“Class Reunion”

As every year, my group of friends from studies managed to organise a “class reunion”, this time at Oli’s parents house in the beautiful wine region Pfalz. The first evening we had a nice barbecue at the pool and later went to one of the winefestivals this region is famous for.

The next day we enjoyed the beuatiful weather in and around the pool, just relaxing and talking, playing some garden games (Boule, Beachball, Water-Volleyball, …) from time to time. We even witnessed a partial lunar eclipse that night!

Diploma, at last!

The day before my birthday, there was the official handover of our diploma documents. So I left work a bit earlier that Friday and headed down to Stuttgart. After some speaches, during which Martin and I took the small quadrocopter out for a flight, all the former students gathered at the front of one of the auditoriums and got their documents handed over.  Afterwards there was a small barbecue party in front of one of the institutes.
Once this sort of official part was over, people started moving into the city to celebrate, which for me coincided with my 28th birthday as well. As many people came to Stuttgart for this event we were quite large group and partied at various locations (Palast, Schocken, Oblomow, etc.).

The next afternoon, Martin and I met at the beergarden in Leinfelden. After a laid back late brunch we went to Vaihing to get drinks for the party at Flowrider’s garden that night. At the mall we stumbled into a store selling nonsense gadgets like Hawaii flower garlands and soap bubble toys, of course we couldn’t resist and bought a bunch of the garlands and bubble toys for the party.
As things already got late, we drove straight to Flowrider’s party in the fields behind Vaihingen. The usual crowd barbecued and partied all night, getting eaten alive by the mosquitoes from the nearby pond.


Derby, UK

This time my job brought me to Derby, a quite sweet town in England about 45mins from Birmingham. As it would be quite hard to get from the airport in Birmingham to Derby and then around town by public transport only, I reserved a rental car. My luck started at the airport, when the class of car I had reserved was not available and I got a car about 2 or 3 classes better for the same price :-)! Even though I drove on the other side of the road before (in NZ) I was a bit sceptical about it but it all worked really well.
After all the meetings and work done during the day, the local colleagues and I went out in Derby, enjoying the local pub culture.
my upgraded rental carthe pub and the church

Another big luck was the beautiful weather I had for the whole stay, just as I arrived at the airport on my way back home, it started raining again.

Cheers
Tim

Bilbao, Spain

I was planning a trip to Bilbao, Spain, for the project and just a few days ahead it turned out that my father would be in the same region at the same time, so we adapted our plans and spent a weekend in that very beautiful city. Of course we visited the Guggenheim Museum appreciated the very diverse architechture and enjoyed the local Tapas.

Bilbao Airport:
Airport BilbaoAirport Bilbao

Guggenheim Museum:
My Dad and me in front of the Guggenheim MuseumThe other side of the Guggenheim

The City:
A very interesting bridge across the River.Some narrow street in the old town.

News

Hi all!

I know it has been a while, so let me give you a brief update:
As most of you probably know I moved to Darmstadt to start a postgrad position at the Department for Computer Integrated Design at the TU. I found a pretty nice flat at the southern outskirts of Darmstadt and settled in quite well so far.
603qm, the local uni club
the

The job is just in the field I was looking for, the intermediate area between engineering and information technologies and my project allows me to get around a bit.
So far for now, I’ll also add a few more details about my recent trips.

Cheers
TIm

Last Posting from Filderstadt

This will be the last posting from Filderstadt in a while. Tomorrow I will be moving to Darmstadt where a PhD-Student position is waiting for me at the TU-Darmstadt.

All my boxes are packed and tomorrow I’ll be ready to go!

Packed Boxes

Let’s see when I’ll be able to post again, hopefully activating the DSL-line won’t take too long!

Cheers
Tim

Time to Move

As the lease of the old place was running out mid August, Ben and Zach moved to a new place. A nice duplex about 5 minutes from the old place, still pretty close to my office. As there are only two rooms, my new “room” is my bed placed behind a couch in the quite big living room.
my new room my new room
As I’m not very picky and happy as long as there’s a stable internet connection, this arrangement is quite all right for the left four weeks.

The new place is really nice, with a big spacious kitchen and a backporch with a big open space.
moving day moving day
kitchen living room living room
backyard backporch