Nurnberg 2; and photos!

Just added about 30 photos from Nurnberg, so check 'em out. More will be up later/soon, whenever Rashmi emails hers to me.


I forgot until I exited the Underground in Nurnberg---yes, they call it by the English word 'Underground'---that most places in continental Europe drive on the right-hand side of the road. That's nice, I suppose, but not when you've watched drivers use the left for the past seven months. That, and the fact our hotel was situated at a strange intersection of about six-and-a-half roads plus two sets of trolley tracks, made me confused every single time I had to cross a street. Which way to look? When I started to figure it out, I'd come across a one-way street with cars approaching the direction opposite from what I expected, and I had to start back at square one.

Everything was less expensive in Germany, though, because the pound is stronger than the Euro. Still expensive for the US Dollar, but I was converting every price into pounds, so it didn't bother me too terribly.

The airports were interesting. The Edinburgh airport is tiny for a city of its size, with only about 15-20 gates. Possibly because the Glasgow airport is huge and only about an hour away by car. The Nurnberg airport is also pretty small, of a similar size, but even less busy when I flew in and out. It was one of those airports where the planes can't actually taxi directly to the gates. Instead we queued to get onto one of those bus things, which drove out to the plane, and we queued in the wind and cold to climb up the stairs.

It was pretty cool to climb down the stairs, though, I'd only seen that done on movies and in newspaper pictures of famous people like the president, when they go to visit foreign countries and are greeted out on the runway. The pictures always show the Famoso looking worried as he descends the stairs. Yeah, I felt like that, and was glad to not be surrounded by papparazzi.
Still, I don't understand, can't they arrange for Air Force One to disembark directly into the airport, or with a slide into a limosine, or whathaveyou?

The Amsterdam airport, on the other hand, was HUGE. I may not have ever been in an airport so big, not to my knowledge anyway. They seemed to have arranged layovers in seperate concourses on purpose, so that the center of the airport was permanently marked with the most gigantic of gigantic security queues. Approaching it from one of the concourses was like finding a wolf spider on a trail out hiking. Or maybe Shelob.

After going through that mess the first time I realised the restaurant choices were better on the first side, but too late, I wasn't about to go through again twice. It was only in Amsterdam that I got my passport stamped, each way, then through the metal detectors again.

I suppose the Dutch are extremely concerned about security, when I first came into Nurnberg and Edinburgh airports the security guards looked bored and probably didn't even glance at my luggage going through the machine. Or at me, for that matter.
Leaving Amsterdam back to Edinburgh, we had to queue to use a metal detector special for our gate, then queue to get our tickets checked, then queue again to get into the plane, in no particular order.

I thought a lot about entropy while waiting through those queues onto the plane.
Also about filling quantum energy levels.

I also two entire books on my two days of travelling through airports. Two long books. And I knitted a hat. Not sure what that's meant to tell you.