All right, I’m now rested and able to write about it. I arrived at school around 8:30, and then waited from Frau Stubbs to come and take those who showed up to school (there were two of us) to the bus station. We met up with the rest of the class, then headed out to Ludwigsburg.
That place is really cool! The city itself is kinda normal, as far as a German city, but the palace is amazing. It was first meant to just be a hunting lodge that looked like a palace. And even then, it was concepted as a fortified castle, just never built that way. When we got inside, I found I had a problem. Because everything inside was genuine from the period, no flashes were allowed. But if I used auto mode (as I have been), all the pictures were blurry. So I switched to shutter speed priority, and hoped that I could pull some detail out of the very black pictures. Hopefully I can figure it out for the ones I’m not posting right now.
And if you look carefully, the interior pictures are still slightly blurry.
The interior was also amazing. The walls had gold all over, with statues and paintings everywhere else. Our guide was great, and taught us a lot of the history behind the palace.
The Duke’s private chambers were covered in mirrors. Any way you looked, you saw yourself four times. I can imagine the room never really being that dark, as any light would just get caught and reflected to no end.
After this, we went into the gardens. I wandered around with Danyelle, enjoying the photography. We found a fantasy garden, and then Eric and Glenn playing around in a fountain that shot out at people. 45 minutes just wasn’t enough time to see everything, though, and we had to head back.
After we got back, I was on the computer for some time. Sandra left to work on applying to a university, and at that point I came upstairs and had a very long conversation with the rest of the family. It was great, because instead of using my very odd dictionary we used Google Translator. This made everything easy, and I got a lot better at comprehending. Many of the holes in my vocabulary were filled, with such words as ‘if’ (wenn) being used commonly. I stayed up until about 11 PM, at which point Isabella had to go to bed, as did the mother (the father already went to bed, as he has to wake up at about 3 AM). We all said goodnight, then went our separate ways. I spent some time talking to people, realized I was exhausted, made that filler post, and went to bed.
I’ll talk about today later tonight, after this evening’s events.
#1 by Mary on July 7, 2009 - 9:53 am
Sounds like some confusion. Too bad about that, but Ludwigsburg itself sounds incredible. The picture of the garden is marvelous. I’ve been having luck sometimes with the G10 taking the shutter speed down to 60 or 80 and the ISO up to 400 – 800 in low light situations, In case youre in a situation like that again. You could also try a night setting in the SCN mode on the camera. I only discovered that recently. Just make sure you shut the flash off. Why only 45 minutes? This sounds like a place where you could take hours to look around. You’ll have to go back sometime on your own or with me (hint!).