Peak District II

As the last weekend was so nice, once again Peak District. This time with the PhD mentors (yes, they have such a thing here), i.e. PhDs in their third year who traditionally organise such a trip around Easter.

Thus, same train as last weekend but for getting on one hour and getting off two stations earlier. The goal was Kinder Scout, the highest mountain with already mentioned 636m and at least not a misleading name. But it can do the wind and rain and uncomfortable thing not less than a grown-up. Luckily it only got uncomfortable after our lunch break short before the peak which didn't give us unclouded, but still really nice views.



Of couse, I have a side note, this time about the pubs in Edale. The first of it has actually two doors, one for the “Hikers Bar” and one for the “Locals Bar”. Some questions arise: What is the difference between them? What happens if you enter the wrong one? Are third persons like bikers not welcome?



We found a possible explanation for the segregation on our way back: you wouldn't want to have a group of hikers that has walked across muddy grass in typical English weather everywhere in your pub. The one we visited did not want us in carpeted areas. Fair Enough you say, while there are supposed to be even pubs with a “Muddy Shoes Welcome” sign.

For everybody who made it down here, as usual, the pictures.

Peak District

I've had enough of big cities for now, thus into nature for today: a one-hour train ride to Hathersage in the Peak District. As a Central European guy you would picture mighty mountains, but disappointingly the highest “mountain” there is a mere 636m (yes, metric metres, no other absurd unit), we made it to a bit more than 400m. But still quite nice and the wind is no less than on “real” mountains.

Interesting thing happening on the way: it seems to be typically German to bring boiled eggs to a picnic. I did it only be chance, but the other three Germans had the same idea. And then, only one in four eggs was coloured, so it is independent of Easter. Then, we all had thought about how to bring salt up there. We ended up sharing salt from a small container that had contained (analog!) films in earlier times.

This time again at the end: the pictures.

London for Beginners

Change of place for today, I'd have a couple of notes from London to offer where I spent Wednesday and Thursday. Going there and back on the bus (which is the cheapest short-notice way) should have lasted four hours each – actually the latter took a bit longer, but both were overall not quite worth a notice. However, I again felt that England is some centimetres (or inches or whatever the most useful unit would be) too short for me.
The hostel provided for nothing unexpected but a changed address combined with an unchanged map. However, we were only told this by Mr Reception (according to his sign next too the doorbell) who kept every hint of a hostel, e.g. stickers, maybe as a souvenir.

As I have only been to London once and in times immemorial, i.e. one and a half decades ago, and because of the limited time, I contended myself with the beginner's tour and mainly took pictures of important places. Camden Markets, Piccadilly Circus, Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, St James's Park, Covent Garden, Tower Bridge and Harrod's are the keywords here.
Of course, I cannot suppress some comments about people that mainly concerns tourists here, because you rarely meet normal people in London. Interestingly, the French are the biggest group here, followed by Germans and Italians. Only at the Tower, they are second to the Germans – I have no idea what to conclude of that.
The omnipresence of tourists from Europe makes walking in crowds different from what I have gotten used to: they step to the right. I trained myself with effort to get rid of that instinct and suddenly there I constantly bump into people. I even believe that Londoners have let themselves adopt that behaviour and got pushed to the right side.

Finally just one comment as a comparison of London and Manchester. Upon returning the latter feels small, shabby and provincial. And this is not only the architecture, but even as much people's dressing habits. The girls there dress a bit classier and their taste allows for something else than miniskirts – but still the average height of the skirt seam is much higher than in Germany.

Enough talking, let the pictures speak.

Memorials and Architecture

Today, by popular request, some pictures from Manchester. Featuring: the Alan Turing Memorial, the postbox that survived the IRA bomb, and some buildings in Manchester.

Memorials and Architecture

Unified

The English are said to be quite quirky. A good example provide their units of measurement which are totally absurd. I have researched this because for a continental European guy like me that has been taught the metric system it is strange to say the least. The English themselves are not really helpful in regard of knowing their own units.

Let's begin with basic nutrition: this is measured in pints. You order a beer of that size in the pub and I buy my milk in bottles of two pints. Milk comes in other manifolds and beer as half a pint, too. A pint is 568ml and as I recently bought a 570ml bottle of ketchup, this seems to be some kind of basic nutrition as well.

The next bigger size, e. g. the prize at a pub quiz, is the gallon. To make it easy, this is eight pints, i. e. 4.55ml. Those of you proficient in American units will have noticed the difference: an American gallon is only 3.8l. This could mean either that the Americans can bear less alcohol or are greedier when it comes to prizes.

On cooking utensils you can find even more units. There is the cup – not A, B, C etc. – which is half a pint. Then there are the ounces being 1/20 pint when liquid and 1/16 pound as a weight.

A pound itself is currently 1.30 € or 453g. Body weight is measured in yet another unit, the stone. I think this comes from the fairytale "Little Red Riding Hood" where the hunter replaces the girl and her grandmother in the wolf's stomach by their equivalent in stones. A stone is consequently 14 pounds (18.31 € or 6.53kg).

At last some legths: the mile is as long as in the USA, namely 1.6km or 1760 yards. The latter is the same as three feet which are 12 inches in turn. You can find all these units on the road: distances and speeds use miles, everything shorter is signposted in yards and heigths of bridges for instance are given in feet and inch, sometimes additionally in metres.

To sum it up: there are at least three units for everything, the factors between each two are always different. Let me repeat the numbers from the text above: 2, 3, 8, 12, 14, 16, 20, 1760. If you convert it to metric units, you get something odd and the Americans have their own units for some parts.

A positive thought at the end: if you have to live with this weirdness, you either develop a really good visual judgement or a good memory and fast mental arithmetic.

Diplom-Informatiker

What a great feeling! Today I was addressed with my academic degree for the first time. However, it was only the University of Karlsruhe, and who should know but them? Actually, I think I had felt slightly disappointed if they hadn't used my degree in addressing me.

And by the way, they sent me the AlumniKaTH, their alumni magazine, which is not even glossy and of limited informational and entertainment value. But if anyone wants to go to the Hannover Messe (an industrial expo in Germany) as a guest of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), I'd have a free ticket to give away.