On Friday evening my flight took me from Hamburg to London, not with Ryanair from Lübeck, but with Easyjet directly to Luton, while Hanna left Berlin a bit earlier by Air Berlin to Stansted. Hamburg is a strange kind of airport, the departure lounge is some 600-800 m long and I had to walk the whole distance. Anyhow, at the end of the hall there is a moving walkway of about 20 m length, probably for people to rest just short of their breakdown or to pass the smokers’ cabin faster. This glass cabinet of about 2.5 by 2.5 m is really offering room for about six smokers, with eight people inside it would become difficult not to produce burn holes into each others clothing. It is interesting to watch people’s luggage, the foto is showing a particularly interestinhg piece, obviously made for people, who want to be sure to spot their luggage on the baggage belt.

Luton is a small and clearly laid out airport with fast passport control and baggage delivery and after a short ride on the shuttle bus you reach the station, from which a train took me to Farringdon in just over half an hour.

Farringdon is right in the middle of London City, the place where our hosts live, but it seems to be a hot spot for London night life: lots of slightly drunken people, a large contingent of police at the station. Somehow it has to be like this as lots of English people love the “Binge Drinking” and more or less go beyond their bonds.

Going on from Farringdon I past a shop called Kurz & Lang – the Bratwurst Company, which is specialised in fried sausagaes of all kinds served with bread and Sauerkraut, Just like an average London person would expect a cultivated German “Bratwurst” meal.

My walk led me further on to pass a wonderful Victorian market, interestingly one of the largest and most modern meat markets of Europe, the Smithfield Meat Market. In previous times hundreds of cattle were kept in huge underground quarters for sale and for slaughtering, now the cavements are used for cars and for dancing.

From this market it is not far to Little Britain, the road in which we are to live over the weekend. Across the the road from the flat there is a small park offering a kind of morbid place of interest: at some stage commemorative plaques have been installed remembering people who lost their lives trying to save other people.

Since our arrival everything is revolving around eating, talking and shopping. I am a pround owner of a new suit now.

This is the report an proof that I really worked in Toronto. For the organisation of the visit my thanks go to David Wolfe of the Munk Centre for International Studies and to Jen Nelles for her charming chaperonage.

David Wolfe

Jen Nelles

Tuesday, April 10

Innovation Synergy Centre in Markham

ISCM is a “Not for Profit” business advisory hub that was created to help accelerate the growth and development of firms with the objective of assisting grow their sales and employment base. Supported by the Town of Markham, The National Research Council and the Ontario Ministry of Innovation, ISCM business support is offered at no cost to the SME. These services include linking a company to a very experienced business mentor/advisor, workshops and training courses to inform companies about current business issues. ISCM also has a partnering initiative to link companies to other resources for testing and IP development such as Universities and colleges across Ontario.

Tour of IBM Toronto Software Lab (CAS)

Organized with the assistance of Knowledge Media Design Institute
As one of the largest IBM software development laboratories, the IBM Toronto Lab develops leading products for worldwide distribution in the areas of: application development tooling, application servers, database management software, electronic commerce applications, and systems management solutions. The IBM Toronto Lab is home to more than 2,000 employees from a diverse range of backgrounds and disciplines, with a dynamic mix of early career employees and experienced professionals. Over 70 percent of lab employees hold a degree with a major in computer science, engineering or mathematics, which highlights our technical expertise.

Wednesday, April 11

Toronto Region Research Alliance (TRRA)
TRRA is a results-oriented, non-profit organization dedicated to making the Toronto region a world-leading centre for research and research-intensive industry by: attracting new research-intensive companies to the region and working to expand those already here; building public and private research capacity; and enhancing the commercialization of research. Activities are focused in biotech/life sciences, information and communication technology, and advanced manufacturing and materials science. Its role is to act as a neutral convenor, facilitator, catalyst and advocate on issues and opportunities related to its R&D mission. TRRA provides dynamic, neutral leadership to help forge a regional consensus on strategic priorities.

MaRS Discovery District

MaRS (Medical and Related Sciences) is a convergence innovation centre dedicated to accelerating the commercialization of new ideas and new technologies by fostering the coming together of capital, science and business. Located in Toronto’s downtown “Discovery District,” MaRS sits at the epicentre of one of North America’s most concentrated clusters of biomedical research and expertise – literally steps from world-renowned teaching and research hospitals, the University of Toronto, Canada’s financial core and the Ontario legislature. MaRS was created in 2000 to capitalize on the research and innovation strengths of the Province of Ontario, and to position Canada for leadership in the highly competitive global innovation economy. MaRS is focused on helping Canadian innovators turn great ideas into great companies – and supporting those companies as they become global market leaders.

BioDiscovery Toronto

BioDiscovery Toronto is an organization linking nine of Toronto’s internationally recognized biomedical research institutions for the commercialization of research. It provides a one-stop shop for companies seeking break-through biomedical and related technologies and expertise.

Thursday, April 12

Ministry of Research and Innovation, Government of Ontario

City of Toronto Economic Development

After a journey of finally 22 hours we were safely back in Berlin. The flights as such were fine, but to get a cheaper ticket we had to settle for a planned stopover in London Heathrow, which turned out to be extended to 9 hours due to a strike at Berlin Tegel airport. To overcome jetlag the reclining seats in Terminal 3 however are quite useful!

As you might have noticed in the article on punks, I recently was in Dortmund for a project meeting. An as is usual for a project meeting, we spent the evening with a joint dinner. This time we were in a café bar in a Wilhelminian style quarter in Dortmund, the Swabedoo (link in German).

It is a very nice pub which offered a local beer which I did not know yet and which was quite good, the Hövels, which really reminded me of English ales. The food however was not that exciting, I have eaten much better food for sure. I always say that catering should either concentrate on being a restaurant or a pub, they mostly fail trying to be both. You should be careful, when you see a sign “Premiere Sportsbar” as this indicates that there you find people, which love beer, company or sports, but not necessarily food.

What I had ordered, did not sound too bad: Organic pork schnitzel with ratatouille, thyme potatoes and mushroom cream, where the mushroom cream was an extra 1,50 Euro and I was glad that I refrained from it. The plate was totally overloaded, apart from the ingredients on the menu there was a mixed salad on the plate which itself had the size of a starter. Unfortunately I am conditioned in such a way that I loose my appetite when the plate is overloaded. Potatoes and ratatouille were fine, unfortunatly the organic schnitzel was hard and tough and also much too big. I would not have missed the salad and liked a smaller but tender peace of meat and it would have been worth the same price. (To A.: sorry that I have to write this!).

I know that I am special with food, but I also have to say that most people from the international party left huge remains on their plates as well.

Toulouse of course does not just consist of horrible 70s buildings. A very beautiful example of an old building is the Saint-Sernin Basilica from the 11th/12th century with, according to my opinion with very moorish/Spanish elements. Clicking on the picture will open a gallery with images of my Toulouse visits (captions in German).

The last time I was in Toulouse (in November) we were put up in the Hotel le Président by our hosts. Nothing special, clean, simple and affordable. But it still has something special about it.
Clearly the hotel looks like being built in the and you might say that large parts look as original as being fit to be listed. The colour design and several details look so typical as  dedicated to serving for kind of lecture material. Just take a look at the red door handle combined with the yellow door frame and the matching light switch which certainly seemed absolutely modern and futuristic at the time of construction.

A very special and typical detail of the time are the special music equipments fitted to the rooms at those times, to deliver radio programmes to the rooms with these special machines. Radio clocks were certainly quite expensive in those times. And then there was the danger that guests would just nick those items. Of course the equipment does not work any longer, it just is a decoration.

Particularly beautiful and well done is the coulour design with two different yellow shades for lamp and wall combinded with heavy curtains kept completely in orange.

Of course the hotel did not have a suitable internet connection, as there was no such thing in the 1970s. Even if the rooms were redecorated in the 1990s, the beds are definitively not from the 1970s and they fitted phones at that time which look a little bit more modern.

To dispatch something urgently, I went to an Internet café for the first time in my life. And this even had a good price/value relation. Ordering a Coke for a price of 2,50 € I could use the WLAN for an hour. You certainly cannot complain about that!

Well, then I want to show the awakening of spring from Toulouse as well. Spring is a bit farther here of course!

The only drawback is that one could have matched the colour of the house to the tree. Or the other way round.

In the meantime I got access to the net in Hamburg as well (thanks to a neighbour opening his WLAN for me). Therefore I am able to experiment a bit and included a plugin for foto galleries (myGallery and Lightbox).

To start with I created a Gallery with further images from England (captions in German). Check the right side of the image with your mouse to choose the next image.

Meanwhile I am conditioned to watch the net in such a way that, when I saw this shop in Sheringham, I thought, oh well here Firefox, Opera, Camino, Safari, yes, even Internet Explorer are invited to enter the shop.

I am certainly influenced by the net!

When we left Sheringham, on the other side of the road you could see the train engine Thomas, which left the station in  the opposite direction with a lot of steam.  Those not knowing Thomas should watch the children’s series produced by the BBC.

To watch then also was the motto of the boys as arriving in London (this time at Liverpool Street King’s Cross (Note. Axel). We went to see the architecture of St. Pancra’s Station. Even if Michael said he was not really interested in railways I found a lot of books at his place covering this topic.

On Monday we managed to get through Oxford Street in spite of a lot of rain and wind, but the offers in the shops did not suit my taste and even less so my purse. We then spent the evening with a sandwich and Visconti’s Il Gattopardo.

Even more than on the day before I realised that Berlin is not more than a village. I roamed in the areas of Liverpool Street at lunchtime an found out that people do not walk but run and to safely cross the street a group formed at every corner. A wonder in these crowds are small, but well-kept miniature parks as Finsbury Circle, where you find wonderful, fully blossowing camelias in many colours. Their flowers are much larger than thos of hibiscus or clematis, they really are admirable exotic beauties.

Plants are further than in Berlin not changed by the snow during the week before, England’s climate facilitates an earlier spring. Tomorrow I will try to go to the Museum of London or towards St. Paul’s. And in the evening I will get back to my beloved small BERLIN, MEANING GOING HOME.