The travels continued, this time to the continent, to visit my PhD supervisor, Mark, and his family in Darmstadt, near Frankfurt.

But not before a little BBQ with some nice folk from astrophysics, with whom i had become acquainted at the previous weekend's garden party. The BBQ was at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory outside Cambridge, around which we had a little tour in the official van.

The festivities then adjourned to a house back in Cambridge, at which point I should have made my goodbyes and headed home then to the station to catch my 4:40am train to Stansted, in order to catch my 7:20am flight.

Suffice to say... ... i kinda missed my train at 4:40am, so i kinda missed my flight at 7:20am. Oops.

Upon eventual arrival at Stansted, i discovered the next flight to Heathrow was not until 8pm. On the upside, it gave me some time to work on my presentation back at the office. Finally arrived at Frankfurt airport at 1am. Delays have a curious tendency to grow.

It was great to catch up with Mark and Carmen, and to see Alex and Michele who had both grown a lot since i last saw them in May.

The next day, we went to Heidelberg, a charming city on the Rhine reknowned for its university and its disproportionate influence on Australian art.

The castle, seen in the background of the above shot, is the thing to see so there we went, with Mark exhibiting an herculean pram-pushing effort up the hill.

Inside the castle was THE BIGGEST BEER BARREL IN THE WORLD.

While that one was big, it wasn't THE BIGGEST BEER BARREL IN THE WORLD. Yes thatt's right, the Actual BIGGEST BEER BARREL IN THE WORLD was even bigger:

As a proud Australian, I love big things. For example, THE BIG BANANA:

And another personal favourite, THE BIG PRAWN:

Also, as a proud Australian, I love beer. So seeing THE BIGGEST BEER BARREL IN THE WORLD was almost too much.

Admittedly Friday's BBQ excesses were still a recent memory so it was a bittersweet moment. Nonetheless Heidelberg Castle and surrounds were very cool:

as was the cathedral back down the hill in town:

The next day I resumed my place in Nina and Johanna's office in the Materials Engineering Department at Technische Universitat Darmstadt. I'd spent several fun and productive weeks residing in this office in July last year, so it was something of a reunion.

Being in Darmstadt, i couldn't pass up the opportunity (and I know all you Art Nouveau fiends out there will know what i'm talkin' about) to at least pay my respects to the Matildenhohe, an icon of Jugendstil.

Some of those with less appreciation for such things may find this particular consumer product label entertaining:

As a gesture of cultural understanding, I gave my talk on "Lattice materials and optimal sandwich panels" in German:

which, as one could imagine, went down a treat, for at least the first 42 seconds.

The trip home was, thankfully, less eventful than the outward journey, although the way that a one hour plane flight manages to stretch out into a 9 hour door-to-door travel extravaganza never ceases to amaze me. Missing the last train from Stansted so that i had to wait 45mins for the National Express coach definitely didn't help. Nonetheless a worthwhile outing to Deutschland, and excellent to catch up with Mark and his family & and the good folk at TU Darmstadt.