So the last post, I didn't realize I had posted, hence its title was a bit off. So backing way up. I have found a really great hiking group here on Meetup. Just about every sunday they go hiking somewhere different in Switzerland leaving from Zurich. I went with them to Eggeberg, Ebenalp, Turbenthal, and Faido. The group is mostly foreigners although a few swiss people have come. The discussions are almost entirely in english, although if you sneak up on the swiss and germans you can catch them speaking in german. The weather for every trip has been fantastic thus enabling me to take wonderful pictures of everything. Today as it is raining/sleeting/snowing I am glad I seized the opportunity to get outside as much as possible when it was sunny.
Working has gone well, I have much more direction on my project now and have begun the process of taming the robot I am working with. Most of the work was already done my job is just to perfect it, integrate it, and scale it to large sets. Hopefully it wont be too difficult. It is easy to spend hours just tooling around with it.
Everything else? Well I have started swimming because I realized I can swim for free tuesday, wednesday, and thursday mornings with ASVZ (student sports association of zuri). They have someone there providing specific workouts to do, and today the workout involved pelvis thrusting, push-ups, and swimming lengths without breathing. We also did some backstroke where I learned that apparently I swim as though I was sitting in a chair and I shouldn't do that. Upon leaving the pool I read the sign on the outside rating the pool; it had several normal criteria like temperature and length, but my favorite was Flirtfaktor which it got 3 hearts, whatever that means.
I also found a german film group for students who want to learn german every wednesday night. The first time I went the film was in english with german subtitles (what?), so it was extremely easy to understand and not entirely useful. Last night, however, it was a german film with german subtitles, and an extremely nonlinear plot. To add to this they used extensive metaphor and complicated language. Needless to say, I had only the foggiest of ideas of what happened in that film. It was action packed, and the leading actress was quite cute though, so didn't bother me too much.
Finally back to the weather, It snowed last night and today. Currently it is above 0 (32) so it probably won't stay long, but there is some on the ground and all forms of public transportation are delayed. The city looked absolutely fantastic in the snow especially at night. I like snow much better than rain, but I think I will need to figure out better shoes as the waterproofness of my running shoes is nonexistant. They, in fact, would be more aptly described as thirsty much to my feet's dismay.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Running Lausanne
I ran the Lausanne Half-marathon today. It is a fantastic run. Just about as perfect as I could imagine. The marathon would also be good, except its an out-and-back which I am not a huge fan of. The course runs right along Lake Leman and you have hilly vineyards on one side and the lake with the French alps in the background on the other. They also had an interesting assortment of bands playing nearly every kilometer ranging from YMCA cover bands (of course saying why-em-see-ahh instead of aye) to a guy and his accordian. The food support along the course was excellent, and at the start they had $3 pumpkin soup which tasted fantastic. They also had organized warm-ups with crazy-ish techno music and moves that more closely resembled irish dancing than stretching. So if you are looking for a new run to do, I would say it was excellent.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Where I work?
Yesterday while browsing around I found the kid-friendly version of PSI's site. This is how they describe the SLS to kids.
Aladins besondere Wunderlampe
Die Synchrotron Lichtquelle Schweiz (SLS) des PSI ist ein gigantischer Röntgenapparat und ein riesiges Mikroskop. In der UFO-förmigen Forschungsanlage werden Elektronen stark beschleunigt und auf Slalomkurs gezwungen. Dabei senden sie Synchrotron-Licht aus.
Das spezielle Synchrotron-Licht entschlüsselt kleinste Strukturen und ermöglicht so grosse Fortschritte in den Naturwissenschaften, in Technik und Medizin – z.B. bei der Erforschung schwerer Alterskrankheiten wie Alzheimer und Knochenschwund.
Ein spannender Rundgang führt Sie durch diese Wunderlampe modernster Wissenschaft.
Roughly translated
Aladin's Special Lamp.
The Swiss Light Source of PSI is a gigantic (ginormous also acceptable) radiation device and a microscope. In the ufo-shaped research facility, electrons are accelerated quickly and swung as if going through a slalom course, thereby emitting synchrotron light.
The special synchrotron light unlocks the smallest structures and allows great progress in natural science, technology and medicine. For example exploring complicated aging diseases like alzheimers and (bone-dissapearing, haha) osteoporosis.
An exciting journey leads you through this most modern of scientific Magic-lamps
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Oktoberfest
The best way I can describe this festival is sufficient and probably worthwhile. Sort of like disneyland for adults. It is expensive, it involves waiting in lots of lines, but the beer is delicious, the food is good, and a huge number of people get mindblowingly drunk.
So due to train issues and such we didnt actually make it to the festival until about 1pm on the first day. By this time every tent is completely full and the only option is to see the other sites of oktoberfest (which are plentiful). The festival itself is like a huge carnival with enormous beer tents randomly scattered throughout. The carnival places were not really that interesting and although this fest had quite a few more than winefest or brezelfest they didnt have as much diversity and felt much more commercialized, which for me takes away from the experience. Outside of each of the masstive beer tents there is a beer garden, but the real action with the bands and warmth is inside. We tried several times to get into the tents later, but it was all but impossible. They were letting in about 1-2 people/hour at best and germans seem to be much better at cutting in line than us americans. We also rode one of the rides (perhaps a bad idea), since it looked like it would be so much fun. It was nice in the sense you got a birds eye view of everything and could start to appreciate how many people were really here. The weather for this weekend was also much colder than nearly all of us (except kamila) expected and thus we spent a good deal of time shivering and in some cases drinking coffee instead of beer (we all make mistakes). The weather proceeded to get colder and by the time we had to return to our tents to sleep, we were fairly confident we would not survive the night, or if we did, we would sacrafice a few fingers in the process. I do not think any of us got an especially restful night of sleep but it was sufficient to trek out again for some sunday morning drinking.
Sunday was noticably less busy (we also arrived earlier 10-11am-ish), but still amazingly crowded for anything on a sunday. So we were able to make it inside a tent, which we soon realized was not exactly that desirable, it was incredibly smokey and nowhere to sit. Furthermore the bands that had seemed so exciting and lively the night before were now just loud and headache inducing (what an effect a day has). We found a nice place outside with some real bavarians who have come to fest every day (it is 16 days long) for the last 10 years. They are currently my heros, although at no point in time do I wish to spend 16 days in a row drinking.
As I got on my train back (sadly realizing I may never see some of these people again), everything seemed in order. The train rolled out and made it to about munich passing before it decided to take a nap. I had time at my connection in zurich so I did not worry too much. Plus I was in the eating cart and had just gotten a really fancy looking green tea. 50 minutes later when we still had not moved I was starting to worry. Eventually everything started moving but it was clear I would miss my connection in Zurich, and in all likelyhood the last bus, I was sure about, that went to PSI from Brugg. I also realized this train skitted through Austria, and thus my eurail pass required a supplement. Fortunately this supplement was only 5eu, and the conductor was really nice about the whole ordeal, so nice in fact that he never stamped my eurail pass (if only I were as skilled as rob). The train after a period of time I found comparable to forever arrived in Zurich. I hopped hopefully on the train to Brugg only to find in Brugg not only were there no busses coming until 6am the next morning but also there were no taxis or anyone around at all. Realizing I was in no condition to hike 2 hours to get to PSI, I jumped on the next and apparently last train back to zurich. In Zurich I realized the Bahnhof has a church, but not a mission like the Hannover HBF.
On a side note I was able to stay in the Hannover HBF the night before my flight back to portland at the Mission there. They gave out free coffee, and give you a place to hang out until your plane or train comes. And if you like they tell you about god, but they didnt force anything upon anyone. The place in Hannover impressed me quite a bit, and I met some great people there just drinking coffee and waiting between 12am and 5am. I assumed they were omnipresent. False
Back to Zurich, they actually closed the HBF, gates and all and when I asked one of the guys what i should do the only thing he could tell me was find a hotel. I did not want to pay for a hotel, or even a hostel, but sleeping outside again, especially without a tent was out of the picture. I found a few hotels some of which charged 170sfr/night, a few of which were completely booked. And one, not quite perfect, but certainly trying hard. That charged a still outrageous 85sfr/night, but was themed after rock stars, and designed by someone who does not like having all the stairs in the same place and likes exploring. There was no central stair case, instead there were little min-stair cases that went from one floor to the next (possibly even next .5 of a floor), and then dumped you off to wander until you found the next set of stairs. I was so frustrated with everything else in the world, that I somehow found this terribly amusing, and added it to the list of things I want to do if I ever build a house. Anyways it worked out really nicely since I was able to sleep in a bit more since my class was in downtown zurich, plus the croissant breakfast and coffee tasted quite good, and I didnt really spend thaat much at oktoberfest so perhaps this is how the world is punishing me for not drinking enough or any number of other things I have done.
Anyways it was a really enjoyable weekend, I would do it again without a doubt, but maybe do things a bit differently.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Starting my PhD
Monday : I have officially started at the PSI as a PhD student. I was pretty excited about my first day, despite still feeling a few of the aftershocks from winefest. I went for a morning run, and showed up bright and early only to discover there had been a leak in the synchrotron cavity on sunday and the beam would be down until further notice and likely until thursday (you can check the beam from home at http://sls.web.psi.ch/view.php/organization/status/realtime/index.html) (-0.1mA is definitely not good, it should be around 400). After discovering this, I went to go find my advisor and he was out of town for the day. So as far as first days go it was pretty uneventful. I got to meet some of my colleagues we had a nice lunch and coffee, and I stayed until it seemed justifiable to leave (6pm).
As for my colleagues, I think I am going to like them. I will give a short blurb about each one since they will remain the same for the next few years.
Rajmund - Postdoc/Office Partner
He is Czech, did his PhD in Grenoble at the ESRF (European sychrotron facility), and speaks about 7 languages. He sounds like a pretty outdoor-oriented person, he likes to mountain climb on skiis, and general adventuring. He also is quite a tea drinker, which I like because BASF made me much too addicted to coffee, and tea is good for you. He lives in Villigen since he likes the quiet town experience better.
Christoph - Postdoc
He is austrian, did his PhD in Graz (maybe?), and lives in Wettingen. I have certainly learned other things about him, but I cannot recall them at the moment, I will let you know when I do. He is very friendly and good in english.
Sam - Postdoc
He is british, did his PhD in Manchester, and now lives in Baden (since he likes to be able to bike to work, and still live somewhere with nightime activity). He was just at a conference this weekend in Bordeaux on Imaging of some sorts. I am hoping conference travel is common, although I have do have something to show first.
There is another beamline scientist, an engineer, and a technician, but I dont really know any of them well enough to write much.
Tues : I ran again before work, also to the ATM since the closest one is about a mile away. The path was quite nice and the Wanderweg (hiking trails) here are quite plentiful. This is a really cool country. I ended up not getting to work until later, but it didnt seem to be a problem. Not too much to do today, just continue reading, sending some emails, and we had our group meeting. I like the format of it, very open but still efficient. It also looks like just about everybody eats lunch together which is nice, since at BASF, no one I worked with ate together so I had to find people from all over to eat with. Although perhaps maybe that was better since you see these people at work anyway, who knows. I also made my first apartment phone call (all in german). It was a bit scary but I realized pretty quickly the apartment that was advertised was already gone, and the person had a really nice one for nearly $2000/month, at which point I had to explain to her, independent of niceness that is not in my range. From what i can tell now, it looks like it might be best to find a couple other students to live with, since bigger apartments are easy to find, although that does slow the swiss integration down.
After work, I went to go try and find the Laufsportgruppe-Brugg (A running club, my friend told me about). I got kind of lost trying to find the exact meeting point, but even after I found it and talked to a random runner there, who said he runs everyday and has never seen them around here, there was no one there and no signs of a group. So I explored brugg a bit more then ran back home, where I feasted.
As for my colleagues, I think I am going to like them. I will give a short blurb about each one since they will remain the same for the next few years.
Rajmund - Postdoc/Office Partner
He is Czech, did his PhD in Grenoble at the ESRF (European sychrotron facility), and speaks about 7 languages. He sounds like a pretty outdoor-oriented person, he likes to mountain climb on skiis, and general adventuring. He also is quite a tea drinker, which I like because BASF made me much too addicted to coffee, and tea is good for you. He lives in Villigen since he likes the quiet town experience better.
Christoph - Postdoc
He is austrian, did his PhD in Graz (maybe?), and lives in Wettingen. I have certainly learned other things about him, but I cannot recall them at the moment, I will let you know when I do. He is very friendly and good in english.
Sam - Postdoc
He is british, did his PhD in Manchester, and now lives in Baden (since he likes to be able to bike to work, and still live somewhere with nightime activity). He was just at a conference this weekend in Bordeaux on Imaging of some sorts. I am hoping conference travel is common, although I have do have something to show first.
There is another beamline scientist, an engineer, and a technician, but I dont really know any of them well enough to write much.
Tues : I ran again before work, also to the ATM since the closest one is about a mile away. The path was quite nice and the Wanderweg (hiking trails) here are quite plentiful. This is a really cool country. I ended up not getting to work until later, but it didnt seem to be a problem. Not too much to do today, just continue reading, sending some emails, and we had our group meeting. I like the format of it, very open but still efficient. It also looks like just about everybody eats lunch together which is nice, since at BASF, no one I worked with ate together so I had to find people from all over to eat with. Although perhaps maybe that was better since you see these people at work anyway, who knows. I also made my first apartment phone call (all in german). It was a bit scary but I realized pretty quickly the apartment that was advertised was already gone, and the person had a really nice one for nearly $2000/month, at which point I had to explain to her, independent of niceness that is not in my range. From what i can tell now, it looks like it might be best to find a couple other students to live with, since bigger apartments are easy to find, although that does slow the swiss integration down.
After work, I went to go try and find the Laufsportgruppe-Brugg (A running club, my friend told me about). I got kind of lost trying to find the exact meeting point, but even after I found it and talked to a random runner there, who said he runs everyday and has never seen them around here, there was no one there and no signs of a group. So I explored brugg a bit more then ran back home, where I feasted.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Industry Day / Nobel Laureate
Today at the summer school was industry day, where we had presentations from quite a few different companies in the biomedical imaging field. The presentations were on a whole quite good, but a few of them seemed more like sales pitches (how they think we have money to spend, i have no idea). It was pretty interesting to see that the job possibilities in europe, switzerland, and the US for when I finish are pretty bright and there are a number of companies working on projects where I imagine my phd experience would make me quite valuable (Scanco Medical who does bone imaging and strength analysis in preclinical and a few clinical systems, and Varian who does image guided radiation oncology therapy work). The later is located in California but has a huge imaging lab near Zurich, so presumably I could live in one place and visit the other quite often, but I am getting way ahead of myself. Another of the talks was on the new Helium Ion Microscope, which normally would not have particularly interested me, but since I got to watch 2 or 3 experiments on a scanning electron microscope, I am kind of an expert in the topic, haha if only.
Tonight at the ETHZ they had a nobel prize winner, Richard Ernst (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1991/ernst-autobio.html), give a talk about Spectroscopy and Fourier Transforms. Sadly it was after nearly 8 hours of back to back lecturing, 6 cups of coffee, 2 glasses of wine, and a beer, needless to say I was a little out of sorts. He was quite amusing for an old smart guy. I was expecting it
to be dry and I-want-to-kill-myself-boring, but he wasnt. In fact he started by talking about how it always bothered him that a frenchman, Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier, had invented the fourier transform, so he want back and did some research and realized that Euler, surprise a swissman, had invented basically the same technique
quite a few years earlier. After that I was hooked, his talked wandered around a bit, and spent way too much time on 2 and 3d nmr for protein structure determination (ick), but it was pretty interesting to here how he thought about some things. For example he talked about the impulse response of a function being a police man knocking on the
door (input/impulse) and a women opening up and screaming (output/response), while the frequency response of a system as a man coming to the door singing a song (input) and the women answering the door (output/response) being so inspired that she sings louder
(amplitude), but a little slow so shes slightly delayed (phase shift). Had my professor for Signals and Systems used that analogy I would have gotten everything immediately.
But really the point of this whole interlude, was that when he got his first MRI, the doctors came back to him and said, yep everything normal. And he was crushed, because he really wanted his brain to be special or completely different or something along those lines.
Suprisingly or not, I had the same sort of impression when I saw my first MRI, I mean I certainly didnt want to see a brain tumor or anything, but something a little bit out-of-wack would have been appreciated, or at least a "whoa, ive never seen anything like that before". Anyways, I dont need some silly labcoat-wearing scientist to
tell me my brain is special, I know that already.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
And so this is the suisse/schweiz/svvizzera
So the first real thing I did last night was go outside on the gästehaus patio and start talking to the other people there. I remember not a single name from the exchange but there were two turks, two dutch, and maybe a german (I wasnt drunk I just dont think he ever said and I just guessed). They were all quite friendly and talked about what a shithole PSI Gästehaus is (I think students/people just like to complain no matter where they are), but they did talk about bbqs that happened up to 3 times a week and apparently there are 250 phd students here and almost always a number of interns. They also apparently have bikes that can be borrowed for free, but sadly no free coffee (only 0.50sfr, but its the concept of free coffee that really gets me, not the actual cost) So perhaps a point to BASF on that issue, but dont worry PSI gets a plus infinity points real soon so a single win for basf doesnt mean too much. I probably stayed up too late chatting with them, but I will have plenty of time to sleep when I move into my own slightly desolate apartment.
The next morning we had orientation which started off deutsche bahn style (german message then english translation usually missing at least one key point from the german one) but after awhile they just gave up and did only german. So I learned about all sorts of Gefahren for nuclear reactors, nonionising radiation, and finally watched a tacky tacky 3d movie about global warming (the co2 molecules were like people, there was even a kissing scene, wtf?) We got free coffee and croissants, and had some discussion time so I could figure out the deal with cellphones, residence permits, food, living, and all that. I also met a student from Connecticut who goes to UVA, and did what initially sounded like a cool phd program where he split time between PSI (paul scherrer intitut, where I am now, I am bad at explaining things at appropriate times) and UVA. Unfortunately what he didnt realize was that an american phd stipend (22-30k) doesnt do all that much in switzerland where stipends are from 28k and up with 28k being nearly unsurvivable. So he had about a year and a half of subpoverty level funding, somehow he managed to still enjoy it here and gave me a goal for my living costs (think how much I could travel and ski if i could live on 26k or so)
After all this I got to meet with my advisor, Marco. He was as friendly as I remembered him despite the fact his recently purchased house was flooded with mud and rain last night. He showed me around, and to my office (I get an office, how sweet is that), and the few new staff members that came since I had last been there. He also explained how everyone in his group will be here for at least another year and some as many as 3 more years, which is quite nice (assuming I get along with all of them, should be easy enough) since I will have time to really get to know them and they seem pretty sporty. I share my office with a guy whose name sounds like bernard but isnt from the czech republic. He studied/worked on his PhD at ESNF in Grenoble, speaks 7 languages (apparently he likes dating exotic foreign women and thus learned languages to satiated his appetite), and likes running. I figure, given that I idolize him now, we will do just fine together. He also showed me to the beamline again and some entirely new setup they had built to do even higher resolution imaging and what not, it was pretty impressive to see. We then all went to lunch together at the cafeteria where the setup was almost exactly like basf, but the food was a little bit more diverse, and generally tasted better. Also they had beer, not that I wanted to drink any, but knowing that I could is a nice comfort.
After all this marco drove me to ETH so I could attend the second half of the Bioimaging summer school I am attending for the next two weeks. In the car on the way there while discussing rail passes and things my day was peaked. He mentioned the possibility of being able to fund me getting a general abo (unlimited riding on almost any train/bus/tram in switzerland for a year!!). Since uni-students can get them cheaply or cheaper perhaps if they are under 25 or something along those lines and I may have to make a number of trips to Lausanne. I was ecstatic about this. I dont know exactly what it is, but being able to travel anywhere in switzerland whenever I want for free, is pretty cool, really cool.
So finally when getting to the summer school in a great mood, I found the poster sessions (the afternoon activity) and talked to a number of people about there work and it was pretty interesting. I now feel like a quasi-expert on AFM so when I saw a poster there on it, I confidently went over and starting learning about a few really cool techniques TU Vienna people were doing to study drug interactions. From the posters it was pretty easy to see that a huge range of backgrounds were represented everything from straight signal processing to straight biology/biochem. I also got to see the updated practical session sheet which includes a few really exciting looking lectures on image reconstruction, structure determination from SEM (scanning electron microscope) images, and viral infection.
After all the posters there was a dinner prepared for us with predinner cocktails (open bar, wheee), a really nice salad, and a great meat selection. I ate far too much but since its the last free meal we get till next monday, I probably should get every pennys worth. The students were all really friendly and a few were interested in traveling this weekend (maybe paris?) and going out to bars this week (my kind of people). I also met a Russian from Siberia with just about no russian accent. I, first, did not realize siberia was actually inhabitited (winters as cold as -52C he said), and second would have guessed he was dutch or even canadian, his english was that good). He also spoke far too many languages and "only a little german" which meant he could converse fluently with one of the germans with slightly weaker english.
The male to female ratio wasnt awful, but it was markedly worse than BASF, and the BASF intern functions, I guess this is when reality starts to set in. Oh well, all in all a great start.
The next morning we had orientation which started off deutsche bahn style (german message then english translation usually missing at least one key point from the german one) but after awhile they just gave up and did only german. So I learned about all sorts of Gefahren for nuclear reactors, nonionising radiation, and finally watched a tacky tacky 3d movie about global warming (the co2 molecules were like people, there was even a kissing scene, wtf?) We got free coffee and croissants, and had some discussion time so I could figure out the deal with cellphones, residence permits, food, living, and all that. I also met a student from Connecticut who goes to UVA, and did what initially sounded like a cool phd program where he split time between PSI (paul scherrer intitut, where I am now, I am bad at explaining things at appropriate times) and UVA. Unfortunately what he didnt realize was that an american phd stipend (22-30k) doesnt do all that much in switzerland where stipends are from 28k and up with 28k being nearly unsurvivable. So he had about a year and a half of subpoverty level funding, somehow he managed to still enjoy it here and gave me a goal for my living costs (think how much I could travel and ski if i could live on 26k or so)
After all this I got to meet with my advisor, Marco. He was as friendly as I remembered him despite the fact his recently purchased house was flooded with mud and rain last night. He showed me around, and to my office (I get an office, how sweet is that), and the few new staff members that came since I had last been there. He also explained how everyone in his group will be here for at least another year and some as many as 3 more years, which is quite nice (assuming I get along with all of them, should be easy enough) since I will have time to really get to know them and they seem pretty sporty. I share my office with a guy whose name sounds like bernard but isnt from the czech republic. He studied/worked on his PhD at ESNF in Grenoble, speaks 7 languages (apparently he likes dating exotic foreign women and thus learned languages to satiated his appetite), and likes running. I figure, given that I idolize him now, we will do just fine together. He also showed me to the beamline again and some entirely new setup they had built to do even higher resolution imaging and what not, it was pretty impressive to see. We then all went to lunch together at the cafeteria where the setup was almost exactly like basf, but the food was a little bit more diverse, and generally tasted better. Also they had beer, not that I wanted to drink any, but knowing that I could is a nice comfort.
After all this marco drove me to ETH so I could attend the second half of the Bioimaging summer school I am attending for the next two weeks. In the car on the way there while discussing rail passes and things my day was peaked. He mentioned the possibility of being able to fund me getting a general abo (unlimited riding on almost any train/bus/tram in switzerland for a year!!). Since uni-students can get them cheaply or cheaper perhaps if they are under 25 or something along those lines and I may have to make a number of trips to Lausanne. I was ecstatic about this. I dont know exactly what it is, but being able to travel anywhere in switzerland whenever I want for free, is pretty cool, really cool.
So finally when getting to the summer school in a great mood, I found the poster sessions (the afternoon activity) and talked to a number of people about there work and it was pretty interesting. I now feel like a quasi-expert on AFM so when I saw a poster there on it, I confidently went over and starting learning about a few really cool techniques TU Vienna people were doing to study drug interactions. From the posters it was pretty easy to see that a huge range of backgrounds were represented everything from straight signal processing to straight biology/biochem. I also got to see the updated practical session sheet which includes a few really exciting looking lectures on image reconstruction, structure determination from SEM (scanning electron microscope) images, and viral infection.
After all the posters there was a dinner prepared for us with predinner cocktails (open bar, wheee), a really nice salad, and a great meat selection. I ate far too much but since its the last free meal we get till next monday, I probably should get every pennys worth. The students were all really friendly and a few were interested in traveling this weekend (maybe paris?) and going out to bars this week (my kind of people). I also met a Russian from Siberia with just about no russian accent. I, first, did not realize siberia was actually inhabitited (winters as cold as -52C he said), and second would have guessed he was dutch or even canadian, his english was that good). He also spoke far too many languages and "only a little german" which meant he could converse fluently with one of the germans with slightly weaker english.
The male to female ratio wasnt awful, but it was markedly worse than BASF, and the BASF intern functions, I guess this is when reality starts to set in. Oh well, all in all a great start.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Hood 2 Coast
This doesnt really go along well with the whole theme of this blog, but as it is my blog and my life, I shall do as I please.
I went back to oregon for 5 days to run hood to coast with a few fellow alumni from BU (that is a scary phrase to say). I was feeling sickish before I went to the airport so I was really quite afraid the whole race might be a disaster, but it managed to clear up over the next few days.
So first, the plane ride.
I had a great seat next to the window, and this nice lady sat next to me. I started talking with her about life and germany and all sorts of other things. She was quite interesting an oregonian who studied abroad in germany then went back to chase a guy and started all over. The best part was, after talking for awhile I looked down to check how much time we had, and we had been talking for 6 hours. I had just had the longest conversation of my life with a complete stranger. I do not know about you, but I find that to be incredible. I almost made it the whole flight without knowing her name, but she let it slip near the end. I think I should write a book called the sociology of long distance airplane flights.
After getting back I kind of laid low for awhile, watched some much needed tv, and relaxed. That night we had our team dinner where we got to meet our last minute add from eastern oregon. My sisters found the whole ordeal quite awkward, but I enjoyed it quite a bit, and the food was excellent. I had nothing to do with any of it beyond sending an email to my parents.
The race itself was awesome. At the start we saw teams from all over the place (germany, france, texas, italy, florida) most of whom had planned themes and outfits (except the french who just wore berets and french flags like they normally do) We had some really really fast people on our team and made a huge number of roadkills (when you pass someone).
We were able to sleep at the mac for a little bit which was really nice, but far too short as always. The night running was nice because it was cool and the roads were much less busy or completely closed off in my case. By the third leg, I was pretty exhausted and had difficulty walking normally, but I was able to run as fast as I have run in my life. So go figure on that one.
The final celebration at the beach was nice, although everyone was pretty tired and some people were starting to become frazzled and a little loose with their comments (guilty).
Somehow I was able to convince my mom and sister to come pick me up and bring me back to portland so I could relax and sleep in my own bed. Which was a wonderful experience. Those races are so much fun, exhausting, but definitely worth it.
I was also able to see my relatives in oregon before I went, making the trip not entirely for some silly race.
Finally my flight back to frankfurt (I almost said home, weird) was similarly exciting with a much younger women this time, about 25 or 27, I think. She was really interesting to talk to, and had a completely different life experience than I did. We talked for the whole flight save about 90 minutes when 21 was playing. She might have said her name once, but I do not remember. So another person on the list of people I know tons about except for their name.
I went back to oregon for 5 days to run hood to coast with a few fellow alumni from BU (that is a scary phrase to say). I was feeling sickish before I went to the airport so I was really quite afraid the whole race might be a disaster, but it managed to clear up over the next few days.
So first, the plane ride.
I had a great seat next to the window, and this nice lady sat next to me. I started talking with her about life and germany and all sorts of other things. She was quite interesting an oregonian who studied abroad in germany then went back to chase a guy and started all over. The best part was, after talking for awhile I looked down to check how much time we had, and we had been talking for 6 hours. I had just had the longest conversation of my life with a complete stranger. I do not know about you, but I find that to be incredible. I almost made it the whole flight without knowing her name, but she let it slip near the end. I think I should write a book called the sociology of long distance airplane flights.
After getting back I kind of laid low for awhile, watched some much needed tv, and relaxed. That night we had our team dinner where we got to meet our last minute add from eastern oregon. My sisters found the whole ordeal quite awkward, but I enjoyed it quite a bit, and the food was excellent. I had nothing to do with any of it beyond sending an email to my parents.
The race itself was awesome. At the start we saw teams from all over the place (germany, france, texas, italy, florida) most of whom had planned themes and outfits (except the french who just wore berets and french flags like they normally do) We had some really really fast people on our team and made a huge number of roadkills (when you pass someone).
We were able to sleep at the mac for a little bit which was really nice, but far too short as always. The night running was nice because it was cool and the roads were much less busy or completely closed off in my case. By the third leg, I was pretty exhausted and had difficulty walking normally, but I was able to run as fast as I have run in my life. So go figure on that one.
The final celebration at the beach was nice, although everyone was pretty tired and some people were starting to become frazzled and a little loose with their comments (guilty).
Somehow I was able to convince my mom and sister to come pick me up and bring me back to portland so I could relax and sleep in my own bed. Which was a wonderful experience. Those races are so much fun, exhausting, but definitely worth it.
I was also able to see my relatives in oregon before I went, making the trip not entirely for some silly race.
Finally my flight back to frankfurt (I almost said home, weird) was similarly exciting with a much younger women this time, about 25 or 27, I think. She was really interesting to talk to, and had a completely different life experience than I did. We talked for the whole flight save about 90 minutes when 21 was playing. She might have said her name once, but I do not remember. So another person on the list of people I know tons about except for their name.
Friday, August 15, 2008
When Science Meets Video Games
So it has been quite awhile since I have updated this. I have been mildly more busy at work, but mostly I have just been lazy about it.
So things have still been going wonderfully. I am really enjoying all of the people I have met here, the middle school like drama from earlier seems to be fading, and I have my own real project to work on at work. So unfortunately it looks as if Switzerland can only be worse than here, because I cannot envision how I could enjoy myself more than I am now. But that is neither here nor there as one of the elements that makes this wonderful is how short it is. I do not know that I could do this much longer, but perhaps a little longer wouldn't've hurt.
So the weekend of the 1st of August we went to Strasbourg in france. It was a beautiful city that happened to have some of the worst looking buildings I have ever seen. Literally the law school looked like a facility only clowns could consider training in. Also nearby the Greenhouse was a quite disgusting unkempt facility that reminds one of scenes in Lost World when they find the abandoned labs. (In reality the fact I have made it this far without a crichton reference is impressive)
Last weekend, I went to Munich to meet up with someone who went to high school with my dad. We had met the family together last summer, and they invited me to come down. It was a fantastic weekend with friday spent at Hofbrauhaus, and another bar with students in an International Literature Summer School (a good balance to the scientists I spend every waking moment with). On saturday they have a german family reunion and fantastic BBQ. The food was all great and I likely consumed too much of it. I also was able to brush up on my table tennis and german since on of the kids was 9 and thus had not begun english studies (Yea!). Sunday we went to Alledamer Lake southwest of Munich. This was also wonderful as you could easily see the alps in the background (pictures will come soon). The lake was also relatively warm and I was able to swim around in it although my attempts to swim across were thwarted by being informed it was 3km across.
This week at work has gone very well. I have been productive on my own project and hopefully we will have some very cool/useful results soon. The highlight of my week being on Thursday when we broke our last tip for the AFM instrument and still had measurements to make. I was able to call Veeco in Mannheim, arrange to get the tips and fly over on my bike to pick them up (I dream about having a job that requires clutch biking skills). I also had to cleverly stash the sensitive tips (the last 2 in the region) between my head and my helmut so they would not be vibrated too much.
This all leads to the meaning of my title. The picture on the right is an SEM (a 1.5million dollar machine that focuses electrons through gold coated) image of some polymer that my friend made today. And I was just fantastically impressed how much it looked like the ghosts from mario. (or as they thought the Scream painting from Munch, I am clearly much less cultured)
So things have still been going wonderfully. I am really enjoying all of the people I have met here, the middle school like drama from earlier seems to be fading, and I have my own real project to work on at work. So unfortunately it looks as if Switzerland can only be worse than here, because I cannot envision how I could enjoy myself more than I am now. But that is neither here nor there as one of the elements that makes this wonderful is how short it is. I do not know that I could do this much longer, but perhaps a little longer wouldn't've hurt.
So the weekend of the 1st of August we went to Strasbourg in france. It was a beautiful city that happened to have some of the worst looking buildings I have ever seen. Literally the law school looked like a facility only clowns could consider training in. Also nearby the Greenhouse was a quite disgusting unkempt facility that reminds one of scenes in Lost World when they find the abandoned labs. (In reality the fact I have made it this far without a crichton reference is impressive)
Last weekend, I went to Munich to meet up with someone who went to high school with my dad. We had met the family together last summer, and they invited me to come down. It was a fantastic weekend with friday spent at Hofbrauhaus, and another bar with students in an International Literature Summer School (a good balance to the scientists I spend every waking moment with). On saturday they have a german family reunion and fantastic BBQ. The food was all great and I likely consumed too much of it. I also was able to brush up on my table tennis and german since on of the kids was 9 and thus had not begun english studies (Yea!). Sunday we went to Alledamer Lake southwest of Munich. This was also wonderful as you could easily see the alps in the background (pictures will come soon). The lake was also relatively warm and I was able to swim around in it although my attempts to swim across were thwarted by being informed it was 3km across.
This week at work has gone very well. I have been productive on my own project and hopefully we will have some very cool/useful results soon. The highlight of my week being on Thursday when we broke our last tip for the AFM instrument and still had measurements to make. I was able to call Veeco in Mannheim, arrange to get the tips and fly over on my bike to pick them up (I dream about having a job that requires clutch biking skills). I also had to cleverly stash the sensitive tips (the last 2 in the region) between my head and my helmut so they would not be vibrated too much.
This all leads to the meaning of my title. The picture on the right is an SEM (a 1.5million dollar machine that focuses electrons through gold coated) image of some polymer that my friend made today. And I was just fantastically impressed how much it looked like the ghosts from mario. (or as they thought the Scream painting from Munch, I am clearly much less cultured)
Monday, July 28, 2008
Eurail Magic, Hiking, and Mass
Friday night after trying to go riding with the Mannheim Rennrad group and missing them because mannheim is a really hard city to race through, nearly worse than boston. I started out and saw two german cyclists going at t reasonable pace. I managed to join them and they said I could go along as long as I could handle 50km (Ha). Of course moments after this taking place, my tire went flat. (I shouldnt really say of course, my luck as of late has been absolutely phenomenal, I have nothing at all the whine about, but still). An old german man came and told me he saw another cyclist get a flat in the same spot and that there must be something bad on the ground there. I tried to take the tram, but the tram driver would have none of that or at least thats what I gathered he spoke pfelzish so he could have been saying he loved bicyclists, or that my shorts were so cute, but I dont think so since it sounded angry. I pedaled back a bit dismayed.
At that point someone decided to go see Mamma Mia, the movie. It was absolutely not what I expected at all, and I dont know that after watching those old ladies sing those songs I will be ever able to hear them the same again. I also realized that when you go to movies with nonenglish speakers asking them what was said when you missed a line is nearly completely worthless. Afterwards we went out for asian food (germans dont discriminate much among that tiny landmass), it was quite good, but I am still not sure tea+alcohol is a good idea.
So basically the moment after I got my eurail pass, I felt regret. 10 days of travel in a two month period is a pretty hectic schedule. Plus for quite a few of the trains you need to make reservations and pay even more money to ride them. And since it appears at the very least difficult to get a bike on an ICE train, I felt as if I might spend my weekends traveling to cities I didnt really want to go to just to "justify" my eurail pass.
So I felt this way basically until I walked into Mannheim station at around 1130am on saturday. I just looked at the list of outgoing trains in amazement. I could hop on a train going to berlin leaving in 20 minutes, Interlaken in 15 minutes, Paris or München in about an hour. I was in complete awe. I hopped on the train to interlaken, feeling much much better about my purchase.
I didnt actually make it to interlaken or even switzerland, I got off at Freiburg, figuring that was far enough away. Once there, I explored for a bit and then headed off into the forest to go hiking. The trails there were in excellent shape and pretty steep which of course means I was able to get fantastic views over the city and across the Rhein valley. There were a number of trail runners which impressed me quite a bit as the path was not easily runnable. I would have exhausted myself in a number of minutes trying. I was sweating up a storm just walking.
After getting back I was able to join some of the french people at Lea's apartment. This was really enjoyable although I felt a little imposing. This group would have without a doubt been speaking french had I not been there, and because I (1 of 6) was there they must all resort to english. We ate some great food that lea cooked, and I had leek for the first time (I think?). We also played some games her roommate had, including Jungle Speed (fantastic, even without alcohol) and some german trivia game. It was wonderful when we we're playing that because I can for the most part follow the gist of german conversations especially when spoken slowly. I was even able to answer some questions correctly. Finally I learned my favorite explaination for what BASF stands for , (Besten Arbeiter Sind Französich = Best workers are french)
Sunday was a little less eventful. I did manage to wake up in time to go to the Catholic, possibly even jesuit (58 minutes!), mass down the street. I didn't really have the faintest idea what was going on, but it was enjoyable and if I concentrated really hard I could kinda keep track of the storys and serman. It was spoken slowly enough but from what I can tell the language is dated and the priest mumbles more than I am used to, but nonetheless interesting. Plus I figured I better go to mass, since I do have quite a few things I need to be praying for, and I dont want god to get the impression I am taking my time here for granted. Not many young people there though, some families but lots and lots of old people.
At that point someone decided to go see Mamma Mia, the movie. It was absolutely not what I expected at all, and I dont know that after watching those old ladies sing those songs I will be ever able to hear them the same again. I also realized that when you go to movies with nonenglish speakers asking them what was said when you missed a line is nearly completely worthless. Afterwards we went out for asian food (germans dont discriminate much among that tiny landmass), it was quite good, but I am still not sure tea+alcohol is a good idea.
So basically the moment after I got my eurail pass, I felt regret. 10 days of travel in a two month period is a pretty hectic schedule. Plus for quite a few of the trains you need to make reservations and pay even more money to ride them. And since it appears at the very least difficult to get a bike on an ICE train, I felt as if I might spend my weekends traveling to cities I didnt really want to go to just to "justify" my eurail pass.
So I felt this way basically until I walked into Mannheim station at around 1130am on saturday. I just looked at the list of outgoing trains in amazement. I could hop on a train going to berlin leaving in 20 minutes, Interlaken in 15 minutes, Paris or München in about an hour. I was in complete awe. I hopped on the train to interlaken, feeling much much better about my purchase.
I didnt actually make it to interlaken or even switzerland, I got off at Freiburg, figuring that was far enough away. Once there, I explored for a bit and then headed off into the forest to go hiking. The trails there were in excellent shape and pretty steep which of course means I was able to get fantastic views over the city and across the Rhein valley. There were a number of trail runners which impressed me quite a bit as the path was not easily runnable. I would have exhausted myself in a number of minutes trying. I was sweating up a storm just walking.
After getting back I was able to join some of the french people at Lea's apartment. This was really enjoyable although I felt a little imposing. This group would have without a doubt been speaking french had I not been there, and because I (1 of 6) was there they must all resort to english. We ate some great food that lea cooked, and I had leek for the first time (I think?). We also played some games her roommate had, including Jungle Speed (fantastic, even without alcohol) and some german trivia game. It was wonderful when we we're playing that because I can for the most part follow the gist of german conversations especially when spoken slowly. I was even able to answer some questions correctly. Finally I learned my favorite explaination for what BASF stands for , (Besten Arbeiter Sind Französich = Best workers are french)
Sunday was a little less eventful. I did manage to wake up in time to go to the Catholic, possibly even jesuit (58 minutes!), mass down the street. I didn't really have the faintest idea what was going on, but it was enjoyable and if I concentrated really hard I could kinda keep track of the storys and serman. It was spoken slowly enough but from what I can tell the language is dated and the priest mumbles more than I am used to, but nonetheless interesting. Plus I figured I better go to mass, since I do have quite a few things I need to be praying for, and I dont want god to get the impression I am taking my time here for granted. Not many young people there though, some families but lots and lots of old people.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Eurail
Today we went to heidelberg with the intention of solidying our trip to paris, and the experience all but dissolved it.
We were able to buy eurail passes, which by the way though not cheap, is probably the most thrilling thing I have done recently. They give you a map and a timetable for all the major trains in europe and you feel like the world is sitting at your fingertips. Picking only three countries felt a little limiting, but really with germany, switzerland, and france, there is still plenty to explore. Also as long as I get out of europe every six months (they check your visa stamp on the passport), I can indefinitely get eurail passes. So in the event I make no friends and live a terribly lonely life, I will be able to travel voraciously through more than 20 countries.
The service agent thought killed our plans to paris because although we could get reservations on the way there, we cannot get them at any time on sunday and taking a day off work is not feasible. So I guess we will have to venture somewhere new, but thats the point isnt it, (gell?)
After that Stephanie and I decided to do a run through heidelberg, as it is so much prettier than ludwigshafen), it was quite beautiful although since we only had 20 minutes before our train left our run wasnt exactly epic. I will have to go back at some point to continue and run some hills so Hood 2 Coast doesnt eat me for breakfast.
We gave alex our keys and because of communication issues we ended up being locked out of our appartments imaging what possible things alex might be doing in there as to cause him to not answer the door. In fact he had just taken the wrong train back. Which is comforting and scary at the same time as it means even germans get confused by train overload.
When that was sorted out we headed to stammtisch which was at an irish pub (Ive been to more irish pubs in germany than boston), it was nice and they had cheap pitchers, so no complaints. I also met a german who spent a year at stanford. And his response to where I was going for grad school (I guess I am kind of bragging but most people are like where? oh zurich is an expensive city) was wow, that is probably the best overall technical university in europe. Super.
This morning I was able to watch Charlotte use the Scanning Electron Microscope. The device was amazing. Everything for it was so much more elegant than any instrument I have ever used. Plus some of the pictures it produced were incredible. If only samples didnt need preparation it would be the perfect instrument.
We were able to buy eurail passes, which by the way though not cheap, is probably the most thrilling thing I have done recently. They give you a map and a timetable for all the major trains in europe and you feel like the world is sitting at your fingertips. Picking only three countries felt a little limiting, but really with germany, switzerland, and france, there is still plenty to explore. Also as long as I get out of europe every six months (they check your visa stamp on the passport), I can indefinitely get eurail passes. So in the event I make no friends and live a terribly lonely life, I will be able to travel voraciously through more than 20 countries.
The service agent thought killed our plans to paris because although we could get reservations on the way there, we cannot get them at any time on sunday and taking a day off work is not feasible. So I guess we will have to venture somewhere new, but thats the point isnt it, (gell?)
After that Stephanie and I decided to do a run through heidelberg, as it is so much prettier than ludwigshafen), it was quite beautiful although since we only had 20 minutes before our train left our run wasnt exactly epic. I will have to go back at some point to continue and run some hills so Hood 2 Coast doesnt eat me for breakfast.
We gave alex our keys and because of communication issues we ended up being locked out of our appartments imaging what possible things alex might be doing in there as to cause him to not answer the door. In fact he had just taken the wrong train back. Which is comforting and scary at the same time as it means even germans get confused by train overload.
When that was sorted out we headed to stammtisch which was at an irish pub (Ive been to more irish pubs in germany than boston), it was nice and they had cheap pitchers, so no complaints. I also met a german who spent a year at stanford. And his response to where I was going for grad school (I guess I am kind of bragging but most people are like where? oh zurich is an expensive city) was wow, that is probably the best overall technical university in europe. Super.
This morning I was able to watch Charlotte use the Scanning Electron Microscope. The device was amazing. Everything for it was so much more elegant than any instrument I have ever used. Plus some of the pictures it produced were incredible. If only samples didnt need preparation it would be the perfect instrument.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Just general thoughts
So without resorting to a painful blow by blow of my every moment, although at times that path seems tempting, I will update on the major events since saturday. After riding so long on saturday I was a bit sore on sunday, I was able to get in a short run, but nothing of note. I really miss being in fantastic cycling shape where centuries didnt phase me. On monday night I talked with a couple of the love parade folks, and it sounded like a pretty fantastic event. Something definitely worth trying to go to next year. From what I can tell 1.4 million people go crazy for no apparent reason, and just wildness in the streets.
So on tuesday we did another group lunch which was nice. I do enjoy lunchtime a little bit better when it is not just eat as quickly as possible to get back to work. I also was able to find out more from the austrian girl, Caroline, about Kärnten, an area written about in my german running magazine. It looks fantastically beautiful with all sorts of mountain races and hiking areas. I certainly have no problem figureing out how I will spend my eurail pass.
Tuesday night the french people Charlotte and Lea were celebrating one of their friends from schools birthdays. Upon arrival I could see the most alcohol on one table that I have seen since my Ashford street days. Also many different kinds of crazy fruit juices : cherry, banana, blueberry; some clearly worked better than others but all were quite unique additions to normal cocktails. The event itself was pretty enjoyable although more because the people were so friendly and the food was quite good, the alcohol only served to grease the rails. I also was able to learn quite a bit more about how post highschool studies in france work, and I think the system they use is probably better at sorting out students, but as the american system worked great for me, it is hard to really comment. Also I think the american system provides more flexibility to make decisions later and not be locked into a single path, so I guess it depends on what you value. Also I learned that these french students after doing the equivalent of a masters degree and 12 months of internships (+/-), they still have trouble finding jobs and it usually takes 6 months or more. So I guess I will not be looking for future work in france anytime soon. Fortunately the only country in the world I can work in, needs plenty of people just like me.
Today the goal is to get my Eurail pass in heidelberg and figure out as many logistics as possible for Paris this weekend. Hopefully everything will workout at which point I will have to get the slightest clue of what is happening on the tour. And then of course the thing that makes wednesday my favorite day of the week, Stammtisch. This time its in ludwigshafen so walking home will not mean getting to bed at 2am
So on tuesday we did another group lunch which was nice. I do enjoy lunchtime a little bit better when it is not just eat as quickly as possible to get back to work. I also was able to find out more from the austrian girl, Caroline, about Kärnten, an area written about in my german running magazine. It looks fantastically beautiful with all sorts of mountain races and hiking areas. I certainly have no problem figureing out how I will spend my eurail pass.
Tuesday night the french people Charlotte and Lea were celebrating one of their friends from schools birthdays. Upon arrival I could see the most alcohol on one table that I have seen since my Ashford street days. Also many different kinds of crazy fruit juices : cherry, banana, blueberry; some clearly worked better than others but all were quite unique additions to normal cocktails. The event itself was pretty enjoyable although more because the people were so friendly and the food was quite good, the alcohol only served to grease the rails. I also was able to learn quite a bit more about how post highschool studies in france work, and I think the system they use is probably better at sorting out students, but as the american system worked great for me, it is hard to really comment. Also I think the american system provides more flexibility to make decisions later and not be locked into a single path, so I guess it depends on what you value. Also I learned that these french students after doing the equivalent of a masters degree and 12 months of internships (+/-), they still have trouble finding jobs and it usually takes 6 months or more. So I guess I will not be looking for future work in france anytime soon. Fortunately the only country in the world I can work in, needs plenty of people just like me.
Today the goal is to get my Eurail pass in heidelberg and figure out as many logistics as possible for Paris this weekend. Hopefully everything will workout at which point I will have to get the slightest clue of what is happening on the tour. And then of course the thing that makes wednesday my favorite day of the week, Stammtisch. This time its in ludwigshafen so walking home will not mean getting to bed at 2am
Sunday, July 20, 2008
To France
With an ending like that to friday, you would think saturday would be one of those, woke up at 2pm and ate pretzels till I felt better. It was not. It was supposed to be rainy, but when I got up I could see a bit of rain but mostly clear sky. There was a winefest in Freinsheim that some of the other BASFGuest house students went to. I decided to try and go, of course by bike. I started heading over there and received a text saying the festival was dead and probably wouldnt start until night. So I diverted to Neustadt am Weinstrasse (Germans Wine Road). I went through a number of beautiful small towns all with wine shops and tasting locations. The bike route even goes through some vineyards. It reminded me of oregon, but it liked these ones much better. You ended up going through a different town about every 10 minutes (they are quite close together) and the bike paths were exceptional. You never had to ride on the street if you didnt want to.
In Neustadt I met up with Neeta (an undergrad from India, it is her last day) and Olga (a student at UniHamburg). We went to get some food, sunscreen, and Icecream. Then tried to go to the castle but barely missed the hourly bus. After a little recharging I decided to continue southward. The weather at the beginning was flawless. The scenery was beautiful and all the little towns were great. The bike paths were at times a bit confusing, but between the signs, my GPSs, and my map, I was able to figure most of it out. It started raining quite hard at one point, in a town in the middle of nowhere. Luckily there was a nice Wine tasting/cafe with tons of other cyclists at it. I decided to try and wait it out with a nice big coffee. The coffee was excellent and I got a chance to practice a little bit of german with them. Based on my accent they guessed I was from the Netherlands (even though my bike jersey says Boston on it). I feel sorry for any dutch person right now. They had come from Ausburg and were on a short wine tour.
Anyways the rain let up and I hit the road again in brilliant sunlight. At this point it began getting much hillier. I still had plenty of time, I hoped, and at least I wasnt wet and still had food and water. The whole ride continued to be quite fantastic and scenic. I will have to come bike here again. The highlight of the trip though was riding by the sign at about 25mph that said with an EU star logo saying Frankreich in the middle. All of a sudden everything went from german to french. Along those lines the pretty little wine towns turned into the dead or mostly dead Wissembourg. I also had the shocking realization, that I dont know how to say Train station in french. So I went up to the first friendly looking french person I saw and said. "Ou est le Hauptbahnhof" at which point they told me in german. I found the Gare centrale, or something like that. And then realized not only did their schedules use french days of the week (a little foggy on thursday-sunday), but they list two trainstations for Wissembourg. I found a french man and tried to ask him using french/german/pointing and we decided I was in the right place, but he wasnt certain. I found a small cafe in the center of down which was slightly nicer looking, the outskirts were just butt ugly ~ ludwigshafen. I ordered Pannekuchen (clearly not a french food) and a little container of french vin rouge. It was spendy, but I satisfied my goal of having a nice glass of french wine. It also made the train ride much more pleasant.
Finally I was told by some french persons in Ludwigshafen that the french no longer use Bicyclette, and I heard two different 30-40 year old persons use it, to tell other people to get out of the way.
All in all about 70 miles on the day.
See the ride stats here
Ride map here
A small detail I forgot was I saw a sign that said "Honig Aus" -> Honey out?, and didnt really understand it. A few seconds later a bee flew into my jersey and stung my heart. Bee strings smart more than I remember than, and fortunately I am still not allergic to bees.
In Neustadt I met up with Neeta (an undergrad from India, it is her last day) and Olga (a student at UniHamburg). We went to get some food, sunscreen, and Icecream. Then tried to go to the castle but barely missed the hourly bus. After a little recharging I decided to continue southward. The weather at the beginning was flawless. The scenery was beautiful and all the little towns were great. The bike paths were at times a bit confusing, but between the signs, my GPSs, and my map, I was able to figure most of it out. It started raining quite hard at one point, in a town in the middle of nowhere. Luckily there was a nice Wine tasting/cafe with tons of other cyclists at it. I decided to try and wait it out with a nice big coffee. The coffee was excellent and I got a chance to practice a little bit of german with them. Based on my accent they guessed I was from the Netherlands (even though my bike jersey says Boston on it). I feel sorry for any dutch person right now. They had come from Ausburg and were on a short wine tour.
Anyways the rain let up and I hit the road again in brilliant sunlight. At this point it began getting much hillier. I still had plenty of time, I hoped, and at least I wasnt wet and still had food and water. The whole ride continued to be quite fantastic and scenic. I will have to come bike here again. The highlight of the trip though was riding by the sign at about 25mph that said with an EU star logo saying Frankreich in the middle. All of a sudden everything went from german to french. Along those lines the pretty little wine towns turned into the dead or mostly dead Wissembourg. I also had the shocking realization, that I dont know how to say Train station in french. So I went up to the first friendly looking french person I saw and said. "Ou est le Hauptbahnhof" at which point they told me in german. I found the Gare centrale, or something like that. And then realized not only did their schedules use french days of the week (a little foggy on thursday-sunday), but they list two trainstations for Wissembourg. I found a french man and tried to ask him using french/german/pointing and we decided I was in the right place, but he wasnt certain. I found a small cafe in the center of down which was slightly nicer looking, the outskirts were just butt ugly ~ ludwigshafen. I ordered Pannekuchen (clearly not a french food) and a little container of french vin rouge. It was spendy, but I satisfied my goal of having a nice glass of french wine. It also made the train ride much more pleasant.
Finally I was told by some french persons in Ludwigshafen that the french no longer use Bicyclette, and I heard two different 30-40 year old persons use it, to tell other people to get out of the way.
All in all about 70 miles on the day.
See the ride stats here
Ride map here
A small detail I forgot was I saw a sign that said "Honig Aus" -> Honey out?, and didnt really understand it. A few seconds later a bee flew into my jersey and stung my heart. Bee strings smart more than I remember than, and fortunately I am still not allergic to bees.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Work to do and Week wrapup
So on Wednesday, I got to have lunch with my old boss (Since I will only be here for two months it makes sense to have two different bosses, one for each month). I got brought up to speed on why things may have seemed a bit crazy. It was nice to get to speak with him and get a lease a little insight into what has happened. He also explained more on the PhD position from earlier, and it looks like things for me will go just fine without it and I need to regret anything.
Wednesday night we had the Stammtisch, it was a good event the bar it was at at 6.7 liter drinks (yes about the size of the suburbans engine) for 30eu. So we had a few of those, and I was the only one/first one who could drink the drink through all the straws at the same time. An impressive feat among graduate students in chemistry, chemical engineering, and the like. For those curious you cant do it if you have the straws in a big bunch, too much air leaks through; you need to line them up so your lips can seal the edges. I, purely out of curiosity, ordered a Blue pool or something like that. And it was the first cocktail, I believe that lived up to its crazy name. It tasted like pool water, with a hint of chlorine as well.
Thursday at work was a tiny bit dismal. I spent the entire day debugging IGOR code. Luckily my suitemate made some german ravoli things with, I guess, meatballs inside. They were quite good and we got to try to start planning out exactly which trips we will do when. All we really decided was definitely munich for october fest, and 90% on paris next weekend.
Friday. I got to work today and had a note from my new boss saying he wished to speak with me. I, of course, figured all my internet surfing/lyric translating caught up with me. Luckily, the meeting was about what I will be working on and I even got to see some documents that said Vertraulich (Classified/Top Secret). The meeting was quite good because now I have some general direction for what I will be trying to do over the next 5 weeks or so. Furthermore at the moment it seems feasible that something potentially quite good could come out of the work. Friday for lunch we went out to one of the restaurants on campus (a 10 minute busride away, this place is so big) The food was good, but still nothing tastes as delicious as Görtz's Pretzel covered in cheese and sunflower seeds. At night we went back to the irish bar but a few of the americans decided to pregame. This may or may not have been a good idea, but lets just say its the most I have felt like dancing in a long time.
Wednesday night we had the Stammtisch, it was a good event the bar it was at at 6.7 liter drinks (yes about the size of the suburbans engine) for 30eu. So we had a few of those, and I was the only one/first one who could drink the drink through all the straws at the same time. An impressive feat among graduate students in chemistry, chemical engineering, and the like. For those curious you cant do it if you have the straws in a big bunch, too much air leaks through; you need to line them up so your lips can seal the edges. I, purely out of curiosity, ordered a Blue pool or something like that. And it was the first cocktail, I believe that lived up to its crazy name. It tasted like pool water, with a hint of chlorine as well.
Thursday at work was a tiny bit dismal. I spent the entire day debugging IGOR code. Luckily my suitemate made some german ravoli things with, I guess, meatballs inside. They were quite good and we got to try to start planning out exactly which trips we will do when. All we really decided was definitely munich for october fest, and 90% on paris next weekend.
Friday. I got to work today and had a note from my new boss saying he wished to speak with me. I, of course, figured all my internet surfing/lyric translating caught up with me. Luckily, the meeting was about what I will be working on and I even got to see some documents that said Vertraulich (Classified/Top Secret). The meeting was quite good because now I have some general direction for what I will be trying to do over the next 5 weeks or so. Furthermore at the moment it seems feasible that something potentially quite good could come out of the work. Friday for lunch we went out to one of the restaurants on campus (a 10 minute busride away, this place is so big) The food was good, but still nothing tastes as delicious as Görtz's Pretzel covered in cheese and sunflower seeds. At night we went back to the irish bar but a few of the americans decided to pregame. This may or may not have been a good idea, but lets just say its the most I have felt like dancing in a long time.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Starbucks and Riding
I hadnt run very much in the last couple days and my running database was beginning to hassle me about it. So yesterday I decided to go explore this park in Mannheim. The park itself was right on the river and has fantastic part dirt running paths that run along the Necker. It was especially nice because it was still fairly early (7am) so the place had an almost glowing sensation to it. I think I have found my replacement for the esplanade while I am here. I also was able to run by the 'Space Needle' of mannheim which is much uglier and less impressive when you get right up to it. Anyway it made for a nice run and as a gentle reminder that all my hard work from the spring wont just vanish in a poof of smoke if I take a few days off.
After that I was in a great mood to go to work with which was extended when I finally was clued into the bigger picture for what I am working on. I am pretty sure I can't tell you but I feel much less like a lab monkey at this point, and if the project works out I will have been a tiny part of something very cool.
After realizing that without DAADs money infusion soon I will be dangerously low on cash, I had the sudden realization that there are a number of places that take credit cards (after being abroad for awhile you start to think no where takes credit cards). After getting out of work yesterday I decided to bike over to starbucks in mannheim. The resturaunt was as always in a prime location and they even had hot sandwiches. I got chicken and pesto and a small coffee milkshake. After doing this I felt motivated to possibly bike a bit longer. I wandered around pretty aimlessly for awhile and discovered a town with basically one entrance/exit which made me feel quite dumb searching around for another one.
Eventually I ended up at this ferry (the rhein doesnt have many bridges outside of real cities) I assumed like the canby ferry it was free for bikers and of course I assumed incorrectly. This was however the first time german has really helped me out. The toll guy on the ferry clearly didnt speak any english (I didnt even try), but when I explained to him I didnt have any money with me he just said next time pay double. After that I continued to bike down to speyer, to make a real ride out of the day. The ride was fantastic. The roads out here are so wonderful. I got down to speyer and basically just turned around, there was not much still to see.
For the route back I decided to take the bike paths. My experience in Bielefeld taught me that basically all bike paths blow so I tend to avoid them. It was getting dark and I had a car pass me quite quickly without giving me more than a foot of room so I thought I should at least try them. The bike path was absolutely perfect. It reminded me of the Minuteman Trail in boston only less busy, slightly wider, and no intersections. I was able to really just ride without distraction nearly the entire way back. All in all it made for a pretty great day, but I do need to find some cycling partners.
Motionbased of my Ride
After that I was in a great mood to go to work with which was extended when I finally was clued into the bigger picture for what I am working on. I am pretty sure I can't tell you but I feel much less like a lab monkey at this point, and if the project works out I will have been a tiny part of something very cool.
After realizing that without DAADs money infusion soon I will be dangerously low on cash, I had the sudden realization that there are a number of places that take credit cards (after being abroad for awhile you start to think no where takes credit cards). After getting out of work yesterday I decided to bike over to starbucks in mannheim. The resturaunt was as always in a prime location and they even had hot sandwiches. I got chicken and pesto and a small coffee milkshake. After doing this I felt motivated to possibly bike a bit longer. I wandered around pretty aimlessly for awhile and discovered a town with basically one entrance/exit which made me feel quite dumb searching around for another one.
Eventually I ended up at this ferry (the rhein doesnt have many bridges outside of real cities) I assumed like the canby ferry it was free for bikers and of course I assumed incorrectly. This was however the first time german has really helped me out. The toll guy on the ferry clearly didnt speak any english (I didnt even try), but when I explained to him I didnt have any money with me he just said next time pay double. After that I continued to bike down to speyer, to make a real ride out of the day. The ride was fantastic. The roads out here are so wonderful. I got down to speyer and basically just turned around, there was not much still to see.
For the route back I decided to take the bike paths. My experience in Bielefeld taught me that basically all bike paths blow so I tend to avoid them. It was getting dark and I had a car pass me quite quickly without giving me more than a foot of room so I thought I should at least try them. The bike path was absolutely perfect. It reminded me of the Minuteman Trail in boston only less busy, slightly wider, and no intersections. I was able to really just ride without distraction nearly the entire way back. All in all it made for a pretty great day, but I do need to find some cycling partners.
Motionbased of my Ride
Monday, July 14, 2008
Pretzel Fest, and Crappy Tasting Booze
Ok, so an update since last thursday. We ended up going to the end of
semester party for UniMannheim. I also figure this is the time to do a
quick bio of these people.
Alex - my suitemate and a student in stuttgart
Marianna - a biology+german student from wellselyan, lives at guesthouse
Kamila - A girl from poland who is now studying in france and will
soon be in Finland on some erasmus scholarship, lives at guesthouse
Stephanie - a mechanical engineer grad student from USC, lives at guesthouse
Rob - a biology student from alberta, canada, lives at guesthouse
Nadja - a german girl who studied in scottland (has a perfect scottish
accent) and now lives in belgium
Lea - a french girl studying physical chemistry (maybe?) at a school
in Strasbourg, did an internship before at L'Oreal Paris
Charlotte - another french girl also studying physical chemistry at a
school in Strasbourg, did an internship before at Agfa
Jim - A biology/bioinformatics/engineering student from Maine in a PhD
program, used to work as a technician at MIT, lives at guesthouse
thats probably plenty for now
So we went to the party with everyone except Jim and Rob. The party
itself was a slight disappointment, plenty of people turned out, but
the drinks we got for free tasted quite awful. The cups were pretty
cool though, they say crazy on them in german. Also the DJ was for the
most part terrible, playing way too much weird, old, or rock music
none of which is too fitting for a dance party. However, the superbly
redeeming fact was that everyone there was german or at least mostly
german. It was a dance party filled to the brim with lame white guy
dance moves. Neither Jack Black or Tommy Boy would not have looked out
of place there at all.This gave me tons of dancing confidence because
while I am not a good dancer, I was not embarassing myself nearly as
much as some of these other guys. The one problem was that I lacked a
role model. Usually I like to find a moderately better dancer than
myself and really just emulate them, this of course was not even close
to being possible. The bad tasting booze company managed to get a snap of me on their website (aperol.de under mannheim pictures for july)
So after a rather late friday night (we left at 2 or so, the party
apparently continued until 4), we (Alex, Mar, Kam, Step, Rob) went to
heidelberg. This is now my third time there but it is still a really
nice city, with lots of enjoyable cafes. After we got back we relaxed
for awhile and then (Alex, Mar, Kam, Nadja, Lea, Char) decided to go
out to an irish pub called Murphys Law. This place was pretty cool
with live music (who covered songs like someone who had just found the
lyrics and guess how the tune must go, certainly different and not
exactly my style, the artists for the most part knew what they were
doing, he did not). They had a Grand Marinier + Hot chocolate drink +
whip cream (which after my whole semester of french I managed to
pronounce like a dumb american instead of saying Graan Marinay). It
was delightful although chocolate doesnt mask alcohol very well. We
then started to drink wine, which I am developing a taste for, I
think. Alex, Mar, and Kam left which is where the story gets a bit
more interesting. Now our table was only half full and thus random
people would sit down next to us. The first was this guy with these
rather trampy ladies (I had a thong in my face for more seconds than I
wish to remember) they were smoking and almost intentionally blowing
it in our faces. but they were quickly replaced by this austrialian
guy who was like hey you guys are speaking english whats up. He was a
tennis coach here for the summer to play some tournament. He had
hitchhiked all around europe and was quite entertaining to talk to. We
stayed again until 2 or so. Then tried to get home but of course all
the trains were taking their 2am nap and wouldnt be out again till 3,
so we took a taxi (way too expensive here).
Sunday we (everyone) went to the Pretzel Festival in Speyer,
apparently where the pretzel might come from. The city dates back to
roman times and has quite a few exciting pieces of architechture in
it, including of course a bronze unicorn. They also, unbeknownst to
me, had a 10k race that morning that looked like it would have been
pretty fun to do. After briefly walking through the town they had a
fairground which looked exactly like a fairground anywhere else in the
world except for instead of footlong hotdogs they had 1/2 meter long
brats. Also the rides looked a tiny bit sketchier one of which looked
quite terrifying (a swing ride that went way too high and only had a
tiny bar go across your lap) After we explored here for a little while
and got some enormous pretzels. We went to go watch the Pretzel
Parade. This I could not have been less prepared for. The parade was
over 2 hours long with 101 floats. The first floats gave out candy and
other simple little things, the later floats started to throw out
pretzels. Slowly moving up to carrots, bundles of radishes, and
finally, beer and wine samples. The wine float had guys sitting on the
edge of it with bottles of wine and you bring your own container and
they put a sample in. Since I was the only one who had an easily
accessible container I brought mine and the man seeing we were all
together filled my cycling waterbottle with a nice white wine. The
floats were pretty impressive, but the wine was the definite
highlight.
I have uploaded the pictures of the parade to my flickr
Flickr Photos
So you can see that I am not making this up.
semester party for UniMannheim. I also figure this is the time to do a
quick bio of these people.
Alex - my suitemate and a student in stuttgart
Marianna - a biology+german student from wellselyan, lives at guesthouse
Kamila - A girl from poland who is now studying in france and will
soon be in Finland on some erasmus scholarship, lives at guesthouse
Stephanie - a mechanical engineer grad student from USC, lives at guesthouse
Rob - a biology student from alberta, canada, lives at guesthouse
Nadja - a german girl who studied in scottland (has a perfect scottish
accent) and now lives in belgium
Lea - a french girl studying physical chemistry (maybe?) at a school
in Strasbourg, did an internship before at L'Oreal Paris
Charlotte - another french girl also studying physical chemistry at a
school in Strasbourg, did an internship before at Agfa
Jim - A biology/bioinformatics/engineering student from Maine in a PhD
program, used to work as a technician at MIT, lives at guesthouse
thats probably plenty for now
So we went to the party with everyone except Jim and Rob. The party
itself was a slight disappointment, plenty of people turned out, but
the drinks we got for free tasted quite awful. The cups were pretty
cool though, they say crazy on them in german. Also the DJ was for the
most part terrible, playing way too much weird, old, or rock music
none of which is too fitting for a dance party. However, the superbly
redeeming fact was that everyone there was german or at least mostly
german. It was a dance party filled to the brim with lame white guy
dance moves. Neither Jack Black or Tommy Boy would not have looked out
of place there at all.This gave me tons of dancing confidence because
while I am not a good dancer, I was not embarassing myself nearly as
much as some of these other guys. The one problem was that I lacked a
role model. Usually I like to find a moderately better dancer than
myself and really just emulate them, this of course was not even close
to being possible. The bad tasting booze company managed to get a snap of me on their website (aperol.de under mannheim pictures for july)
So after a rather late friday night (we left at 2 or so, the party
apparently continued until 4), we (Alex, Mar, Kam, Step, Rob) went to
heidelberg. This is now my third time there but it is still a really
nice city, with lots of enjoyable cafes. After we got back we relaxed
for awhile and then (Alex, Mar, Kam, Nadja, Lea, Char) decided to go
out to an irish pub called Murphys Law. This place was pretty cool
with live music (who covered songs like someone who had just found the
lyrics and guess how the tune must go, certainly different and not
exactly my style, the artists for the most part knew what they were
doing, he did not). They had a Grand Marinier + Hot chocolate drink +
whip cream (which after my whole semester of french I managed to
pronounce like a dumb american instead of saying Graan Marinay). It
was delightful although chocolate doesnt mask alcohol very well. We
then started to drink wine, which I am developing a taste for, I
think. Alex, Mar, and Kam left which is where the story gets a bit
more interesting. Now our table was only half full and thus random
people would sit down next to us. The first was this guy with these
rather trampy ladies (I had a thong in my face for more seconds than I
wish to remember) they were smoking and almost intentionally blowing
it in our faces. but they were quickly replaced by this austrialian
guy who was like hey you guys are speaking english whats up. He was a
tennis coach here for the summer to play some tournament. He had
hitchhiked all around europe and was quite entertaining to talk to. We
stayed again until 2 or so. Then tried to get home but of course all
the trains were taking their 2am nap and wouldnt be out again till 3,
so we took a taxi (way too expensive here).
Sunday we (everyone) went to the Pretzel Festival in Speyer,
apparently where the pretzel might come from. The city dates back to
roman times and has quite a few exciting pieces of architechture in
it, including of course a bronze unicorn. They also, unbeknownst to
me, had a 10k race that morning that looked like it would have been
pretty fun to do. After briefly walking through the town they had a
fairground which looked exactly like a fairground anywhere else in the
world except for instead of footlong hotdogs they had 1/2 meter long
brats. Also the rides looked a tiny bit sketchier one of which looked
quite terrifying (a swing ride that went way too high and only had a
tiny bar go across your lap) After we explored here for a little while
and got some enormous pretzels. We went to go watch the Pretzel
Parade. This I could not have been less prepared for. The parade was
over 2 hours long with 101 floats. The first floats gave out candy and
other simple little things, the later floats started to throw out
pretzels. Slowly moving up to carrots, bundles of radishes, and
finally, beer and wine samples. The wine float had guys sitting on the
edge of it with bottles of wine and you bring your own container and
they put a sample in. Since I was the only one who had an easily
accessible container I brought mine and the man seeing we were all
together filled my cycling waterbottle with a nice white wine. The
floats were pretty impressive, but the wine was the definite
highlight.
I have uploaded the pictures of the parade to my flickr
Flickr Photos
So you can see that I am not making this up.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Return to Heidelberg
After a long day of sitting at work, I was ready to go outside and do
something fit. I decided to try and bike to heidelberg and then take
the train back for free. The idea started out well enough, although I
am starting to learn that my bike seeks riding on the autobahn as I
again ended up there for a brief frantic quarter mile stretch. Once I
got back on the right track the riding was fantastic. Wide open
fields, beautiful views, and very few cars, everything I could ask for
except hills, check a topo map the mannheim area is flatter than
davis. This is of course where heidelberg comes in. The ride there was
about 16 miles and once I got there and checked the train schedules I
went to go climb one of the nearby hills. It was lovingly titled
Königstuhle -- King's chair. The climb was quite tough with a number
of switchbacks going from a lowly 200 feet to nearly 1000 in about a
mile. The view on top was quite fantastic and even though I forgot my
camera, a picture wouldnt have done it justice. There were a number of
other cyclers trying this hill all of whom gave an approving wave
signifying the deep bond of the mountian climbers. So when I got back
I ran in the trainstation to grab something to eat and was able to get
a Milschmix (milkshake) they dont have those very often in germany and
it was amazing. I also got a Pizzazunge, which doesnt take much
language skills to realize is a Pizza Tongue. It didnt have tongue on
it, it was just shaped like an oval such that it resembled a big
tongue of pizza. After I got back the interns decided to go out on a
drinking walk, since it is so fantastically novel to drink outside, by
the rhein. This sounds a whole lot more charming and romantic than it
is. The rhein is just like any other major river in the world near
large cities. If I am not mistaken it caught on fire once or twice.
Also the beaches are basically piles of rock, nonetheless it was
enjoyable to just sit outside and enjoy fine german beers at night.
Tonight is the last day of classes for UniMannheim (yea german
semesters are weird) so they are throwing a big party in the city and
most of us are going, so that should be fun.
something fit. I decided to try and bike to heidelberg and then take
the train back for free. The idea started out well enough, although I
am starting to learn that my bike seeks riding on the autobahn as I
again ended up there for a brief frantic quarter mile stretch. Once I
got back on the right track the riding was fantastic. Wide open
fields, beautiful views, and very few cars, everything I could ask for
except hills, check a topo map the mannheim area is flatter than
davis. This is of course where heidelberg comes in. The ride there was
about 16 miles and once I got there and checked the train schedules I
went to go climb one of the nearby hills. It was lovingly titled
Königstuhle -- King's chair. The climb was quite tough with a number
of switchbacks going from a lowly 200 feet to nearly 1000 in about a
mile. The view on top was quite fantastic and even though I forgot my
camera, a picture wouldnt have done it justice. There were a number of
other cyclers trying this hill all of whom gave an approving wave
signifying the deep bond of the mountian climbers. So when I got back
I ran in the trainstation to grab something to eat and was able to get
a Milschmix (milkshake) they dont have those very often in germany and
it was amazing. I also got a Pizzazunge, which doesnt take much
language skills to realize is a Pizza Tongue. It didnt have tongue on
it, it was just shaped like an oval such that it resembled a big
tongue of pizza. After I got back the interns decided to go out on a
drinking walk, since it is so fantastically novel to drink outside, by
the rhein. This sounds a whole lot more charming and romantic than it
is. The rhein is just like any other major river in the world near
large cities. If I am not mistaken it caught on fire once or twice.
Also the beaches are basically piles of rock, nonetheless it was
enjoyable to just sit outside and enjoy fine german beers at night.
Tonight is the last day of classes for UniMannheim (yea german
semesters are weird) so they are throwing a big party in the city and
most of us are going, so that should be fun.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Swiss German Learning
My roommate from stuttgart brought back a DVD of his from switzerland
called Strähl. They call it the pulp-fiction of switzerland, which if
true is sad for the state of movies in the country. What was fantastic
about it thought, was the movie was in Zürich and everyone spoke
Schwyzerdütsch to such an extent the movie has subtitles so german
viewers can understand. It was also about drugs so I learned how to
saw drug addict (der Fixer), stupid cow (blöde sau), and if you use
the informal 'you' with police officers they will probably beat you
with their sticks. I also have been able to practice my german with
him where our conversations are an awkward mix of german and english
since he wants to practice his english, but they are still greatly
beneficial and I feel my german coming along but it is still a bit
slower than I would like.
As for more social things I have done, monday night the residents of
BASF Guest House had a get together where someone cooked enchiladas
from food found at the US Army Base grocery store (they dont have
essentials like corn tortillas in germany) and another person made
pancakes that we ate with butter-like whipcream and fruit. It was
delicious, I will defintely need to improve my cooking skills beyond
sandwhich based food and pasta. All the people from america have been
really great to hang out with and one of the guys from new mexico not
only had seen my shoes before, but had a pair himself, so naturally we
will be doing everything together from now on. I cant emphasize enough
how much better everything is with other interns and english speakers
here. I'd almost have to say I am more social here than at school
because at school I had real responsibilities and such.
Last night, wednesday, was the weekly stamtisch (all the interns at
basf go to some place in ludwigshafen or mannheim). This is probably
my favorite event of the week because there are people at this event
from all over and only the people who want to meet other people show
up so it works out really nicely. I had a wonderful moment of
realization when the people on my left were speaking german, my right
were speaking french and the girl sitting across from me was
german/belgien but studied in scotland so spoke english in all
likelyhood better than myself. I also have to admit the french accent
is by far my favorite. 'ave uuh seen ze move with vill smish (have you
seen the movie with will smith) she had to say it twice and then say
men in black before my aha moment came. It is also fun explaining
where oregon is. They all seem to have heard of our state but believe
it is somewhere in the middle of the country, so I usually resort to
north of san francisco, to which one of the other iterns from socal
was like what the hell are you talking about north of sf, like way way
way north. I also had my first interaction with the french girls next
to me because I was explaining my favorite french city (ville) to
someone else. Moncul is the name of the city but Mon cu means my anus
in slightly more vile terms. One of the girls was from Lyon which is
right next to it so understood which is good so they dont think I am
just a dumb vile american.
I also learned europeans seem to be quite fond of facebook, but only
use MSN messenger.
called Strähl. They call it the pulp-fiction of switzerland, which if
true is sad for the state of movies in the country. What was fantastic
about it thought, was the movie was in Zürich and everyone spoke
Schwyzerdütsch to such an extent the movie has subtitles so german
viewers can understand. It was also about drugs so I learned how to
saw drug addict (der Fixer), stupid cow (blöde sau), and if you use
the informal 'you' with police officers they will probably beat you
with their sticks. I also have been able to practice my german with
him where our conversations are an awkward mix of german and english
since he wants to practice his english, but they are still greatly
beneficial and I feel my german coming along but it is still a bit
slower than I would like.
As for more social things I have done, monday night the residents of
BASF Guest House had a get together where someone cooked enchiladas
from food found at the US Army Base grocery store (they dont have
essentials like corn tortillas in germany) and another person made
pancakes that we ate with butter-like whipcream and fruit. It was
delicious, I will defintely need to improve my cooking skills beyond
sandwhich based food and pasta. All the people from america have been
really great to hang out with and one of the guys from new mexico not
only had seen my shoes before, but had a pair himself, so naturally we
will be doing everything together from now on. I cant emphasize enough
how much better everything is with other interns and english speakers
here. I'd almost have to say I am more social here than at school
because at school I had real responsibilities and such.
Last night, wednesday, was the weekly stamtisch (all the interns at
basf go to some place in ludwigshafen or mannheim). This is probably
my favorite event of the week because there are people at this event
from all over and only the people who want to meet other people show
up so it works out really nicely. I had a wonderful moment of
realization when the people on my left were speaking german, my right
were speaking french and the girl sitting across from me was
german/belgien but studied in scotland so spoke english in all
likelyhood better than myself. I also have to admit the french accent
is by far my favorite. 'ave uuh seen ze move with vill smish (have you
seen the movie with will smith) she had to say it twice and then say
men in black before my aha moment came. It is also fun explaining
where oregon is. They all seem to have heard of our state but believe
it is somewhere in the middle of the country, so I usually resort to
north of san francisco, to which one of the other iterns from socal
was like what the hell are you talking about north of sf, like way way
way north. I also had my first interaction with the french girls next
to me because I was explaining my favorite french city (ville) to
someone else. Moncul is the name of the city but Mon cu means my anus
in slightly more vile terms. One of the girls was from Lyon which is
right next to it so understood which is good so they dont think I am
just a dumb vile american.
I also learned europeans seem to be quite fond of facebook, but only
use MSN messenger.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Espresso Wars
So todays update is a bit briefer. Yesterday we received our
Semestertickets which allow us to go basically anywhere in an 50-80km
radius (32-50 miles) from Ludwigshafen on the train for free until
september. It is a pretty amazing ticket and it cost only 110 euros.
This is a great deal considering the train ticket to work cost 2.10
each way. The best part of this, perhaps, is a town in france
Wissembourg is within this region of service. So after work I can bike
down to france have a nice glass of vin rouge (rot wein, red wine),
effortless converse with the locals, and take a relaxing train ride
home, jealous? There are quite a few interesting regions around here
to explore and apparently the Napa Valley of germany is right under
us. My next goal is to find some cyclists to accompany me, but based
on the number of spandex outfits in the shower room in the basement of
my building that shouldnt prove too hard.
Today, I engaged the espresso machine in battle. I was trying to put a
shot of espresso in my hotchocolate, of course the cups the provide
are not large enough for both hot chocolate and espresso, and the
machine checks to make sure the correct cup is inserted. So I tried
putting the valid cup in clicking the button and immediately switching
my cup in. Unfortunately this machine was cleverer than I and
proceeded to spit boiling water and foamy milk product everywhere. I
had to leave the room in shame and luckily no one else was there to
witness my incompetence. I did manage to figure out how to do it by
holding the correct lever down. So I can finally enjoy espresso and
hot chocolate together.
Also today marked another step of my climbing of the german ladder. I
answered the phone in our lab because no one else was here and I
figured why not, worse case scenerio I just hang up. Anyways they
would probably ask for someone else and I would just say 'Er ist nicht
hier', as it happened the person did want someone, but when I told
them he wasnt here they had quite a bit left to say. They started
speaking fast and after some time/frustration I was able to get out of
them their name and the number this person should call, conducted all
in german, I had a little party in my head afterwards.
Also we are beginning to plan trips and a number of people, naturally,
are interested in going to paris. I recently realized paris is
probably the most reachable of TDF destinations and given they will
roll onto the Champs Elysees on sunday the 27th Julliet, I am thinking
I can try to push my agenda. It is only a 3.5 hour train ride from
here and going there could be as cheap as 38 euros
Also in terms of my PhD it looks like the guy I am working with at
PSI, Marco will be my actual advisor and my PhD will now be from the
department of Electrical Engineering. Which is a tiny bit
disappointing (a PhD in physics would be cool), but I know I can pass
qualifiers in EE, they would be tougher in Physics, plus I can say my
PhD is anything I want anyway. Sorry that actually was not a bit
briefer at all, teddy is working on a team blog for us, then you can
just check one spot.
Semestertickets which allow us to go basically anywhere in an 50-80km
radius (32-50 miles) from Ludwigshafen on the train for free until
september. It is a pretty amazing ticket and it cost only 110 euros.
This is a great deal considering the train ticket to work cost 2.10
each way. The best part of this, perhaps, is a town in france
Wissembourg is within this region of service. So after work I can bike
down to france have a nice glass of vin rouge (rot wein, red wine),
effortless converse with the locals, and take a relaxing train ride
home, jealous? There are quite a few interesting regions around here
to explore and apparently the Napa Valley of germany is right under
us. My next goal is to find some cyclists to accompany me, but based
on the number of spandex outfits in the shower room in the basement of
my building that shouldnt prove too hard.
Today, I engaged the espresso machine in battle. I was trying to put a
shot of espresso in my hotchocolate, of course the cups the provide
are not large enough for both hot chocolate and espresso, and the
machine checks to make sure the correct cup is inserted. So I tried
putting the valid cup in clicking the button and immediately switching
my cup in. Unfortunately this machine was cleverer than I and
proceeded to spit boiling water and foamy milk product everywhere. I
had to leave the room in shame and luckily no one else was there to
witness my incompetence. I did manage to figure out how to do it by
holding the correct lever down. So I can finally enjoy espresso and
hot chocolate together.
Also today marked another step of my climbing of the german ladder. I
answered the phone in our lab because no one else was here and I
figured why not, worse case scenerio I just hang up. Anyways they
would probably ask for someone else and I would just say 'Er ist nicht
hier', as it happened the person did want someone, but when I told
them he wasnt here they had quite a bit left to say. They started
speaking fast and after some time/frustration I was able to get out of
them their name and the number this person should call, conducted all
in german, I had a little party in my head afterwards.
Also we are beginning to plan trips and a number of people, naturally,
are interested in going to paris. I recently realized paris is
probably the most reachable of TDF destinations and given they will
roll onto the Champs Elysees on sunday the 27th Julliet, I am thinking
I can try to push my agenda. It is only a 3.5 hour train ride from
here and going there could be as cheap as 38 euros
Also in terms of my PhD it looks like the guy I am working with at
PSI, Marco will be my actual advisor and my PhD will now be from the
department of Electrical Engineering. Which is a tiny bit
disappointing (a PhD in physics would be cool), but I know I can pass
qualifiers in EE, they would be tougher in Physics, plus I can say my
PhD is anything I want anyway. Sorry that actually was not a bit
briefer at all, teddy is working on a team blog for us, then you can
just check one spot.
Monday, July 7, 2008
First Week
So to update you guys on what I have done since thursday.
I discovered free coffee on the fourth floor of my building which was
quite a fantastic finding. The machine makes espressos, macchioatos,
lattes, even hot chocolate, so needless to say that made my day.
Thursday we also had a seminar for the new interns on Industrial
Biotechnology. It was a field I knew nothing about and we got a nice
bus tour of the plant: I have a slightly better idea of what BASF
actually makes but am still quite unclear, and of course as all events
do we got Kaffee and Küchen.
Friday I got to start making some real science. We made images with
the AFM of a couple of samples. I am not allowed to know what the
samples are or even what the over arching goal is, but it is
interesting to do the work and see how companies handle research. They
actually have an internal system much like NSF where PI's apply for
funding for specific projects so even in the industrial world one must
be able to write well.
Friday evening as part of RISE (the program for americans and
canadians that I am in) we went to heidelberg for the RISE-Academic
(undergraduates from the us doing research in german labs) meeting. We
got to explore around the city a little bit and they have a really
well kept Jesuitenkirsche (jesuit church) and we saw a street band
playing the flintstones (the closest we were going to get to a 4th of
july celebration). After we went to dinner at Kulturbrauerie (Cultural
Brewery) and RISE funded our food and our first beer, so no complaints
there. Dinner took quite some time to come because there were over 300
students there in total (290 Rise-Academic + 5 Rise-Pro + 10 or so
misc personell). Afterwards the best german speaker in the group,
luckily not me, tried to figure out where a bus was going and
apparently misunderstood the bus driver and we got on a bus going to
the middle of nowhere. We had to get off and rush back to the main
train station to make sure we didnt miss the last train to
ludwigshafen or else we would have had a 15 mile walk back home in the
dark. We caught the last train but by a much closer margin than any of
us were comfortable with.
Pictures (http://picasaweb.google.com/kevinmader/HeidelbergRISEMeeting)
This weekend most people just relaxed and got settled. I got my bike
setup and went exploring and found the most amazing bike store ever
(except it doesnt accept CC). The best description is if you imagine
costco and then have it filled with only bike stuff. It was enormous,
easily 1000 bikes inside. Naturally I spent about an hour browsing
around there. I then found the german equivalent of GI-Joes called
Decathlon. I was able to pick up running shorts (I left a batch of
clothing in the dryer including my pillow and thus had no running
shorts). The clothing there except shoes was as cheap as the states if
not more so, so I will definitely be spending more time there if their
stuff turns out not to be pure garbage.
Today all I have done so far is get my bankaccount setup and hopefully
encouraged RISE to put my money in. The logistics of this program were
very evidently only about 70% thought out and luckily I have easy
access to my american money and know my way around german things a
bit, had I done this last summer I would have had many more issues.
As for my new clothes they are excellent. They fit in fine with the
standard work outfits and are comfortable and cool (temperature mainly
but also stylistically).
Also after doing my laundry in the shower (the only option I think we
have, everybody does it) I am starting to miss home, but it is too
wonderful here to get too homesick.
I discovered free coffee on the fourth floor of my building which was
quite a fantastic finding. The machine makes espressos, macchioatos,
lattes, even hot chocolate, so needless to say that made my day.
Thursday we also had a seminar for the new interns on Industrial
Biotechnology. It was a field I knew nothing about and we got a nice
bus tour of the plant: I have a slightly better idea of what BASF
actually makes but am still quite unclear, and of course as all events
do we got Kaffee and Küchen.
Friday I got to start making some real science. We made images with
the AFM of a couple of samples. I am not allowed to know what the
samples are or even what the over arching goal is, but it is
interesting to do the work and see how companies handle research. They
actually have an internal system much like NSF where PI's apply for
funding for specific projects so even in the industrial world one must
be able to write well.
Friday evening as part of RISE (the program for americans and
canadians that I am in) we went to heidelberg for the RISE-Academic
(undergraduates from the us doing research in german labs) meeting. We
got to explore around the city a little bit and they have a really
well kept Jesuitenkirsche (jesuit church) and we saw a street band
playing the flintstones (the closest we were going to get to a 4th of
july celebration). After we went to dinner at Kulturbrauerie (Cultural
Brewery) and RISE funded our food and our first beer, so no complaints
there. Dinner took quite some time to come because there were over 300
students there in total (290 Rise-Academic + 5 Rise-Pro + 10 or so
misc personell). Afterwards the best german speaker in the group,
luckily not me, tried to figure out where a bus was going and
apparently misunderstood the bus driver and we got on a bus going to
the middle of nowhere. We had to get off and rush back to the main
train station to make sure we didnt miss the last train to
ludwigshafen or else we would have had a 15 mile walk back home in the
dark. We caught the last train but by a much closer margin than any of
us were comfortable with.
Pictures (http://picasaweb.google.com/kevinmader/HeidelbergRISEMeeting)
This weekend most people just relaxed and got settled. I got my bike
setup and went exploring and found the most amazing bike store ever
(except it doesnt accept CC). The best description is if you imagine
costco and then have it filled with only bike stuff. It was enormous,
easily 1000 bikes inside. Naturally I spent about an hour browsing
around there. I then found the german equivalent of GI-Joes called
Decathlon. I was able to pick up running shorts (I left a batch of
clothing in the dryer including my pillow and thus had no running
shorts). The clothing there except shoes was as cheap as the states if
not more so, so I will definitely be spending more time there if their
stuff turns out not to be pure garbage.
Today all I have done so far is get my bankaccount setup and hopefully
encouraged RISE to put my money in. The logistics of this program were
very evidently only about 70% thought out and luckily I have easy
access to my american money and know my way around german things a
bit, had I done this last summer I would have had many more issues.
As for my new clothes they are excellent. They fit in fine with the
standard work outfits and are comfortable and cool (temperature mainly
but also stylistically).
Also after doing my laundry in the shower (the only option I think we
have, everybody does it) I am starting to miss home, but it is too
wonderful here to get too homesick.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
First Bar Night
So last night we had an outing with all the interns at BASF to a pub
called Hemingways. Again there are interns at BASF from all over
everywhere from the US, Canada, to Poland, and France. So walking into
the pub there was a huge group of students sitting in the back
speaking no less than 3 different languages. Everyone was
exceptionally friendly and at least one person there still believed I
was german after I had opened my mouth (a first for me), but almost
everyone spoke english quite well. However one girl from Bretagne
spoke some german, and almost no english. So one of the canadian
students and I were able to practice our decidedly not fluent french
skills with her. Most the people there seemed quite interested in
traveling on the weekends and going out to the various disko's near
ludwigshafen. I had the realization that I could end up meeting some
really good connections here as most of the students are from europe
and will still be here next year when I descend into die Schweiz. I
also learned that you can get a eurorail pass when you are here and it
is not any more complicated than doing it from the us possibly even
simpler, so I think I will probably get one of those, from what I have
heard from the other interns our stipend is plenty to get a nice 15
day pass. I am also quite exceptionally glad to be paid in euros
because if you look at expenses in dollars you literally piss away
money, $5 for a coffee, $8 for a fruity drink at the pub (in my
defense it was quite hot outside and the peach coloda looked
absolutely fantastic), $3 per city train\bus ride, but I from what I
can tell I will enjoy this summer unimaginably more than last summer
in bielefeld. I think between having native-english speakers very
close and knowing more german I feel so much less isolated.
I also am working on some samples that are so secret I am not even
allowed to know what they are, because competitors might try and steal
the formula or something. It doesnt really matter to me, I actually
like it more because it makes me feel quite important, and might be a
good pick up line at a bar.
ok back to work now
called Hemingways. Again there are interns at BASF from all over
everywhere from the US, Canada, to Poland, and France. So walking into
the pub there was a huge group of students sitting in the back
speaking no less than 3 different languages. Everyone was
exceptionally friendly and at least one person there still believed I
was german after I had opened my mouth (a first for me), but almost
everyone spoke english quite well. However one girl from Bretagne
spoke some german, and almost no english. So one of the canadian
students and I were able to practice our decidedly not fluent french
skills with her. Most the people there seemed quite interested in
traveling on the weekends and going out to the various disko's near
ludwigshafen. I had the realization that I could end up meeting some
really good connections here as most of the students are from europe
and will still be here next year when I descend into die Schweiz. I
also learned that you can get a eurorail pass when you are here and it
is not any more complicated than doing it from the us possibly even
simpler, so I think I will probably get one of those, from what I have
heard from the other interns our stipend is plenty to get a nice 15
day pass. I am also quite exceptionally glad to be paid in euros
because if you look at expenses in dollars you literally piss away
money, $5 for a coffee, $8 for a fruity drink at the pub (in my
defense it was quite hot outside and the peach coloda looked
absolutely fantastic), $3 per city train\bus ride, but I from what I
can tell I will enjoy this summer unimaginably more than last summer
in bielefeld. I think between having native-english speakers very
close and knowing more german I feel so much less isolated.
I also am working on some samples that are so secret I am not even
allowed to know what they are, because competitors might try and steal
the formula or something. It doesnt really matter to me, I actually
like it more because it makes me feel quite important, and might be a
good pick up line at a bar.
ok back to work now
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
No Internet, kinda
I have an apartment without internet or from what I can tell
accessible laundry (apparently people do such things using the sink
eek (did i study abroad in a 2nd world country or did I somehow take
the wrong plane and end up in africa?) I have a cell phone here now
that has a built in radio, but I am not exactly yet sure of my number.
There are 6-7 other rise-pro students at BASF and they all seem nice
and are from all over the place with all kinds of different
backgrounds (one girl is from wellsleyan, and thus heard obama at
graduation). BASF also hires hundreds of interns from all over (spain,
poland, germany, france). So it is a pretty cool experience. You also
have no idea how frickin enormous BASF is. Go to google maps and
lookup : "ludwigshafen am rhein, germany". It is a small town approx
18 sq-km. There are 15 gates to enter the small town and security is
pretty tight. I have 3 roommates 1 is from singapore and spends his
time cooking really fancy meals and watching dvds on his computer, the
other is from stuttgart (so I will have a german practice buddy) and
he is studying automation or something like that. They both are pretty
nice certainly better than my last roommate. Also something you all
should find amusing is that although everyone in the program is 22
years or older (the euro-students are closer to 25) we are not allowed
to have guests after 10pm and have quite hours after 9pm. How is that
for a guest-policy? One girl even asked if her dad could stay with her
overnight to which the response was certainly not. Also my last two
withdrawls from deutschebank, I have gotten under the current exchange
rate for euro->dollar, so go deutschebank.
accessible laundry (apparently people do such things using the sink
eek (did i study abroad in a 2nd world country or did I somehow take
the wrong plane and end up in africa?) I have a cell phone here now
that has a built in radio, but I am not exactly yet sure of my number.
There are 6-7 other rise-pro students at BASF and they all seem nice
and are from all over the place with all kinds of different
backgrounds (one girl is from wellsleyan, and thus heard obama at
graduation). BASF also hires hundreds of interns from all over (spain,
poland, germany, france). So it is a pretty cool experience. You also
have no idea how frickin enormous BASF is. Go to google maps and
lookup : "ludwigshafen am rhein, germany". It is a small town approx
18 sq-km. There are 15 gates to enter the small town and security is
pretty tight. I have 3 roommates 1 is from singapore and spends his
time cooking really fancy meals and watching dvds on his computer, the
other is from stuttgart (so I will have a german practice buddy) and
he is studying automation or something like that. They both are pretty
nice certainly better than my last roommate. Also something you all
should find amusing is that although everyone in the program is 22
years or older (the euro-students are closer to 25) we are not allowed
to have guests after 10pm and have quite hours after 9pm. How is that
for a guest-policy? One girl even asked if her dad could stay with her
overnight to which the response was certainly not. Also my last two
withdrawls from deutschebank, I have gotten under the current exchange
rate for euro->dollar, so go deutschebank.
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