The Chris Cardé Experience

I'm here! Here is, if you haven't had the pleasure of hearing me spout off about my move, now Stuttgart. I'm amazingly lucky in that I have a kick-ass apartment right on the Marienplatz in Stuttgart-Süd. The location isn't tremendously remarkable in the overall Stuttgart scheme of things, but I'm just excited to be in the thick of a European city. Within a 60 second walk of my front door, there are several bars, restaurants, two grocery stores, a hotel, two drugstores, a subway (U-Bahn) stop, and I'm sure more goodies that I have yet to discover.

On to the pictures! Here's a teaser... click 'Read More' to see the rest!

This is [one of the] view[s] from the front of my apartment, towards Marienplatz. This photo was taken in that typical erie post-thunderstorm mid-evening light. It took some coaxing to convince my camera that the yellow tones in the shot were natural!

... you thought it was a goner
but the cam came back!
It just wouldn't stay away!
(sound familiar?)

Enjoy this scenic view of the Marienplatz in Stuttgart! Photos and more to come from my first week in Stuttgart. Stay tuned! Click on the cam image at right for a pop-up that auto-refreshes every two minutes. Yes, my friends, that's hassle free stalking right there!

Another week, another trip to Michigan -- or so it would seem, looking at my travel history this year. I just returned to San Francisco on Wednesday, yielding a grand total of 9 days and 8 nights for this trip.

It was, yet again, a lot of fun. I'm absolutely going to miss my frequent Detroit jaunts while in Germany! To prove that I didn't sit around and stare at my laptop all weekend (not implausible for those who know me), here's a shot of me standing in front of a small piece of Lake Michigan while in Traverse City, roughly described to be as being "up North" in Michigan terms. ;)

I'll leave you with a quote spotted in an anonymous engineer's cubicle at the company mothership: Arguing with an engineer is a lot like wrestling with a pig in the mud. After a few hours, you realize he likes it.

That's right... As of late May, I'll be [temporarily] closing out my life in San Francisco and moving to Stuttgart, Germany for a 6 month engineering rotation to Mercedes Technical Center. I'm excited! While this represents quite a tear-up to my comfy life and routine, the opportunity to spend 6 months in Europe was absolutely irresistible!

If you'll be in Germany (or even just Europe) this summer, let me know! If you need a place to crash in Stuttgart, I'm your hotel. (Note: while you'd think it would be obvious, it seems that it's necessary to point out that the previous two sentences apply to friends of mine and not random visitors to this site) And, if you're a friend of mine located in Europe, more likely than not I'll be showing up on your doorstep sometime this year.

Now that I'm back at home, rested, and have my eye [mostly] on the ball, I thought a pictorial wrap-up of the Peru trip would be in order. It helps that I've finally fixed up all of the image hosting on my new server, too. ;) So, without further ado, I present to you my April 2007 Backpacking Trip to Peru!

Click on any photo to see a larger version!

After much hype and hot air, I've finally moved carde.com (and all related services) to a managed shared hosting service. While the downside of this move is having to share your server with 50 of your closest friends (think of that line the next time you wait 10 seconds for a page to load), the upshot is that I can finally decommission voyager, my trusty server for the last 5 years. This spells the end of having to call my brother to drive to San Francisco to reboot voyager every time it crashes while I'm in Detroit or Germany. Without spilling the beans on my next post, allow me to simply intimate that this will be more of an issue over the next few months than it has been to-date.

... it´s been real!

My taxi to the airport should be arriving in a few minutes. Then, a short hop from Arequipa to Lima, where I have a 3 hour layover before a redeye to Houston. From Houston to Minneapolis early tomorrow morning, and then a triumphant return to San Francisco Saturday midafternoon. I expect to look somewhat like I went through a spin cycle in the dryer when I arrive!

Update - 9:45pm - Lima airport during my layover

Continental mercifully rebooked me on a direct Houston - San Fran flight. That shaves three hours off of my trip! Now, if I only hadn´t just surfed to the end of the internet here at the airport, I´d have something to do. My reading material ran out during the first week of the trip!

Now that I´m down to the last 24 hours of the trip, it seems that I´ve entered phase of travel where I shamelessly blow money. Today, I´ve purchased:

• Chocolate cake (ok, this was necessary)
• Coca candy (ostensibly necessary for the altitude)
• Touristy trinkets (had to have SOMETHING to remember the condors with since they flew by so fast!)
• Caipirinhas (after all, this is as close as I´m going to get to Brazil for quite some time)

Oh yeah, and I´m also paying off my tab from a full week living at The Point (my hostel here)... In case you´re interested, one week of living a pretty decent life at this hostel (breakfast, dinners, a single room, some drinks, snacks, water here and there) cost a grand total of $130. This is a very welcome change from vacationing in London where $130 gets you through half a day at best.