The Air Show called NAVAIR

So far, the coolest part of my job by FAR has been watching the aircraft fly around the Navy base at Patuxent River. My entire life I've been going to air shows to see jets fly close to the ground at crazy speeds but one drive around the base here at Pax puts all of those air shows to shame.

Last night, I was driving back from the driving range around dusk and heard a roar coming off the runway up ahead. My friend and I quickly raced up to where we could get a view and were able to see an F-18 pulling up into the sky shooting its afterburners. Coming off of the thrill, we continued down the road near the hangars only to see two more F-18's being readied for flight by the land crew. We quickly raced baack over to the end of the runway and were able to see two more F-18s launch off the runway from a range of about 200 ft. The coolest part about this whole experience was that it was at dusk and you could see the flame of the afterburner shooting almost 20 ft from the back of the engine as it accelerated. Nothing compares to the sights and sounds of an F-18 launching into the night sky...

The base has a high-power catapult on a runway that simulates the deck of an aircraft carrier. Today, this runway hosted some E-2D's as they tested their launching capabilities. If you don't know, the E-2D is a big turboprop (propeller) plane that has a big circular electronics dish on the top. I couldn't believe how quickly such a large (and sort of clunky) looking machine could accelerate from standstill to takeoff velocity in such little time.

Unfortunately, base regulations don't allow me to take any pictures of these aircraft so I don't have any photos or videos to share, but if you come visit me I can take you on base as a visitor and show you some of the acrobatics in person. Believe me, seeing this in person is 100 times better than any picture or video (or air show for that matter) that you've ever seen.

New Job in Maryland

Well, it's been a long time since I've posted anything in this blog...one, because I'm no longer in Germany and I haven't been for over a year now. Two, because I'd gotten very busy (and lazy) and had neglected to take the time to share my feelings in blog form.

But since my last posts I've still had lots of experiences that have been very meaningful to my life. For one, I've now graduated college and have moved on to take on the challenges of the "real world." This week, I started my first full-time job working in Southern Maryland for the government. So far, the job has been a little slow as it'll take some time for me to get through all my security clearance and paperwork so that I can start workin on real projects. Hopefully, my projects will involve some travel and I can see some more of the United States just like I got to see so much of Germany.

I should be gettin on this more often from now on and posting some short updates. Again, if anybody has any comments to make, please feel free! Comments and questions will give me a lot more encouragement to keep goin on this blog knowing that someone out there is reading.

New Blog

I just wanted to let anyone who might be following this blog know about another blog I am currently writing for the college of engineering at Purdue. I'll be staying more up-to-date in it for a while so if you want to know the latest happenings in my life, check out my new blog at:

https://engineering.purdue.edu/Blogs/KyleZienin

Enjoy!

Two months in Europe (in a nutshell)

It's a little ironic that the last post I wrote about was strike because it seems that I have gone on strike for the last two months from blog writing. If anybody's been following this and dying to have me write another posting, I'm sorry it's taken so long, but now it's finally here!

Phew, where to start off... I've done soooooo much since the last posting that it's gonna be really hard to get in to any sort of details about my adventures so what I'm going to keep it simple. I'm going to list the cities that I've visited, write about the first memory that comes to mind, and post either a video or a picture.........go!

Dublin, Ireland - St. Patrick's Day... Probably one of the craziest trips of my life... One of the most insane times was standing in the street among thousands of people watching the annual Dublin St. Patrick's Day Parade. In addition to that, I met kids from all over the world, explored my family's history, drank lots of Guinness, and hung out in an Irish Pub or two. Not too bad of a trip I think...be sure to check out the pictures on Picasa!

Munich, Germany - My parents came and visited and after we spent some time in Berlin, we headed to Munich, home of the Hofbrauhaus, bratwursts, and all that is German beer. Among our various trips to the beer gardens we met up with some interesting people including a French nuclear physicist named Pierre.

Hohenshwangau, Germany - From Munich, we headed south to Schloss Neuschwanstein, the castle known as the inspiration for the Walt Disney Castle. Not much more to say except the whole area was incredible and I'd recommend it to anyone going to Germany. And pictures describe it better than words...

Dachau, Germany - After coming back to Munich it's just a short trainride to a little city on the outskirts called Dachau. A little suburban city that seems normal until you walk into the memorialized concentration camp that held over 200,000 people and took the lives of over 25,000 of them between the years of 1933 and 1945. The gate still holds the dark slogan for prisoners that "Arbeit macht frei" (work makes freedom). Within the camp we saw lots of chilling reminders of a horrible time in human history including the ovens that burned bodies towards the end of the camp's use...

Paris, France - From Munich, we took an all-day train ride west into France to visit the spectacular city of Paris. Although I had thought the city might be a little overrated, I found out I was completely wrong. The buildings were incredible and at night the twinkling of the Eiffel Tower lights up the entire city...

Be sure to also check Picasa for more pictures of everywhere I've been. It's really been an incredible adventure. I hope that everyone back in the States is doing well and having a good summer.

BVG wird bestreikt

These three words have caused me about six hours worth of walking back and forth between my home and the nearest train station... BVG is the Berlin train service that operates the U-Bahns and busses. Bestreikt means that they have gone on strike... I think I said that I needed some exercise in one of the posts before this; I guess my wish is coming true... The strikes that are occurring in Berlin are occurring simultaneously with many others across the country. It seems like everyone in Germany is going on strike lately. From kindergarten teachers to trash collectors to airport workers and train operators, the strike across Germany has most definitely hit all areas of the German public sector. And because public transportation the primary form of transportation for Germans, the strikes have also caused chaos on the roads forcing hundreds of people who almost never drive to get out their cars and use the roads. When I was walking down Unter den Linden the traffic was backed up from museum island to Brandenberg Tor (that's a long way if you don't know). And this Monday there is a good chance that the other train union GDL will also go on strike effectively shutting down all of the trains in Germany. This means that there will be neither any inter-city trains or s-bahns that typically bring me to work... Since I work about an hour away from the city by train I don't really have any idea what I'm going to do if this happens. I guess I get a day off?

Hertha BSC - Nur nach Hause

This weekend I attended my first ever German Fussball match in Berlin. The game was Hertha BSC (Berlin's soccer team) versus Duisburg (an apparently not-so-hot team ranked very low in the German Bundesliga). The games are held in the Olympiastadion that was built for the 1916 summer Olympics and just recently was host site of the World Cup. Although I didn't make this video, it pretty much sums up the atmosphere... Thousands of Hertha fans, who call themselves the Ultimas, remained standing the entire game, singing songs, waving flags, cheering, chanting, and just plain being crazy supporters of Hertha football. Before I went, I bought a blue Hertha scarf with their slogan on it:

"Nur nach Hause geh'n wir nicht"
(Translated: "Only home, we don't go")

I sang along with all the songs as best as I could and drank some German beer and pretty much had an incredible time. Hertha won the game 2-0, ending a 10 game losing streak at night games in the Olympiastadion in Berlin. I'd like to think think that it was because I was there to support them... Also, I found out that Hertha BSC is actually a friend of Karlsruhe's soccer team so when I go to University in Karlsruhe and suddenly become a Karlsruhe fan everyone won't hate me for supporting Hertha.

Now if only I could be attending some Purdue basketball games right now (Big Ten champs?)...

Hamburgers in Hamburg

Although I was in Hamburg for an entire weekend, I didn't manage to eat one single Hamburger... But I did find a historic building within the city that showed the Hamburgers' undying love for our delicious American sandwich:
But not everything in Hamburg was about greasy fast food. It turned out that the city of Hamburg was filled with a rich history of destruction, reconstruction, prostitution, and refinement. Hamburg grew up (and continues to operate) as a port city on the river Elbe very close to the North Sea. As such, the sustainment of its trade operation was necessitated by its ability to satisfy the burly seamen who passed through from day-to-day. To this extent, a lonely street in Hamburg called Reeperbahn was able to develop itself into a haven for peep shows, strip joints, and other establishments of worldy desires... A walk down this street brought back memories of Amsterdam and the red-light-district, but it seemed that Reeperbahn was something different... The lights and sounds and thousands of tourists made it more of a "party avenue" than a back alley sex shop.

During WWII an Allied operation called Operation Gomorrah, targeted at demoralizing the German citizens into surrender was launched upon the citizens of Hamburg. The effect of this operation was the total destruction of Hamburg and a need to rebuild pretty much everything. From the top of the St. Nikolai Kirche I could see the whole city and thanks to some circa 1942 photos that were up there, I could also see how much the city had rebuilt since its leveling in the war. When I was there, there was still a lot of construction going on everywhere, but I think that most of it was no longer due to World War bombings. Instead, it was because of a new initiative to create a residential area in the middle of the Elbe called HafenCity. I didn't get a lot of details on Hafencity, but it looked like a sort of land creation project in which they were building a whole new district on concrete posts extending into the river. Joe and I walked around this area for hours seeing all of the construction being undertaken in the area. It was really pretty neat to see.

I've got lots of pictures of everything in my Picasa album here.

While in that area, I was also able to take a visit inside a Russian U-Boat parked in the Elbe river. It was really amazing to see the tight quarters that they had to live in for months on end while out at sea. And it was also a little unsettling to know that this U-Boat was probably primarily used to spy on (and probably prepared to attack) the United States during the Cold War. This fact was confirmed by a picture that was hung up inside the boat...