Thursday, February 14, 2008
The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
Life was really a big stress the past days and weeks after our return from the continuous WSF trip around the globe. Okay, it's always stress, but somehow HeliGraphix seems to grow beyond limits and causes an amount of both operative and logistic work that could easily keep a league of persons busy all day long. It's a good question how we all manage to integrate it into our lives – but then, maybe this is what makes our real lives, and the "normal" work just helps to keep things going.
Nonetheless all the extra load takes its toll: A lack of sleep and the responsibility and loyalty to our partners sometimes makes it hard to see the initial fire, the original spirit shine through everyday's thicket. Today HeliGraphix has got an excellent worldwide reputation; we get the means and are capable of handling projects we could only have dreamed of a few years back. But since we never compromise on quality and we will never fail our partners and those who believe in us the workload has increased at the same pace. There may be a time in the future when we will (need to) return to our original roots.
Right after returning home from Nuremberg Toy Fair the past Saturday we repacked our stuff and left for Luxembourg – after a mere handful of hours of sleep. The drive was quite okay and we reached the last sovereign grand duchy in the world in the early Sunday afternoon. The weather was perfect, strikingly blue sky with a few nice condensation trails of jet airplanes. We'd talked to a number of people from Luxembourg to find out what was their number one landmark worthy of representing their country; it was always the same answer: The "Gëlle Fra" – the "Golden Woman". Patrick Damiani gave us the directions, and like a number of times before we had used a navigation system to drive as closely to the spot as possible. The difference this time was that the golden statue of a woman was on top of a column – and the column … was situated right in the middle of a crowded public car park!
Luxembourg is a small landlocked country bordered by Belgium, Germany and France. It is a member of the European Union and counts about 500,000 inhabitants, a good portion of them immigrants from other European states, mostly Portugal. It has a highly developed economy and with almost 90,000 USD the highest per capita GDP in the world. Stunning! Official languages of the parliamentary democracy (but constitutional grand duchy) are Luxembourgish, German and French.
What is today a reputable country hosting several institutions and agencies of the European Union was originally founded as a Roman fortress. And to avoid any confusions: Luxembourg is not just the name of the country, but also of its capital and largest city. In 1994 the latter was added to the list of UNESCO world cultural heritage because of its historic importance and rich architecture. That's something impossible to miss when walking through the older parts of the town.
The "Gëlle Fra" is something like the Statue of Liberty for Luxembourg. It had been originally built in 1923 and destroyed by German occupants in 1940 during World War II. This act turned it into a symbol for resistance and later on freedom; in 1985 it was re-erected in its original form. Quite impressive, especially when properly lit by the sun.
Symbols are generally a very important thing in human thinking as they represent ideas. Neglecting such connections in any kind of (political) negotiations or warfare is a fatal mistake because ideas are more than flesh and bones – they are unstoppable! They will outlast generations – by the help of symbols. Such as the "Golden Woman".
Robbe/Futaba's 2.4 GHz FASST system hadn't let us down during countless flights in countries all around the globe. When lifting off with our Henseleit Three Dee MP-XL E from the public parking lot around the "Golden Woman" we prayed it would perform just as well this one more time. Well, it didn't fail us, and despite the somewhat gusty wind conditions caused by some nearby branched out trees the flights went well enough.
Since the statue itself is just about two meters high but stands on a high column the number of suitable manoeuvres you could fly was very limited. We chose a more or less straightforward approach where the heli starts in front of the Luxembourgish flag and flies towards the column, then climbs up to the sculpture, pauses for a short while and finally pirouettes away into the wonderfully blue sky. We were quite happy with the footage, and so were all the many nice spectators. We explained the WSF mission and showed lots of cool pictures; one of the guys was from Argentina and looked at us sharply: "When will you go to Argentina?" The next guy immediately jumped onto the same subject: "How about Turkey, why don't you come to Turkey?!" --- Puh, really guys, there are close to 200 independent countries in this world, and even though most of them are well worth a visit we are unsure if we'll be able to make it to all of them. So patience, please!! :-)
We've just arrived at London/Stansted airport in Great Britain and are eternally worn out. Time to build the heli, get some rest and grab some food. After that it's driving to some very famous ancient site … let's see if the British nation, too, is willing to help us to go on with the world's biggest mission in the history of model sports!
Labels: Gëlle Fra, Golden Woman, Grand Duchy, Luxembourg, symbols
# posted by hg/tuw @ 20:54 
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
