Saturday, July 28, 2007

CH - Luzern

Luzern is beautiful: flowers and greenery are always within sight, the city is compact and easily walkable, people seem friendlier than in other cities, I can see a plethora of stars despite being in one of the country’s largest cities, and the nightlife almost seems more energetic than the daylife.

I toured about the city all day. The Verkehrshaus (Transport Museum) was not quite what I hoped: less museumy stuff than I had anticipated. It is very hands on, which would have made this almost as great as Orlando if only I were 15 years younger. This may appeal to railfans… I did my best to snap photos of its rail hardware for my roommate.

The train section had a neat little computer program showing rail access in 1910, 1970, 1997, and a forecast to 2010. Basically you choose a city in Europe (or a few nearby Asian cities) and it shows a color-coded map indicating the distance, in hours, reachable by train. I was confounded when I chose London to find it had apparent access to mainland Europe in pre-Chunnel days, and even more bewildered to find that Ireland has apparently been running trains to the mainland since 1910. I guess the program includes some other transportation modes.

The rest of the museum really felt lacking (good thing it was free with my Swiss Pass). The cars are had a vintage Lamborghini and Ferrari, as well as a lovely NAZI-crafted BMW motorcycle. Seriously, that is one amazing piece of engineering. The planes section had a bunch of engines and some suspended planes, but the helicopters area let me down by its lack of info on the Pedaliante. The sea transport was rather dull, but then again I’m just not as interested in boats unless I’m on one and preferably piloting it. The Swiss Arena was kind of fun: it consists of aerial imagery of the whole country, basically recreating it at a scale of 1:20,000. This may not be too impressive to the Google Earth users of the world, but from the upper catwalk, bend over and peer through the telescopes: it looks 3D.

It occurred to me a week or two ago that the low benches between church pews are not footrests. Of course, I continue to use them as such. I also dab the holy water on my forehead and cheeks to help cool off. My theory is that God wants us to be comfortable and to not put water to waste. …I’ll never fit in as a Catholic. Well, if I’m on the Highway to Hell then, as an engineer, I can at least help it get built.

No comments:

Post a Comment