Train Wash

Did you ever wonder how trains are being cleaned? No, not by hand anymore... the trains are driven through devices similar to car washs.
I was lucky to take this picture just as one of the nice trains was cleaned here.

Pink Kitty

I saw little pink kitty and her friends in a decoration shop the other day, and just couldn't resist to take a picture of her.
I thought she looks really French with her little barett and her whole stylish looks. Oh là là!!!

Beam of Light

Since I didn't post a picture yesterday, I'll present you the last picture taken at the Katholikentag today.
They had a great light installation there, three green laser beams were connecting three churches in Saarbrücken representing the Catholic Trinity.
This is the view from the castle where you can see one of the beams piercing the sky.

Indonesia Earthquake

Due to the Indonesian earthquake today, many DailyBloggers decided not to post a picture of our city today to remember the many people who died...

Dancing in the Street

The Katholikentag had another highlight today: Paulo Axé's Capoeira school had a demonstration in Bahnhofstrasse (our main shopping street).
My best friend learns this Brasilian "martial dance" there too, so here's a picture of him doing one of the fancy moves... The group of around 30 people performed for two hours, doing several rodas, maculele and samba.
I'll put more pictures on MoonSoleil's Picture Blog, so watch out for those, too!

African Spirit

There was an African band playing on the Eine-Welt-Bühne (One-World-Stage) of the Katholikentag.
Unfortunately, I don't know their name, but they were quite good. I loved their colourful costumes and dances, so I stayed for some time to listen to them...

Inside a Tent

Probably the most colourful tent that was put up at the Katholikentag here, is the tent of the Habibi Café Saarbrücken, that brings you closer to the Arab culture.
Young catholics can go into this tent, take off their shoes and enjoy a nice water pipe while listening to the information given by the staff.
As you can see on the picture, some of the youngsters don't listen THAT closely anymore (it's a young guy laying there, with one of the Turkish red hats in his hands)... so I'd be really interested what exactly is in the hookahs... =)

Tent Town

Today, the Katholikentag 2006 (Catholics Day 2006) started, and turned Saarbrücken into a tent town.
They put up hundreds of small tents (most of them are about 2x2 metres) where different religious groups give information to interested visitors.
The gathering will be held until Sunday, so more pictures will follow in the next days.

PS: Sorry I'm late posting, but my internet connection was down yeterday... =(

Gargoyle

Oh, looking up is sooo worth it...
I know many people who miss sights not looking up (including me some weeks ago), but blogging for the DailyPhoto makes you look out for new things and other perspectives, so when I was downtown I discovered this cool gargoyle on top of a house on Kaiserstrasse. There's a twin brother of it on the other corner, too. =)

Downtown View

This is a view from the castle over the not-that-pictoresque area of Saarbrücken.
First of all, you can see the motorway that runs along the bank of the river Saar (soon, this will be changed, the motorway will be in a tunnel then). It's not just too noisy to be that integrated into the town, it's also flooded at least once a year.
Also, you can see lots of buildings that seem to derive from the 50s or later. From what I have heard, many parts of Saarbücken were destroyed in WWII, which explains those ugly giants.
But at least there are many trees in the city and nice woods on the hills that surround the area.

Fat Boys

After the miserable day yesterday, I made up for it by visiting the Saarbrücken castle gardens today, where I had an encounter with these little guys.
I'm not really into those Rubens-esque statues, so I had a little laugh when I saw one of them riding an eagle (that looks like it doesn't really know what's going on) while holding a cup over his head (aha, drunkard), while the other one obviously tries to sexually harass him... =)

House Arrest

Oh my, it was really raining cats and dogs today.
Just as I wanted to go and take a nice Daily Picture, the rain was pouring down like crazy, it even hailed big ice-balls.
So this is a picture of my backyard that I took undaunted by death... =)

Lonely Diner

This is an American Diner in our big cinema complex "CineStar".
I watched a movie with my best friend, and since it was the late show, the diner was already closed when our movie was finished...
It looked just like a scene from a 50s movie, what do you think?

"The very hungry Caterpillar"

After all the "big pictures" so far, I thought I'd switch the scale today...

I had an encounter with this cute green caterpillar, and was reminded of the book by Eric Carle (It's called "Die kleine Raupe Nimmersatt" in German). Oh, sweet childhood memories!

I saved it during a bus trip downtown, and let it run over my hand during the ride. When I got out of the bus I let it crawl on a big tree, let's hope it'll be a beautiful butterfly one day. =)

Sunbathing...

This pretty girl is taking a sunbath in front of the university building for business studies.
She's pretty heavy (even if she doesn't look it) since she's made of bronze. The statue is called "Die Sitzende" (The sitting girl), she was made by Otto Zewe.
She's been sitting there for decades now, so I guess her lectures must be really boring! =)

Resistance!

Oh, when I saw this poor creature next to his beautiful neighbor in bloom, I really felt sorry for him.
The little guy obviously suffered from am act of beautification, or maybe just the German preciseness... When we cut a tree, we do it efficiently, accurate and proper (and by doing this we don't have to come back to do it again in the next years - ha!).
I was glad he survived this mean attempt and shows his resitance by growing green leaves again! Viva la Revolution!

Wind Gauge

I went up the top floor of the parking area of the shopping center "Saargalerie" today, and found this pretty wind gauge on top. I liked the gauge against the nice sky, so I thought I should show you this today. =)

Marathon Day

Saarbrücken hosted its first marathon today.
More than 2000 runners took part in this big event following the track along the two banks of the river Saar and around the St. Johanner Markt, our market square (the picture was taken there).

I was there because a friend of mine was participating too, and guess what? He was 11th in the senior category (Haha, he's not even 40!!!).

Guarded...

This is the Saarbrücken synagogue at Beethovenplatz.
As you can see, 9/11 even had impact our little town here. Since then, the building is watched 24/7.
They used to have a team of two police officers guarding it, for a while now there's this big police bus standing in front of it.
(Even though I don't think there was an incident...)

3 in 1 Entrance

I found this weird house entrance yesterday very close to Landwehrplatz as well.

It looks run-down (the door, the hand-written number) and funky (the blue tiles) and classic (the nice pillars and cool stones) at once, that made me think it's worth an entry. =)

Fancy Fence

I saw this cute fence close to the Landwehrplatz today.
This is actually just a part of a loooong fence, about 40 metres, I guess.

The little beams that come out of it on top reminded me of the sun (which was very generous today by the way).

Underground Connection

This is probably the least inviting tunnel in whole Saarbrücken.
Why I show this thing to you?

Because I'm using this 'disgustoid' at least two times a day, since it is the connection of the east part of the train station and my residential area, the Rodenhof.
Officially people are even forbidden to go through it, but since it's a shortcut to the town, everybody does (of course!).

Glück auf!

Uh, I love nighttime pictures.
I was walking up the Bahnhofstrasse (our main shopping street downtown) towards the train station (that's on the right side of the picture... faaar back), and saw this pretty building. In front of it is a flat fountain in which I even found ducks swimming tonight. =)

The building used to be the headquarter of the local mine management, but was recently sold to ECE ProjektManagement, that probably want to turn it into a shopping mall (read more here in German).

You can imagine that hot discussions are going on at the moment... historical building vs. shopping mall!

PS: "Glück auf!" is the typical greeting of the mine workers, I guess I'd translate it with "good luck!". It's written at the bottom of the two figures at the top floor of the building (you can read it when you enlarge the picture).

Rediscovering a Park

Very close to my home, there is the Ludwigspark, a huge and relatively unattractive park normally only used for dogwalking and as a shortcut to the stadium, where all of our local football games are.

Saarbrücken now rebuilds the savaged park that had still bomb craters from the Second World War in it, with the help of the European Project SAUL (sustainable and accessible urban landscapes).
The park was originally formed in 1769 until 1791, when Prince Ludwig zu Nassau-Saarbrücken reigned. It was part of his summer residence and there was even a little castle in it. Unfortunately, both the castle and the garden were destroyed while the French Revolution in 1793, but 100 years later a park was built there and the castle was replaced with a secondary school in 1956.

However, our town now tries to rebuild the park, keeping a simple structure (you can see the new layout on the sign) but not forgetting about the historic background that will be explained to the visitors with engraved metal plates on the ground.

I'll send you a picture once they're finished, but as you can see on todays' picture that might take a while... =)

Shopping Crowd

In Germany, shops are usually open from 8 am to 8 pm from Monday until Saturday, Sunday everything is normally shut.

However this Sunday, all the downtown shops were opened from 1 pm to 6 pm, so everybody from Saarbrücken and the surrounding areas went into the centre, enjoying the beautiful weather and happily spending their money. =)
You'll always meet lots of French people shopping here, too. The border to France is only 6 km away, and there is no big town close, so many of them come to Saarbrücken.
It has gotten so much easier with the Euro now, the Germans go shopping in France and the French are shopping in Germany without changing their money. It's brilliant! =)

Sardines in a Tin

When I see those multi-storey buildings (I've grown up in a similar one, too) I'm always reminded of a tin. People packed like sardines in a concrete compostion of an endless number of flates that look exactly the same.

At least, the area this building is standing in is ok, it's in Saarbrücken-Rodenhof, one of our better neighbourhoods, and the building is not as run-down as many others you might find in less popular living areas here.

Church at Night

Since I've been out long tonight, you'll get to see a night-time picture of the Basilika St. Johann.
The church is right in the town centre and therefore quite prominent when go and sit in one of the many cafés here.

I managed to get some more information about the crane at the Saar as well, I'll add it to my Postcard of Saarbrücken-post.

Automedon

Today I took another picture at the campus of the university.

This huge metal sculpture is located between the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and the Leibniz-Institute for New Materials (INM).

Oswald Hiery (a sculptor from Saarland) created this work of art in 1993, and called it "Automedon" who originally was a greek waggon conductor.

"The theme is about the striving of man to generate movement with a lower-most amount of own energy. The striving for automatization is directed to all areas of man's life. That's why the figure is fitted with wheels as well as with wings and was set into a relaxing position." (-> via DFKI Site)

The statue is absolutely amazing, it's huge when you stand in front of it, it's so impressive!
If you want to read more about it, there was an article some time ago in a student's magazine (sorry, in German only).

PS: Sorry, I couldn't check for the eagle on the crane yet... tomorrow I'll go there again, I promise!

Postcard of Saarbrücken

No, don't worry, this is not a real postcard, I took the picture myself this afternoon.
With the nice sunshine today and the cool reflections on the water I do think that it COULD as well be a postcard. =)

In the front, you can see the historic crane with a golden eagle on top. I would say that it's one of the town's landmarks. It is positioned on the right bank of the Saar, and was used many years ago to unload cargo from ships.

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Thank you all for your comments on this post, and the big interest on the crane and especially on the eagle on top of it.
I have to admit that until now I couldn't get any information about the golden eagle.

The Saarkran was originally built on the bank of the river Saar in 1761 and is a tribute to the town's past as a trading centre. The crane was destroyed several times.
It was rebuilt from 1989 until 1991 using the remaining foundation. They rebuilt it after a historic drawing, which already had the golden eagle on top of the crane.

I'll try to find out more, but it doesn't look very promising...
Weird, you'd expect that the eagle would have more significance. (First, I thought it might be connected with the crest of the town or the federal country, but we only have lions...)

Dragon in the City

Finally! A nice day again, sunshine, happy people and... icecream! =)

Here's another detail from the Johanneskirche in the city centre, a grim dragon on the fence.
Hmm, actually he looks quite happy, doesn't he?

PS: The small gates you can see in the middle are the golden gates from my post on April 24th.

Couple in the Park

I love seeing elderly couples holding hands or - like here - linking their arms with each other. I love how even they are even walking in lockstep. =)
I saw this cute couple at the Staden, between the theatre (the yellow building in the background) and the Saar, enjoying the day (even though it's still quite cold here).