Making the Reservations

It’s Wednesday night before our planned trip to Nice. It really isn’t easy to get from München to Nice via train, since there isn’t a direct route. A quick check on the Deutsche Bahn website routes us through a 4-transfer, 15-hour marathon through Austria and Italy. We were smarter than that, and found a quick 6-hour hop to Paris, transferring to another 6-hour TGV ride to Nice. Unfortunately, we needed to make reservations since the TGV requires that you do so, even when traveling on a European Rail Pass.

So we head over to the lovely Reisezentrum in the München Hauptbahnhof to purchase our seats. They’re full. Not only are the trains we wanted full, but every other way to Nice other than the 15-hour marathon ride through Italy is full. The itinerary is rough. We are to leave Munich at around 7AM, and arrive in Nice about 10PM, with a few transfers in small towns in Italy. We could have saved so much time and money if we had just gone to make the train reservations a bit earlier. Oh well, we have our tickets now, we’ll just have a long day of travel… or so we thought.

Track Problems in Italy

The simple long day of travel got interesting quickly. Our first train takes us from München to Bolzano, Italy. We have an hour transfer there, so we get off the train, and head into town for some food. The main languages spoken here are Italian and German, probably because we were still close to the Austrian border. We eat a happy lunch (while observing someone stealing back a stolen jacket), and head back to the train station. At the station, after about 20 minutes of standing on the platform, we realize that our train is late, or something is wrong. We ask someone where the train to Verona is, and he simply replies,

“No trains to Verona today, track is closed.”

Umm, excuse me…? Yes, they closed the track, due to “problems with the rocks.” Crap. We’re stuck in a tiny town in the Italian Alps, barely any English is spoken, and there are no trains to where we want to go today. We frantically try to work out a plan with some service agents to get us to Verona in time to make our 3:00 train to Milano. There is a bus that is supposed to come and transport passengers around the track closure, but in the street all we find is a horde of confused people and no bus. The service people out there are getting annoyed as well, claiming they don’t speak English, even though we just heard them speak it (luckily, our German got us some info). The bus arrives about a half-hour after it was supposed to, and we finally arrive at a different station that has trains to Verona departing. We quickly hop on one, and wait forever. The train is so crowded since everyone and their brother is trying to get to Verona, very unhygienic since it’s a regional train in rural Italy, and I am the most uncomfortable person ever for about 2 hours, really needing to use the WC, but not wanting to catch a disease. “V” is passed out as usual for the entire ride, and said the ride was “very comforting.” We arrive in Verona two hours behind schedule, and catch the next train to Milano. We’re back on track, just two hours behind.

The Bottle Breaks

After arriving in Milano, we need to find the next train to Ventimiglia, a small town on the border of Italy and France at the Mediterranean. We stand in line at the ticket counter, trying to find out when and where the next train is. During the wait in line, I leave my bag with “V” so she can wait in line while I try to find a faster way of getting the information. As I’m finding out that we had just missed the 7:00 train, and the next one is not until 9:00, she calls me over and asks me if I had beer in my bag. I did, of course, and sure enough the bottle had broken as the bag fell over.

Update: My netbook is all better after a thorough inside and out cleaning of all the electronics and plastics.

Could the day get any worse? I pull my bag aside and assess the damage. I pull the broken glass out of my beer-soaked bag. My netbook is completely soaked, and so are all of my clothes. Luckily, my camera was in a second bag, so it did not get wet whatsoever. I casually take the battery out of my netbook (I’ve gotten a few electronics wet before), and pull the glass out of my bag. It smells rank. I cut myself on the glass as I’m pulling it out, and manage to get blood on a few of my good shirts. At this point, I’m rather stressed, and am really trying hard to maintain my composure. I put everything back into my bag after deciding there wasn’t much I could do about it until I got to the hostel.

At the ticket counter (where the representative only speaks Italian and French), I can barely understand the French through which he is telling us he cannot change our reservations, and we have to go to the customer service center. Really…? We stood in line for a half-hour and broke the bottle for nothing? At the customer service center (another half-hour wait) we talk to a man with a really bad case of ADD, and find out that we missed the last possible connection to Nice of the night. He manages to pay attention to us long enough to suggest that we get to Ventimiglia tonight, spend the night, and take the first train in the morning. We decide to follow his advice, and perhaps we can even take a cab to Nice, since it’s only 50km away from Ventimiglia. I need a hug, and “V” comes to the rescue. Things start to look up as we buy some wine and pasta for our next ride.

A Train Ride from a Horror Movie

The subtitle makes it sound bad, but it was really fun. We were the only people in the entire carriage, and all of the lights were out. We were probably ninety percent sure that we were on the correct train, but there was still some doubt in our minds. The lights were out in our carriage, so everything was completely dark. We were speeding alone through pitch blackness (many times through tunnels), to a destination we weren’t totally sure about. Every now and then a tunnel would have lights periodically situated next to the track. This would produce a rather psychedelic effect of light flickering through the carriage, and it was rather spooky and fun. Thank goodness “V” didn’t fall asleep for this ride. The conversation was lively, the food was good, and the wine was soothing. We arrive at Ventimiglia at 1 AM, and immediately look for a cab to Nice.

A Night in the Train Station

Yes, it happened. We very quickly found several people stranded in the station, sleeping on the floor and even on the ticket counters. A policeman was there to greet us, and we asked if there were any trains or buses to Nice at this hour. Nope, first one is at 5:00 in the morning. A cab driver is called over, and offers us a ride to Nice for ninety Euro. Whew, that’s rather steep, but I almost wouldn’t mind paying 45 Euro to get to my hostel at this point. Wait… is the reception going to be open? Check the Book! (Yes, capital letter… like Bible) Alas, the reception closes at midnight, and doesn’t open until 7:30. A cab ride would do us no good unless we could actually get into our hostel. Our phones aren’t working, we can’t call the hostel, so we find a nice corner in the station to sleep for the night. There are many other people, some walking around, some sleeping, and even a few police officers watching over everything. It’s a bit comforting to see the officers there, so “V” and I lay down on the floor to try to get some sleep. “V” dozes off, but I cannot sleep. I don’t trust anyone there, and I don’t want to lose anything. The most interesting thing the entire night was the bit of conversation “V” managed to have with me during her sleep. It made very little sense.

The French Riviera was much more tropical than I had remembered

Arriving at the Hostel

We catch a train to Nice at 5:30 in the morning. Again, “V” passes out on the seats in a very uncomfortable looking position, but I remain awake to view the sunrise over the Mediterranean. It was gorgeous. We were arriving in paradise. I’d never pictured any part of France to be like this. There were palm trees, mountains, and water that was blue as blue could be. I felt like I could easily have been in the Caribbean. We arrive in Nice at 6:40 AM, and wander over to our hostel. Sure enough, the reception isn’t open, but we see someone cleaning who can check us in.

“We were wondering what had happened to you.”

Haha, us too. We are let into the room, and quickly fall asleep. We wake up at 9 AM to eat breakfast, and off we go.

A Very Happy Ending

Nice was amazing. The beaches were beautiful and relaxing. The sun was hot, but sunscreen kept me safe, and I didn’t get burned. The food was great, and wine on the beach in the evenings was especially soothing. I didn’t think about a single stressful thing the entire time after that trip, and the relaxation was very welcome. As I write this, I’m back in my home country of Germany on the comfortable, classy, high-speed trains that always run on-time. I’ll remember last weekend forever (especially with the help of this blog entry), as it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

BMW, which stands for Bayerische Motoren Werke (Bavarian Motor Works) is headquartered here in Munich about a five-minute walk from where I live.  The original BMW plant from 1922 is situated right next to the headquarters, smack-dab in the middle of the city.  This is where most of the world’s BMW 3 series cars are manufactured, and also where I visited yesterday.  Once again, we were not allowed to take pictures, but I found some footage on YouTube, which is posted below.  I’m not really sure how this footage exists, but since I’m not hosting it, I don’t really care.

As you can see from the video, BMW uses robots to do most of the welding, painting, and larger assembly of the vehicle body.  The most impressive display was in the body shop, where the actual frames of the cars are welded together.  In this area, there were four or so different workspaces all assembling different parts of the car.  In each workspace, somewhere between six and twelve (yes twelve!) robots were working together.  I know from taking a course in robot motion planning that this is no small feat.  To coordinate twelve robots moving all together in the same workspace requires extremely careful planning, as the slightest error can result in a collision.

Each cycle of production in the body shop lasts sixty seconds at a maximum, so the robots are working on a new car every minute.  Keep in mind that the pieces of metal that the robots are picking up are the size of entire cars.  When you consider this, the speed, agility, and accuracy of these robots is absolutely astounding.  My favorite comment on YouTube for that video is “That would be such a fun job designing all of those robots.”  Why yes, yes it would.

Most of the robots in the BMW plant are made by KUKA, which is one of the worlds most well-known robotics companies.  KUKA is based in Augsburg, which is a short thirty minute train ride away from Munich. The short train ride is of course due to the high-speed German trains built by Siemens, also based in Munich.  The products that come out of Bavarian companies speak for themselves in terms of quality.  Who’d have thought that the same place that brings you some of the worlds best beer is also home to some of the worlds best engineers?  Coincidence?

Bosch is one of the pioneers of ABS, which is the anti-lock braking system on a car.  It actually stands for Antiblockiersystem, which is the German term.  In case you’ve been living with your head in the clouds, ABS prevents your wheels from locking by automatically disengaging and re-applying your brakes when they lock up.  This prevents the wheels from staying locked and sliding without traction.  Bosch now has an  upgraded technology called ESP, which is an electronic stability program (Elektronisches Stabilitätsprogramm).  ESP is basically ABS on steroids, and can control braking and acceleration to all four wheels from measurements of steering wheel input, vehicle yaw movement and independent wheel speed.  ESP drastically improves a driver’s ability to handle a car in an emergency situation.

Before this weekend, I had heard more than one person claim that they disliked ABS. Once was someone claiming that she just wanted to “lock those brakes up and screech to a halt.”  Another didn’t like the way the pedal felt when ABS engaged, that it felt like things were grinding and breaking.  I had always known that ABS was good since it allowed for handling while braking.  If your wheels are locked and sliding, there is no way that turning them is going to make them slide in a different direction, that much is obvious.  But to fully experience the advantage of ABS, one needs to see it in action, which is exactly what I did at the Bosch test-track in Stuttgart.

When we went out to the track, we were shown three tests.  The car was a Mercedes S-Class from the late 90s.  The first test was handling.  The car was going to stop on wet pavement from about 60 km/h (37 mph) and try to swerve to avoid hitting a line of cones.  Without ABS, the car slid straight through the cones even though the wheels were turned.  With ABS, the car was able to brake and avoid the cones at the same time.

The second test was of stopping on dry pavement from about 100 km/h (62 mph).  This had the most amazing results.  ABS reduced the stopping distance to about half of what it was without ABS.  It’s never been really clear to me that ABS would actually reduce stopping distance.  I knew it was always a question of which surfaces had more kinetic friction, the wheels on the pavement or the brake pads, but now it’s clear that it’s better to have the wheels not sliding on the pavement.

The third test was the most fun, we got to ride in the car for this one.  Basically, this test was just to compare performance braking on wet pavement at high speeds (120 km/h or 75 mph).  We hit the brakes at that speed and just try to stop as quickly as possible.  With ABS, the car comes to a safe stop, but when there is no ABS, the car spins wildly out of control and doesn’t stop until much further.  Spinning out of control at 75 mph on a test-track is actually quite relaxing, since you don’t really feel anything, but I’m sure in a real-world situation, you’d be absolutely terrified.  All in all, Bosch is a pretty cool company.  Aside from introducing new technology into the automotive industry, their products help keep you and I safe on the road.  After experiencing that demo, I wouldn’t drive a car without ABS.

Munich Weather Forecast

But that isn’t my real beef here.  I’m in Munich!  I want to go outside, have fun, adventure, and do something active!  I haven’t been to a beer garden in over two weeks.  That’s preposterous.  I’ve been drinking my beer a half-liter at a time at indoor pubs and cafes, rather than in full-liter frothy mugs in the Englischer Garten.  In addition, I’ve already cancelled one hiking trip into the Alps, and I don’t want to cancel another. Unfortunately, a look at this week’s forecast says something else.  As you glance over to the right, the only thing that can possibly cross your mind is:

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME??”

Rain for the next 6 days?  I almost prefer Houston-like rain.  In Houston, it will rain so hard you couldn’t possibly walk outside without getting soaked even with an umbrella. However, it usually stops after about fifteen to twenty minutes.  In some rare cases, it will last an hour.  It has been drizzling straight here, and although one can walk easily through it, it just never lets up.  It’ll be nice for the weekend of the 4th of July though.  I know because I’m going on an outdoor adventure trip in the Swiss Alps, and I already booked.

Right, so an experienced C coder reading this is thinking, “Yeah, yeah, this is standard, quit complaining.”  I know, I know.  It’s very standard, but with Matlab you don’t have to pay attention to memory usage, data types, or anything really… you just write it.  It’s honestly one of the closest things to a DWIM-understanding language I have ever seen.  The past week, C has been brutally strict with me, and I don’t like it.  Especially when the language it yells at me is in German.  Having to decipher German compiler errors is getting really annoying.

The Good:

Simulink Block + Filter Order + Cutoff Frequency + Zero Effort = Instant Butterworth Filter!

Simulink is made by and for people who do a lot of dynamic systems modeling.  Because of this, there are so many built-in tools for doing things that are usually much more difficult to do in C/C++.  A well-known problem of differentiating an electrical signal is the amplification of high-frequency noise.  This can easily be seen by taking the derivative of A*sin(wt) and getting w*A*cos(wt).  Any high-frequency component of the original signal is amplified in the derivative.  Thus, to get a good differentiated signal, a low-pass filter is needed to filter out the high-frequency noise.  Simulink has an amazing block called  “Analog Filter Design” that allows you to choose the type of filter (Butterworth, Chebyshev, Bessel, etc.) filter order, and cutoff frequency.  Suddenly, a very long bit of code is condensed into one block, and is implemented in thirty or seconds or less.   Simulink, this is why you are good.

The Bad:

Simulink is a graphical language.  While this makes it easy to view signal flow and system dynamics, it makes it difficult to determine where sample times begin and end.  Perhaps it’s because I am not experienced enough with Simulink to be able to understand, but it is difficult for me to know when one sample begins and ends.  The graphical language is built around real-time simulation, so theoretically and graphically, every signal is continuous.  In reality, there is a sample time, and a simple loop of calculations that is run every millisecond or so, depending on the sample rate.  If the code were sequential, as in interpreted languages, it would be easier to determine the differences between two different samples of the system.  The graphical nature of Simulink makes it rather difficult to program the equation below, since samples (n) and (n-1) are difficult to determine.  Simulink, this is why you are bad.

Energy Equation not easy to Implement in Simulink

The Ugly:

The equation above leads us right into the ugly.  Really, it’s just a simple integration of the term in brackets, but since it includes terms from both the (n)th sample and the (n-1)th sample, you can’t just use an integration block.  The ugliness comes out when we look at the code actually generated in order to implement this one equation.  The figure below shows part of my implementation.  Most of it is hidden, due to intellectual property considerations, but just imagine something like this that fills the entire screen.  This is when Simulink becomes ugly.  More importantly, this entire thing is just a small controller written to ensure stability of the master device in a much larger teleoperation system.  This is why sub-systems are used to organize the mess.  But Simulink, you’re still ugly.

An Incomplete view of My Implementation of the Energy Equation

The biggest difference is the language, but all in all, that’s more of a humiliation factor than a cultural difference.  Whenever I go to order something, or converse with someone in any way, I try to speak German, since I am in Germany.  However, the first thing I usually say is along the lines of “Slowly please, I don’t speak German very well.”  And then I get some things repeated, of which I can understand about thirty percent on average.  After a few more seconds, and maybe one more exchange, the conversation crashes and burns.  At this point, the German speaks nearly perfect English to me, and I feel like a failure.

That isn’t the best part though.  It took me about a week and a half to realize that restaurants and cafes do not seat you here.  So whenever we’d go into a place to eat, we’d look at the person standing at the door, and say the number of people we have, just like we’d do in the States.  Usually they were confused… and for the longest time we thought this was again a language barrier deal.  But no, it’s a combination language and culture difference.  The way we finally figured this out was an embarrassment of epic proportions.

It had been a long day hiking in the Alps, when we finally reached the top of a mountain (called Tegelberg).  At the top, there was a cable car station where people could skip the hike and just take the tram.  Next to that station was a little cafe.  So we walk in, and state the number of people in our party (two).  This place is really small, there’s a bar in the corner that takes up about a quarter of the room, and there are about three tables.  The guy serving people is confused.  He looks at us and says in German,

“Two.  Two….. what?”  

After about 10 seconds of trying to figure out how to say “We want a table for two,” we give up and just take a seat.  He then comes over, and said,

“Ah, two beers right?”  

“Umm, no…”  But we still don’t really know how to communicate to him why we said “two” when we came in.

“Ok… umm here’s the menu.”  At which point, he proceeded to strike up a conversation with the rest of the cafe about how crazy we were.

“Two what, two beers, two plates, two tables, two people?”  We could understand most of it.  The entire place was making fun of us and laughing.  Oops.  We ordered a few beers and some soup to ease in a bit and had a fine meal.  A family came in about twenty minutes later, and asked to exercise the second odd custom here in Germany.  Different parties frequently share tables.  We knew what they were asking, but before we could do anything, the guy behind the bar shouted,

“THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND YOU!”

Awesome.  We moved over to allow space for the family to sit next to us, and we tried to converse in German with them.  It was a bit rocky, but we did alright.  At the end, we successfully told the waiter in German that we were finished(fertig), and asked for the check to be separate(getrennt).

Feeling pretty good about ourselves, and a bit happy from the tall ones we had, we set off down the mountain.  We notice a trail that looks significantly shorter on the way down labeled with nothing but the words “Alpine Gefahr.”  At this point we had figured out that this meant “Alpine Danger.”  Awesome.  Sounds fun, let’s do it.

Fifteen minutes in, the trail is lame.  Nowhere near as dangerous as the one we came up on, which had sheer cliffs of several hundred feet with no guard fence, or rope, or anything.  Five minutes later, we come to a place where there is a chain you need to hold so you can scale across a rock cliff.  It’s only about 30 or so feet, but we were a little surprised.

Twenty minutes after that, we were so far over our heads, we didn’t know how we got there.  ”Alpine Gefahr” turned into “Lebensgefahr” which is “life-threatening.”  There were no signs to indicate Lebensgefahr, but we knew just by looking at the path.  It ended up being pretty much rappelling down a rock cliff using chains that were hanging off of the rock.  It was fun, but in retrospect, very dangerous.  At the bottom, we notice a sign that says “Gesperrt.”  We didn’t know what it meant, but we had a theory.  After getting back to Munich, we figure out that “Gesperrt” means “Closed.”  Fantastic.

Next time, we’re bringing a dictionary, and maybe a trail map.  Neither of which we had for this trip.

First Class on Emirates Airbus A380

However, I really enjoyed browsing through all the different aircraft and viewing the seat maps.  For example, the largest commercial airliner as of now is the Airbus A380, which is two levels for the entire length of the plane.  Only three airlines own this plane, Emirates, Qantas, and Singapore Airlines, but each configures theirs differently.  After review, I have decided that I would definitely fancy first class flying on the Emirates Airbus A380.  First off, notice the review, which says “Seat 2-4 A is a standard suite.”  I don’t know about you, but I don’t know what a “standard suite” is.  There is nothing standard about a suite on a plane, unless you call having to fight with your neighbor for armrest space “sweet.”

Also notice the shower and self-serve bar located at the front of the plane.  So basically, you’re on one of the longest flights on the planet, which could be maybe 14-16 hours long, you pay an arm and a leg, and… well, you get to drink until the point at which you can’t serve yourself, pass out in your sweet suite, wake up a few hours later, shower to clean yourself up and ease the hangover, and maybe have time to do it again (drink the first hangover away?).

Also note that the first row is yellow.  If you mouse-over, people have complained about the proximity to the bar, stairs, and shower.  The reviewers claim that there is more traffic through this area, which of course constitutes complaints and bad reviews.  Well, if you people who actually get the opportunity to review that kind of seat want, I’d be more than happy to trade and take that yellow-rated seat off your hands.

All in all, seatguru.com did its job for me; it entertained me for a few hours, and then told me which seats to avoid on the 777.  From reading the site, I was able to determine where the infants would be sitting, which seats would lean back or not, and which seats were going to get bumped by the carts.  Also, I enjoyed the complimentary alcohol British Airways was so kind to provide on the flight over the Atlantic.

The best thing I have noticed about opensource software is that it plays very nicely with other software.  For example, the IM client Pidgin can work with just about any instant messaging service.  Just take a look at how easy it is to sync F-Spot with numerous other photo programs out there.

F-Spot Export Menu

F-Spot Picasaweb Export Dialog

Austin Motel Sign

First off, we stayed at the Austin Motel near downtown, and we couldn’t believe our eyes when we saw the epically phallic sign for the place. Sorry, it’s just too funny to leave out. On a more important note however, this was the first time it really hit me that most of my friends are going to live in the real world, where real things happen.  Not only that, but during the trip, I had two other friends call me, and tell me that major things had happened in their plans that made them completely change what they were doing after college.

I guess that is the biggest thing that is really hitting me.  I always grew up with a set plan for what I wanted to do, and what was expected of me through college and after.  It was the only thing I knew growing up, and so I have always been afraid to deviate from it.  Now, I am seeing that being open to anything and being able to adapt to any situation will prove to be very important.

This summer, I plan to learn a lot about what I would like to do over the next few years of my life.  Things should be very interesting.