"...unless you sing."

Since all of my coworkers are going to be in Austria on a working vacation from today until Sunday, I finished work for the week yesterday and am now in the first day of a four day weekend. Leading up to this weekend, I saw this four day period as a tremendous opportunity to travel. I looked into a number of options, but for one reason or another it appeared that my best option would be to see all of the major landmarks in Darmstadt on Thursday, visit and explore Frankfurt on Friday, take a day trip to somewhere else (still to be determined) on Saturday, and see what happens on Sunday.

Because I would not be traveling very early in the morning today, I was able to play six on six soccer with a few of my coworkers and some of their friends last night. Not having played a competitive team sport since the spring of 2006, and not having played competitive soccer for a few years before that, my soccer skills were a little rusty, but things went well overall. I was definitely rusty and made a number of silly mistakes including a hard collision with an opponent (probably still closer to football mode), but I was eventually able to get into the groove and even score a goal. Everyone took the game seriously, but everyone was kind and patient with me and others. I had a lot of fun and look forward to doing this regularly for the duration of my stay.

A few weeks ago on one of my first trips to the city center, I picked up a free guide to the city, "Sights of Darmstadt", which had an indexed map of the city which marked and described in German and English the major landmarks in Darmstadt. My plan was to see as many as time and energy permitted. I ended up walking to around twenty landmarks and took a good number of pictures, so I will try to be as brief as possible.

I started off mid-morning with perfect weather at the Luisenplatz (here), which is considered the center of the city. I then checked out the Hessian State Museum (here and here), but couldn't get in. Next, I went to Herrngarten (here), which was laid out as garden in the 16th century. Right next to the Herrngarten was the Porcelain Collection in Prince Georg Palace, but I did not go inside and instead enjoyed the amazing view (here and here).

After that, it was a fairly long walk to the Waldenspirale, but it was well worth the effort. The Waldenspiral is one of the weirdest buildings I have ever seen and apparently contains 105 apartments. Here, here, and here are a few pictures of the building, the last of which was taken from a nearby parking garage. For a while I tried to find a way onto the roof of the building as it looked like a continuous garden from afar and would provide an excellent view of the city. Eventually, I found one, but I don't believe it was the intended path as it required jumping over two short fences and walking through thick brush (here). Needless to say, after I getting a decent picture from the roof (here), I departed as quickly (and safely) as I could.

I then took a long walk to the Technical University of Darmstadt (here) where I ate lunch in the cafeteria (here). On my way to the House of History (here) which I explored briefly, I snapped a picture of the Darmstatium building (here) where I attended a conference last week. My next stop was the Market Square (here) where I also took a picture of the White Tower (here) which is apparently the landmark of the city center. After that, I checked out the City Church, which is the big red building in this picture. Inside, I chanced across an orchestra practicing (here) and listened out of site for a while. They were very good.

While I had explored many of the cites previously mentioned (I've tried to cut out the details for the sake of brevity), at this point I was losing steam so for the remainder of the sites that will be mentioned, I merely appreciated them from the outside. After the City Church, I went to the Pedagogy (here), and then I checked out the Old City Museum (here) which was neat. Afterward, I stopped by the Jugendstilbad (here) and then the Church of St. Ludwig (here). Keeping with the religious sites, I checked out the New Synagogue (here) which was finished the year I was born. My last stop for exploring the city was the State Theater (here).

On the way home, I stopped by the grocery store in the mall and was pretty much exhausted. My feet hurt, my back and right knee were sore from soccer, and I was hungry. As I was slowly walking through the isles, a song came on the store's loudspeaker, one that I knew very well. It was "Sing" by Travis, and it literally stopped me in my tracks. As I stood there, frozen, listening to the lyrics, a line really struck me. It read, "For the love you bring won't mean a thing unless you sing."The point it made to me was that no matter where I go and no matter how many neat things I see, they will mean nothing if I cannot share them. While I don't know if that was what the singer was going for, I do know that it was a very powerful experience and that I hope to be able to share my experience as much as possible.