Alpha Core

We went to see the Queen Mary 2 leaving the harbor of Hamburg (Germany) at 8:30 p.m. (CEST) on August 15, 2009. Here are some impressions taken from one of the accompanying boats:

We went for a short bike tour near Moorfleet (Hamburg). Here are some impressions:

Below is a movie we took in Oevelgönne of the Queen Mary 2 arriving in the harbor of Hamburg (Germany) shortly after midnight on July 30, 2008 while some other, smaller ships are passing by and welcoming her with their horn. The Queen Mary 2 replies with the most impressive one though. Too bad it was so dark that we couldn’t take any good pictures.

During the Hamburg Cruise Days (from July 30 until August 3), there’s also some other great ships to see in the harbor aside from the Queen Mary 2. Check out the website for an impression.

(Source of the picture)

On July 22 a new feature got added to Google Maps, making it even better: walking directions. This was announced on the Google Earth and Maps team blog. Here are two pictures showing the difference between driving and walking from the city center of Leuven to the train station.

For those who don’t know Leuven really well: it’s a maze of one-way streets and as a visitor, you’re probably better off just taking the outer ring around the city if you’re by car. But fortunately, if you feel like walking around, you can ignore all these one-way streets and find the best route thanks to this new feature. It only works for routes under 10 km though.

Claiming that you know a lot about geography? Then prove it! Here’s the game Know Your World, as found on Flabber a while ago. You get the name of a city or famous place and the country and then you have to pinpoint it to the map as quickly as possible. The closer you click to where it actually is, the more points you get. Easy enough, huh? Great game and even I (ahum) learned something from it.

Daniel Unger from Germany is the male winner of the Triathlon World Championships.

The triathlon took place in the city center of Hamburg and is therefore also known as the ‘Hamburg City Man’. The starters for the world championship had to swim 1.5 km in the 17 °C cold Binnenalster, afterwards quickly jump onto their bikes to cycle 40 km through the city center and at last change into running shoes and run over a distance of 10 km. Unger succeeded to leave the other starters behind himself and finished in a time of 1 hour 43 minutes and 18 seconds, which secured him the gold medal. Javier Gomez (Spain) won the silver medal (01:43:22 +00:00:04) and Brad Kahlefeldt (Australia) won the bronze medal (01:43:36 +00:00:18).

The female winner of the Triathlon World Championships is Vanessa Fernandes (Portugal), who finished in 1 hour 53 minutes and 27 seconds. Emma Snowsill (Australia) won the silver medal (01:54:31 +00:01:04) and Laura Bennett (USA) won the bronze medal (01:54:37 +00:01:10).