Gibraltar itself represents a geographical and political anomaly, a British Overseas Territory situated on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, just across the Strait of Gibraltar from Morocco. As we drove closer, the landscape transformed completely, and soon we could see what defines the entire region: the Rock of Gibraltar towering massively above everything else, its limestone bulk rising over 400 metres above sea level.

First Glimpse: Europa Point and the Southern Edge

Our initial stop was Europa Point, the southernmost tip of Gibraltar, a flat, rocky headland that marks the boundary between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The point gets its name from the mythological figure Europa.

Near Europa Point sits Gorham’s Cave Complex, a cluster of archaeological sites. The complex consists of caves situated at sea level, each containing archaeological and palaeontological deposits spanning over 100,000 years of Neanderthal occupation. In 2016, this site received UNESCO World Heritage status, earning its designation because of the exceptional evidence it holds about how Neanderthals lived. We tried making a spontaneous visit, only to be turned away as the site operates on an extremely restricted access system, with a three-year waiting list to gain entry for serious visitors. The limited access, while unfortunate for us, reflects the delicate nature of these sites, where any uncontrolled traffic would risk disturbing irreplaceable scientific evidence.

The Monkeys on the Mountain: Encounters with Barbary Macaques

As we ventured toward St Michael’s Cave, ascending the winding paths through the Upper Rock Nature Reserve, we began encountering the Rock’s most famous residents: the Barbary macaques. They represent Europe’s only free-living wild monkey population.

Tourists constantly attempted to feed them, despite clear warnings. The animals have learned to exploit this human generosity, demonstrating remarkable problem-solving by unzipping bags and rifling through pockets in search of food.

The Cathedral Beneath the Rock: St Michael’s Cave

The path to St Michael’s Cave climbs steeply on a well-paved road for thirty minutes before reaching the entrance. Several lookout points along the way made the walk up less of a grind.

The cave system itself is a network of interconnected chambers carved over millions of years by rainwater slowly percolating through limestone. Today, the largest chamber functions as a space for hosted concerts, theatrical productions, and opera performances. The cave derives much of its visual drama from its extensive formations of stalactites and stalagmites – mineral-rich water dripping from the ceiling deposits layer upon layer of dissolved rock, gradually building downward from the roof while simultaneously building upward from the floor. Some stalactites hang like pale icicles; others have fused with stalagmites rising to meet them, creating continuous columns of mineral deposit.

The name derives from a similar grotto in Monte Gargano, Italy, where – according to Catholic tradition – the Archangel Michael made an appearance. This connection explains why the cave carries religious significance despite being fundamentally a geological formation rather than a sacred site in the traditional sense.

An installation called “The Awakening,” a light and sound show, transformed the cave into an additional cultural experience. Within this light installation appears an ethereal figure – an angel formed by the projection mapping technology and the natural rock formations.

A Short Stay

Despite the natural and historical richness of what Gibraltar offers, we didn’t linger longer than a few hours. Tourism in Gibraltar often works this way – the territory is small, and its main attractions cluster around the Rock. Many visitors arrive on day trips from southern Spain, explore the key sites, and then depart. We were no different. We faced a 4.5-hour drive toward Granada, leaving Gibraltar behind and transitioning into the landscapes of inland Andalusia.

See more of Gibraltar here

Duisburg

This is a walkable rollercoaster! Its only purpose is as an art installation for city beautification. The track is a walkway with stairs, but the loop is off limits.

Next door is a nuclear plant though. Makes me a little nervous after watching that HBO show about Chernobyl.

Arnhem

Now we’re back in the Netherlands, in the city of Arnhem. During Operation Market Garden in World War II, the western Allies attempted invading Germany through the Netherlands. Allied soldiers (mostly British) attempted to secure key bridges throughout the country; one of which was in Arnhem. The operation ended in disaster, and the Allies failed to advance in to Germany.

The John Frost bridge was constructed on the same location as the old bridge that was destroyed by bombings after Operation Market Garden. John Frost was the leader of the group of British paratroopers that actually arrived at the bridge during the battle. The Airborne Museum in Arnhem is dedicated to the Battle of Arnhem, but it was closed for renovations (out of all the war related museums we went to on this trip so far, most of them ended up being closed…). The city centre itself has the same vibes as other cities in the Netherlands.

Our day was shorter because of our flight, but our next destination gets even more exciting: Israel, Palestine and Jordan.

• Duisburg
• Arnhem

1. Install Docker on your machine
2. Get a Docker image for a CS 1.6 server (I created this one, which is based off of an existing one. Mine has:
   • A lot of maps
   • Metamod
   • AMXModX (with high ping kicker, podbot control menu, round money, rock the vote, and admin all in one)
   • Podbot
3. Customise the server (e.g. editing the server.cfg, amxx.cfg, and other config files, etc.)
4. Start it up! (the README.md in the above linked Git repos has more info on this)

As far as ports go, I only needed to forward 27015 on my machine, but your mileage may vary. Others have reported that some more ports must also be forwarded on some machines.

Then optionally, if you’re running Ubuntu and you want this server to start up like a service via systemd, you’ll need this:

1. An executable script with path /usr/local/bin/hlds with contents (make sure the DIR variable matches your installation directory):

#!/bin/sh

# Do not change this path
PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin

# The path to the game you want to host. example = /home/newuser/dod
DIR=/opt/cs-16-server/bin
DAEMON=./server

start()
{
    echo  -n "Starting HLDS"
    if [ -e $DIR ]; then
        cd $DIR
        $DAEMON start
    else
        echo "No such directory: $DIR!"
    fi
}

stop()
{
    echo -n "Stopping HLDS"
    if [ -e $DIR ]; then
        cd $DIR
        $DAEMON stop
    else
        echo "No such directory: $DIR!"
    fi
}

reload()
{
    echo -n "Restarting HLDS"
    stop
    sleep 1
    start
}

case "$1" in
    start|stop|reload)
        "$1"
        ;;
    *)
        echo  "Usage: $ 0 {start | stop | reload | status}"
        exit  1
        ;;
esac

exit  0

2. A script with path /etc/systemd/system/hlds.service with contents:

[Unit]
Description=HLDS

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/hlds start
ExecStop=/usr/local/bin/hlds stop
ExecReload=/usr/local/bin/hlds reload
RemainAfterExit=yes

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

3. Then execute:

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable hlds
service hlds start

Feel free to check out my server that’s running right now with the same Docker image! Here’s the command to connect via the console.

connect henrypoon.com:27015

Someone told me that the pastries were really good, and they were totally correct!!

This is the Danish Parliament building. They also allow a small number of people to go up to the top of that tower for free!! We did have to wait for about 20 minutes though, but I think that was a not so well known destination.

Everybody says that Nyhavn is a must-see destination. It’s definitely gorgeous, but everything around here is super pricey!!

Amalienborg is the home of the Danish royal family. Sometimes people see the Crown Prince of Denmark going in an out of the palace dressed like a normal person. The building with the dome at the back is the Marble Church.

These palace guards walked right by me!! Can’t imagine wearing the full uniform on a blazing hot day…

Next up, was a chill bike ride around the city going at a slow 10 km/h. The weather really cooperated with us! It was a weird change going from wearing a full bicycle kit while riding my roadbike to wearing street clothes and riding this commuter with a basket on top…

Randomly stumbled upon this really cool looking fountain, known as Gefionspringvandet.

We rode through this old school star-shaped fortress that has been turned into a nice greenspace!

North of there was the Little Mermaid statue that everybody talks about. Everybody says it’s a must-see attraction, but the most underwhelming. They make it look so big in the pictures but in reality it’s tiny.

We rode past a military installation and saw this interesting sign… They’re really up to date with this drone stuff.

I was in Copenhagen around the same time as Chester Bennington from Linkin Park passed away. He even left a mark on the people in Copenhagen.

There’s a reason why people say Copenhagen is the bike capital of the world.

The white buildings in the distance is Paper Island – a hipster place to hang out and eat food.

It’s so busy here…

To my surprise, I found an ostrich burger… It definitely had a light taste. I’ve heard it tastes a lot like beef, but I didn’t get that impression.

Next, we went to Freetown Christiania – an area that the people there self proclaim as autonomous. The area was formed by squatters on land used by the military. Today it is a kind of like area where the police in Copenhagen don’t really enforce their jurisdiction (although they can), and it is governed by the people who belong to that community who have created their own rules. All the houses have graffiti on them, the paint on the walls is slowly flaking off, and every house has tons of advertisement posters painted on them. The people in the community are either hobos or hippies and sometimes it’s hard to tell which – and they’re probably all high as a kite. If you’re looking for a wild party, you’ll probably find it here. It’s a shame that I wasn’t allowed to take photos inside.

Inside the city hall, there is an astronomical clock. The fastest gear completes a revolution every ten seconds and the slowest every 25,753 years. I have no idea what kind of information it shows, but I can appreciate the mechanisms as someone who studied mechanical engineering!

This was probably the best meal on the entire trip. A sampler of the most Danish food ever at Skindbuksen. When we went in, we were the only people inside who looked like tourists and everybody else looked local, which was a good sign, but we stood out. The owner of the restaurant came by with a giant plate of delicious food and loudly said to us, “this is what we eat in Denmark, you should try this!”. For a brief moment, our interaction with him gathered the attention of the entire restaurant, while it felt like all the locals were just judging us tourists… It was a tad awkward. BUT the food was absolutely delicious. There was pickled herring, deep fried fish filet, smoked salmon, roasted pork, and pork filet! The other tables were looking at our food with jealousy.

At the bar in our hostel, we met someone who was working in Silicon Valley as a software engineer who happened to be working and travelling. She told me she graduated at UC Berkeley and so I asked her if she had seen the Amazon store there (this). She told me how awesome it was to have something like that there and to her surprise, I revealed that I am actually one of the engineers who worked on it!

That’s it for Copenhagen!

Photo album: Copenhagen

• Self hosted installations allow greater control over what plugins the blog uses, what domain name to use, monetization, among other things
• The cost is the added time required to tweak to do the setup and customisation

After I chose to switch to the self-hosted installation, I faced the problem of having to migrate all of my content, site stats, and followers.  I also had to set up proper URL redirection to the new website.  Most of the guides I read did answer how to migrate content, and set up URL redirects, but it was not so clear as to how to migrate my site stats and followers.

Content Migration

For migrating content, the WordPress.com blog allows exporting blog content into a file to be imported into the new WordPress installation.  Steps 1 to 3 in this guide illustrate the process: http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-properly-move-your-blog-from-wordpress-com-to-wordpress-org/

Migrating Site Stats and Followers

Migrating site stats and followers requires installing the Jetpack addon and linking it to the WordPress.com account (so that the self-hosted WP and the existing WP blog are connected).  Afterward, a support thread has to be made on WordPress.com to ask WP staff to do the rest of the migration (there seems to be no other way).  I found the information on how to do this at this site: http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/161633/migrating-stats-from-wordpress-com-blog-to-self-hosted-wordpress-org-blog.  The post I made for my own site migration is here.

Setting Up URL Redirection

This part costs money unfortunately.  I paid ~$17 CAD for this so that my own URL would be redirected for the new one.  If redirection isn’t required, then there is no need to buy anything.  The setup is pretty straight forward.  After buying the redirect, it is just a matter of setting the destination WordPress site to go to.  Reference link here: https://en.support.wordpress.com/site-redirect/

My computer specifications:

• Intel Core i5-4570
• 16 GB Memory
• Radeon HD 5770

I followed the instructions here, with these changes:

• Using video driver “fglrx-updates” (the tutorial talks about NVIDIA cards)
• Did not install TuxLoL
• Did not do anything regarding the “Maestro error” since it only applies to Optimus Notebook users
• Did not follow step 6 because I did not run into the problem for big item icon text for the item shop
• EDIT: Thanks to Ingvar’s comment, the installation progress for the game can be viewed like so: open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and execute:

tail -f ~/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/LeagueOfLegends/drive_c/Riot\ Games/League\ of\ Legends/Logs/Patcher\ Logs/*.log

There are also other steps that I had to do, which I read from here:

• Click configure for the “League of Legends” entry in “PlayOnLinux” and find the “Display” tab and then choose the following options:
  • Direct Draw Renderer – gdi
  • Video memory size – 4096 (or something else depending on graphics card)
  • Offscreen rendering mode – fbo\0
  • Everything else on default
• Create a file called “game.cfg” in the directory “/home/your-username-here/PlayOnLinux’s virtual drives/LeagueOfLegends/drive_c/Riot Games/League of Legends/Config”. Below is what I have in my “game.cfg”:

[General]
EnableAudio=1
GameMouseSpeed=10
UserSetResolution=1
BindSysKeys=0
SnapCameraOnRespawn=0
OSXMouseAcceleration=1
AutoAcquireTarget=0
EnableLightFx=0
WindowMode=0
ShowTurretRangeIndicators=0
PredictMovement=0
WaitForVerticalSync=0
Colors=32
Height=1080
Width=1920
SystemMouseSpeed=0
CfgVersion=5.3.296
x3d_platform=1

[HUD]
CameraLockMode=0
MiddleClickDragScrollEnabled=0
KeyboardScrollSpeed=0.5000
ChatScale=50
ObjectTooltips=0
AutoDisplayTarget=0
ShowAllChannelChat=1
ShowTimestamps=1
ItemShopPrevY=39
ItemShopPrevX=106
NameTagDisplay=1
ShowChampionIndicator=0
ShowSummonerNames=1
ScrollSmoothingEnabled=0
MiddleMouseScrollSpeed=0.5000
MapScrollSpeed=0.5000
ShowAttackRadius=0
NumericCooldownFormat=1
SmartCastOnKeyRelease=0
EnableLineMissileVis=0
FlipMiniMap=1
ItemShopResizeHeight=0
ItemShopResizeWidth=164
ItemShopPrevResizeHeight=1080
ItemShopPrevResizeWidth=1920
ItemShopItemDisplayMode=1
ItemShopStartPane=1

[Performance]
CharacterInking=1
ShadowsEnabled=1
EnableHUDAnimations=0
PerPixelPointLighting=0
EnableParticleOptimizations=0
BudgetOverdrawAverage=0
BudgetSkinnedVertexCount=0
BudgetSkinnedDrawCallCount=0
BudgetTextureUsage=0
BudgetVertexCount=0
BudgetTriangleCount=0
BudgetDrawCallCount=0
EnableGrassSwaying=0
EnableFXAA=0
AdvancedShader=0
FrameCapType=6
GammaEnabled=0
Full3DModeEnabled=0
AutoPerformanceSettings=0
CharacterQuality=4
EffectsQuality=4
EnvironmentQuality=4
ShadowQuality=4
GraphicsSlider=6
paths=0

[FloatingText]
EnemyTrueDamageCritical_Enabled=1
EnemyMagicalDamageCritical_Enabled=1
EnemyPhysicalDamageCritical_Enabled=1
TrueDamageCritical_Enabled=1
MagicalDamageCritical_Enabled=1
PhysicalDamageCritical_Enabled=1
Countdown_Enabled=0
EnemyTrueDamage_Enabled=0
EnemyMagicalDamage_Enabled=0
EnemyPhysicalDamage_Enabled=0
TrueDamage_Enabled=0
MagicalDamage_Enabled=0
PhysicalDamage_Enabled=0
Score_Enabled=0
QuestComplete_Enabled=0
QuestReceived_Enabled=0
Disable_Enabled=0
Level_Enabled=0
Dodge_Enabled=0
Heal_Enabled=0
Special_Enabled=0
Invulnerable_Enabled=0
Debug_Enabled=0
Absorbed_Enabled=0
OMW_Enabled=0
EnemyCritical_Enabled=0
MagicCritical_Enabled=0
Critical_Enabled=0

[Volume]
SfxVolume=0.5
MasterVolume=0.5

CAVEAT: NETFILE did not work for me.  I had to submit my taxes through an installation done on Windows

1. Install PlayOnLinux and then run it (e.g. starting it through the Terminal)

sudo apt-get install playonlinux

2. Click “Tools” > “Manage wine versions”
3. Choose 1.7.27 under “Available Wine versions” and then click the right arrow “>”
4. Go through the steps in the installer and let it finish
5. Back in the PlayOnLinux main screen, click “Install” in the menu, and then click “Install a non-listed program” on the bottom left
6. Choose “Use another version of Wine”, when asked, and then choose 1.7.27
7. Choose “Install a program in a new virtual drive”, when asked
8. Choose “32 bits windows installation”, when asked
9. Find the location of setup.exe for the TurboTax installer (I copied the files off of the disc to a place on my hard drive)
10. Ignore the message “Error in FS_Check” if it appears
11. Let the install complete, but do not launch TurboTax right away
12. Choose “tt2014.exe”, if asked to create a shortcut
13. Back in the PlayOnLinux main screen, select entry for TurboTax and click “Configure” in the menu
14. Make sure the “Wine version” is set to 1.7.27
15. Under “Install components”, install the following in this order (some of these may not be required, but I don’t know which since this is the configuration that worked for me):
    • vcrun2012
    • Microsoft Core Fonts
    • msvc100
    • RegisterFonts
    • vcrun2010
    • dotnet40
    • d3dx9
    • mono28
    • Internet Explorer 8 (click “Restart” in the installer)
    • crypt32
16. Back in the PlayOnLinux main screen, clicking “Run” for TurboTax 2014 should now work!

This is what worked for me, so hopefully this will work for others.

These two keys toggle the full-width (double-byte), and the half-width (single-byte”) character sets when typing with the Chinese IME.  Full-width characters look like “ｔｈｉｓ “ while half-width is what people are normally used to.  The default key combinations are easy to press by accident in situations such as capitalizing a title.  Therefore, it is beneficial to remove this hotkey.

Solution

Because changing the key settings manually through Windows does not work, one must go through the registry.  The following fix applies to the current user that is logged in.  Apply the following registry keys and then restart the computer.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Input Method\Hot Keys]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Input Method\Hot Keys\00000010]
“Virtual Key”=hex:ff,00,00,00
“Key Modifiers”=hex:00,c0,00,00
“Target IME”=hex:00,00,00,00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Input Method\Hot Keys\00000011]
“Virtual Key”=hex:ff,00,00,00
“Key Modifiers”=hex:00,c0,00,00
“Target IME”=hex:00,00,00,00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Input Method\Hot Keys\00000012]
“Virtual Key”=hex:ff,00,00,00
“Key Modifiers”=hex:00,c0,00,00
“Target IME”=hex:00,00,00,00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Input Method\Hot Keys\00000070]
“Virtual Key”=hex:ff,00,00,00
“Key Modifiers”=hex:00,c0,00,00
“Target IME”=hex:00,00,00,00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Input Method\Hot Keys\00000071]
“Virtual Key”=hex:ff,00,00,00
“Key Modifiers”=hex:00,c0,00,00
“Target IME”=hex:00,00,00,00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Input Method\Hot Keys\00000072]
“Virtual Key”=hex:ff,00,00,00
“Key Modifiers”=hex:00,c0,00,00
“Target IME”=hex:00,00,00,00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Input Method\Hot Keys\00000201]
“Virtual Key”=hex:ff,00,00,00
“Key Modifiers”=hex:00,c0,00,00
“Target IME”=hex:00,00,00,00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Input Method\Hot Keys\00000202]
“Virtual Key”=hex:ff,00,00,00
“Key Modifiers”=hex:00,c0,00,00
“Target IME”=hex:00,00,00,00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Input Method\Hot Keys\00000203]
“Virtual Key”=hex:ff,00,00,00
“Key Modifiers”=hex:00,c0,00,00
“Target IME”=hex:00,00,00,00

In the registry, one can also navigate to “HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelInput MethodHot Keys” and see a list of folders with names that have eight numbers in them with leading zeroes.  Each folder here represents a particular hotkey related to an IME.  Clicking on one of these folders will show data for these keys.

Setting “Key Modifiers” to “00 c0 00 00” removes the use of the Ctrl and Alt key for the hotkey.
Setting “Virtual Key” to “ff 00 00 00” sets the key to nothing.
The key “Target IME” can be left as is.

In the case of the “Shift+Space” hotkey, “Shift” is the key modifier and “Space” is the virtual key.

It is unclear which folder corresponds to the key that toggles the character shape, therefore this fix is a blanket approach.

If the Above Still Fails

Try combining the fix with an installation of Microsoft Office IME 2010, which can be downloaded here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/zh-tw/details.aspx?FamilyID=60984ecd-9575-411a-bd38-2294f17c4131&displaylang=zh-tw.  Despite the name, it does not require Microsoft Office to be installed. After installing, apply the registry keys and restart.

Here is my next travel blog entry about my visit to Berlin. In a short three days, we managed hit up quite a few places in the city, especially the historical areas about the Cold War and the Second World War. I would have liked to have posted this sooner, but my computer refused to cooperate.

Massive Train Delay

I was always under the impression that the Deutsche Bahn was always on time, but I guess that’s not true anymore. The City Night Line was supposed to leave at 12 AM from Mannheim and arrive in Berlin at around 7:30, but due to a train crash causing a chemical spill in Switzerland, our train took a detour. It arrived three and a half hours late. At first it was supposed to only be a 170 minute delay, but as time went on, the delay went longer and longer. To pass the time, we walked around Mannheim late at night, and pretty much saw the entire city, AKA the schloss, in about an hour. We spent the rest of the time just moping around the station. It was cold at night too and I never expected to be waiting so long so I ended up freezing when I was outside. I tried sleeping on the benches, but that didn’t really work for me, and instead ended up sitting there eating snacks until the train came. Maybe we should have chilled at a bar instead. Because of the long wait for the train, I didn’t sleep too well. It also didn’t help that I forgot to reserve a spot that had a bed, and I instead reserved a reclining seat instead. Because of the late train, the conductors handed out a giant form in pure German for people to fill out to get part of their money back.

Berlin Hauptbahnhof

We arrived in Berlin at about 10:30 in the morning, 3 hours later than scheduled. We all got off the train, still super tired, and started our journey in Berlin. The Berlin main station was the biggest station I’d seen so far. It had a really modern look using glass everywhere they could. Its sheer size allowed for a lot of businesses to open inside the station. The station had three floors with two floors used as train platforms. Coincidentally, it was also the station’s fifth birthday. When we got outside, we could see the German Reichstag within a walkable distance.

German Reichstag

Seeing that we could already see the Reichstag when we walked out of the Hauptbahnhof, we proceeded there first. Since I played so many World War II games, I already knew what the Reichstag looked like. Over the years, the Reichstag underwent a few renovations such as the glass dome that was added after the war. The rest of the building looked so similar to what I had seen in video games and historical photos that as I walked up the stairs, it briefly reminded of me of the guy with the flamethrower in the cut-scene in Call of Duty 5. I also remembered some of the iconic photographs I’d seen such as the soldier waving the flag of the Soviet Union on the roof.

Prior to going to Berlin, I had reserved spots for the roof terrace and the dome (according to their website, people couldn’t go up there without a reservation). Before going in, I had to put my stuff through their X-Ray machine (maybe they’re afraid of terrorists or something). They had confiscated my Swiss Army Knife for the duration that I was up there. At the roof terrace, the staff issued audio guides to every guest. While walking to different areas of the dome, the audio guide would automatically begin talking about parts of the city that one could see from that part of the dome. I didn’t really pay attention to the boring voice of the audio guide and the information that it had wasn’t all that interesting (it really didn’t matter to me if I knew how many rooms were in a particular building or the land area it took up).

Brandenburg Gate

From the top of the Reichstag, we could see the one of the symbols of Germany, the Brandenburg Gate. It is located at one end of the street Unter den Linden, and was used as a sign of peace during the Prussian Empire. Since it is also one of the most famous landmarks in Europe, there were naturally a lot of tourists here. So much so that there were people dressed up in weird costumes to earn money from people taking pictures with them. There were a few people holding American and USSR flags and even people dressed up as Star Wars characters. Near the gate were also a embassies of various countries such as France and the United States. One of the buildings even proudly waved the flag of Quebec (I don’t know why and it wasn’t the Canadian embassy either).

Eastener Hostel

By now, we were already super tired from the lack of sleep and from carrying our bags around all day. We took the city train to our hostel for a quick rest and to drop off some of our stuff. The man at the hostel was super thorough in explaining the rules of the hostel (with his East German accent) and even took the time to give us a map and point of the major tourist destinations on it. Using this map, we were able to find all the places we wanted to go to. By the end of the trip, the map had tears in several places and random folds here and there, clearly showing how intensely I used it.

Ampelmann

While walking around the city, I noticed that the pedestrian traffic light signals had a different design than the rest of Germany. Apparently, the traffic light man used in some places in Berlin were based off of the design used in former East Germany. I thought this Ampelmann guy was pretty cool.

The Remains of the Berlin Wall near Nordbahnhof

One of the locations that the map pointed us to were to some of the remnants of the Berlin Wall. Before coming to Berlin, I had a thought of posing at the wall with a hammer, but I never got one and I don’t think the people would have been very happy with me doing that. The segments of the wall here showed a lot of graffiti along its entire length. The city also preserved the guard tower and showed some of the methods of preventing escapes. Also in the area was a memorial for those who died while trying to flee to West Germany.

East German Cars

One of the peculiar things about Berlin was the fact that tourists can still take rides in cars (known as a Trabant or Trabi for short) that the GDR once used. I looked inside one of them and it just seemed so old and run down. I figure the only reason that these cars are still around are because of their historical/moneymaking value.

Really Cool Old-Style German Font

When I walked through some of the old train stations, I came across a really cool looking vintage font that I felt was so characteristic of Germany. Maybe I watched too many documentaries or something.

Checkpoint Charlie

Taking the train from Nordbahnhof, we made our way to Checkpoint Charlie, one of the border crossings once used before the unification of East and West Germany. The old border crossing booth and the sign telling people they’re leaving the American Sector still remains today. Standing outside are also two people holding American flags. Near the border booth, there is a giant sign with an American soldier on it and on the reverse side, there is a Soviet soldier. On the street, street vendors sold random things like fur hats with the logo of the Soviet Union on it, gas masks, and flags of the GDR and USSR.

Haus am Checkpoint Charlie

Adjacent to the border crossing, there was a museum dedicated to the documenting the border security between East and West Germany. The museum documented various methods of escape such as hiding people inside the hood of a car and using a hot air balloon. Also displayed were tools that people used to escape like special wall climbing footwear and stories of escapes. Seeing all these different methods made me realize how smart these people were. I would have never thought of something like that. Sadly, I was already super tired while walking through this museum and I was ready to just go back to the hostel and sleep. It was still light out at the time. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take photographs in this museum.

DFB Cup Final

While in Berlin, we saw a lot of people walking around wearing stuff from football teams and apparently the DFB Cup Final was to be played in the Berlin Olympic Stadium. To catch the football game, we went to a bar to tune in. While at this bar, I got to try Berlin-style wheat beer. Theirs was different than the wheat beer I usually drink because here, they had beer cocktails. I tried the red and green Berliner wheat beer. The red one had a raspberry flavour while the green one had a woodruff flavour.

The Fernsehturm

The Fernsehturm is the TV tower where people can go up to see a view of the city. It is also one of the tallest buildings in the European Union. We didn’t go here since we didn’t really care so much about the view and we went to see other landmarks instead.

Potsdamer Platz at Night

According to my boss at work, Potsdamer Platz was a must see at night, and after seeing it for myself, I totally agree with him. The beauty of this place was the architecture that looked so beautiful in the night, especially the Sony Center. The roof of the Sony Center was shaped like an umbrella and its color would gradually change between blue and purple.

Französische Straße

Located on this street were the Französischer Dom, Berlin Concert House, and Deutscher Dom. Each of these three buildings have quite a bit of history and are all have amazing architecture. This place is definitely the place to be to see old-style architecture in Berlin.

Fassbender & Rausch Chocolatiers

This chocolatier is quite well known and their store is frequently visited by tourists. What makes it so special is that they built many of the landmarks in Berlin out of chocolate. Anything made of chocolate is cool. The longer I stayed in this store, the bigger craving for chocolate I had.

Führerbunker

During the Battle of Berlin, Hitler stayed in his bunker beneath his New Reich Chancellery. I went to the location of where the bunker once was only to find the area replaced by pretty regular things like shops and apartments. The side of the street here had plaques explaining the history of this area and its use for Hitler’s Bunker.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Near Hitler’s Bunker was a memorial for the Jewish victims of the holocaust. The memorial had thousands of concrete blocks, or stelae, of varying heights arranged in a grid pattern. According to one of the designers of the memorial, Peter Eisenman, he stated that “the stelae are designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason.” Walking through the memorial reminded me so much of Bomberman. The memorial had the grid pattern just like in the game. It would probably also be really fun jumping from one block to the next, but it would have been really disrespectful.

Potsdamer Platz during the Day

To take a break and relax during the day, we went back to Potsdamer Platz for a beer. Now I understand why my boss told me to come here at night instead of during the day. It doesn’t look as nice at this hour.

Victory Column

Similar to the Arc de Triomphe on Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the Victory column stands in the end of the street Unter den Linden and is similarly surrounded by a giant roundabout. The column serves to commemorate the Prussian victories in the Danish-Prussian War, Austro-Prussian War, and the Franco-Prussian War. Surrounding the column are other smaller statues. One of the statues, I thought I saw my last name on it, but looking more closely, I realized it said “Roon” instead of “Poon”. What a bummer.

Schloss Bellevue

Located in the Tiergarten District of Berlin is the official residence of the President of Germany. We sat on the grass outside the residence to take a rest and to admire the beauty of the schloss and to watch the bike race that was happening just on the adjacent road.

Soviet War Memorial

Built using stone from the Reich Chancellery not long after the end of the Second World War, this memorial remembers the war dead of the Soviet Union, particularly the 80 000 soldiers who died in the Battle of Berlin. The memorial is of a statue of a Soviet soldier and on its left and right sides are two 152 mm Howitzer artillery pieces and two T-34 tanks (for some reason, birds like to go inside the barrel of the tank’s main gun). When I looked at the artillery piece, I tried to open the chamber for where the rounds go and tried to change the angle of the gun, but none of that worked. I’m pretty sure they didn’t want people messing with it. Behind the building is a small museum documenting the memorial’s construction and the Battle of Berlin. The memorial used to be guarded by Soviet troops during the Cold War even though it was in the British zone of occupation and now it is managed by the city.

Hackesche Höfe

One of my friends suggested that we go here since this place is known for its beautiful courtyards. It had eight interconnected courtyards, each with its own unique design. Some of the courtyards had tables for people to relax with coffee or beer while others had gardens.

Berliner Dom

Located on Museum Island, the Berliner Dom is a cathedral that belongs to the Evangelical Church. What was weird was that when we arrived there, we saw a group of people there having a cosplay party. There was one guy waving around a flag of the Empire of Japan. I never knew Anime was that big in Germany. Even weirder is that some of these kids were frolicking in the fountain in front of the Dom.

Museum Island

Another well known landmark in Berlin is Museum Island, which is an area with five internationally well known museums. They are the Altes Museum, Neues Museum, Alte Nationalgalerie, Bode Museum, and Pergamon Museum. We didn’t go in any of these museums since none of us were that interested in what the museums had to offer. The Alte Nationalgalerie had a look that seemed to have been inspired by the Greek Parthenon (but I’m not sure). While we were there, the sky started raining for about 15 minutes. It was quite refreshing since it was really hot earlier in the day.

Food

Although we didn’t try any food that were unique to Berlin (such as currywurst), we did splurge for one of our meals, and I found the food we had to be really delicious. Since Berlin is a lot closer to the coast than Stuttgart, I got to enjoy better quality seafood.

New Synagogue

Prior to the Second World War, the synagogue was badly damaged during Kristallnacht and the synagogue could no longer hold any services. Since the war, the synagogue was reconstruct and it is now the main synagogue for the Jewish community in Berlin.

Olympic Stadium

The current stadium was originally built for the 1936 Summer Olympics. Since the stadium was built during the Nazi period, the architecture of the building follows the Nazi style. Apparently, it was at these Olympic games that the tradition of the torch marathon began.

Potsdamer Platz for the Third Time

On our second night in Berlin, we went back to the Sony Center to relax for a little bit again. This time I got to try new kinds of beer such as mango and passion fruit flavoured wheat beer. It had an interesting flavour, but I thought the regular kind tasted a little better.

The Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag at Night

When we arrived here at night, we found this place to be deserted even though the landmarks here looked amazing in the night. It was a good thing for us since there weren’t any tourists around. It allowed me to get really clear shots of these places.

The East Side Gallery

This area contains a continuous segment of the Berlin Wall that is 1.3 km in length. Along the wall are paintings from artists around the world to promote freedom in the world. The gallery also features the iconic political painting of Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker kissing during the days of the GDR. There was also a souvenir shop here that stamped people’s passports with the GDR stamp for one euro. I thought that was a cool gimmick.

The Topography of Terror

To document the terrible deeds that the Nazi regime and the SS perpetrated between 1933 and 1945, an open-air museum was set up at the site of an old SS installation. It talked about how the Nazi’s transported people from conquered areas to the concentration and extermination camps set up across the continent. There was even a special exhibit just on the war crimes perpetrated by Adolf Eichmann. Near the museum were also SS buildings that have been converted to government offices.

Going Home

After three days of travelling in Berlin, we were all very tired and we were ready to go home. We went to our train platform for the ICE Sprinter about five minutes before the departure to find out that our train wasn’t there. We had no idea were it was and we didn’t want to miss the train. Apparently, some arsonists damaged some parts of the railway so the train ended up stopping on a different platform. Luckily, we found out in time and we managed to get on before it left. On the way back, I got to see some fantastic scenery of the German country side.

Souvenirs

I found that it was this trip that I spent the most money on souvenirs. I ended up buying Ampelmann themed cell phone accessories and a full sized flag of the USSR (not that I’m a communist or anything).

More photos here

• RXTX
• JavaComm

Unfortunately, the current version of JavaComm does not support Windows, and only supports Solaris SPARC, Solaris x86, and Linux x86.  Since I use none of those operating systems, this article will only discuss how to install RXTX in Windows.

UPDATE: 12 Sept 2011 – Thanks to a comment from Kurt Zoglmann, there are instructions on how to do this with a Mac!  I never tried this myself because I don’t have a Mac, but the procedures stated there look good to me (see comments).

A 32 and 64 bit version of the library exists.   I’ve updated this article from when it was first published to include the new locations for where to download the libraries, but I have not gone through the installation of the libraries again, so I’m not surprised if the rest of the content on this page is outdated too.

32-bit version: http://rxtx.qbang.org/wiki/index.php/Download
64-bit version: http://fizzed.com/oss/rxtx-for-java

To install the libraries (instructions from JControl):

1. Copy rxtxSerial.dll to %JAVA_HOME%\bin, (%JAVA_HOME% is the folder where JRE is installed on your system; e.g. c:\Program Files\Java\j2re1.4.1_01)
2. Copy RXTXcomm.jar to %JAVA_HOME%\lib\ext

Once installed, the IDE will need to know where to look for these installed files.  Even though the files exist in the JRE directory, each project needs to know about these files.  More information on this website.

In order to start coding with this library, import gnu.io.*.  For more information about Java Serial Programming, look here.

Happy coding!