Published on X PRIZE Foundation (http://www.googlelunarxprize.org)
Highlights from Strasbourg
By wpomerantz
Created 05/18/2008 - 23:16

Though I've mainly been working this weekend, doing final preparations for the upcoming Google Lunar X PRIZE Team Summit [1], I did manage to have a little fun. For those of you who won't be able to join us--or who are planning very short trips, I wanted to share in a few of the highlights.

  • I was joined by the rest of the core Google Lunar X PRIZE Team--Brett, Becky, Mike, and Pierre-Damien--on Saturday. We celebrated with a lovely meal at a restaurant called Chez Yvonne [2], one of my favorites from my days as a student here. I was able to introduce the crew to several Alsacienne (Alsatian) specialties. The highlights for me were the Choucroute garnie a l'Alsacienne [3] and a nice bottle of Gewurztraminer [4]. I wouldn't exactly call the Head cheese [5] a highlight, but perhaps Brett would disagree [6].
  • I also enjoyed a nice meal on Saturday with our main point of contact at Universal Space Networks, [7] Jay. We had some great conversation over some nice tarte flambée [8]
  • Lest you think it was all food (and I haven't even mentioned the döner kebabs!), I'll mention that we enjoyed a very lovely trip on one of the Strasbourg boat tours. Some photos in the album below, hopefully video to come at some point
  • I used some photo stitching software (which I also mentioned in a blog post long ago [9]) to finally take some decent pictures of Strasbourg's awe-inspiring cathedral [10]. See two different versions in the Picasa Album below. I'm trying to get better at stitching, so comments are appreciated!
  • We returned to the Cathedral later on to escape a rain storm, and ended up catching a good portion of an organ recital. The music--several pieces by Olivier Messiaen [11], were a bit dissonant for my tastes, but certainly impressive, as was the instrument itself. Mike, the newest member of our team (and a great and fascinating guy) was a music major at MIT, and so we also got to learn a bit about Messiaen, which was cool.

We also filmed some short welcoming pieces which you'll see on YouTube eventually--along with those previously promised directions to help you get to ISU!

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Wish you were here...

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Source URL: http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/blogs/wpomerantz/highlights-from-strasbourg

Links:
[1] http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/2008-team-summit
[2] http://www.chez-yvonne.net/english/accueil.php
[3] http://www.alsace-terroir.com/recette-plats_choucroute_garnie_a_l_alsacienne-20.html
[4] http://www.alsace-terroir.com/article_consulte.php?idref=&id=35
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_cheese
[6] http://youtube.com/watch?v=YcR5NwdDjzA
[7] http://www.uspacenetwork.com/
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarte_flamb%C3%A9e
[9] http://www.xprize.org/blogs/wpomerantz/site-redesign-panoramics-and-robotic-arms
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasbourg_Cathedral
[11] http://www.oliviermessiaen.org/messiaen2index.htm
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