Optics and Exposure

Today was a day full of walking. We left the hotel at 9am, returned at 9pm, and spent probably 10 of those 12 hours on our feet, either walking or standing. But it was worth it.
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I’m afraid there isn’t much to tell about today.  I’ll start off this post with a photo from yesterday that didn’t make it up.  This panoramic shot is of Old Town Square.  At the left edge, just right of the garden, is the famous baroque St. Nicholas Church.  For a very boring account of my day (which ended at a brewery), read on…

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So, it seems my photo blog has become just a travel photo blog. But, no matter, that’s the only time I’ve got something interesting to say. Today I arrived in Prague for the start of my first European trip, two weeks split between here and Vienna. Boy, am I excited. I may be in Prague to attend the 2011 ICASSP conference, but that doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy my spare time while I’m here. Best part of the trip, though, is that Lauren is making her way out here towards the end of the conference, and we’re heading up to Vienna to spend a week with my uncle Andy and his wife, Uta.

But, enough about what’s coming up, back to today.    After flying to Sydney twice and Taiwan once in the past three years, my first trans-atlantic flight was a walk in the park (despite the additional 3 hours laid over in Paris). I landed in Prague at 1pm local time and quickly showered. I got a room in a boutique hotel about 4 blocks south of Wenceslas Square. The reviews were pretty positive for this hotel, but I’m more impressed than I expected. It’s not a 5-star hotel, but it’s really good for the 55 euros a night I’m paying. Continue reading

On my last full day in Sydney, I took a walk to the Royal Botanical Gardens. It’s a large, public park with plenty of open green spaces and plant life from across the world. It really is quite a sight to see. My favorite part is the signage at each entrance which proclaims: “Please walk on the grass.” Last time I was here, with Jennifer and Jessica, we noticed an annoying noise from up high that we couldn’t quite place. When we looked up the trees didn’t look right, but we couldn’t really tell what it was until we got close and realized they were bats. The trees were infested with hundreds, maybe thousands, of bats. We were a little annoyed, but figured it was just a seasonal thing and that we had showed up at a bad time. After a little walking, we saw a guy with a tripod and video camera out…it turns out that he was a reporter from Time doing a story on the bats, and the damage they were causing. So he interviewed the girls (I decided to stay off camera, no reason to ruin a good shot) for a few minutes. We completely forgot about it until Jennifer sent me a link…the guy had finished his story and posted a video. I was going to embed it here, but apparently the video is no longer available from TIME. Instead, you’ll have to be satisfied with this photo I took of the interview (it’s in the gallery below). You can see some of the bats in the gallery below. Apparently the gardens had tried several non-lethal means to convince the bats to leave (they’re Gray-Headed Flying Foxes, a member of the Endangered Species List), and were recently granted approval to use noisemakers to try to make the 22,000 bats leave. Judging from my experience last week, it hasn’t worked. Continue reading

On Tuesday, I had some free time between sessions, so I walked over to Darling Harbor, on the Western edge of downtown Sydney. There are a few museums (National Maritime, and Power), an aquarium and wildlife preserve, a shopping center, and a slew of waterfront cafe’s and restaurants. None of the shops were open yet, so it was pleasantly quiet there, just me and a few groups of students going to the museums. Later that evening, I walked downtown to take a photo of the Opera House and Harbor bridge.

Wednesday was a quiet day, but for dinner I went on a mission. Continue reading