Wednesday 1 July 2015

Potsdam

 
We arrived at Potsdam and checked in to a wonderful hotel on the river just across from the University. 

As the sun lowered and the summer river swimmers had retired we wandered down the avenue  to find a restaurant. We wandered in an took a seat at a packed street restaurant only to find they served a  eye fillet steak with shaved truffle. This was one of the best steaks I have ever eaten and that include the Tassie Strahan hotels masterpiece.  Day two we toured the University's Human Interaction Design school and labs. Some really cool research going on and some great workshop/maker/hacker/fab Lab  set ups.
Day 3 was reserved for a visit to San Soucci Palace. I have visited this once before but its grounds and its situation is brilliant. This time we were lucky enough to tour the palace. These places always remind me of how small people were before improved diet and health caused a growth spurt. I expect I could handle the lifestyle of the privileged but hate to think of the middle and lower classes' plight.

We also had a formal duty here which was to visit the Hasso - Plattner institute in Potsdam University. We met with a colleague of Gertys, Patrick who is the Professor of computer science and chair of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Lab. He took us on a tour of the facilities and got to see some incredible research. See some of the research here I especially liked the "Haptic Turk" and the "Protopiper", brilliant.

The visited ended with Danielle giving a lecture to an undergrad engineer class. This certainly disturbed some of the students (Danielle would say constructively disrupted) and gave them a good shake up.

Oh, and one of my favourites is that lots of places in Europe seem to have robotic lawnmowers, and the one at the uni is priceless see below.


 
The Robot Lawn Mower

View from the hotel balcony

Good Lady Wilde outside our room in Potsdam



Sanssouci  Palace

Cant visit the palace without taking this one

Check this mini bar treat. A giant pickle in a can

Best steak in a long time. Fillet with red wine and some berry goop, topped with shaved truffle. Yep I ate the potatoes very un paleo

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