Tegernsee

I had the good fortune to visit castle Ringeberg overlooking lake Tegernsee in Bavaria. The weather has been extremely kind to us. Two gorgeous "Indian Summer" days, with the nature around us being breathtaking!!

I don't know exactly what it is, but I find Bavaria a very welcoming place.
In a post to follow, I will give you some more info on the interesting history of the castle we stayed at.

Bis dann!

Auf Wiedersehen, München!

 

Time to go...

This city has given so much to me the last 3.5 years. 

I leave you with one of the landmarks, the Frauenkirche. Unfortunately one the towers has been under renovation during all my time here, so I do not have a pretty picture. But, if you have a keen eye, you might spot me in the picture!

From the bottom of my heart a huge Thank You to all my friends for the wonderful time we spent together! I hope meet again soon somewhere in the World!

Sotiria

Many Thanks!

Done!
I have to say, it was the most enjoyable examination I ever had in my life.
A large part was due to my close friends who stood next to me during these three years and during the last hour of the defense.

I thank you all from the bottom of my heart! You are the best!

Now: looking out the window

The view from my balcony!
Initially I thought it was natural light, but heck, it is still beautiful!
If you have a sharp eye you might notice that the clock's hands are missing. I used to glance over to see the time but one day I noticed the hands were gone! Who took them?

Stone(d)

Stepping on stones,or stepping stoned?

On way or the other, the outcome of today's election will affect your life for at least 4 years to come.
Be cautious.

Cold

It is rather cold today! :)

p.s. I am getting my feet wet in time-lapse photography, stay tuned!

Gray city: Munich

The snow lasted only for a day.
Warm winter (that is temperatures above zero) is plain sad.

White things

Finally!

The white things started falling from the sky again.

This winter has been very warm, only yesterday the temperature was about 10 degrees Celsius, but dropping dramatically was never really a problem.

traffic lights: Munich

Desperatly trying to convince pedestrians not to cross the road. Perhaps a sign with something like: "Please pedestrians, don't cross the road :( " would be more effective. spotted: in Munich close to Marienplatz.

2012 Update:

The People have spoken, this traffic light is no longer in place :)

Dancing ladies

One of the things I like about Germany is the spontaneus events in streets and parks, involving happy people. This one spotted in a hot August day in Englischer Garten, Munich Germany, close to the Chinese tower.

Κουράγιο Αδέρφια!

Many people ask me what is the situation like in Greece. Well, there you have it, a picture is worth 1000 words.

No one knows how is the prime minister thinking. What worries me is that maybe even he doesn't know what he is doing. Maybe this is all part of a truly genius plan that we are unable to conceive.

Κουράγιο αδέρφια....

p.s. Ironically enough, the picture is from the East side gallery in Berlin.

traffic lights: Berlin

Our trip across the roads brings us back to Europe. This time in Germany, we saw the green Ampelmann in Berlin. According to the wikipedia entry, this figure starred in the traffic lights in East Germany, but I am very sure that I have seen this figure also in Heidelberg. If any of our german friends has some clue about this, I would love to hear it!

RAW fun

I have always been a fun of digital post processing of photographs. After some googling I came across the program Darktable which processes RAW images and it is available for all platforms!

It is soooo cool! Take a look at the example here. On the left is the RAW image after some fiddling. On the right is the jpeg directly out of the camera. Of course it takes a lot of effort to process all of the pictures you take every time but I think it is worth it. You can save a picture that had a nice theme, but the settings went bad.

This picture is from the last weekend of this years' Octoberfest.

p.s. I have continuous numbering on the images on my camera, and about a month ago I reached 9999 pictures and the numbering started over. That is about ~650 pictures per month since I got the camera!

In the park

There is something about this picture that I like a lot. Maybe it is the colors, maybe the composition...
Spotted in the English garden in Munich one summery day.

(This beautiful picture belongs to Kostas, posted with his permission :) )

The barrel is now open!

Wow, these are very dedicated people!
From what I'm guessing, the barrel is now open and people are parading once more (from overwhelming joy?). But this time the weather was not on their side. The group suffering the more is the musicians. The other people carry umbrellas conveniently enough!

What is also puzzling, is that there are people standing for more than an hour watching the parade passing by...

Octoberfest

It is this time of the year again! Octoberfest is here!!

Today was the first day and the parade of the owners of the breweries reached the Theresienwiesen, place of the Octoberfest. Tomorrow, the mayor will open the first barrel of beer and offer the first glass to the prime minister of Bavaria.

In the picture you see just a glance from the parade, the beer carried from the Hofbräu München maybe the most famous bavarian brewery. I have no idea if the barrels are empty or not :)

Fun facts about the Octoberfest,
- it started 200 years ago as a celebration of King Ludwig's wedding
- people like to wear their traditional clothes (dirndl for the women, lederhose for the men)
- Munich hosts 6 million visitors in a period of 3 weeks
- 6 million liters of beer are being consumed and 3 million chickens (it is typical to eat half a chicken)
- there are tourists everywhere!!!

Feldmochinger fly

Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the grander view?  Hugo, Victor

I first saw this quotation in D's Thesis. Micro and Telescope share the same principles of operation. And both observe the universe, one giving the big picture, the other the details.

Just like the physicists. They work on different scales. Cosmologists, astrophysicists, planetary-environmental-geophysicists , materials scientists, nuclear physicists, and then there are those high energy particles physicists to complete the circle.

You have already seen our "telescope" image. Here is a "microscope" one. Both taken with the same tele-lens.

The other day we swam in Feldmochinger See (lake), close to Munich. And spotted this creepy but at the same time colourful and beautiful fly having her lunch.

Now the plane and the full moon

I feel extremely lucky tonight! I welcome you to enjoy the full moon from my balcony.



p.s. Best spent money of the last year

Now the moon

Finally, a warm day! Enjoy a rarely seen Moon from cloudy Munich!

Deux girafes s'il vous plaît

One might think that giraffes are indigenous animals of Europe. We keep coming across them wherever we go. We have seen them in Athens, close to Munich and now in Berlin!

Question to our greek speaking friends: How is a male giraffe called in greek?
(Even though I never got an answer for the swan)

cookie: giraffe in greek has a funny name, καμηλοπάρδαλη.