Arrived in Germany!
Acora Hotel, Karlsruhe, 1600 hrs
It's been almost a year since I last wrote anything in here. Direct email correspondance and Facebook seem to be usurping the LJ account. But since I'm on another trip this seems like a good time to start writing in here again.
I am sitting in my room at the Acora hotel in Karlsruhe typing this. The room (well, suite really) is not at all what I expected. This is possibly the craziest hotel room I've ever been in. Pictures are below the break.
The flight from Winnipeg was pretty uneventful. The flight from Toronto to Frankfurt was about 20 minutes late getting off the ground, but apparently that's normal for Air Canada these days. Since I didn't have any connections to make I didn't mind too much. Watched some decent-ish movies on the flights: Gangster Squad (meh), Cloud Atlas (I need to watch this again -- I don't know if I liked it or not; I started falling asleep during that part of the flight), and most of Django Unchained (enjoyed it, but didn't get to see the last 40 minutes or so). Sadly I didn't have a window seat, and the guy next to me who did kept the shutter down for the whole flight, so I didn't actually get to see Germany from the air at all. As such the pictures are fairly scant so far.
Getting to Karlsruhe from Frankfurt Airport was pretty easy. Single train right from the airport. Apparently the Germans and the English have the same problem with train car design: insufficient luggage space. What's with those (and I paraphrase David Mitchell here) needlessly small overhead shelves? Anything larger than a small handbag just kind of hangs over your head like the Sword of Damocles threatening to fall on you mid-travel. At least the English have needlessly small shelves at the back of each car for larger items (assuming no more than 2-3 people per car have large items that's enough). The Germans don't even have that. Oh well. I, and my luggage, made it to the hotel. That's the important thing.
Jacky is due to arrive in another four hours or so from Munich. I don't know what I'll do with my time between now and then. Probably have a shower and explore the local neighbourhood a little bit. It's a super-nice day outside right now. +21C or so, and sunny. Definitely better than Winnipeg when I left it.
As promised above, here are some of the pictures I've taken so far. Nothing too exciting. Mostly just shots of the crazy little hotel room. And yes, some (most?) of them are sideways. I didn't do any editing or rotating, so you'll just have to turn your head or tip the computer on its side for now.
Karlsruhe, just outside the train station. There are LOTS of people here for ICRA. The big blue and white banner is a "You are here" map of how to get to the ICRA venue.
The same as above, but panned over to the left a bit.
And now, all of the hotel shots....
(I'm sitting at that table right now!)
These stairs are immediately to the right of the main entrance.
Beds are at the top of the stairs.
That's going to be scary going up and down in the dark.
A panoramic tour of the view out the skylight window:
That's it for now. Time to wash the airplane and train smells off and see what there is to see outside.
It's been almost a year since I last wrote anything in here. Direct email correspondance and Facebook seem to be usurping the LJ account. But since I'm on another trip this seems like a good time to start writing in here again.
I am sitting in my room at the Acora hotel in Karlsruhe typing this. The room (well, suite really) is not at all what I expected. This is possibly the craziest hotel room I've ever been in. Pictures are below the break.
The flight from Winnipeg was pretty uneventful. The flight from Toronto to Frankfurt was about 20 minutes late getting off the ground, but apparently that's normal for Air Canada these days. Since I didn't have any connections to make I didn't mind too much. Watched some decent-ish movies on the flights: Gangster Squad (meh), Cloud Atlas (I need to watch this again -- I don't know if I liked it or not; I started falling asleep during that part of the flight), and most of Django Unchained (enjoyed it, but didn't get to see the last 40 minutes or so). Sadly I didn't have a window seat, and the guy next to me who did kept the shutter down for the whole flight, so I didn't actually get to see Germany from the air at all. As such the pictures are fairly scant so far.
Getting to Karlsruhe from Frankfurt Airport was pretty easy. Single train right from the airport. Apparently the Germans and the English have the same problem with train car design: insufficient luggage space. What's with those (and I paraphrase David Mitchell here) needlessly small overhead shelves? Anything larger than a small handbag just kind of hangs over your head like the Sword of Damocles threatening to fall on you mid-travel. At least the English have needlessly small shelves at the back of each car for larger items (assuming no more than 2-3 people per car have large items that's enough). The Germans don't even have that. Oh well. I, and my luggage, made it to the hotel. That's the important thing.
Jacky is due to arrive in another four hours or so from Munich. I don't know what I'll do with my time between now and then. Probably have a shower and explore the local neighbourhood a little bit. It's a super-nice day outside right now. +21C or so, and sunny. Definitely better than Winnipeg when I left it.
As promised above, here are some of the pictures I've taken so far. Nothing too exciting. Mostly just shots of the crazy little hotel room. And yes, some (most?) of them are sideways. I didn't do any editing or rotating, so you'll just have to turn your head or tip the computer on its side for now.
Karlsruhe, just outside the train station. There are LOTS of people here for ICRA. The big blue and white banner is a "You are here" map of how to get to the ICRA venue.
The same as above, but panned over to the left a bit.
And now, all of the hotel shots....
(I'm sitting at that table right now!)
These stairs are immediately to the right of the main entrance.
Beds are at the top of the stairs.
That's going to be scary going up and down in the dark.
A panoramic tour of the view out the skylight window:
That's it for now. Time to wash the airplane and train smells off and see what there is to see outside.