Mannheim

We had a pretty good time in Mannheim today. I misunderstood what it was that we were going to go see, but I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't a waste-water treatment plant, but rather a system for treating waste water.

A university in Mannheim created a recycling system for the grey-water produced by one of their student housing facilities. The building contains approximately 130 flats, and they re-did the piping so that they were able to collect the grey-water from about 70 or so flats. Grey-water in this context is the water from showers and bathroom sinks. This is in opposition to black-water, which is toilet and kitchen sink water (and also the name for the security and logistics company now known as Xe [a pretty good joke just popped into mind]). I didn't understand a whole lot of what the guide was saying, but I gathered enough to figure out that this university was able to create a system of pumps, filters, and membranes that allowed them to recycle this water and then pipe it back into the water intake for the building. The entire system took up less than two parking spaces (this was apparent because they had converted part of the underground parking garage to make room for it), however, it utilized up to half of the total power usage of the entire building, which can get pretty expensive, and wouldn't be very "green" to do in the United States. It was very interesting and I grabbed as much literature on the project I could (oh, and total cost was ≈ 35,000 Euro back in 2007).

I found out today that Karlsruhe is home to the German Federal Constitutional Court, which is the highest court in Germany (think Supreme Court, but with cooler robes). I inadvertedly took photos of the court building a week or so ago, it's the building with the three flag poles out front and the German Police officer walking around. Karlsruhe also is home to some other German High Court, but I'm not sure what it's called. I will have to track down that building as well.

I think that I will probably go see Transformers 2 this week. A few people back State-side told me that I need to see it. There's a theater down the road that will be showing it in English, so that will be nice. I might go tomorrow or Friday if there isn't a Fest or anything.

So with that said, "I'm glad I don't smell anything, now".