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.

I'm not so keen on the banks here.

Phrases I keep forgetting about, like:
-"I'm not keen on ___" (say, "maths", or "that chippie", or "that boy")
-"How are we meant to know that?" ("How are we supposed to know that?")
-"sweet corn" is normal, yellow corn. And it's not sweet.
-"pudding" means general dessert
-"artefact" bugs me a lot in Archaeology
-Posh. Preppy, or perhaps better as "yuppy", high-class.
-"nick", not steal.

ATMs are mostly called CashPoints, but they recognize what an ATM is.
Not so when I asked about wire transfers at the bank. I tried to explain the concept to the bank teller, which is difficult: a. without using the words "wire" or "transfer", and b. when you don't actually understand how it works.
For those of you keeping track at home, I do have a bank account now. Yay!

This weekend I finished a scarf of green variegated yarn. Because the yarn was a lower weight than I would have liked, the knitting was looser, so I decided I'd need to wrap the scarf around my neck more times.
As a result, the scarf is easily longer than I am. Maybe seven feet long?
I have started on cabled armwarmers in a light aqua color. I'll come back to my cardigan sometime soon, maybe after this.

Wearing a William&Mary sweatshirt is a fast way to find all the East Cost Americans in one's daily travels. One girl, another student I think, stared at me in awe on the pavement (sidewalk). An older man, I think now a permanent UK resident, told me he used to live in Stafford.
I'm not sure how the Scots feel about it, since that monarch pair were the ones BPC was trying to oust.
Also, a "college" here is what we might think of as a technical or trade school, like a two-year programme rather than a four-year university degree.
So "College of William & Mary" means something entirely different, I am sure.

I miss a lot of things about home. Things I didn't expect to miss so much: tacos/fajitas/other spicy foods/ethnic foods beyond just Indian, driving my car, the UVA physics department, proper salads. At least they occasionally serve pancakes at breakfast.