I've Just Seen a Face, I Can't Forget the Time or Place...

As the not having luggage problem was reaching beyond the point of mild annoyance, we redoubled our efforts to find the wayward baggage by going alllll the way back out to the airport. Turns out, they did have our bags. On the other side of customs. Which meant going back through security. Whopee. (Luckily, we did find the bags amidst the sea of other 'lost' luggage)

With baggage safely secured, we resumed our more normal touristy activities. Today being a little colder, we decided we were up for the outdoors. After taking a brief walk through Harrods, (I mean, who wouldn't?) we wound our way through Hyde park toward Buckingham Palace. The guards do really stomp around quite impressively. They also scratch their noses. We were convinced it was a form of secret code. What they could be discussing though, eluded us.

These are GIANT meringues

There were a lot of flowers in Hyde Park

The clock tower is really impressive

After taking in the royal presence, we went to St. Paul's Cathedral to feel divine presence. (It is Sunday) We may have also been going to an organ concert. And that cathedral had wonderful acoustics. The organ sounded... I don't even know. I normally will just sit and listen to organ music regardless of location, but I almost felt transported to somewhere else as I sat under the dome for the concert.

This cathedral is so large it doesn't fit in my picture

Since we were "in the area" we poked our heads over towards the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. (There is some bridge in London somewhere, super specific- I know, that used to put heads of criminals and enemies on spikes to warn off people. But I totally don't remember where anymore. I had thought it was Tower Bridge, but that bridge wasn't built til like the 1840s) We timed our visit perfectly since we even got to see the bridge open!

The moat doesn't seem to be kept up as a useful defense anymore

It looks heavy. I'm glad they no longer have to hand crank it

As a final goodbye to London, we went up in the London eye just as the sun began to set. It was beautiful watching the sky grow purple and see all the lights turn on. Especially the lights for Big Ben.

The giant bicycle wheel.. er Behold! The London Eye!

I particularly like seeing Big Ben at night

To Find Luggage or Not To Find Luggage

I'm in London! Which is really exciting, since I've wanted to visit London since... forever. It's totally cliche, and overdone everywhere in literature and TV/Movies, but I don't care at all. I actually can't really explain it either. Strange.

As a nice welcome to London, the flight was delayed by 2 hours. Now I know it's not really the airport's fault that a plane had to catch on fire (no one was on board, luckily) but it is really, really inconvenient when you're trying not to miss your midnight tickets to A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Globe.

It's even more annoying when you go to pick up your luggage and after waiting for an hour or so, they finally tell everyone waiting around that the baggage return system has shut down, and will not be resuming. Basically, a whole bunch of people aren't going to get their stuff til.. well no one really knows when.

Every person in this picture is missing their bags

Momentarily putting aside the baggage woes, we went off to see what we could of the play. (I mean, what else were you going to do.. and it's Shakespeare. So really, a no-brainer) Thanks to a really awesome cabby, we got from the airport to the theatre in record time, just making it in before intermission. The performance and atmosphere were absolutely amazing, so if you ever have the opportunity to go, I highly recommend it.

You felt like you were watching the play with a huge literary family

 When we woke up in the morning (taking a bit of a late start after the midnight showing of the play) the bags were.. still no where to be found. On top of that everyone was doing the same thing and crashing their systems (both web and phone) so we just gave up and went out to see the city.

Our initial plans to walk around outside were overwritten when we discovered that we were in the middle of a heat wave. Improvising a little, we ended up at the British Museum, notable for it's crazy foyer architecture and housing the Rosetta Stone. I had never really gotten what was so great about some stone, but looking at the 3 different languages carved into it basically right next to each other, I came to a bit of an understanding of how useful it would be to help decipher something that honestly didn't even resemble any known written language.

It was like being outside, but without wind, sun or litter

Walking back from the museum, we passed through Covent Garden, a place that used to be the center of flower selling, but is now both a shopping mall and open market. Continuing our meandering walking tour, we wound our way down toward the Thames and walked along the river front enjoying live music from a swing dance group.

As a tourist, I am obligated to take this photo

To top off our enjoyable evening out, we went to our second theatrical performance: (quite a bit different from the first) Spamalot. It's a musical. It's based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It's got SPAM. It's got improv funny enough to crack up the actors. I'm not sure anything else really needs to be said.

London has many weird looking pedestrian bridges

Learning to Drive

Today we went on a tour of the super computing lab. I could tell from the beginning that I was going to like this tour. I mean, it has 'computing' in the name of the lab. How could you possibly go wrong?

To start off, we got to look at the actual machines. Which, according to the engineers, aren't really the interesting part. I mean it's just a whole bunch of computers connected on a special network placed in really close proximity in a fairly freezing room. That has lots of locked doors. While I agree that what you can do with super computers is probably a lot more exciting, it's still pretty cool to see it all set up. :D

There's a whole building next door just for cooling these down

I would hate to try to find the one misplaced wire..

After seeing the machines we got to experience some of their computing power in the CAVE, a virtual environment that used 3D projections on 5 walls of a cube combined with 3D glasses equipped with markers to track position and orientation to give you an interactive experience. We only got a liiitle dizzy.

There were many different simulations. We started with more static models, like a car in a wind tunnel, but looked at the space station, a coal furnace, and a water plant before getting to possibly the most interesting, a driving simulator.

I don't have a driver's license. I mean, I took driver's ed, and even had a permit until it expired, but I've only driven a car twice. And basically all of it was in parking lots. So me + a driving simulator was destined for failure. Luckily, even if you crashed, the chair didn't throw you into the steering wheel.

Minions

They are pill shaped. They are yellow (at least most of the time). They're returning this summer in Despicable Me 2; A movie which, surprisingly, sold out of tickets last Friday when we originally had the idea to go see it. (in English- though I'm not sure how different the minions' sounds would've been in German)

The theater we went to was a comforting slice of home with English language posters covering the walls and bulletin boards filled with fliers and postings for English-speakers in the Stuttgart area. For example, where to find English language church services. Go figure.

We had a lot of time to admire all the posters as, unlike with American theaters, we weren't allowed in until 10 minutes before the showing. I can't yet say that this is actually a difference, as it might just be for this small theater that plays international films. Clearly, more research is required. There are just so many good films coming out this summer... ahem.. I mean so many different variables to compare, that it might take multiple sets of comparisons. ;)

Foreign Food Invasion

Our weekly foreign food day makes its triumphant return. This time bringing you: Asian food! (That's actually what we called it...)

We don't believe in too many cooks in the kitchen

An important question was answered today. How many Asians does it take to make Asian food? Probably just one. But for us it took all of us regardless of our Asian (or not Asian) decent. As a few of us battled chopsticks (for best results, don't hold the two in separate hands.. ><) others diced, stirred and mixed. We ended up with a feast spread all over the table, spreading delicious smells throughout the dorm making the other residents jealous. Or just hungry.

When stuff looks this tasty, it's hard to wait

We were supposed to bring bowls. All I had was a cup.

Not So Smooth Integrating

According to MATLAB derivatives and integrals aren't actually inverses of each other. If they were my life would be so much easier. Instead I have really gross graphs with lots of "noise" which is entirely computer generated and not algebraic. Bummer. Now my project is 'how to outsmart your computer.' Which is a bit of a daunting task.

It's probably not that bad, but it is rather frustrating. I thought it was more annoying when I didn't know really what the issue was, but now that I know the issue but don't seem able to do anything about it, I'd almost rather still be debugging. (le gasp :O)

Internet Wrangler

Sometimes things just aren't meant to be. Take for example the internet and me. We were clearly not meant to be together forever. This is what I discovered today. As such, uploading may be a bit complicated in the future. (This would be why the posts are oddly spaced around this day.) Sorry to people who got all worried when I didn't upload.