Majestic London

I'm actually running a day behind my original schedule due to timing issues with the two tours recently, so London has been cut short! My original purpose of the European whirlwind tour was to find the places I should spend time at, and I've done so with the likes of Florrence, Munich, Rome, etc. London also goes on that list. At least a week will be allocated for here, depending on budget, even more. 

Which brings me to my next point - cost. Wow, things are generally speaking very expensive. As an example, transport inner zone (eg not leaving central London) will cost you up to £7 a day. That's about NZ $15, and on another £5.80 (NZ $13) for transport to and from central London to the suburbs, and we are talking real money each day.

I've found that for decimal based currency (where they have cents), it's easier and the prices seen "right" when you ignore the exchange rate. This is seems like it might a good indicator of approximate salary, 2 times your NZ salary in London. That probably/definitely only applies with the big cities, I'm not sure but I imagine the cost of living in a small village is slightly lower :-D

First full day in London I went shirt shopping and have brought a very nice double cuff shirt from a Jerym St establishment. Fortunately I was able to find something not in the traditional white or blue colours that are something of a uniform around here. Though they've introduced Lavender for the more outrageous man (gasp!). My shirt is an interesting, almost silver appearance, comes from a bolder outfit with the unlikely moniker of "Pink".

Day 1 of London also brought along a visit to the London Science museum for their exhibition on Space. The cosmonaut special exhibit was interesting and it was nice to see the size of the Vostok capsule in real life. 

I also found a Cray supercomputer, something that should bring back memories for anyone in my generation or older.

Darmstadt

Darmstadt is just outside of Frankfurt, Germany, and is where ESOC is located. The town has labeled itself a technology city, with good reason, along with ESOC we saw many other well known, and lesser known, tech companies.

The town itself is beautiful though, in what I've almost come to expect from Germany there are beautiful cobblestone roads and squares in the centre. It's a mix of old and new that is done right. And the pub we went to for dinner was just delicious.

ESOC

So if CERN was like every other physics campus (but massively scaled up and with particle accelerators), then ESOC was like how I imagine space agencies should be. Very shiny and modern. Lots of glass, lots of new, lots of security.

Our host signed us in, and despite the very wet weather we had an awesome tour, getting to see many aspects of the place including the main control centre.

Each mission has its own small control centre once it's underway, but the main control centre is used for launch (and I think maybe significant phases such as landing). 

We were finally lucky enough to shop at their gift shop. Luckily, because the shop is not open to the public. I'm sporting a new ESA jacket and polo, as well as some other odds and ends. Too much an opportunity not to take up, can't find this online.