Yes, there is a thing like the deepest hole in the world: it is 9101 meters (9953 yards) to be precise, a hole drilled into the crust of the world. Now you wonder: why? Me too! But once you visit the drillsite and walk through the information center, you’ll get a lot of answers to all the questions you’ve never even asked 🤩

Windischeschenbach is a small town in the northeastern corner of Bavaria. A stone throw away from Thuringia and the Czech republic. Before the wall between Eastern and Western Germany came down in 1989, this area was called “Ostzonenrandgebiet” (eastern zone border area), a neglected, unattractive and ugly area with lots of forests destroyed by acid rain that was caused by improper or non-existing industry emissions in Eastern Germany and the Czech Republic. Nobody wanted to live there, it was unattractive and unhealthy. Today it is beautiful! 35 years since the wall came down, 35 years of improvement and beautification. No acid rain, but rolling hills with pretty little villages, mostly farmland, crops and cows and: the drill tower of Windischeschenbach.

Info Flyer:

https://www.geozentrum-ktb.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/2015_Flyer-GeoTourGranit.pdf

‘Continental deep-drilling program of the Federal Republic of Germany’), abbreviated as the KTB borehole, was a scientific drillingproject carried out from 1987 to 1995 near Windischeschenbach, Bavaria. The main super-deep bore hole reached a depth of 9,101 m (29,859 feet) in the Earth’s continental crust.

The drill hole had a width of 70 cm at the beginning (27.5”) and narrowed down to 16 cm (6.3”) at the depth of 9101 meters. Conditions are very different and became more and more difficult the deeper you drill. Immense pressure and heat (275 Celsius = 527 F) made it impossible to drill deeper. The material of the drill itself and the sample tubes had to be changed as you go, delaying work, challenging circumstances.

When you arrive at the drilling site you wonder why it’s on top of a hill instead of a valley in-between – that could have saved them 50 meters of drilling, right? But everything made sense the more we learned at the information center.

The location of Windischeschenbach was not chosen to boost this poor, neglected Ostzonenrandgebiet and give them something to do and make them attractive. The reason for exact that location is that the earth crust is relatively cool there, making drilling easier. Another reason is that millions of years ago, when the continents were formed, they shifted and moved, they just didn’t float around on the surface like an oily dot in a broth. Plate dynamics happened deep down, pushing matter up to the surface and squeezing layers together, Windischeschenbach is in a location that started near Antarctica! It moved north to the Mediterranean, then further north to the Ostzonenrandgebiet. Little did they know! Well, here they are now and what is really interesting is the fact that all those layers, the plankton from Antarctica for example, were pressed together tightly und pushed up to the crust, right there in Windischeschenbach. On top of the hill and not in the valley. Drilling right there made the most sense: finding many layers in 9101 meters with relative cool temperatures was ideal! Right there in Windisch-you-know-where!

It’s actually funny when you drive to Windisch-you-know-where: most villages have very short names like Bach (stream) or Berg (hill), but nothing tongue breaking like you-know-the-town-with-the-drill tower…

Yesterday was the official opening ceremony of the 189th Oktoberfest with the mayor of Munich opening the first beer barrel at 12pm. It is always an important prediction of how many strokes he needs. The fewer strokes, the better a mayor he is. It shows that you have the priorities right, that you are a real Bavarian leader. Mayor Reiter only needed 2 strokes yesterday, showing that he is a good leader and will have another successful year reigning this 1.5 million city.

The inaugural Oktoberfest was first celebrated in Munich in 1810 in honor of Prince Ludwig’s marriage to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. The festivities began October 12, 1810, and lasted nearly a week until October 17, ending with an exciting horse race.

A few years the festivities didn’t happen: wars, cholera outbreaks and the most recent Covid 19 made the Oktoberfest be cancelled.

https://www.oktoberfest.de/en/magazine/war-bombs-cholera-and-the-history-of-oktoberfest

The second day of the festival started with a big parade of folklore groups, marching bands, dance and – very importantly – the brewery horse carriages transporting the beer barrels to the fairgrounds. The parade is 7 km long with 1000 attendees. It’s spectacular, interesting, loud and amazing!

After the 3-hour spectacular parade we went to the Oktoberfest fairgrounds, „die Wiesn“ and had some fun right there:

What a great annual event this is that my sister Petra chose to visit: Mut zum Hut, The biggest hat and accessory event in Europe, with vendors from all over the place, fashion shown, entertainments, inspirations and AAAhs and OOOhs, look and this and have you seen thats. So much to see, how did they make that and what in the world were they thinking? Great art, supplies, ideas, all packed into a picturesque castle in Neubirg an der Donau. The show alternates annually and will be held inside the castle in Ingolstadt next year again. Of course I had to buy a hat, a necklace made of paper and some earrings….. Petra, her daughter Stephanie and I spent a whole day there, which required some tea and cake to keep us upright.

So we visited this cute little coffee house right across the castle in Neuburg, that is sooo charming. Right out of a picture book!

It would take 75 hours and 30 min to take a train from New York City to Paso Robles, CA. And it can take 27 hours to fly. You could fly in 6 hours, but that would be easy cheezy. 27 hours with several hiccups is the way to go – if you want to stretch out your vacation time that is.

I was not asked, but thrown in the cold water. The first leg of my flight was delayed due to weather (which weather?). Then my connection flight was gone, the last flight of the night. Which made me being stranded in a freezing cold airport in Phoenix (outside temperature 114, inside 40, both Fahrenheit). And everything at the airport was closed, except the bathrooms. Nothing to eat or drink! Awful! And to top off the misery: not a single bench to sleep on. They all had bars across, so nobody could lie down. Awful awful awful!

So I spent 11 hours in Phoenix, in a freezing cold airport, hungry and thirsty…

Imagine you’ll have a whole week to spend in NYC with your friend and no agenda. Imagine this week is now! And so I went from Miami to NYC to meet Lisa, my friend of 40 years. She’s never been there before and so we did the typical touristy stuff a first-timer likes to see: street market on Lexington, Grand Central Terminal, Liberty Island, Little Italy in Greenwich Village, Ellis Island, Central Park, Show on Broadway, etc. My favorite: the MET, where we visited “Sleeping Beauties – Reawakening Fashion”, a fabulous exhibition of fashion / art / creativity – right down my alley!

Let’s start with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the MET:

And look at a variety of people, some more famous than others:

And then we ate. A lot!

And we enjoyed New York!!!

We are almost done with our cruise, with the last stop at Great Stirrup Cay, a private island owned by Norwegian Cruise Line. NCL acquired this paradise with sandy beaches, a lighthouse from 1863, calm pristine ocean waters and a wide variety of marine life in 1977.

No words – just beautiful