Hamburg Christmas

Eh, I have been slow at this. I guess things are just winding down and I am preparing to leave. In the meantime here are a few photos from Hamburg and Christmas.

The Docks in Hamburg.

Sean and I had to leave our guns and baseball bats at home. How are we going to have any fun?!

It was foggy.

Opening some presents. We got Daniel a UTSI sweatshirt. He got us some DLR calendars.

Alright, I have some more pics I want to post, but Sean and I are leaving for Berlin in an hour, so I gotta go. Cya later. -Eric

Merry Christmas

Hi everybody - just checking in after Christmas. We had a lovely time in Hamberg with some of Daniel family. Now we are at his parents home near Dortmund. I have some photos and such to post but I have to finish this technical paper so those things will have to wait. One week and one day until we fly out. Tomorrow we have to meet with the apartment guy and check out. We will probably move our stuff to Daniels Saturday or Sunday. Then Monday is New Year Eve in Berlin. Then we return for a couple days to rest and pack and then Friday we head out. See you all soon :) -Eric

Rockets, Planes and Cats

I've always really liked this photo. This is one of my cats at home, Eddie. Hmmm, today is Saturday, I woke up later and Sean and I went into town to do some laundry. We stopped at the Christmas market and had some Gluhwein and Currywurst. Then we went back to the apartment. After dropping off our clean laundry and taking a nap we went back into town to do a little Christmas shopping. We also stopped at the grocery store to get something for dinner.

Right now I am working on my technical paper for the Aerospace Sciences meeting in Reno when I get back. I would really rather not be doing this right now. Oh well. I've been thinking of all my projects that I want to work on when I get back. Rockets, Planes, Scramjets, Submarines, etc. I am going to try my best to get some other students involved in all these projects at UTSI. I figure I only have a year or so left there, so I need to get cracking.

We will be moving out of our apartment next week after Christmas. Then we will party as much as we can before we leave. -Eric

Where Did I Go?

Ok, I disappeared from the blog for a short moment there. I had meant to post something yesterday, but I forgot my power cord for my laptop at the office and my batteries died. But praise the Lord my laptop has risen from the dead.

So. Lets catch up on some old going-ons and then we'll talk about the pasts few days events. Now, Monday I worked and then left for Cologne in the afternoon. I met Sabine at the train station after she was done with work. I was great to see her. Now... I would love to give you every detail of my time in Cologne, but in the name of privacy I'll have to leave you hanging. Maybe it is best - like the song - you say it best when you say nothing at all. Oddly enough, being the sap that I am I did write something down. I wrote what I would have written on the blog.

Though, I will show you these photos:

They have a great Christmas market in Cologne, much bigger than the one here in Goettingen. I really enjoyed walking around there. It was cold, but the cold is welcoming when you have some warm Gluhwein to sip on. And check out the kick ass hammer and sickle boomerang in the photo above.

This is a pic of the shore of the Rhine at night. I was standing on the main bridge that crosses the river. The Rhine is gorgeous at night.

Ok, I'll give you one pic of her. I have to write something about her. I haven't held back too much on the rest of the trip. I think there are only a few things I haven't put on the blog. So here it goes. I am going to miss this girl. I had a lot of fun with her. She is a beautiful girl and I love that long red hair of hers. In the end these things come to an end. It is like in Casablanca - "We'll always have Paris."

I think I watch too many old movies.

Frankfurt Train Station.

Ok. I rode the train back to Goettingen on Wednesday and when right to the office. We were giving a presentation at work the next day so I wanted to finish up some things. But, mostly I just spent the time bull shitting with Sean about his time in the US.

This is a photo of Germany at high noon. You can sort of see the sun, it is the bright spot just above the buildings on the left. Again - this is at noon.

So yesterday we gave our presentation. It went well. We introduced them to combustion instability, showed them what we do in the US, showed them what we did here at the DLR and talked about what more could be done. I think we have succeeded in convincing them to continue some C.I. CFD research with Daniel. He is happy about that. It would be a great opportunity for us to continue overseas cooperation.

We went out for dinner that night.

Today we went to work again. Even though we gave our ID's back and stuff on Wednesday. We just finished a few things. Sean had brought some apple cider back from the US. They drink tons of apple juice here, but no apple cider. We didn't know if they didn't have it or if they just didn't know the translation. So today we gave some to Daniel and Martin. They liked it and confirmed that they don't really have that here in Germany. I'm glad we could share something with them.

Sean also brought some US coke and snickers back with him. We gave some to Martin. They taste different to me over here. This way we could do a direct comparison. I told him to take them home and he could try the taste test with his girlfriend too.

And that was our last day at the DLR. In two weeks we travel back home. -Eric

100th Post and 4 Months

I meant to post this on Monday. That was the 17th, which exactly 4 months after we got here. So, although Sean was back in the US and on his way back, it has been 4 whole months in Germany. So, tomorrow is Friday and that leaves 2 more weeks here. I guess I am ready to go home. Also, by chance this is my 100th Germany related post on the blog.

I can't write much more now, Sean and I are giving our presentation today on our work here at the DLR. Uh, I'll talk to you later :) -Eric

Oh yeah, Sean did graduate. So he is officially Dr. Fischbach. Congrats.

Peenemünde Rocketry Museum

Finally I am getting around to finishing the Peenemünde posts. On the last full day we were there we went to the actual museum in Peenemünde. We were rather surprised that we could fill up all of our time so thoroughly in such a small town. We were expecting to visit a few things and then spend some time relaxing. Well it turned out to be rather busy, but still a great trip.

The museum is located in the old power plant. This is one of the few remaining building left from WW2 and the actual rocket research.

There was a nice model of the V-2 launch site. This is where we were the previous day in the woods. Not much is left.

This picture is turned sideways, but it doesn't effect it. There were plans to build a larger rocket and launch it at New York. Fortunately the war ended before that.

This is part of the old power plant. I took a lot of pictures here because the lighting was great.

A chess board. They were trying to show the cold war as some kind of rocket chess match. I liked it because I am a chess player. It gave me a good idea for a chess board. I suppose their message wasn't getting through to me :)

This is what the left you with at the end of the museum. Here in Germany they have to play the balance between Nazi's and Rockets. They can't be too pro-rocket/technology or they will be accused of being Nazi sympathizers. So here we are, rockets are going to kill us all - I guess. When we got to this display I joking threw down my head phones and said to Banuti, "Fine, I get it, rockets are evil. I quit."

Lucky for us good ol' boys from the States - rockets are cool! -Eric

Come On Canada

Hey Hey.

I haven't been posting enough. My life will not be thoroughly documented for this four month period unless I pick up the pace.

So... I was working. Ha. Ok, I got some good results, things are looking good. The 'trouble' with science is that it usually works out that successfully answering a question only leads to more questions. There is beauty in that. My good results have only given us a myriad of ideas to work on. But lo and behold, our time here is coming to an end. Well, we can work more, we'll just need to do it overseas.

We had our second DLR Christmas party last night. This time it was a dinner. So we had a lovely meal and then sat around and got drunk. I spent most the time talking to Mira and Martin's girlfriend. What can I say, I like to chat with the ladies. Maybe it is a product of being an engineer and always talking to just guys. Unfortunately, these gals are taken :)

Daniel was explaining to the boss here what we were working on and the good results that we've had. The boss (Klause, I like to refer to him as Klausie) asked if we could give a presentation on Tuesday. Eh, I had to tell him that I will be busy making a short trip to Cologne. Also, Sean is returning on Tuesday. Anyways, we will give a presentation later in the week (Thursday or Friday.) It will be a good opportunity for us to show them the work that we do at UTSI.

Today I swung by the DLR to help them clean up a bit. Then I walked to town with Martin and got a hair cut and got some food to eat. Now I am eating and blogging. After this I will swing by the train station, get my tickets for Cologne and then do some laundry. It is a full 'exciting' day.

In the meantime, I have to finish reviewing Dr. Flandro's theory, finish the CFD work, prepare this new presentation, start and finish my technical paper for the Aerospace Sciences conference in Reno, Nevada which is due in two weeks, also make the presentation for that, and revise the student paper presentation for the international competition. Plus + Hamberg for Christmas, then Paris, then Berlin for New Years and then I die :) Basically my life for the next month is me holding on, closing my eyes and praying for mid-January.

Ok - I have no pictures - but, but... I have a great great great video for you. I forgot to post this before. It is pretty hilarious. Short Background: this was taken two days before Karneval. Sean, Mira and I are in Cologne at the base of the historic Dom - really really drunk. Oh, and for any Canadians reading, I'm sorry :)

Ah, now I remember. My Grandma also sent me some cookies. I got them in the mail yesterday.


And my Grandpa found this hat at Germanfest in Milwaukee and decided to send it to me in Germany? I don't know. I think I will wear it to work on Monday :) -Eric

You're Not From the Public Radio, Are You?

I guess I haven't posted in a while. Let me fill you in. Sean left for the US today for his graduation. He will be back here in a week. He is probably just getting to the airport in Chicago now.

I have been working, I've been verifying the mathematics in Dr. Flandro's newest combustion instability theory. I had a bit of a break yesterday so I got back to working on some CFD (computational fluid dynamics) results. I don't know what I did, but the thing I was having a problem with works now. So for the past couple days I have been running simulations of the experiment I did for my masters thesis. It is exciting when you get things working. Maybe I'll post a vid in a few days.

And now to the title of the post: they have a public radio/television station here in Germany. It differs significantly from our PBS. Here it is a lot like a normal network station, but the kicker is how they get their funding. In the US, we donate to PBS, they always have those telethons to raise money. Well here you are required to pay a fee to the public media service if you have any device that is capable of receiving their transmissions. Now, it gets a little crazier. In the constitution it says that the government can have no control over the public media, which is a fine idea, except for the fact that the public media service can pretty much do whatever it wants as a result. In order to prove that you have a TV or radio or computer they may try to get into your house by pretending to be someone else. The government can't stop them.

A while back we got our letters for payment, which we promptly threw away. We are not paying anything. Because they can be tricky, Banuti warned us not to let anyone into our place unless we knew them or knew why they were there. Yesterday Sean left the office early to get some things before leaving. When he was leaving from our place a couple guys came by and wanted to fix something. Well, we don't speak German, so Sean had no idea. Though he immediately was skeptical and asked if they were from the Public Radio (or whatever it is called.) The guys were confused, maybe because they probably didn't speak much English. Anyways, long story short, they were just here to fix the thermometer on the radiator. That is probably not as climactic of an end as you were expecting. But still, evil German public television, that is a bit odd :)

Uh, lets see, I have one more Peenemunde post to do, I'll finish that soon. So that is it for now. I am working on some CFD stuff at the moment. -Eric

Cradle of Spaceflight

Last Monday, when we were in Peenemunde, after touring the town we visited the 'cradle of spaceflight.' At this location a rocket was launched which made mankind's first breach into space and gave birth to modern rocketry. It is because of the work done here that we have a space program, that we made it to the moon, that we have GPS and weather satellites and so many other space based technologies. Obviously, this location is important to us :)

[I enjoyed the large pictures, so I am going to stick with that for now] We had a kilometer or so walk through the woods to get to the P7 launch site. This is all restricted area, so we had to 'sneak' in. It was no big deal, but the wooded area around the site is extremely dangerous. There are old bunkers and holes which are covered by brush which you could easily fall into. Also, there are unexploded bombs from WW2 air raids. The photo above is of an old cold war building. Not much is left from WW2.

After an hour or so we made it to the site. This is us rocket scientists in front of what is left of the v2 assembly building.

We walked around the corner and found ourselves at the launch site. They would move the rockets on large sleds from the assembly building to the launch position. The railway was still intact. The pool above is the cooling water for the launches. The launches took place just to the right of this photo.

At the launch position there is a monument. It was a bit controversial for this to be placed here, but all it says is that this is where the A4 rocket was launched, which is simply a fact.

This is the fire hydrant which you can clearly see in the old videos of the rocket launches. It kind of looked goofy too.

This is one of those good holes to fall into. It was getting dark so we went back. It might seem like we didn't see much, Maik even warned us before going that it was going to be a long walk and there wouldn't be much to see, but we insisted. We needed to see the site, to stand there and take it in. Our profession started here, now it is our job to continue the journey into space. -Eric

DLR Christmas Party

Howdy Partners. [I accidentally checked big pictures when uploading, so today is a big picture day.]

Yesterday we had our DLR Christmas party. We had a lovely lunch and then went ice skating. We managed to not fall. The ice was a little wet because it had been raining and wasn't very cold out, so it sucks to fall.

We had some Gluhwein and then went back to the DLR. Once we were there we had coffee and cake. Just if you didn't know already, Germans are nuts about their coffee and cake. We got out of there around 6pm or so. Then we went to the Christmas market. We had a bratwurst and some more Gluhwein. It was after that that the 'work' portion of the night ceased. Mira, Daniel, Sean and I were with Martin (which is pronounced differently here, it is more like Marteen.) He is a guy we work with and he is a lot of fun to chat with. So we all decided that we needed a beer, just one :) I love that game.

While walking to Thanners, our favorite local bar, we ran into Martin's girlfriend. He joked that he was lucky that he didn't tell her that he was still hard at work running simulations. So now the six of us went to the bar. Spoiler: We had more than one beer.

After Thanners we stopped by Martin's place. It is right in the heart of the town. He has a gorgeous place. He showed us around. Daniel wanted to see his guitars. I had a shot of vodka.

Next we went to the underground bar in town. It is a old wine cellar or something. It is a great place, but we had vowed, in the name of capitalism, to never go there again because we always got terrible service. However, Martin and his girl hadn't been there, so we sucked it up and went. Thankfully we had good service this time.

That is Martin, he is from Dresden. He works on Monte Carlo simulations of rarefied gas. As Banuti put it, speaking in a soft voice as if to a child, "come here little molecules."

After a few beers we called it a night. We got back at around 1am or so. Sean and I made some tea and ate some leftover pastries that we had. It was a great day. -Eric

Peenemünde: Day 3 - Morning

Maik was going to show us around Peenemunde. We met later in the morning and he drove us around the island. He first took us to see where all the scientist had lived. Many of these buildings had been destroyed in bombing raids, but they have been rebuilt.

We saw the old train stations.

This is the location where Wernher Von Braun lived. All the buildings are destroyed.

After the brief tour around town we went for a tour of the airport. The guy there had all sorts of cool parts and a lot of technical expertise on the subject. He had a nice scale model of the island in his museum.

Strike a communist pose. Peenemunde was used as a base by the GDR forces during the cold war. So it is kind of a Russian/German mix of history.

He took us for a ride around the airport. There were old bunkers from the cold war era which would house aircraft. We saw V-1 launch ramps, the place where the ME-163 was launched and more. It was pretty cool. What was even cooler was that the guy had an awesome dog. He could open doors.

This was the air raid shelter. It was destroyed after WW2. It was pretty huge.

After the airport tour we swung back by the rental. We were going to take a stroll out to the V-2 launch site. It was a bit of a hike into the woods. Since it was getting late we ate something quick, warmed up some and then left. I will post that adventure next. -Eric

Peenemünde: Ruskies

Sunday morning we went to see the Russian submarine. While walking up to it, the guy who we were renting the house from drove up. He has a shop that sells submarine stuff and he offered to personally show us around the sub. It would turn out that this guy would be just about the best guy we could have picked to rent from. You will see more later.

A lovely piece of graffiti. Don't know what ficken means? Use your imagination :)

There's the sub. It is the largest non-nuclear sub. The tubes that you see tilted up were for launching missiles at aircraft carriers.

They had creepy manikins setup in the sub, this was the creepiest of them all. Some kids were in the sub and they had to leave because they were too scared. I was scared too :)

Dive Dive Dive. Banuti and Sean pushing the emergency dive buttons. Apparently Daniel doesn't want to play along.


The sub tour went pretty fast and then Maik, the guy we were renting from, showed us around the town. There isn't a lot to see, Peenemünde is small. Many of the buildings are falling apart.


These buildings are not from world war two, instead they are from the GDR times, when there was an East and West Germany.

This picture is turned sideways. It is a pain to flip it and upload it. I just like the drawings on this abandoned building, which was a hospital. It is creepy, but beautiful.

There was an old chapel nearby with some old gravestones.


On our way back to our rental we passed the oxygen plant. This is where they manufactured the liquid oxygen for the V2 rockets. This is one of the few remaining buildings from WW2.

I think after that we made dinner, watched some episodes of 'From the Earth to the Moon' and called it a night. -Eric