Wiesbaden Hauptbahnhof (Central Station), Germany - 24 JAN 2011

Tinky Winky was jet lagged and refused to leave the room, yesterday. But today, he's back to helping me site-see. TW tried to help me figure out the parking meter, but 30 minutes for .50 Euro was the most we could decipher.
We walked down to the mall to purchase a Handy (disposable cell phone) which was located next to this train station (Hauptbahnhof):


The clock looks like it has been replaced:
Opened in 1906, it's now going through it's second major renovation. When you walk through the main entrance and turn around, the next two images are over head:
They are covered in netting; I'm not sure if it's to protect them from birds, the construction or to protect people if they crumble. There was other statuary that had those spikes they put on billboards to keep the birds off.
TW likes it when things have images not words: At first glance, this block reminds you of New York City with seven brownstones built together with adjoining walls...
But, check out the details on these buildings:
Just on the side walk, not in front of any store, is this cigarette vending machine:
Some interesting balcony iron work:
I liked this artistic arch-way in front of a Salon:
It's hard to drive around town when when you're a slow reader:
Speaking of driving...this is the entrance to the hotel parking...about the same size as the entrance to the moat at Fort Monroe (MvAdler.com 12/01/2010
):This is the view upon driving in:
That was the whole lot...this is the view from the far corner:
It has car lifts (like in NYC) which hold five cars above and five cars below plus an additional six cars in the lot...that's it, 16 cars total!

Wiesbaden, Germany – 23 JAN 2011

I have arrived at Wiesbaden, Germany...this is my hotel (the Best Western): This is an interesting building across the street:
I drove over to the Army Airfield to find the Gate I'm to meet my contact at, in the morning...and of course I took a wrong turn and found this:
This was part of a series of watchtowers built in the late 15th Century.
When I got back to the hotel, I walked around and found these sights:
Grease...and it's not called Fett?
That looks more like it...
This is on top of a Museum a block from my hotel:
And this is part of the sidewalk:
This is the side of the Museum:
Everything just looks photogenic in a foreign country.

National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC – 08 JAN 2011

As much as I like checking out the current exhibits at the National Portrait Gallery…I am drawn to this image…
I could spend an entire day sitting and watching people interact with this image: Among the Sierra Nevada, California. Painted by Albert Bierstadt in Rome it was displayed in Berlin and London before shipped to the US. Called a fictional landscape, it helped fuel Europeans’ interest in emigration in the late 1800’s. Bierstadt sometimes changed details of a landscape to inspire awe. And this is what this painting does. I like how it is displayed...in it’s own room with a bench to stop and breath-in the view. I like the curtain archway and the image around the image…all the different compositions the viewers help to create. Like quantum physics, the act of viewing changes the results.I later compiled this video: Interacting with Among The Sierra