Long time, no blog

I have really not given any notice for a long time, once again I was either to lazy or to busy to write something. Therefore, I am just dumping many pictures and some text, apologise to my dear patient readers and promise to blog more and timelier in the future.

The most important first: I have moved, to a cute house with a garden and three other Computer Science PhDs. All your holiday postcards go to 3 Hadfield Close, Manchester M14 5LY, United Kingdom from now on, please. Alternatively you can use the university address to the right. Guests are always welcome to distract me and I have even more space for you now.

Otherwise, everything is as usual. I have travelled a bit around England and have visited Liverpool among other things. This is most interesting this year because they are the European Capital of Culture, that is they have done right what Karlsruhe did wrong in their application.

The first time Liverpool was an afternoon with the common sights that you have to have seen there, of course, I took pictures. They include both cathedrals (finished ~1900 and ~1970), Albert Dock and the Cavern Quarter where the Beatles had their first gig.

The second time a couple of weeks later I walked the Queensway Tunnel under the Mersey together with some other 10,000 people. It was closed to motor traffic for that occasion and we went back on a vintage bus and the ferry. Then the same tour as on my first time as the people I went with had not yet seen it.

Then I went to Blackpool, a - actually the most famous - seaside resort north of Liverpool. It has seen better days, it's all a bit dodgy and tacky, but one has to have seen it once.

For something completely different I went to Amsterdam, which is quite nice and has the better weather. On the way back I went to Liverpool for a third time, but only saw the airport this time.

Then there were little things like the Two Cities Boat Race between the universities of Salford and Manchester (the latter won 6-1).

So please take a look at the pictures, accept my apologies and my promise to write more in this place in the future.

Travelling Abroad

Last weekend I managed to visit a neighbouring foreign country. Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland to be precise. On a first glance there are no big differences: they still drive on the wrong side, bank notes look almost similar (but it says Bank of Scotland on them) and the weather is not better either.


First contact with locals happened on the high street when we were looking into the travel guide to find a place for lunch. No minute later a woman offered her help with a clearly Scottish accent that was, however, still comprehensible. Her pick was the underground food court of a shopping mall where they only had sandwiches and fast food. Thus the next insight: the Scottish don't care much about food, either.

Talking about Scottish food would not be complete without Haggis. Its description (from another local) sounds little delicous: take a sheep, give the meat away, mix the rest with oatmeal, onions and spices, stuff it into the sheep's stomach and cook it. As sides you get "neeps and tatties", i.e. turnips and mashed potatoes. On the plate it looks much more delicous than that and tastes like sausages which is quite agreeable. By the way, more than agreeable is Scottish whisky (note the missing e, that would be Irish whiskey then).


Apart from eating and drinking, Edinburgh ist a really nice city. The main sight is the castle on a hill in the middle which, for some reason, had free entry (£8-£11 normally) that very weekend with the unavoidable long queues in the usual British discipline. The rest of Old Town is rather compact, hilly and with bridges over lower streets. There is a New Town (new as in 200 years) which is laid out a bit more regularly and "American". Overall, really pretty and looking around it is no miracle that Joanne K. Rowling lives here and invented Harry Potter and Hogwarts.

Another recommendation for evening entertainment in Edinburgh: a Ghost Tour. They come in different varieties of seriousness, i.e. with scaring and walks through dungeons below the city. Our tour was more a leisurely walkabout with a competent guide who knew a lot of appropriate stories and told them well.


Thus: do go there and even the journey from Manchester to Edinburgh leads through beautiful landscapes that are certainly worth a visit by themselves. Anyways, my pictures, finally.

From citizen to tourist

I should have visitors more often (yes, that is an invitation). Then I can show off my secret skills as a tourist guide and get to see new things in Manchester myself as I did this weekend.

Thus, for reference two afternoon walking tours. The first in the city with a visit to Chetham's Library and a sit a Marx' and Engel's favourite place where it smells nicely from those old books on the shelves. Then on to the next library, the John Rylands Library, that was only built in 1900 but is still gothic, looks like a church and is really worth seeing inside. As a contrast a real church, the Manchester Cathedral, and the glass block of Beetham Tower that hosts the Hilton Hotel. From their Bar Cloud 23 on that very level you get nice views of the city and can return the menu they hand you even without ordering anything. To finish, a walk along the canals in Castlefield. And as I forgot to take my camera, my next visitors are lucky enough to get this tour again. I can only offer pictures from a mobile phone, though.


It was Salford Quays for the next afternoon, a former harbour area with now intensive developments. The Imperial War Museum North is there, where they show pictures and stuff from the World Wars as expected, but at least the manage to convey the message that war is not desirable at all. The windy viewing platform on top of the building that was designed by Daniel Liebeskind gives you a view over the harbour area with a lot of construction sites. Seeing the Manchester United stadium still does not make up for this to be a particularly breathtaking view. At least, it is all free as the libraries the other day were, too. They only put up boxes and write the suggested donation on it. Further there is the Lowry, a gallery and a theatre, a shopping mall and many an opportunity to walk along waterfront esplanades which can be quite pleasing if the English weather happens to be. I had my camera with me and can show you pictures.


On Sunday at noon finally a short visit to the Victoria Baths (open 1906-1993) that are currently being renovated and have an open day with guided tours every month. It looks really nice with a lot of ornaments giving it quite some distinctive style. Remarkably, there are three pools: a gents' first class, a gents' second class and a womens' pool. Fresh water was put into the first pool, as soon as you could not see the ground any more, it was filtered and pumped into the next pool. Of course, the dimensions are British: all three are 25 yards long and of different width and depth which is measured in feet. I remembered to bring my camera and took some pictures.

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