Open Landmark Day in Schmölln

Another set of pictures from the weekend (sorry, if you are waiting for the west coast!). We went to see some landmarks at the open landmark day, an annual chance to see interesting places in your area that are usually not open/free.

This year, we decided to go to Schmölln, a small city in eastern Thuringia. We started with the Ernst-Agnes-Tower which was built originally in 1893, to get a nice view on the city.

Apparently, Schmölln is almost 950 years old.

Perfect day for a fish eye:

On we went to see the market and the old city hall:

View from the balcony on the market...

... and the church

The church was nice, quite plain and modest:

And with a renovated organ:

Fortunately, the organist was there to talk about the organ and tell some stories. That was probably the most interesting part of the day...

The cockpit...


... and the pipes. We even had a chance to have a look at the insides of the organ, with the big pipes for the bass...

... and the small ones for the highs.

Finally, a view into the church from above:

Fireworks, My First Attempt

Well, it's been pretty calm around here for a while. I enjoyed three weeks traveling up the west coast, had a couple of days to wrap up my stuff in Knoxville and traveled back to Germany to start my new position at the University. Finally, I have some time to write a short post.

Although I'm sitting on tons of vacation pictures, I want to start out with some pictures I took last weekend at the "Flammende Sterne" fireworks festival in Gera, near where I grew up. It's been my first attempt to shoot fireworks and I am not really satisfied, although some of them are quite ok. Well, see for yourself...

And the grand finale...

Now I hope that my motivation does not ditch me and I can start working on the California pictures soon. Oh, given some spare time of course...