#munich

goodoldtimes © franpolliin 2019

Physics, Technical University Munich

“Comparison of Image Quality between Filtered Backprojection and Statistical Iterative Reconstruction in Breast Computed Tomography”

^ Is it really a roadtrip if you fly there? just sayin’

Organised by online travel company Contiki the tour covers Germany, Italy, France and England and features a variety of challenges and tasks for the YouTubers to complete on the way.

Along for the ride are Meghan Camarena (strawburry17), Charles and Alli Trippy, Charlie McDonnell, Michael Aranda, Bryarly Bishop, Jimmy Wong, Kate Elliott (katersoneseven),  Jack Douglass, Jesse and Jeana (bfvsgf), Corey Vidal, Nadine Sykora and host Tim Deegan.

The whole shebang kicked off on Saturday with the YouTubers having flown in to Munich, Germany the previous day.

Gatherings

The first of three planned gatherings took place at Kultfabrik, a veritable hive of pubs, clubs and bars described as “Europe’s biggest party zone”.

However, despite it’s reputation (and unlike a certain Hyde Park gathering we all know about) it was reportedly “totally chilled out and awesome” and attendees got to talk to their favourite YouTubers without fear of being impaled on anything.

The other two are due to take place in Paris and London on the 13th and 14th of October respectively.

^ Munich Gathering

Competition & Voting

The tour will be splitting up into three groups to compete for prizes that they will then be giving away to their subscribers.

The challenges will be spread across the cities of Munich, Venice and Paris with the YouTubers racing through the streets of Venice, taking to the stage at Oktoberfest and showing off their video creation skillz at the Paris film festival.

Those stuck at home can win a trip of their own by registering to vote at the Contiki roadtrip site. 

^ Meghan Camarena and Jimmy Wong gearing up for the Octoberfest challenge this afternoon

Contiki isn’t the first business to utilise the powerful audiences of YouTubers to gain access to their target domographic -in this case 18-35 year olds positively heaving with wanderlust- but it may well turn out to be the best attempt so far.

Instead of cynically trying to use idols to push products Contiki is selling adventure itself.

Something we could all probably use a little more of.

The tale of two cities according to Heiko and Stephi - Part 372

Over the last weeks we showed you some places worth seeing when visiting one of our hometowns. And so will I do today.

While most people only visit museums during bad weather, I will show you two museums you should not miss even when the sun is shining.

The first one is the “Schokoladenmuseum” (chocolate museum) in Cologne. I think the name already gives away why it is worth a visit. I mean, what is not to love about chocolate? And even when you are one of those few people who don’t like chocolate it’s still interesting to learn about the history of chocolate, and how chocolate is made.

The second photo shows the “Deutsches Museum” in Munich. My old and bad photo sadly doesn’t show how cool this museum really is. It is the biggest “science and technology” museum in the world. And it is everything but boring. You take a look into a real submarine that is cut in half (actually, you can look into all sorts of vehicles because there is almost nothing that isn’t in this museum), you can walk through a coal mine, watch an “electricity show”, or go see the stars in the planetarium. And while I write about this I think I need to plan my next visit.

This week’s praise to all the great museums in the world. What were the best museums you have visited?

The tale of two cities according to Heiko and Stephi - Part 370

This week I continue with the “places worth seeing” in our hometowns.

The first photo shows the historic district of Cologne. It’s a beautiful place at day and a fun place at night because it’s the party area.

I remember visiting Cologne for business seminars. And two of those times I had tthe time to meet Heiko.

The first time I only had a few hours in the evening, and we both went to the historic district downton to have some mini beers. The second time, I was able to spend some more time, and Heiko gave did a four hour Cologne sightseeing tour with me. He di a great job, and in these four hours I saw a lot of beautiful places and, of course, I saw the historic district. I really like it there, both times, at day and night.

The second photo shows the “Karlsplatz” in Munich. We call this place “Stachus”. I took this photo a few years ago. Would I have turned around, you would have seen one of the old city gates. It is the beginning of the historic city centrr of Munich. The “Stachus” fountain is a very popular place, for tourists and for citizens of Munich. It’s a nice place for streetphotography but it’s always crowded. On hot summer days you can sometimes see people actually walking through this fountain to get some cooling, and I think most “Munichians” already did this, me included.

If you want to see fewer people around (or in) the fountain or downtown you better come for a visit on a Sunday. Sice the city center is also the shopping area, and on Sundays all shops are closed here, not too many people come here.

I guess if you ever make a trip to Cologne or Munich, you don’t want to miss any of these places.