Trip to Slovenia 2009

The Dragon Bridge, originally uploaded by deniseakob.

Pete and I traveled to Slovenia during the Christmas holidays this year. We spent most of the trip in the capital city of Ljubljana and met friends there. The picture posted is of the Dragon Bridge with the Ljubljana Castle in the background atop the hill. We also visited the Postonja Cave, Trieste, Italy and Lake Bled. It was a wonderful trip and we truly enjoyed seeing such a diverse, beautiful country. This makes 9 countries visited in the past year!

Click on the photo above to see all of the pictures from our trip.

Happy New Year!

Dispatch from Dresden

Well, our time in Prague is done. We packed it up at around 3 this afternoon and headed back to Germany to the city of Dresden. You may remember Dresden as the site of some of the worst bombing of WWII in Germany as some 65% of the city was destroyed. It is also a major cultural center and is famous for it's porcelain. So, we are looking forward to our time here. But first, about our time in Prague.



Prague is an amazing old city. The architecture alone is astounding. It survived most of the worst bombing, so most of it's old buildings are still standing and are amazingly detailed. Prague was the seat of Bohemia and has been around for over 1000 years. It has long been a cultural center of Europe and was the seat of a few Holy Roman Emperors. So, to say there is a lot of history there is a bit of an understatement. Check out the Wikipedia entry for more information.



We arrive on Saturday and headed out to see some of the town. We stayed near the national museum and headed down into the Old town from there (the "New" town was settled in the 13's or so). We saw the astronomical clock ring in the old town square and watched the sun set with an ice cream cone in hand. It was a fine evening, but we were beat by the time we made it back to our hotel. Check out the map below to see where some of the stuff we saw is.


View Prague in a larger map

The next day we took a 2 hour guided tour of the city (mostly an overview) and the Prague Castle. The Castle is the largest in the world and contains the St. Vitus Cathedral both of which are amazing and sit up on top of the hill looking out over the city. The castle first started in the 900s or so and has been built up ever since. It was an amazing place. Read more about the castle and cathedral here and here.



The stained glass in the cathedral was especially impressive, both for its size and complexity. This was a truly impressive space. Click on the picture to see this picture bigger and a lot more of the cathedral.



Butch found a suit of armor to try on in the castle. This was the in "story of the castle" exposition.



On our way out we passed through the vineyards on the castle hill and got some really amazing shots of the city looking over the red tile roofs. What a beautiful city. I am not sure if any of us really knew what to expect, but certainly not this. All around it was a very nice day at the castle.



After the castle, we decided to try out some traditional Czech cuisine. I had the meat plate, Guy had the pig knuckle, Dee and Anita had goulash, and Rosie and Butch tried out the pork steak and potato soup. It was an amazing meal and we all had to be rolled out of there by the time it was done.



We all eventually agreed that the pig knuckle was the most impressive though. A thumbs up for traditional Czech cuisine. . . and beer.



That night, Denise and I walked back through town up to the castle to see it lit up at night and look over the city. What a view!



On Monday, we took one final look at the city in the morning and stopped at the Church of Our Lady Victorious to see the Infant Jesus of Prague. This is a wax figure of Jesus that was brought to Prague in 1628 by a Spanish princess. The church where it is located is incredibly ornate. This was particulalarly meaningful for Anita as she has had a replica of the figure for years, but never dreamed she would see it in person.



After the church, we walked back across the Charles Bridge and into Prague, the car, and our trip to Dresden.

Another Dispatch from the Ore Mountains

So, the Ore Mountains are everything we thought they would be and more. More wooden toys than you could shake a stick at. Fortunately, we managed to leave most of them there. . . my emphasis on the word "most."



There were pyramids, schwibbogen (candle arches), smokers, nutcrackers, and a whole bunch of other stuff.





Despite the fact that there were a jillion-and-a-half stores, every one was a bit different, showing stuff from a different manufacturer and the woodwork was really quite remarkable.



We also visited a factory and got to witness the making of the toys. So, even though this is generally not really my (Pete) thing, we did head to Prague with a little less space in the van. Check out the photos here and on our flickr site.

Dispatch from the Ore Mountains

Over the first two weeks of September, we are being visited by Denise's parents, Guy and Anita and her aunt and uncle, Rosie and Butch. We have had a great time checking out the area around our place in Jena, but now it is time to hit the road for our tour of the former Eastern Bloc.



Day One of the Akob-Profili visit adventure extravaganza, and I am currently sitting in the small town of Seiffen in the easternmost part of Germany, right on the Czech border in an area called the Erzgebirge, or directly translated, the Ore Mountains. People mined metals (iron, copper, cobalt, silver, tin) here starting about 700 years ago continued until the mines all closed some 150 years ago. Given Denise's chosen profession, working with microbes that help clean up uranium wastes, this part of the world is particularly interesting. In a nearby town on the Czech side, Joachimsthal, the pitchblende (uranium ore) was mined in which Marie Curie discovered the element radium, which eventually won her the Nobel Prize. This place, which was turned into a spa where people could experience the wonderful "healing power" of radioactive materials, used to be the only known source of Uranium in the world and was turned into a large, forced-labor mine during the Soviet era to produce the Uranium for the USSR's nuclear weapons arsenal.



This is not the real reason we are here though. We are here because this is the world's capital for wooden Christmas toys (nutcrackers, smokers, pyramids, candle arches, etc.). There are more stores here filled with neat wooden stuff than you can shake a stick at. The old mining towns, after the ore went dry in the 1800's, made this their primary industry.



During the GDR (East Germany) times, this was the primary export of not only this area, but the GDR in general. Now you can find this stuff all over the world and particularly in the German Christmas Markets. It is very interesting seeing all this stuff made and knowing that it is all within a few hours of our place in Germany. More tomorrow, and then we head to Prague.

Back to blogging

Well, after 10 months in Germany, it is really time to start updating the blog again.



First a recap: Denise arrived here in Germany in late October 2008, followed by me in January. We have now settled in pretty well and will be staying around until 2011 as Denise has gotten a new job as a postdoc at Uni Jena in the AquaDiv@Jena program, where she will be looking at diversity of life in groundwater systems. As for me, while I am officially a "Hausmann," I will continue with my website work for now and have started my own company to do it, Bouwma Communication Design. Hopefully I will be able to continue getting some business since this is a great way for me to keep busy here and still allows a great deal of flexibility in my work. Plus I love the work.

In general, we both love most everything about Germany. For the most part it isn't all that different from home, with a few notable exceptions. For one, locally grown, fresh, and organic foods are easy to find and don't cost more than the stuff you get at the supermarket. In fact many of the supermarkets sell this stuff. What this means is that the food is fantastic and we have both lost some weight since we got here. We also love that we don't need a car here since you can bike or ride the trains almost anywhere. This has also likely contributed to our collective weight loss.



The people are great and we have made a bunch of friends, both German and from the states. Especially in the summer, nothing is quite like sitting outside at a cafe or pub and having a nice cold beer with good company. Oh, I should also mention that the beer is excellent too, even the "cheap" stuff. All the beer is pretty cheap though and costs about the same as the equivalent sized soda, juice, or water. No complaints here.



There are some things that are tough too. For example, nothing but restaurants are open on Sunday or after about 8 PM on the weekdays. You really need to plan ahead to make sure you make it to the store before it closes. Also, the time difference (6 hrs) with the states makes it really tough to keep up with folks back home. And, of course, not speaking the language is a bit tough too. Right now we are keeping our German friends busy as translators as I get my driver's license, we rent a new apartment, sign contracts for work, health insurance, and residency. We will owe everyone big time once this is all through. It is not that we aren't learning the language, but things are "sehr langsam" as the Germans might say (very slow).



We have been lucky enough to do some traveling. We have been to Western Germany several times (Cologne, Duisberg, Bochum, and Frankfurt), to Switzerland, and the UK. We visited our friends Elke, Stuart and Qobelo in Cologne, saw a soccer game in Duisberg, went to a conference in Bochum, and have really only been to the airport in Frankfurt. In Switzerland, Denise had a conference in Davos, so I tagged along as the driver as a good portion of the Küsel lab went to the conference. It was a great time and we also got to see Denise's former advisor Joel Kostka there as well. The picture above is from that trip. Lastly, we went to the UK for my cousin Randy's wedding. We had a fantastic time in London and up at Leiston Abby, near Suffolk. We also stopped in Dover on the way back to London and got to hang out a bit in Canterbury too. In addition to travelling, we have also gotten some visitors, like my brother Andy and sister-in-law Jana and, of course, my niece Sol.





That's about all for this update. From this point on, I will try to update more frequently as we move into the fall, switch apartments, have parents visit, and travel a bit. Tschuss!