Like I said in my previous post, I left O.K.'s on the Sunday morning instead of Monday, and was going to tell you why in an extra post, which is this one you're currently reading about Monday, the 1st of September.
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| Sunrise on the 1st of September, as seen from my kitchen |
For my birthday in March, my sister gave me not only the book about NASA which I have reviewed here, but also a visit with her to ESA (European Space Agency) in Darmstadt. (The post about my birthday is here.)
ESA's headquarters are in Paris, but Darmstadt in Germany is an important location as well. You can read about ESA as a whole on wikipedia here, and about its Darmstadt facilities here - and of course, ESA and its many facilities have their own official websites, too.
Neither my sister nor I had ever been to Darmstadt before, and we knew very little about the city. I booked our train tickets after we had found a slot for a guided tour on the 1st of September at 2:00 pm.
We arrived with about 40 minutes delay at Darmstadt's main train station, but of course being seasoned travellers by public transport, we had allowed plenty of time for just such a case, and weren't in any hurry to get to ESOC. Still, we walked the short distance from the station to the complex of buildings right away just to make sure we knew where it was, and then had a bit of a walk around Darmstadt, which admittedly we found rather uninspiring.
In contrast, the tour was great!! It was fascinating to see the places and props I had read about so much for many years, and it was equally fascinating to see my sister's curiosity and interest in everything - so far, she had never been much interested in anything to do with space, satellites, astronomy and so on, so this was really new ground for her in more than one sense. Her enthusiasm enhanced my own experience of the tour, plus we had a very good guide; he knew his stuff but did not flood us with a monotonous stream of facts and numbers. Instead, he explained things in a way everyone was able to follow, and showed us around the grounds and some of the buildings.
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| Wall clock outside mission control, showing GMT (it was 15:08:53 on our watches and phones) |
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| Model of Europe's Ariane launcher |
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| Model of the ISS suspended in a staircase |
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| German astronaut Alexander Gerst welcomes all visitors (...and shows them the way to the toilet) ! :-) |
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| I loved the flags of all ESA-participating nations on top of the main ESOC building |
We were even allowed to look into the main mission control room, although the glass doors were closed for us; a simulation was going on and of course visitors would only disturb the important process of preparing for all sorts of issues that can happen during a satellite flight or probe's mission in space.
One and a half hours later, we left ESOC and walked back into town centre in search of food, and found an Italian place where we had a very late and welcome lunch.
After that, we walked on and up a long, slight hill to a quarter of town called Mathildenhöhe ("Mathilda Heights"), famous for its beautiful architecture from the Art Nouveau era, called Jugendstil here (clicking on the word will take you to its wikipedia entry, where you'll see photos of some of the same places that we saw and which I am showing you here.
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| "Wedding Tower" |
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| Angels guarding a golden door |
We would have loved to have more time here - just walking among the gorgeous buildings for a couple of hours would have been nice, but we had to make do with a rather short glimpse before it was time to head back to the station, which took us little more than half an hour, I think.
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| Sunset at Esslingen train station where we had to change |
Our trains home were on time, and we said good night happy to have had such a great day out together, loosely planning on a future trip to Darmstadt with a longer visit of Mathildenhöhe.
Sounds like a day of two very different halves but both equally fascinating. Such unusual architecture in Mathildenhöhe; I'd not heard of it before.
ReplyDeleteIt was, Jenny. A good example of how much a place can offer in terms of interest and beauty.
DeleteThat was a thoughtful gift from your sister, considering that she's not really shared your interest herself (until now, anyway!). For my own part I can't say I've ever taken much interest in details of space technology. Darmstadt for me is associated with the "Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary" - I had to look it up to make sure, but there is a Wikipedia article. It is an ecumenical, Lutheran based, religious order, founded in 1947 by Mother Basilea, born Klara Schlink, who also wrote several books. I had a friend back in the 1970s who I think visited them in Darmstadt, so that's probably why it has stayed in my memory. (Don't think I've heard them mentioned more recently.)
ReplyDeleteTo me, Darmstadt had been largely a blank space on the map, with an uninteresting name, the object of childish jokes (Darm meaning intestine, so a "greeting from Darmstadt" was thought to be a hilarious euphemism for flatulence).
DeleteOf course I knew that ESOC was there, but since I didn't think it was possible to take tours, it never crossed my mind I'd have a reason for visiting - and now I have, and will probably go back at some stage in order to further explore Mathildenhöhe.
What a great idea for a gift and it turned into a lovely day for you and your sister. Silly that I never realized that many other countries have space programs. I've been to see the NASA complex in Houston, TX and it is interesting to see the huge space rockets and read about all the astronauts. That sunrise photo is amazing!
ReplyDeleteMy sister always comes up with great surprises for my birthday or Christmas presents!
DeleteIn 1999, my then husband and I went to visit Kennedy Space Center in Florida. I found the whole experience really impressive.
It is this time of year that I get to see the sunrise every morning - in summer the best is over by the time I am up!
Lovely buildings! Just reading your comment above about being in Florida in 1999. I was there in April of 2000, the last time we visited Florida! Christopher was only ten years old. Since we were at the beach on St. Augustine, I insisted we get up early to see the sun rise. So glad we did, it was beautiful! Ah Space, the final frontier!
ReplyDeleteIt was my first and so far only trip to the U.S. We were based in Tampa, near Clearwater, and spent a couple of beautiful days on Indian Rocks Beach.
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