Spring | Fotoeins Fotografie

Posts from the ‘Spring’ category

My Vienna: space invaders in the capital

Above: WN_31 at the corner of Ballgasse and Rauhensteingasse, 9 July 2024 (P15).

Don’t worry: it’s not 1529, nor is it 1683, and there are no bands of marauders on horseback arriving for a large and lengthy siege. This also does not include anything from outside the Solar System. Instead, this is about a human artist and their little creations sprinkled throughout the Austrian capital city. In fact, I’d claim their “invasion” has already succeeded.

When a wae lad was I, the video game Space Invaders was a kind of dawn, an opening to a brand new world. The lasting effects snuck into many aspects of life, including the time I dedicated to the learning, pursuit, and practice of science. In time, a video game about a battle to ward off waves of little aliens required the purchase of a large bulky black console, accompanied by a large bulky black joystick with a big red button. In the decades since, the technological leap into the first-quarter of the 21st-century means that Space Invaders is available as an online web-application, easily called upon anytime on demand.

In Vienna, the sight of little aliens prompted immediate personal curiosity, and I spent parts of three consecutive summers wandering the streets to find as many possible little “visitors”.

( Click here for more )

My Vienna: Johann Strauss II, traces & places

Above: Danube river at dusk, facing southeast from Brigittenauer Sporn. Photo, 11 Jun 2022 (X70).

Vienna is a historical city of music with the likes of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and more. In the mid- to late-19th century, the Strauss family of composers created a dominant scene in Viennese waltz (Wiener Waltz). Johann Strauss II’s “An der schönen blauen Donau” (The Blue Danube) is one of the best-known compositions of classical music. The song was used famously in Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel “2001: A Space Odyssey“.

And as in the movie, the soaring feelings of hopeful anticipation during the spacecraft’s journey and docking with the spinning space station have become as routine as my arrival onto Viennese shores from the other side of the big eastern pond. I rely on Vienna to provide the gravity to maintain balance and spirit; this much has stayed true over multiple consecutive summers.

I’ve spent over 100 total days in Vienna, explored many of her streets and districts, and walked hundreds of kilometres. Efforts to immerse myself in various types of the city’s art and architecture have been accompanied by the sounds of brass horns and sweeping strings in a back-and-forth “dance” that spans the entire city. There’s new opportunity to learn about the song’s composer who was born, raised, studied, worked, and died in the Austrian capital city.

With the 200th anniversary of Johann Strauss II’s birth in 2025, the city of Vienna celebrates the occasion with a multitude of arts and culture events over the entire 2025 year.

( Click here for images and more )

24T00 What’s in my carry-on

“Travel day zero”: nothing to check

For 3 months in summer, I have a medium-sized 21-Litre (21-L) Timbuk2 Classic Messenger bag in blue and black, and a 32-L Timbuk2 Command backpack in black. (Both products are unfortunately phased out of production.) These are my “personal item” and “carry-on”, respectively, for my flights.

*What’s in my 21-Litre Timbuk2 Classic Messenger bag?*

21-L messenger bag

Tilley Hiker’s Hat (with evaporative cooling insert)

Mountain Equipment Company (MEC) medium-sized mesh pouch in blue, containing a change of clothes (1 t-shirt, 1 change of underwear)

Columbia grey long-sleeved half-zip fleece

32L backpack

Centre-left:

Tenba BYOB7 Camera Insert bag in black, carry-case for my X70, extra batteries, and chips.

Kompass 4in1-Wanderkarte/map, for Wettersteingebirge and Zugspitze

Centre:

• 3-L Peak Design Field Pouch in charcoal grey, containing:

carrying strap for the pouch

small soft pouch with wired earphones and small USB-C to 3.5mm audio jack.

small freezer bag with “Europlugs” (type-C) adaptor plugs for western Europe

Charger for MacBook Pro (c. 2016; not shown)

translucent film-roll cannister, for spare change

USB-A power cube wall charger (retractable), light blue

USB-A to USB-micro cable for camera, black

• 3-L Peak Design Field Pouch in midnight blue, containing:

carrying strap for the pouch

WCL-X70 wide-lens with small rubber lens-hood

small clear zip-pouch with cleaning cloths

Mophie 5000mAh PowerBank, dark blue

USB-C to USB-A cable, black

I’ve used one of the Field Pouches as a compact lightweight day-pack; can’t carry much except for camera, batteries, memory chips, PowerBank, cables.

Below the field-pouches:

USB-C to USB-C cable, white

2 pens

USB-C power cube wall charge (retractable), black

Sunglasses in hardshell case

Passport

Moleskine hardcover small lined-notebook

Portable hard disk with black USB-A to USB-microB cable

Centre-right

• Heys medium-size packing cube in black; containing 2 t-shirts, 2 changes of underwear, 2 pairs short-socks

• Small (<1-L) freezer bag containing:

“arts & crafts styled” pill-jars, ear plugs, sunscreen stick, lip balm, eyedrops, nail clipper, Mopiko ointment, toothpaste, collapsible toothbrush, small bottles with body wash/shampoo, roll-on “deo”.

Many items on display are easy to replace at my destinations.

Still got clothes on me back

T-shirt, half-buttoned Henley-style pullover sweater, blue jeans, light rain-windbreaker jacket; Merino wool socks, walking shoes.

Peak Design

My nods go to their versatile Field Pouch, their Leash strap on my X70, and their Everyday case for iPhone 👍🏽

I made the images above with an iPhone15 on 7 May 2024. I have received no support from an external organization. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-sts.

Deutschland Ticket, for Canadian visitors (2024)

How-to buy guide, effective May to August 2024.

( 2025 note: On 18 September 2025, Bavarian state broadcaster BR24 reported the monthly price for the Deutschland-Ticket will go up by 5€ to 63€ , starting 1 January 2026. The price had already gone from 49€ to 58€ for the 2025 calendar year. My summer 2025 purchase went the same way as in 2024, whose details are described below. )

89 days within Europe includes by necessity substantial travel by train within Germany. I’ve already booked in advance a number of intercity express segments, but what about local transport and regional trains?

The “Deutschland Ticket” (D-Ticket) is a rail ticket for one person and costs 49€ per month on a rolling subscription. The ticket is generally valid for local transport (bus, tram, U-Bahn, S-Bahn, intracity ferry) and regional rail (RB, most RE, IRE), but not for long-distance IC and ICE routes. Intended primarily for commuters, visitors to Germany can also purchase these tickets.

It’s early-April 2024, and I’m about to buy the D-Ticket for 49€ for the entire month of May. The ticket’s “rolling subscription” means if I do nothing else before 10 May, I’ll also automatically purchase a D-Ticket for the month of June for 49€. I’ll need the D-Ticket for May, June, July, and August; but I can only buy one month at a time.

I choose Munich’s MVV-App, based on successes reported by other travellers. I’m only using the Munich app for ticket purchase, and I’m not planning to use public transport within Munich. To buy a D-Ticket, customers are neither limited by their choice of app/method, nor by the base/location where the app is based. My question is whether a Canadian-based credit card is an acceptable form of payment by the processing company in Germany for a German-based app.

Sapperton: gatehouse & monument cairn

New Westminster

Within New Westminster’s Sapperton residential area at 319 Governors Court is the Gatehouse building of the former British Columbia Penitentiary (1878-1980); happily, the site is now home to a pub with patio. At the right edge of the picture below, the massive tower under construction is for the new Pattullo Bridge.

*In front of the gatehouse is this 1927 Govt. of Canada* 🇨🇦 *commemorative cairn in honour of the Royal Engineers (“Sappers”).*

“In 1859 military considerations induced Colonel Richard Moody* to select the site of New Westminster as capital of the new colony of British Columbia. Jointly developed until 1863 by civilians and the Royal Engineers, whose campground was here, the town, dominated by its Canadian^ middle-class, tried to challenge Victoria’s commercial and political power. Hopes rose when New Westminster became the seat of government after the colony’s union with Vancouver Island in 1866, but fell with the removal of the capital to Victoria in 1868. Consequently, union with Canada was advocated to solve the town’s fiscal problems.”

* after whom city of Port Moody is named

^ white British Empire colonists

I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 17 April 2024. Composed entirely within Jetpack for iOS, this post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-sjR.