Fourth Day, 23rd April '09

"Lucy, Lucy, were are you?" "Lucy, are you there?" Thus began Raise Projekt's fourth day in glorious Vogtland. But, all was well that ended well, and eventually Lucy was found, safe, sound and ready to face whatever the fickle Gods of Renewable Energy were about to throw her way.

Then, after allowing Simon and Steve a bit of time to finish the first fag of the day, we were off to Plauern, ably driven by Timo the Solid and Christian the Wise ... who, someday, for sure, will find third gear in the hire van.

In Plauern the first stop was M&S Umweltprojekt GmbH, an engineering consultancy specialising in environmental audits of soil and soil related activities, who, a year ago, had built 2,000 m2 of low energy office space, at a cost of €3 million.

Total heat energy requirements were provided by a combination of: sunlight (picture above), human heat and grounnd source and air source heat pumps. Electical energy requirements are, in part, being met by solar PV cells. Herr Oppitz (sp.?), the chap into whose hands we had been placed, was a bit unsure about the technical details, but had no doubt that the PV system was idea worth considering, was working well and was overall a good thing. Simon did not seem much impressed with this; but, then, it's a bit much to expect someone to please all the people, all the time.

After M&S things defintielty turned a bit more recreational with a visit to the Plauern municipal baths. There we saw (not neccessarily in order of importance): swimming baths, little kids, and then, for a climax, all the works underneath. Ah, the works underneath: they were indeed a marvel. There were tanks, followed by pipes, also things like heat exchangers, filters, bags of salt, a bloody great gas burner ... but, this is all getting a bit too technical. Suffice it to say, it was one of the highlights of the week ... in terms of Michelin stars, up there with the 26 million brick bridge. By the by, Marcus is convinced he saw Bruce Willis, in his vest, crawling around amongst the pipes, but the rest of us aren't so sure. After all, he had had a heavy night the night before, and what with his history of hallucinations .. well, say no more really!

After the swimming baths things got a little bit ugly. We all headed off for Plauern Zentrum, but it went a bit pear-shaped once we hit the Park Haus. Those of us in the hire van (Christian, by the way, still hadn't found third gear) got separated from the rest and, without the cohesion of the team dynamic ... well, if the truth be told, it sort of slipped into the realms of the somewhat crazy.

Gerard and David buggered off to Zwickau and spent the afternoon at the Horch Auto Museum. The rest went see (according to Stephanie) a really, really, really, really high ski jump (see pic below). After the ski jump further splintering occurred: some went on to Zwickau; those who didn't chose to get stuck in a two hour jam. Now, why they would want to do that is indeed a good question, the answer to which can only be found deep in the thoughts of the ancient philosophers: there's nought as strange as folk.



So that pretty much was the day, as seen from one set of eyes. Undoubtably, other eyes will have seen it differently. Their comments and additions would be greatly welcomed, particulalry if they are accompanied by photos.