Weimar trip

A year ago I had a chance to go with undergraduate students to so-called field trip. The reason was to see and to get acquainted with alternative sources of energy. The company consisted from that Bachelor students, teachers and some guys from our lab.


Honestly said, I do not remember where we were, but I remember that I have tried to memorize all the details as I supposed that I will write a post about this trip. And, you see, I get ready only a year after. Now I will try to call my mind and tell about this wonderful time spending.

So we were picked up by bus in Gottingen in early morning. As I arranged this trip with Viola, I was always with her. And I really liked to be with her! So we take a road to the south, to more "mountained" places.

The first stop was in the village Ernstroda which has a farm. This farm has own production of cheese, meat and something like that. They also developed the system with biogas production from manure. So here we had an excursion to biogas digesters and the most impressive place was a pool with fermented shit. These fermented shit is also used for fertilisation. So, as the result this village can cover their electricity demands as well as food demands. We had a breakfast here, the little store was so cute with their home food. Also I noticed that they sold some other products not like in Gottingen. Viola said that this was East Germany, that's why they have another set of products in the store.

Biogas Digesters

Me an shit pool)

Then we went to Luisenthal Thuringer Fernwasserversorgung. It is located in very beautiful place among the hills in Thuringer wald. To me it was surprising to find a lot of snow there. Indeed, it was fun for my friends from lab as they have never seen the snow. Anyway it was fun to me, too, we played there like little children. :)

Happy children

This water cleaning center

the control point (I have never seen such plants and it was so amazing to see inside.) 

I still do not know what this bird means. I have seen it in Gottingen as well as here, in Thuringen

Afterwards, we went to an ideal plaint valley! This was not so far away, that wonders me - how such different landscapes can be near to each other! Here we saw a huge underground lab with lysiometers (shame on me, I had seen and had heard them for the first time there). This project holding for enough long time really impressed me. Also we saw a soil profile. Unfortunately, a teacher told only in German, that's why we did not understand anything about that soil... It was sooo cold there and we really wanted to and drink something warm...

It was sooo cold and this clay soil was so wet...

And finally we went to Weimar hostel for overnight staying. The hostel was pretty nice! Can you believe that students were not so tired and they were drinking and singing via playing guitar... We decided that we are too old and went to sleep)) I suggested to watch a movie and Deejay answered, "Horror, Aliia" which sounded as horror Aliia))) All in all, internet was not working and we went to sleep...

The next day our trip must had been started from Buchenwald concentration camp. But because of the time lack we did not visit it. So the next stop was in Jena Uni where a little plant produces alternative energy burning a straw. They use pyrolisis technique in order to have an effective energy yield and less greenhouse gases output. The first impression of Jena was like I were in usual russian city - the same 5-stairs houses.

a lot of straw!

Then we went to experimental field with little forest. The idea is to sequestrate Carbon by growing trees and cutting their higher part to have fixed carbon in the root system. Students listened to the talk in German, we were playing and making fun as usual)

Foggy day

The next stop was very cute city. Unfortunately, I do not remember it's name.. So it has two parts: one is located in the hill with a park having houses in different styles (I remember only barocco) and the second is located at the bottom of this hill (honestly said this hill seems to be a river terraсe) and near to the river. And this river falls into two rivers and combines back. Very picturesque  place.

On the top of this hill

Can you see that island surrounded by river?

Barocco house

 The next stop was a plant getting energy from wood. They also burn it in special way. They have a greenhouse with vegetables. But, unfortunately, they did not allow us to see that greenhouse being afraid of introduce illnesses to plants.

Wood is going to be cut...

wood schreding- they use this for energy obtaining

I guess this was the last stop in our excursion. Two days of fruitful time spending!

Thank you so much, guys!

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This post was so difficult to write because I tried to remember the things which I have really forgotten. And you see I am trying to follow my dreams and I have started to write my post in English! I am really proud of that! This will help me to train my writing abilities! I hope it is understandable!!!