we did a short trip to pyramid island, a small island on pyramid lake. it features a path for a short walk, with beautiful views on the lake. a squirrel was there, too.

patricia lake.

we stayed in some bungalows near to lake patricia. here are some impressions from the lake:

wildlife.

during our stay in jasper, we also encountered some wildlife besides to the wulf and the mountain goats we saw on the trip here:

last weekend, i visited jasper a second time; this time with a couple of coworkers, to have a few days of vacation. last thursday, we drove up the icefields parkway to jasper. here are some impressions from the drive:

last week, we visit the borsberg artificial ruin in pillnitz, dresden. we were lucky, the weather was mostly good, and we managed to return just before a thunderstorm went off. here are some impressions:

in case you’re more interested in the ruin, and understand german, you might want to read this article.

last week, i was in zürich, visiting my phd advisor, as well as my friends there. on friday, the math institute did an excursion to the rheinau abbey. here are some impressions from the abbey (not from inside though, as photographing was forbidden in there) and the walk afterwards at the rhine knee.

during end of may, i attended a conference held in the beautiful city of leuven, belgium. the conference was held at the arenberg castle, located in a beautiful park. here are some impressions:

the arenberg castle and its park.

leuven by night.

these photos are impressions from a city tour we had one night.

leuven by day.

here are some more impressions of leuven taken during the free afternoon.

last weekend, i was in banff. again. this time, i attended a weekend conference at the birs, the alberta number theory days. since it was just a short visit, there wasn’t much time to look around. nonetheless, here are some impressions from the banff centre and its surroundings. note that the lightening conditions weren’t very good as i took the photos in the evening.

the deer was grazing on the banff centre grounds; one sees “wild” animals roaming around there rather often. they tend to pretty much ignore humans, but you shouldn’t feed or touch them. one morning, i could see an elk walking around from my room’s window. i don’t have a photo of it, though.

a few days ago, we happened to be in berlin for a few hours. we did a small touristy tour and visited some famous places. here are some impressions.

railway, power and memory.

we started at the central railway station, crossed the spree and walked up to the german chancellery and the reichstag, and continued to the holocaust memorial.

global stone project.

after that, we continued into the direction of the tiergarten and found the global stone project.

tiergarten, composers and the soviet war memorial.

we continued through the tiergarten, were we saw, among a lot of beautiful nature, a memorial for beethoven, haydn and mozart and the soviet war memorial.

trash.

besides beautiful nature, the tiergarten also features: trash. both “real” trash, as well as intellectual trash (see the bench’s inscriptions).

the memorial church.

our trip ended at the memorial church, which was bombed during the second world war and not rebuild. unfortunately, they build a modern version of the church right next to it, which blocks the view on the old one and, in my opionion, is not exactly beautiful.

it is also possible to enter the ground floor of the ruins of the old church.

helsinki.

after the stay in rovaniemi, we took the train back to helsinki and stayed a few days there as well. besides a concert of moonsorrow and korpiklaani, we visited some churches: the uspenski cathedral, the helsingin tuomiokirkko, as well as the temppeliaukio church. we were extremely happy to visit the temppeliaukio church when it was almost empty, which is apparently very unusual.

frozen harbor.

even though it was raining and the snow was melting, there was a lot of ice left in the harbor and rivers. here is a small impression of its beauty:

and here are some more pictures from the harbor area:

the sibelius monument.

we also visited the sibelius monument, a beautiful piece of modern art dedicated to the finnish composer jean sibelius. enjoy some impressions:

in march, we did a trip to finland, mostly to lappland.

riding a train up to rovaniemi.

starting in helsinki, we took a train up to rovaniemi. then, we took a bus to vikajärvi, a small municipal around 30 km north-east of rovaniemi.

staying in vikajärvi.

we stayed in a cottage right next to lake vikajärvi:

we had a lot of very soft, powdery snow there. enjoy some pictures of the cottage and its surroundings:

a night in vikajärvi.

here are some night photos, shot from the cottage to the outside. during daylight time, we never saw any animal, except birds somewhere in the sky. during night, we didn’t saw any animal as well, but we heard treacherous crackle from the surrounding woods and saw tracks of smaller and larger animals in the morning. for these reasons, we never really left the cottage during night.

we also had a good view on the moon:

a short visit to rovaniemi.

after a long stay in the cottage, we spend a few days in rovaniemi. we visited the artikum. the historic train is situated next to the railway station, and the last strange photo is from the lamp in our hotel room.