I left Tunisia at the very beginning of July after having spent nine months honing my Arabic and being mistook for all nationalities other than American for the fields and forests of the Rhineland. My new home was in Karlsruhe, Germany at the Universität Karlsruhe in the Institut für Produktentwicklung where I worked on the 588 Humanoide Roboter project as part of a DAAD-RISE internship. During my time in the Rhineland I had many adventures both small and large. Come along with me as I explore Central Europe.
- Tour de France: On one of my first weekends in Karlsruhe, Tour de France came to town. Lance Armstrong won that year. I wish I could say that I saw him crossing the finish line but all of the bikes were just a blur.
- Bike Ride to France: One sunny weekend afternoon I decided to ride my boss’s bicycle to France. The countryside of the Rhein river valley is just stunning!
- Mercedes Benz Museum: There are so many wonderful cars in the museum that I went a little photo happy.
- Heidelberg: I took a quick tour of Heidelberg, its old cathedrals, and its romantic castle one fine sunny afternoon.
- Visiting My Old German Host Family: Back in high school I went on exchange to Germany. I took the opportunity of being back in the country to visit my old host family.
- Bahnhof Uelzen: The eclectic train station at Uelzen is quite an interesting place to wait to change trains.
- Das Fest: I attended the biggest party of the year in Karlsruhe.
- Pink Sky in Karlsruhe: One morning I awoke to a pretty pink sky.
- Lightning Storm: We had a good show one night in Karlsruhe.
- Chris Comes to Visit: To surprise his girlfriend, Chris flew to Germany. He had a few days to kill before she arrived so we went on an adventure across the lowlands of Central Europe.
- France After Dark: Upon arriving in Karlsruhe I thought it best to show Chris a bit of the French countryside across the Rhine River.
- Karlsruhe: We hung out around Karlsruhe for a bit and had a beer.
- Luxembourg: From Germany we went to Luxembourg for lunch at a nice Indian restaurant.
- Belgium: Hilarity ensues in Belgium
- Antwerp: After a lovely tour of Antwerp we found our car locked in an underground parking garage.
- Brussels: After we paid the fine to get the car, we got lost in Brussels trying to get to The Netherlands. Needless to say, Chris will never return to Belgium willingly.
- On the Road: Some odd photos of odd things on the Belgian highways.
- The Netherlands: Sleeping in cow paddocks and lunch in Amsterdam.
- North of Amsterdam: Rather than get a hostel, Chris and I decided to sleep in the back of the car. We woke up to windmills, a dike, and canal boats.
- Amsterdam: We made a quick run through Amsterdam before heading south to Karlsruhe.
- Driving Back to Germany: On the way back south to Karlsruhe we saw a few interesting things. The Autobahn is a wonderful road network for an adventure.
- Visiting Nina: One weekend I went down to Freiburg im Breisgau to visit with Nina and go on a few adventures.
- The Black Forest: We ventured through The Black Forest to climb a mountain.
- Switzerland: With Switzerland so close, we popped down to have lunch and see a few sights.
- Haunted Castle: On the way back from Switzerland we stopped off at a “haunted” castle at twilight.
- Freiburg im Breisgau: I wandered around the old downtown to check things out.
After my summer working at the University of Karlsruhe I headed off on a three week trans-Scandinavia trek wherein I circumnavigated the Baltic Sea and visited many out of the way places.
I just read some of your posts and wanted to let you know that those pictures are amazing. Im going to Karlsruhe in just under 2 months, to study at KIT and was researching what there is to do in the area. The best bit was the bike ride to France from Karlsruhe. Your blog has been of great help. =)
Glad my old, dusty photos from five years ago were useful! This past summer/winter (depending upon how you look at it), I was in Australia working at USydney. That made for some dramatic photos, too. Not as easy to ride bikes in Sydney though 🙂
I live in Australia so i must say, it probably wont be as useful to me as those pics of Karlsruhe, I see USyd every single day, man the place ( USYD) is huge. Im just reading blogs, im thinking of blogging during my year there, so your blog was a pretty good idea for me to consider( im entirely new to this).
Blogging is a good way to go. All the people back home can follow your adventures. My grandparents especially love it since they are too old to go travel abroad anymore. Also it helps me remember where I’ve been for later.
The way that this page has been set up is really good because whoever reads it doesnt need to sign-up to leave comments, it is simple and quite clean in its layout and that what i want for my blog. How’d you set this up? I know it might seem like a stupid question, I ask because it doesnt look like it belongs to a blog site, for example, eblogger, or tumblr.
I’m using WordPress (wordpress.org). There are self-hosted (what I’m doing) and fully-hosted (www.wordpress.com) options. It’s just a setting in the admin area to choose between forcing registration and letting people leave comments as they wish.
cool! Thank you for the help.
No worries!