Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to Mike/Dad!
Happy Birthday to you! And many more.....
Older and Wiser, eh?
xoxox from Eva, Dan and Gabe on Cape Cod! Wish we could send you a scallop!
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Happy Birthday to Mike/Dad
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to Mike/Dad!
Happy Birthday to you! And many more.....
Older and Wiser, eh?
xoxox from Eva, Dan and Gabe on Cape Cod! Wish we could send you a scallop!
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Dan's July 29 trip ins Schwarzwald und Baden-baden
Yesterday we had a day off from the conference, and had our choice of conference-sponsored excursions. I opted to visit Baden Baden and the Black Forest, and about 30 of us met at 9 AM to catch a bus.
We had an English-speaking tour guide, who had a few choice things to say about each town we passed through, and who managed to herd the physicists around without constraining us too much. I didn?t know
anyone else on the Baden Baden excursion, but made several new friends on the bus and at lunch.
Baden Baden is a very high-end town, with a casino, theatre, modern art museum, and many top-end restaurants and hotels. And high-end shopping. The locals were all well-dressed.
First we visited the casino in the morning, when they do tours. It is full of gambling during the afternoon and all night. It is easily the fanciest casino I have ever seen, with wooden paneling everywhere, red
walls and floors, rococo decoration, statues, gilt mirrors, and such. It dates from the 18th century. To enter during gambling hours you must have a coat and tie. I was wearing jean shorts, a t-shirt, and sneakers, so the tour guide used me as an example of how one should NOT dress when going to the casino. The place would fit right into a Bond Film.
We then went over to the art museum, where they had an exhibit on Warhal, Rauschenberg, Twombly, Kiefer, and Lichtenstein. I liked the Lichtenstein and Kiefer the best. The Kiefer was very dark: one of his was a life-size model of a wedding dress pierced with large shards of dirty broken glass. Hmmm.
Then it started raining very hard and we went for lunch in town. The town was very quant, as you might expect. After the rain died down we walked up to the local castle, and then back to the bus.
We then spent about 2 hours driving through the rain, south through the Black Forest. It was pretty hilly, the trees were impressive, and we drove through lots of little quaint towns. We got out at an ?open-air museum?, sort of Greenfield Village-like with houses moved there from all different parts of the Black Hills. Most were 16th or 17th century,
and still in great condition. We got a tour from a terrific English-speaking guide, and got lots of details about the houses. Most of the houses had thatched roofs, and were built entirely of wood (no iron nails, just wood) except for the kitchen, which was stone to try to avoid burning the place down. Smoke from the kitchen was diverted to flow throughout the house, for warmth, preservation, and insect repellant. The coating of soot throughout the house helped to preserve it, which is part of the reason the houses are in such great shape. The ceilings were not higher than 7 feet, and the rooms had lots of little
nooks and crannies for Bibles, horseshoes, and other good-luck charms. At the very top of the highest room was mounted a deer?s skull, killed when the house was built, also for good luck. Next to the house was a separate small stone house, where they kept their valuables just in case the main house burned down. Outside the house was a trough for water, diverted from a nearby stream. Inside the trough were fish. (To eat, you ask? No, to tell if the water is OK. If the fish die, then you shouldn?t drink the water.) There was also lots of space in the house for livestock (horses, sheep, oxen). And get this: when the house was chosen for the museum in 1964, there was still an old lady living in it, still using the kitchen in the original manner. She moved with the house and lived in the house at the museum for a year before she got tired of the crowds and moved away.
There were many old houses that I didn?t have time to see. There was also a mill, which they ran for us. Also there was an abundant exhibit on cuckoo clocks.
So I liked the outdoor museum quite a bit and recommend it if you are ever in the area.
- Dan
Now to post pictures.
We had an English-speaking tour guide, who had a few choice things to say about each town we passed through, and who managed to herd the physicists around without constraining us too much. I didn?t know
anyone else on the Baden Baden excursion, but made several new friends on the bus and at lunch.
Baden Baden is a very high-end town, with a casino, theatre, modern art museum, and many top-end restaurants and hotels. And high-end shopping. The locals were all well-dressed.
First we visited the casino in the morning, when they do tours. It is full of gambling during the afternoon and all night. It is easily the fanciest casino I have ever seen, with wooden paneling everywhere, red
walls and floors, rococo decoration, statues, gilt mirrors, and such. It dates from the 18th century. To enter during gambling hours you must have a coat and tie. I was wearing jean shorts, a t-shirt, and sneakers, so the tour guide used me as an example of how one should NOT dress when going to the casino. The place would fit right into a Bond Film.
We then went over to the art museum, where they had an exhibit on Warhal, Rauschenberg, Twombly, Kiefer, and Lichtenstein. I liked the Lichtenstein and Kiefer the best. The Kiefer was very dark: one of his was a life-size model of a wedding dress pierced with large shards of dirty broken glass. Hmmm.
Then it started raining very hard and we went for lunch in town. The town was very quant, as you might expect. After the rain died down we walked up to the local castle, and then back to the bus.
We then spent about 2 hours driving through the rain, south through the Black Forest. It was pretty hilly, the trees were impressive, and we drove through lots of little quaint towns. We got out at an ?open-air museum?, sort of Greenfield Village-like with houses moved there from all different parts of the Black Hills. Most were 16th or 17th century,
and still in great condition. We got a tour from a terrific English-speaking guide, and got lots of details about the houses. Most of the houses had thatched roofs, and were built entirely of wood (no iron nails, just wood) except for the kitchen, which was stone to try to avoid burning the place down. Smoke from the kitchen was diverted to flow throughout the house, for warmth, preservation, and insect repellant. The coating of soot throughout the house helped to preserve it, which is part of the reason the houses are in such great shape. The ceilings were not higher than 7 feet, and the rooms had lots of little
nooks and crannies for Bibles, horseshoes, and other good-luck charms. At the very top of the highest room was mounted a deer?s skull, killed when the house was built, also for good luck. Next to the house was a separate small stone house, where they kept their valuables just in case the main house burned down. Outside the house was a trough for water, diverted from a nearby stream. Inside the trough were fish. (To eat, you ask? No, to tell if the water is OK. If the fish die, then you shouldn?t drink the water.) There was also lots of space in the house for livestock (horses, sheep, oxen). And get this: when the house was chosen for the museum in 1964, there was still an old lady living in it, still using the kitchen in the original manner. She moved with the house and lived in the house at the museum for a year before she got tired of the crowds and moved away.
There were many old houses that I didn?t have time to see. There was also a mill, which they ran for us. Also there was an abundant exhibit on cuckoo clocks.
So I liked the outdoor museum quite a bit and recommend it if you are ever in the area.
- Dan
Now to post pictures.
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