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.