Some photos

When I moved to Austin, I got myself a digital camera, making it simpler to allow others to trace my ways in this new country. So this is the place for the friends at home to see where I have been...

Clicking on an image will produce a larger version. To see earlier or later pictures, use the menu bar at the right, which is sorted reverse chronological, i.e. newest sets of pictures at the top.

Washington D.C. (April 2006)

One of the places I always wanted to see and that I never have gotten to so far is Washington D.C. Delighted me realized that this could be arranged by going to a conference in my field in Arlington, VA — just across the Potomac river and within walking distance from the White House, Congress, the Smithsonian Museums, and all the other goodies around there. All these are arranged around the National Mall, a long rectangular park.

So that's what I did, and on the occasional break in the conference program and the day after it ended, I went over to see all this.

First here: Congress on one end of the National Mall, the Lincoln memorial on the other end, and the obelisk in the middle:

Next, a glimpse of the White House, and a nice and moody late afternoon shot of the Mall from the stairs of Congress:

Space buff that I am, I of course also had to go to the National Air and Space Museum, one of the Smithsonian Museums on the Mall. One thing that always surprised me is that, even though I knew all the pictures, the size of space craft is always different than one thought. Here are two pictures of the moon landers (much bigger than I thought) and a replica of the giant Hubble space telescope (compare how little the people are at the bottom, with the length of the instrument that reaches all the way to the ceiling):

In contrast, here a picture of the entryway of the museum, with two of the early space capsules. They're about as big as a person and full of equipment. The left one held a single pilot, the right one even two people. How they got in, or out, of these machines I don't know. If one peaks into them, there's about as much space as absolutely necessary to get the people in there, but no more. You certainly can't be claustrophobic to fly with these (you had to be rather brave in many other respects as well...):