Visit to Braunschweig

This weekend I shoved a few clothes and a lot of reading material into a backpack and visited an old family friend I hadn't seen since... 1991 or so. Ann's a high school teacher who used to work in Zimbabwe with my parents. I used to babysit her 2 year old kid Sim - who is now a remarkably well-adjusted 17 year old.

I got to Braunschweig with a 5-hour ride on the Mitfahrzentrale, the German Ride-Sharing System, but returned via a 12-hour cross-country rail tour (Braunschweig- Gottingen- Kassel- Frankfurt- Darmstadt- Heidelberg- Stuttgart- Tuebingen) using the 30 euro "Happy Weekend" ticket. This allows you (and four companions, should they exist) to travel anywhere in Germany for a day as long as you only use the slower local trains.


Sim had a party to prepare for (had to make a birthday present) and go to, so Ann showed me around Braunschweig. We happened to pass through an exhibition by Ernst Barlach. The guy made good lines - I'm almost a fan now :)

Then we found out that Braunschweig was the birthplace of Gauss. So I had to go into the local museum, which had an exhibit on him (2005 is Gauss year, apparently) and then to his statue (see picture above). Very cool.

Planetarium designed (but never built) by Gauss

Gauss' Seal and Ring

Gauss' signature. All students had to sign their name in a big book when they returned to university, and this is a page where Gauss signed in.

In the evening we went to an Irish pub called the Wild Geese where a good guitarist named Richie Harte somehow got many of the audience to join him in a medley of old songs (U2, Marley, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, etc). Ann said this was quite unusual, and was surprised that so many Germans knew all the words. She did of course, but she's an Eirophile, having visited there a dozen times and lived there several months.

It's Monday as I type this, and I've just made contact with Sr T, another old teacher friend from Zimbabwe who lives in England. Ah, looking up old friends is cool...