online gallery updated: Tübingen, Eindhove, Hildesheim and more
Feb 25th, 2008 by ellen
This weekend I added 250+ pictures to my online gallery. The newly added albums are:
- Holiday in Tübingen 2007 summer:
Dirk’s hometown Tübingen is a very beautiful small city in South Germany. The Necker river flows through the city and there are many interesting small lanes among the old houses built on hills in the city. My favourite small city in Germany. Univ. of Tübingen is one of the oldest univ. in Germany and it has raised several Nobel prize winners. There is a botanic garden having all kinds of exotic plants (the portraits of the plants have been sorted into the album plants). The Asian garden in the botanic garden is quite Asian, I felt at home there, however it started to rain when we went to the Asian garden. So there’s no picture of that part. I was told that the real estate in Tübingen is the second most expensive in Germany (most expensive: Munich), since many people want to live in this beautiful, quiet and rich-of-nature city. However the wallet of the Tübingen’s local government is very shallow (one of the poorest local government in west Germany), for most population in this city are either retired old people or young students, who do not need to bring in tax. - Eindhoven 2007:
Dirk worked in Eindhoven for 4 years. In this album, there are pictures we took when I was visiting him. In the Netherlands, Eindhoven is not a small city, but for my taste, there is hardly any building or natural scene really characterful in this city. Ah yes, the computer scientist Edsger W. Dijkstra once worked in the Technical University of Eindhoven (TUE), at least that’s remarkable. And, the people I’ve known in the TUE are really nice. The headquarter of Phillips is there. There are many Phillips buildings in this city and Phillips also sponsors many public facilities in the city. Most local people are really proud of Phillips. German stores such as Aldi and Mediamarkt are well accessible in the Netherlands. Most Netherlands’s stores are closed on Monday morning but those German stores are not. There is a small lake in the city, when the weather is good, people like to go to the lake area. There are actually many public events in Eindhoven, however they are more or less the same. There are much more foreigners in the Netherlands than in Germany, especially Chinese, just my feeling. On Saturdays, if you look at any direction around the Woenselse Markt area, there won’t be a single minute in that you do not see a Chinese walking by. The availability of Chinese stores are so much higher than in Germany. The choices of Chinese goods are big and the price is usually 1/2 or 1/3 as in Germany. Real estate in Eindhoven is almost as expensive as average price in Shanghai. That’s ridiculous, in my opinion. - Graduation Ceremony:
These pictures are taken on my graduation ceremony. The month before the ceremony I was busy with relocating to Hildesheim and the interment was not always available when I was on the way. So that I did not know that I had to register for the event and simply went to the ceremony on the day. As a result, my certification was not brought to the hall. Yes it was _my_ fault that having not registered for the event online, but somehow I do not understand why the organizers did not bring all the certifications to the ceremony, just to avoid any accident like mine. Maybe the certs were too heavy 
. Prof. Walter passed me a blank certification into my hand so that at least I could take photos with my peers. After the ceremony, I was told that my certs are locked in the examination office. This office is well secured with multiple locks, none of the professors at the ceremony was able to enter it during the weekend, I had to wait in my dorm until next Monday. Dirk came to my ceremony (thanks! :-*) and wanted to go back to Hildesheim on Saturday together with me, now he had to go alone. Ah well, anyway I got my certs on Monday, it’s fine. - Hildesheim:
Dirk and I are starting a whole new life in Hildesheim. Currently there are only 3 photos taken at the market place (they look better than the pictures can be found on wikipedia ). One of the building at the market place was chosen as “The most beautiful building in North Germany of 2007″. The market place is a tiny squre and the city Hildesheim is also a small city. Small but beautiful. This city was badly destroyed during the WWII, since there was the biggest German steel manufacturer Thyssen Krupp. The reconstructed buildings kept the old styles. The old-styled apartments in the city look like mini castles. Houses alongside a small stream in the city are fairy-like. A little bit outside the downtown there are national forests on hills, beautiful. I once drove through some unknown small villages near the city, there are amazing country scenes. This album will be definitely updated in the future. Real estate is well affordable in this city (actually houses/apartments are cheap in whole Germany at the moment), one can get a 115 m2 apartment with garage and basement for about 70k euro.
Albums like plants, animals, Ellen and Dirk are also updated. Last year September at the Woenselse fest in Eindhoven, three Dutch girls asked me to take a picture of them but later I lost their email address. Girls I’m so sorry. If you see this please email ellen_zhao@web.de, I will send you the full-resolution original file.
