Vancouver, 22.03.04 - 28.03.04
Montag
Ausgerechnet jetzt, wo wir nach Deutschland/Prag fliegen, beginnt hier in Vancouver der Frühling richtig. Nachdem es gestern beim Frisbee-Spielen ja schon tolles Wetter gab, war es heute sogar so warm, dass ich im T-Shirt zur Uni gehen konnte!
In den Wohngebieten stehen an den Straßenrändern hier überall Bäume, die zur Zeit wunderschön blühen. Da musste ich natürlich einfach mal ein Foto machen... Ich hoffe, es bleibt so, bis wir wieder zurückkommen.
Dienstag
So, meine Koffer sind gepackt und in ca. 1h werde ich mich auf den Weg zum Flughafen machen. Wir werden Mittwoch Vormittag in Frankfurt ankommen und am Sonntag weiter nach Prag fliegen. Ich freue mich schon darauf, Euch alle mal wiederzusehen!
Mittwoch
As most of my German readers know what we have been doing while we were in Germany (and speak english anyways), I'll switch to english for a few days.
As part of our trip to the ACM ICPC Worldfinals in Prague we were staying in Germany with our families for 4 days. After arriving in Frankfurt around noon, we were all very tired because the time difference of 9 hours. On our way to Mühlheim, the city where Markus and I live (and Igor and Jonathan stayed for the 4 days) we experienced the usual annoying delays of German trains: Instead of 1h we needed 2 hours and head to switch to a bus. Trains may be cooler than buses, but the bus system of Vancouver seems to be more reliable. Finally, we arrived at my house and I could enter my room for the first time since August.
We knew that we had to stay awake until early evening at least to get used to the new time zone, so we decided to show Frankfurt to our guests. While Frankfurt is not a typical tourist city it has a few nice old buildings. On the pictures you can see the "Alte Oper" (opera), the "Römer" (old center of the city, the city hall is there) and the "Eiserner Steg" a nice old pedestrian bridge. Don't you think it is almost as nice as San Francisco's Golen Gate bridge? For dinner we went to a traditional restaurant serving special local food. While Jonathan did not seem to like the food ("Grüne Sauce", "Kassler", "Handkäs mit Musik", "Blutwurst" and "Sauerkraut"), our guests enjoyed the "Apfelwein" (similar like alcoholic cider) very much.
Donnerstag
Jonathan and Igor used the day to visit Frankfurt on their own and look at some of Frankfurt's nice museums and old churches. I spent the day with my family and Moni. In the evening I went to a musical (Miss Saigon) where Moni was playing the orchestra. That was really impressive, since all actors and the orchestra were amateurs. The all did really well and I enjoyed the evening.
Freitag
Today, we made a trip to Heidelberg, a nice city about 100km south of Frankfurt. It has a nice old city and an old ruin of a castle. It is surrounded by small hills where we had a beautiful view over the roofs of the city. As we did not have a travel guide, a can't tell you much about the buildings or history, so simply look at the pictures...
In the evening I met most of my friends in a nice restaurant/cocktail bar. It was great to see them all again. Igor and Jonathan joined us as well and were very busy with drinking German beer.
Samstag
Saturday was another calm day with family and friends. In the evening I had to pack my baggage again as our flight to Prague was booked for Sunday around noon. Since I have never been away from my home town for such a long time, it was great to be there for a few days. And since I will go back to Germany in two months anyways it was not so difficult to say good bye at the end.
Sonntag
We arrived in Prague on early afternoon and started our visit there with an inspection of our hotel. We stayed in the "Grand Hotel Bohemia", a really luxurious hotel located directly in the center of Prague with big rooms and a great breakfast buffet as we were to discover on the next morning. We used the afternoon to walk around a little bit in Prague before we went to the IBM reception dinner where some food awaited us. There we met Maria Klawe the current president of the ACM. She told us that she had been a professor at UBC and will cross fingers for us.
