and the old town

After a long day at Schönbrunn yesterday, we decided spend our time in the old town (and walk less) today.

Our first stop was Stephansdom (St. Stephan's), which was right next to a U-Bahn station. But the morning service was in progress, and we went to the nearby Peterskirche (St. Peter's) instead. The Baroque church has a beautiful interior.



After lunch (ramen and udon) in the vicinity, we went to the Mozarthaus, which is a stone's throw away from Stephansdom. Here are the kids in front of Mozartshaus. The whole building was turned into a museum to honor the great composer. Mozart's apartment was supposedly an exquisite apartment for his time (450 Gulden per year as rent), but well suited for his statue. For comparison, Mozart was earning 3000-4000 Gulden (Florins) a year, while Haydn was only earning about 1000 Gulden. Mozart was probably a gambling addict, squandered his fortune away, and borrowed money from acquaintances frequently (and owed as much as nearly 10000 Gulden as some point). In fact, no estate tax was levied after his death. Some displays in the museum are original, but most are only replica. There is no surviving furniture from Mozart's estate on display. The audio tour was good and informative. There is even a kids' version for younger visitors. Comparing to the Beethovenhaus in Bonn, which we visited last year, the collection and the displays at Mozarthaus are definitely not as impressive.

We returned to Stephansdom afterwards. Its Romanesque and Gothic style building is featured on the Austrian 10-cent Euro coin. Before we could enter the building, we had to battle through a wall of concert-ticket sellers, dressed in historical costumes. These sellers, with a binder in hand, are seen at all tourists attractions around town. Some of them could be quite annoying. After we declined an offer to chat, we heard "Hey, how could you not like music?" It's not that we don't like music (quite to the contrary in fact), but I would rather spend the money on a Wiener Philharmoniker (Vienna Philharmonic) performance than a show featuring musicians dressed in historical garbs and Viennese wigs and playing the same music every day. Enough said...

Here are a few pictures of Stephansdom.









After the Dom visit, we walked around the pedestrian area along Kärtner Straße. There are the usual H&M, Starbucks and the high-end designer stores. The kids had a great time looking for "stars". These are similar to those on the Stars' Alley in Hollywood, except that the stars here were all giants in classical music (Pucinni, Vivaldi, Wagner...but we could not find Beethoven, Haydn, nor Mozart). Finally we arrived at the plaza outside the world-renowned Opera House at the end of the pedestrian area. We took a mental note that the Opera House offers a guided tour, although schedule is somewhat irregular. There will be two tours tomorrow: at 13:00 and 14:00 hr. We will be back.

Day two: Wien - Schloß Schönbrunn

The weather forecast was right: a nice, cloudless day.

Our apartment is conveniently located. It is a Straßenbahn (tram) ride to District 1 (the old town) and is a 5-min bus ride to the U4 line on the U-bahn (underground). Jocelyn overheard our landlady's description of the Ostermarkt (Easter market) at Schloß Schönbrunn yesterday, and hankered for a trip there...soon.

We took the U-bahn to Schönbrunn. The Easter market is on the ground of this great palace. It was certainly not as big as the Christmas markets that we had visited in Karlsruhe, Heidelberg, or Stuttgart last year. Unlike the German Christmas markets, where there would be stalls selling wursts and glühwein every 10 meter, there was no Würstelstand at the Easter market. When I saw a large punch bowl of himbeer-bowle (raspberry punch) at one of the stalls, I bought a glass thinking that the kids would like a refreshing treat. I took the first sip and immediately noticed the alcohol. OK, this is not kinderpunsch (children punch), and I ended up enjoying a drink before 11 am.



We entered the Schönbrunn Palace after a short stop at the Easter market (time passed quickly under the influence of alcohol). The palace is a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site, and is popular amongst tourists. There were not a lot of tourists today, although the ticket queue was long. The price structure for the admission fees is too complicated. If you do A, it is X €; for A+B, it is Y €; but for A+B+C and E but not D, you need to get a ticket for A+B+C+D+E. The cashiers had to explain the options to most tourists and a family vote would be taken before money changed hands.



Our first stop was the public garden and the maze. The flowers were beginning to bloom and we could only imagine how beautiful it would get when the whole garden is in full blossom. The kids spent some time at the playground there before attempting the labyrinth. I led the family into the labyrinth, and Gabriel led us out.



The kids needed a break after (literally) getting disorientated. We had lunch at the open-air cafe outside the tiergarten (zoo), which served traditional Viennese cuisine. Jocelyn and I ordered a Wiener schnitzel. Schnitzels, particularly the poorly cooked ones, are usually very dry. But the pork in this thin Wiener schnitzel that I ordered today was really juicy, and was perhaps the best schnitzel I ever had.

We hopped from room to room in the palace after lunch. Several rooms are of significant historical interest: the Große Galerie (the Great Gallery), a magnificent ballroom where John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev had their Vienna Summit; and the Napoleon room which he used as his bedroom after his conquest of Vienna. Gabriel took interests in the Spiegelzimmer (Mirror Room), where Mozart allegedly held his first performance at the age of six.

The palace ground is huge. It would be too taxing on the kids (and the parents who would have to carry them) to walk up to the Gloriette. We got tickets for the Schönbrunner Panorama Bahn, a touristy "train" (shuttle service) that goes around the ground. It was well worth the visit. Our palace ticket also allowed us to get up to the viewing terrace of the Gloriette. Here you see the Gloriette and the magnificent view from its viewing terrace.



We missed the last apfelstrudelshau (apple strudel show...don't you love how words are strung together in German) of the day at Cafe Residenz near the entrance of the palace. But we had our afternoon coffee and pastry there anyways. The pastry, shown here, were good (but expensive).


The kids spent some more time at the Easter market before we left for a Vegetasia, an Asian vegetarian restaurant in the Westbahnhof area for dinner.

Day one: Wien - travel day

The fast ICE train journey from Karlsruhe to the Frankfurt international airport (FRA) was a smooth one. We checked in at the Lufthansa customer center at the train station at FRA. The airline took care of our checked baggage there while we continued our walk to the departure gate at the airport terminal. To make the whole transit even easier, there was a special security line for families traveling with children. The security personnel there were very friendly, probably because they didn't have to deal with those my-time-is-more-precious-than-thine business travelers. And in no time, we were waiting for our flight at the departure gate.

Since this was a flight within the EU, there was no passport control after we arrived in Vienna. In fact, no one, not the lady at the Lufthansa check-in counter, nor the security personnel at FRA, nor the gate personnel during boarding, had asked for any form of photo identification. This is quite different from the security measures for flights in the US. The only photo identification I had to present for this journey was my BahnCard, which entitled us a 25% discount for our electronic ICE train ticket.

The weather in Vienna was very nice, and was even warmer than in Karlsruhe. After booking a round-trip taxi ride at the airport, we hopped on a Mercedes-Benz taxi to the apartment that we had rented for this vacation. (Most taxis in Germany and Austria are MB).

Our landlady (a fellow Canuck) was already waiting for us at the apartment in a quiet neighborhood in the 4th district (aka Wieden). We dealt with the formalities (rent + security deposit and a brief tour of the 2-bedroom apartment) before rushing to a nearby grocery store to buy breakfast for tomorrow morning. Grocery stores close at 19:00 hr in Vienna.

It is customary for us to visit Asian restaurants on our trips (since the selection in Karlsruhe is not that good). Reviews on the internet indicate that there is a good Asian noodle house in the vicinity. After dropping off the grocery at the apartment, we walked to Chang Asian Noodles and had a great dinner. Our only complaint in Vienna so far is the ubiquitous cigarette smoke. There is no smoking restriction at restaurants in Vienna, and we were surrounded by smokers who lit up between slurps of noodles.

Earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy

We woke up to the news of a magnitude-6 earthquake in L'Aquila, about an hour's drive from Rome. Last June, I visited the underground laboratory (Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso) in a nearby traffic tunnel. Some of the scientists at the lab actually live in L'Aquila, and they contribute to a project that I am working on. The CNN footage looks really bad, and I hope the human loss can be kept to a minimum.

Now we have to head to the train station for a high-speed train to the Frankfurt airport, then onto Vienna for a week long vacation.

Auto und Technik Museum Sinsheim

We went to the Auto und Technik Museum Sinsheim as part of the kids' birthday treat today. They had a blast at its sister museum, Technik Museum Speyer, last November. The private museums have similar themes, but their main attractions are different. There are quite a few locomotives, a U-boat, and the Russian space shuttle Buran in Speyer. At the museum in Sinsheim today, we were treated to the Concorde and the Tupolev Tu-144 supersonic jets; a large collection of Ferraris, Formula-1 cars and other historically significant automobiles; and tanks.

The hubbub at the back of the car reached a deafening level during the 60-km drive to Sinsheim. No, it was not a mechanical problem with the Volkswagen Golf that we checked out from the car-sharing service, it was the continuous back-and-forth between Gabriel and his good friend Milo, whom we had invited on this trip.

It was lunch time when we arrived at the museum, and we all had schnitzel and pomme frites at its cafe (ah...what else?). Our first stop after lunch was the race-car section of the museum. There was a HUGE collection of Ferraris.



There was also a large collection of other racing machines: Jan Ullrich's Tour-de-France bicycle, Michael Schumacker's Formula-1 Ferrari, and the rocket-propelled Blue Flame (which broke the world record for land speed attained by a vehicle, at merely 63o mph or 1000 km/h):



In addition, there were a few historically significant vehicles, all limited editions of Mercedes Benz, that were used by Hilter and Himmler (and some were also delivered to the heads of other Axis states or their cohorts such as Mussolini and Franco). These were limited edition vehicles because of the additional bomb- and bullet-proofing constructs.


The highlight for me was the supersonic jets. After climbing up the stairs I got inside the cabin of both the Tupolev Tu-144 and the Concorde. The cabins were narrower than most commercial jets, and could fit four seats in a row. We really picked a nice Spring day to visit the museum today, as the cabin temperature would be much higher and the queue much longer in the summer.

It was a big deal to transport the supersonic jets to the museum (and the Buran to Speyer). Because of the large wing span, they had to be taken apart and transported mostly by sea, then through the Rhine on the last leg. This is similar to the main experimental apparatus that I am working here, except that this spectrometer was constructed only 400 km away, but had to travel 9000 km to finally arrive in Karlsruhe because of its size. More details are found on this page (Fig. 5, about half-way down the page shows the 9000-km route and the transport story).

The kids played briefly (and that's about an hour) at the museum's playground. Glenda and I figured that they needed to replenish their sugar level and bought them some ice cream before heading to the tank section of the museum.

The boys had a riot in the tank section. They snatched our digital camera and began taking pictures of the armored vehicles and the missile launchers that were on display.



The kids also got a chance to remotely maneuver a small jet later (for 2€). The jet was hung from the ceiling by cables, which were in turn connected to a motor-and-pulley system. Here you see the kids trying to control the jet with a joystick.

We could not leave the museum before another brief play time at the playground. By the time we left at around 18:00, the kids (and the supervising adults) were tired. Thankfully the decibel level in the car was substantially lower on the drive back to Karlsruhe.

More pictures from today's trip are here.

Osterkarte von Gabriel

Gabriel drew us an Easter card:

Liebe Mama, Lieber Papa,

Ich wünche euch schöne Ostern!

Herzliche Grüße
von Gabriel

Fischwoche (fish week) and Easter

This was the last full work week before Easter, and the cafeteria had a Fischwoche ("Fish Week") at one of the three food lines. The response had been underwhelming as the lab employees flocked over to the higher fat options at the other two lines (such as currywurst - sausage with fries and curry gravy all over). The worst response was on Wednesday when grilled rainbow trout was offered at the fish line. After seven months at the lab, I notice that the lengths of the queues are directly proportional to the fat content of the dishes being served at the food line, and I find myself either at the shortest line or the salad bar most of the time.

Speaking of Easter and fatty food...

I walked past a butcher's shop and saw some Easter eggs on display. Thinking that I will buy some for the kids, I took a closer look. They are not eggs with dyed shells or egg-shaped chocolate wrapped in colorful foil. The label on the outer container reads "6 leckere Osterwürste"...yes, 6 delicious Easter sausages. The sausage selections (in the ingredients and shapes) here continue to amaze me.

The final lecture

I gave the last of my graduate lectures today. It was quite a bit of work, but it was fun.

A colleague from Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster learned about this lecture series, and invited me to give a condensed version for the graduate students at his institution. We have decided on a week in mid-May (during the Ascension break at the kids' school) when I can bring the whole family there. Münster has a rich history. The Treaty of Münster, part of the Peace of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War, was signed in the city. With the independence of the Netherlands (from Spain) and Switzerland (from the Holy Roman Empire) guaranteed in the accord, Europe was never the same afterwards.

Coincidentally another acquaintance invited me to give a seminar on my research at Paul Scherrer Institut, an accelerator facility located half way between Basel and Zürick in Switzerland (and about 3 hours from Karlsruhe). A date has been set for mid-June when I will go for a day trip.

Birthdays at work

To celebrate their birthdays, Germans bring kuchen (cakes) to share with co-workers at the office. This morning, Klaus went around the offices and made the announcement that there would be cakes in the coffee room after lunch. Here you see the selection that he brought in.

alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Klaus!

Obama is coming to town

This is the latest hot topic in town: President Obama is visiting our state of Baden-Württemberg.

He will attend the 60th anniversary celebration of NATO in nearby towns later on this week. The NATO summit will be held in Strasbourg, France and Kehl, Germany (two towns linked by a bridge across the Rhine), and in Baden-Baden, Germany. The distance between Strasbourg and Karlsruhe is approximately 80 km and that between Baden-Baden and Karlsruhe is approximately 40 km.

Some of Gabriel's schoolmates live in the Strasbourg area, and won't be going to school later on this week because of the anticipated chaos (traffic detour, heightened security, and anticipated massive demonstrations).

Besides the raucous demonstrators, NATO leaders can also expect a warm welcome:

Königstuhl

I collaborate with a few physicists at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik in Heidelberg on a small project. I try to visit the institute at least once a month given its close proximity (50 km).

After a fruitful meeting with my MPIK colleagues today, one of the graduate students suggested that I might want to stop by Königstuhl (literally "the king's seat") on my drive back to Karlsruhe on this gorgeous Spring day.

MPIK is about half-way up on a hill in the Naturpark-Neckartal-Odenwald. Its sister institute, Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie is at the top of the 567-m high Königstuhl mountain. The drive from MPIK to Königstuhl took less than 10 minutes, but some of the roads scaling the hill are single-lane and windy. Once I reached the lookout area at Königstuhl, I was awed by the breathtaking view of Heidelberg and the Neckar river instantly. I strolled around for about 15 minutes before returning to Karlsruhe.

For tourists without access to a car, they can take the tramway (Heidelberger Bergbahn) from the old town of Heidelberg to Königstuhl (and the Heidelberg castle is the first stop of this tramway).

Happy Birthday, Gabriel!

Yesterday was Gabriel's 8th birthday. We had a rather low key celebration because it was a school day and he had homework to do. My, it's hard to be 8, isn't it? Despite this, he was a happy little guy as you can see in the photo below. Once he finished his homework and practiced his violin, he was in Lego heaven. Alan also spent some uninterrupted quality time with the children in the evening.



Last night, I prepared his favorite meal of noodle soup, gyoza and salad for dinner with non-dairy eis for dessert (Alan made a special trip to the bio specialty store). We also took him out for his official birthday dinner on Saturday night and had birthday eis (instead of a birthday cake) on Sunday. We might take the kids out for a special outing at the Technik Museum Sinsheim this Saturday because the weather is starting to get much warmer.

It's hard to believe that our little guy is 8 years old already, and that he'll be a tween very soon. He's growing up to be quite an inquisitive young man who is able to think independently. We're very proud of him and it will be interesting to see what he does with his life as he gets older.