TourdeFlener

Heidelberg and Stuttgart

2009-07-08T16:12:00.012-06:00

The day after Stadtallendorf, I worked in the morning and then headed to catch a train to Heidelberg to celebrate the birthday of dear friend and fellow Fulbrighter Elisa. I should explain a bit about the Marburg semester ticket.

The semester ticket is given to all students who register. The student union in Marburg negotiates with the regional transportation to secure a special transit pass for students that covers travel on regional trains in the area surrounding the university. The union in Marburg is particularly good at this task and even negotiated with Deutsche Bahn to grant us access fast Intercity trains that travel across country. Thus, we the 100 Euro semester ticket, I can travel on any train that travels through Marburg to the stop right outside Hessen. This means that the normally 30 Euro train right from Marburg to Heidelberg is now free, as long as I stink to Intercity trains. Its a beautiful thing. On this particular trip, I felt inspired to write the previous blog entry about the joys of train travel.

I arrived in Heidelberg around 3pm in the afternoon, bearing only my backpack for the overnight travel. The birthday girl was MIA, so I found a park bench along the Neckar River and settled down for a nap. (another thing I love about Europe, I feel safe enough to fall asleep on a park bench). Eventually the birthday girl was found and we set out to make food for the Mexican themed feast. While cooking several other Fulbrighters from around Germany arrived (all a pleasant surpise for the birthday girl) and secured a cooler to transport the now freshly prepared food to the river bank. After singing happy birthday by candlelight, we watched a procession of men and women carrying torches down the river. We never figured out why they did it.

After dinner, we all cleaned up and I retired to Elisa's place to camp out for the night. I woke up early the next morning and hopped on an early train towards Stuttgart. I just happened to board the same train as another Fulbright so we ended up chatting during the hour long trip. (Can you imagine this happening if we all drove cars to the party?) I hopped off at Stuttgart while he traveled on to Munich. Once in Stuttgart, I took use of the train locker system (great system that needs to be replicated at US train stations) and set off exploring Stuttgart. I first found a lovely park just outside the train station.

After getting lost a few times and learning to navigate the tram system, I eventually found my way to the Mercedes Benz Museum, a modern glass sculpture on the outskirts of town.
This museum was a must-see considering that even the busses in Germany are Mercedes Benz. The museum is extremely interactive and shows the history of the company from the birth of the first car to the most modern version of the Mercedes Benz Class 5.
On your self-guided tour, you see all types of vehicles that the company has ever made (including their ambulances and speciality cars).

At one point, the museum even let you try out the massaging seat chair available in class Mercedes Benz class 3 or higher cars. (I tried this out of course.)

After exploring the museum, I met up with Elisa and Kim at the Stuttgart FruhlingsFest (or Spring festival). I at first thought it would be this dinky little festival filled with beer and schnitzel, but it turns out that the festival was a HUGE fair type event, filled with high flying swings (we rode them), roller coasters named after the alps, games (played them), and of course multiple beer gardens with live music and people dressed in dirndls and Lederhosen.

Even the little kiddie rides were authentically German with kids riding miniature ICE trains.

The feeling of the festival was one of great fun and joy. I honestly can not remember having so much fun at an American style fair since I was 10, but I guess the fact that every thing seemed new and different made me feel like a kid again.

After spending a few hours at the festival and realizing that none of us had brought more than 15 Euros each to spend at the festival we decided to take off towards the city. Since Stuttgart was a major manufacturing hub during World War II, the town was heavily bombed and thus had to be completely rebuilt. The "old town" consists of a few churches that were rebuilt after the war and some pedestrian only streets of rebuilt fachwerk houses.

However, it was still a nice town to explore. Its one of the few big cities that I would actually enjoy living in. I would love to visit it again, especially when I found out later that my dad's family lived in Esslingen in the 1200s. Esslingen is less than a 10 minute train ride from Stuttgart.

Thus this place definitely merits another visit, just probably not this summer.

2009-07-08T15:38:00.009-06:00

May first was a holiday (May day or Labor day) in Germany so the first weekend of May was a long weekend. In some cities like Berlin, May day was celebrated with riots and protests. I decided NOT to celebrate in this manner and decided to spend the weekend traveling.

On Friday, my housemate Johannes and I used our semester tickets to travel to Stadtallendorf, a small town just north of Marburg. Before World War 2, this collection of towns was a major manufacturing hub for middle germany. During the war, the Germans needed a munitions factory. Instead of building large factory buildings which would be prime targets for bombing, the Germans built tiny buildings in a forest. Then instead of relying on darkness to to disguise the buildings, they planted a forest on top of the buildings. When allied bombers flew over the town, all they saw was a large forest. The allies knew that a large munitions factory existed in Hesse, but they could never find it! The factories were hidden so well that they were never discovered during the war. Rumour had it that the buildings still existed, so we took off to explore.

Stadtallendorf itself is a tired little town just 15 minutes train ride north of Marburg. The town today is little more than a train station and a small pedestrian zone. (they only have one ice cream shop!) However, soon after leaving the train station, we found a map showing a small military base and then a box with TNT on it. We had no better idea so we just headed on to the forest. After a few wrong turns, we ended up at some military barracks and a sign saying basically, "don't trepass" with very bold lettering. Being the non-obedient people that we are, we of course we trespassed.

Soon after walking into the forest, we found exactly what we came looking for, a building covered in trees. Johannes attempted the scale the fence but we decided it was better to set off in search of other buildings.

We made our way deeper into a forest and started noticing large hills with trees growing on them. Only later did we realize that these lumps were in fact the buildings we so desired to find!

Can you see the building in the photo above? This photo was taken in broad daylight, from the path just 20 meters away from the building. Now imagine trying to locate these buildings at night or under cloud cover, No wonder these buildings were never found!

Nearly all the munitions equipment had been removed during extensive clean up operations 20 years ago, but we still found evidence of what life would have been like at the factory. Apparently some workers actually lived at factory as you can see the wallpaper in this particular building.

In one building we even found a cot, although its likely that the cot arrived after the factory had closed.

We also came across the recreation area, complete with beer garden and tennis courts. The beer sign still hung on the outside of the building, although you can't see it very well in this photo.

We came across lots of these old buildings, many of which had been turned into trash heaps over the last 60 years. One person's trash heap becomes another person's treasure.

We spent over 3 hours exploring these buildings and experiencing a part of German history well known to the world, but of which little evidence remains. In general, most Germans don't want to talk about the war. Frankly, I don't blame them. Its a huge blemish on a rather fascinating country. The country is filled with wonderful towns and a truly remarkable history, but most people tend to focus on the relics from the war. The relics are fascinating and very much intriguing, but Germany is just much more than that. Stay tuned for the next part of this weekend, a birthday in Heidelberg and a visit to Stuttgart.

In the meantime, here is a link to the photos from this trip. I highly suggest you take a look as the buildings are incredible.

Stadtallendorf Munitions Factory

Wetzlar, Goethe once hated this town

2009-07-07T17:40:00.016-06:00

Back in late April (easter weekend to be exact), my friend Johannes and I decided to make the best of our semester tickets and travel to obscure places in Hessen (that's the region of Germany I live in). The list of cities to visit started out rather small. Hessen is not exactly known for its tourist sites. The city of Frankfurt merits only 10 pages in my lonely planet guidebook while Berlin merits close to 60 pages. Marburg gets 1 page. Thus we didn't really know where to go. One of the other Fulbrights in Marburg(link) mentioned a town with free night vision goggles. The idea sounded interesting so the Saturday before Easter, Johannes and I piled onto a train and headed to Wetzlar.

The town of Wetzlar is little over 1 hour from Marburg by train. After transferring in Giessen (a town much larger than Marburg that does not merit a single mention in my guidebook) we arrived in a rather sad looking town. This trip did not seem promising at first as we stepped off the train into a American style indoor mall, complete with German interpretations of the easter story (hope to find the pictures soon). However, we soon found signs directly us to the old town, so we took off across an old bridge and ended up in the Altstadt of typical German fachwerk houses.

We traveled up into the hill to find the Wetzlar Dom/Kirche. A catholic and a protestant church in one. The mismatch of services corresponded quite well to the mismatched architectural styles of the building. In the photo below you see styles reminiscent of the middle ages, gothic, and romanesque.

Interestingly, unlike many churches in Germany, this one was not bombed in World War II, it just grew to look like this. The effect was not quite ugly but not quite beautiful either. I would call it interesting.

After exploring the innards of the church (pretty boring so no photos), J and I headed back into the fachwerk houses of the Altstadt. One house in particular carried a plaque that merited further investigation.

Goethe once lived here. We decided to commemorate this occasion by enjoying a beer, which led me to try this interesting Magic drink

The drink may not have been magic, but carried enough sustenance in it to keep me going for another few hours. Its the difference between American and German attitudes towards beer. Americans view beer as a way to get drunk, but Germans view it as a way to refresh the body with vital nutrients and minerals. The german beers are generally much darker than their American counterparts and thus provide you with the stamina to continue a hike.

After refreshments, we headed out to explore more of the city and came across this tower on the edge of town.

A sign on the tower said that it used to be a guard tower. Now its attached to a rather modern apartment complex. The other side of the tower is a lovely park, which was just starting to bloom.

As we walked through town, we saw lots of pieces of old town fortifications and even a few more fachwerk houses, but our goal was some castle ruins on top of a hill overlooking the city. After a few wrong turns and detour through an old factory, we finally stormed the castle.

I have found that castle ruins are much cooler to explore than fully restored castles so J and I spent about an hour just walking through the former courtyards and guard rooms. The largest remaining part of the castle was the guard tower, which even had a staircase for us to climb.

Once reaching the top, we saw this lovely view of south Hessen.

You can see the Wetzlar kirche/Dom in the middle of the photo. We then decided to head back into town to find some food. We hit the jackpot when we discovered a newly opened beer garden in the middle of town selling fresh wurst and ebelwoi. Now before people start calling me a drunkard, you have to understand that German beer gardens are places for family, not for getting drunk. People gather around large tables and reminisce while the kids play around the table. The gardens are typically surrounded by plants (hence the garden) and are great places to just relax and chat. This particular garden was located on the banks of the river Lahn (the same one that flows through Marburg) and featured a great view of the 500 year old Wetzlar bridge.

We enjoyed a bit of wurst and brotchen while probsting to the recently minted PhD friend of mine in the US. (Here's to you Bryce!)

We still had about 45 minutes to kill before the next fast train to Marburg, so we enjoyed a bit of the musical water fountain before heading back into town. (listen very carefully and see if you can figure out the song...here's a hint...Jingle bells, jingle bells....)

We eventually found the famous "night vision goggles" which proved to be quite useless in the daylight. We also found many other interesting novelties such as a spinning tunnel that was supposed to distort your mind and a series of giant bubbles that you were supposed to shine lights on. My friend J realized that the town was home to a major German optics manufacturer. The company apparently donated all the weird optical equipment.

We caught the train and headed back into town. I can now say that I have been to a random German city and explored the games of the local employer. In reference to the title of this entry. Goethe, the German writer, once lived here but hated it, not exactly the best selling point for a city.

Hopefully I will find more time to write about the other random cities that J and I visited, including a WW2 munitions factory town (big highlight for me).

Until then, here's the link for the complete photo album of Wetzlar.

Wetzlar

Dritte Platz

2009-07-01T07:26:00.010-06:00

Tuesday was a highlight of my time in Marburg. Each year, the department of chemistry hosts a day long soccer tournament. I was lucky enough to participate in the tournament two years ago (link) and I looked forward to attending another one. The group started planning for the tournament about 5 months ago. Since the group hosts a lot of short term visitors, repeat visitors actually arrange their trips to coincide with the tournament.

One of the first things we needed was a team name. It was very important that our name exude both love of our field (quantum chemistry) and intimidation. Competition was fierce, at one point we had 15 different names to choose from. Eventually the field was narrowed down to two names
1) Frenking's Smooth Operators - Named after our boss and the mathematical functions that act on other functions to produce a number (implying that we would act on the field to produce points)
2) St. Pauli Principle - Combining a soccer team from southern Germany with a well known chemistry principle, the Pauli principle. In basic chemistry, the Pauli principle states that if two electrons are placed in the same orbital, they must be of opposite spins. In its pure mathematical form, the Pauli Principle states that if two electrons are placed in the same space, they must be antisymmetric (ie. Psi ri rj = -Psi rj ri)

After two rounds of voting and dubious claims of voter fraud (just kidding), we finally chose the name St. Pauli Principle.

Once we had the name, we had to create a t-shirt. This was rather straight forward since the St. Pauli team already had a logo of a Pirate and crossbones.

All we had to do was replace the pirate head with our bosses head, add the Pauli Principle to the shirt, and print it, which we did.

Now that the t-shirt and name were set, we started practices. The group is rather large so finding a time that worked for all was very difficult. We started with a few 8am practices, which were nice since we finished practice, then headed to shower, then joined everyone at the Lahnberge for breakfast together. We also tried 5pm after lab and finally 5pm on Sunday. All in all we got in about 6 different practices, its better than none, but still not too great. However, work kept us from practicing more (even though our boss wanted the team to do well, we still had to do work).

The day before the tournament, one of the labmates proposed that we increase team spirit even more by painting our nails with the team symbols. (the Pauli principle). Many of us said, why not. The end product looked like this.

Finally, the day of the tournament arrived. We all arrived bright and early to the field, wearing our brown St. Pauli Principle shirts. Our team played very well and everyone who wanted to play earned a chance to play. I even played about 5 minutes of our third game. Three games and a couple of bratwursts later (its germany, we snack on wurst all the time), we had won or tied enough games to put us into contention for the top team in our group. We only had to win one more game in order to advance to the quarterfinals.

The cheer squad decided to renew our cheers. Cheers of "lets go Pauli, lets go" and "Pauli, Pauli" and our slogan "Psi is not symmetric, neither is this game, St. Pauli Principle, Win! Win! Win!" filled the field. We may not have been the best team, but we were the most enthusiastic.

Our cheers must have worked because we advanced to the next round.

From this point on, the rest of the day became a blur. I spent 25 minutes cheering loudly for the team, then taking a 20 minute break between games. The team advanced all the way to the semifinal and lost by just 1 point to 2nd place team. We eventually played a half-final to earn third place over all, the highest placement the group has ever earned!

Our boss was so proud of us that he volunteered to pay for dinner the following night, an offer that many of us took him up on

Overall, the day was a major highlight of my time in Germany. The research group here is very diverse and international. In the year that that I have worked here, we have had students or post-docs from North America, South America, East Asia, India, Africa, Iraq, and of course countries from all over Europe. In the past the team has had members from Spain, Russia, and Brazil show up to play. This year was no different as 4 continents and 8 different countries were represented. We all joined together to work as a team and advance the team goals. Even those who could not play joined in cheering on the team. I am very grateful that I was able to stay for this historic win and I know that I will treasure the memories for a lifetime.

Here is a link to the photo album containing photos from the day.

Fussball Tournament

the lunch lady smiled at me

2009-06-29T14:07:00.002-06:00

Only 15 days left in Germany. Its unbelievable that I am really leaving in just over 2 weeks. I know that my family wants me home. Part of me wants to go home, but as I return to thoughts that I had in January, what really defines my home. In college, I defined home as "where my pillow is". This year, that definition failed to explain my circumstances as my bed is in Illinois with a friend, the special gel pillow I bought last year is at my parents house, my fiance bought a pillow that I liked when he bought his bed hoping that someday I would actually be there to use it, and my favorite pillowcase that I used since college is on my bed in Marburg. The usual definitions don't work anymore.

One thing this year has taught me is to redefine what it means to be home. Now, home is simply defined as a place that I can relax and be myself. Now that means that I am home when I do a crazy dance in the group coffee room as my labmates and I discuss a confusing chemical phenomenon.(really, this happens often). It also means that home is the place where I sit on the balcony and read papers while listening to people on the balcony below sing songs in both German and English. Home is also the train rides from Frankfurt to Marburg where I feel relaxed enough to fall asleep (especially when the train ends at Marburg). Home is also my parent's renovated farmhouse, in a room that I never actually lived in for more than 4 weeks. Home is also with my fiance as we drive from town to town visiting people.

Home is what brings me peace. This year reminded me once again how much it takes to create a home. It took many months before I could finally relax with my housemates, not worrying how I acted or how poorly I spoke their language. It took several conferences and many late nights in the office to allow me to relax with my labmates. Home is what led me to actually carry on a conversation with the lunch lady at the mensa today, which gave me the first lunch lady smile I have seen all year.

The title of this post, "the lunch lady smiled at me" refers to all the little happy moments that have made Marburg seem like home. The guy in the stockroom that greets me with a smile every morning, the knowledge that I can run into my labmates when I go to grab a quick cup of coffee in the room next door (and I am happy about it), the smiles and jokes from Reuti as I walk by his office, the teasing housemates who put up with my silly simple German stories. All of these things combine to make Marburg just a bit more homey.

Train Travel

2009-06-21T02:18:00.005-06:00

I wrote this post over a month ago but I just now finally posting it, sorry for the delay. :-(

I write this post from the bord bistro car on an intercity train from Marburg to Heidelberg. The tables are bigger here so I have room to spread out while I am working. While riding this train, I have been entertained by an incredibly drunk German man who likes to talk, especially to pretty women. I am so far avoided his conversation by keeping headphones in my ears, thus rendering me inaccessible to his conversation starters.

He keeps talking and talking to this poor older lady two tables from me. I keep looking up and giving the lady my sorriest grin that says "I am sorry you have to deal with this man." However, while listening in on the conversation, I have so far been entertained by a song about Bankfurt on Buy which is about the banking town Frankfurt on Main (pronounced like mine). He also likes to talk about Ryan Air, and how London is a prettier city than Frankfurt (no disagreement here). The really cool thing about the whole situation is that people just seem to humor him.

The environment on this train is very relaxing. I often fall asleep.....

or get a lot of work done. I really wish the US had more trains.
Riding the trains is one of the few times that I absolutely fall in love with this country. When I travel with friends, we just pile into a four person seater, then chat and chat until the train announces our destination. We then pile out and wander the town, hopping back onto the next train that will take us home. If I don't travel with friends, its not uncommon to make friends along the way. Just like the atmosphere on the bord bistro that allows us all to humor this drunken guy, the train puts every one on an equal place, so we learn to enjoy every moment.

Ich liebe den Zug!

Dein Englisch ist perfekt!

2009-06-10T16:11:00.002-06:00

One of the coolest things about living in another country is making friends in a new language. Instead of associating a person with a name or a place, you now associate a language. Its incredibly weird. However, the problem with being a native American English speaker is that every one wants to speak to you in English instead of German. Thankfully, most of the people in my dormitory realize that I want to learn German, so they speak to me auf Deutsch instead of English. The last few weeks, I have been so obsessed with thesis writing that I have completely avoided all conversations with my housemates (and writing my blog, sorry). One of my housemates thought that I was avoiding the common area because I was afraid to speak auf Deutsch (part of the reason) Today, when he saw me in the kitchen he said, "I want to speak English with you. I want to practice my American English." I smiled and said, "Ja, wir können Englisch sprechen." He then said, "My English is bad so you do not want to speak English with me." I replied auf Deutsch "Nein, dein Englisch ist perfekt!" He this switched back to German and we continued to chat for another hour or so auf Deutsch.

The point of this conversation is this, no matter what the housemate said, I could only reply to him in German. To speak English to a housemate would be incredibly weird and disconcerting, even when I know that a housemate speaks perfect English (two of my housemates studied in America as high school students). It shocks me to the core to hear housemates use English sentences or phrases. I feel strangely out of place when the conversation switches away from German, even when I don't have a clue what is being said auf Deutsch.

I suppose this is a normal feeling for people immersed in a foreign culture, but its a pretty cool experience for me. When I recognize people on the street, I have to think about which language to use to greet them. I really really love this experience and will be sad to lose it in 5 weeks.

Visiting the dentist.....auf Deutsch

2009-05-15T06:25:00.002-06:00

Wow...I can't believe I haven't posted in nearly a month. I apologize for my laziness, I've just been too busy traveling Europe, writing my thesis, and wasting time online (but not writing my blog). I started several posts last weekend but I never got around to finishing them....I promise to amend soon. Today my post will focus on my visit to the dentist.

In an effort to experience as much 'real' German life as possible, I visited the dentist back in March. To find a dentist in Marburg, I simply googled (in English) for dentist in Marburg and ended up on the English website of a dentist located in Marbrug (how convenient). The Dentist had an American wife and spoke perfect English (even with an American accent!) thus I was saved from learning German tooth vocabulary for a while. However, during my last visit (mostly a check-up) the dentist stated that I needed to repair a filling and I could not wait until I returned to US (and had dental insurance again) since the damaged portion of the tooth was dangerously close to a nerve (that is really really bad). Since I don't have dental insurance through the Fulbright, I have to pay for all teeth repairs myself. After spending the last two months saving money to pay for the needed repairs, I finally made another appointment with the dentist for today.

Last time I visited the dentist, the dentist tried to speak to me in German, then realized that I wasn't following, so he switched to English and I understood everything that he said. I felt like I was cheating my travel experience since I was able to converse in my native tongue but I felt that speaking English was an acceptable compromise considering that I was already pretty nervous about visiting the dentist.

In an earlier blog post, I mentioned that I felt that my German comprehension had increased dramatically in the last month. On May 5th, I conversed with my lab mates almost entirely in German. On May 6th, I left for 7 days in Great Britain. On May 12th, I returned to Germany and realized that I no longer understood anything that my lab mates said! Oh second languages...how quickly you disapear when not used......
In addition, my appointment was for 8am in the Southern quarter of the city, which meant that I had to catch a bus that left at 7:15am in order to arrive on time. I woke up at 6:30am, much much earlier than my normal wake up time. Since I woke up so early, I didn't have time to grab a coffee before catching the bus (I like to say, Ich kann kein Deutsch verstehen weil ich keinen Kaffee trinken habe).

I arrived at the dentist's office very tired and completely incoherent. But this was no problem because my dentist could speak English, which I thankfully can understand even when tired. The staff however speaks only German so I first had to navigate through the complexities of German dental bearocracy (note to others, take your passport with you, Germans aren't happy to accept Student IDs, even when issued from Germany!). Thankfully, the staff was very understanding and made every effort to communicate with pictures and hand gestures. I tired my best to communicate but I could not make a sentence more complicated than 'Es schmerzt' and point to the tooth that needed repairs. The funny thing is that my teeth didn't hurt at all, it was the only thing I could think of to describe my situation. I tried my best to reciprocate on the language front by reading a German children's book on visiting the dentist. Despite my best efforts, I still could not comprehend more than a few words spoken by the people around me.

Eventually I was taken back to visit the dentist, expecting to communicate in American dental lingo. This time, however, the English speaking dentist was unavailable so I ended up with the German brother of the dentist, which meant that all conversations took place in German! We chatted (mostly smiling and nodding on my part) and then the dentist took a look at my teeth. I could tell from his expression that he was not happy. He said something about a filling and mentioned that he would repair it. Then he brought in a peice of paper for me to sign. The paper was entirely in German with numbers and a bill. Not a big deal since I had seen a pre-pay bill before. I sign the paper and pass it back to the dentist. However, just as he pulls the paper away, I noticed that there is a '3' next to the German word for dental fillings. I think...'maybe that's just the line number for the bill (after anaethesia and cleaning). The dentist comes at me with a silver needle (frightening even when you understand what's being spoken) and proceeds to jab me not once, but twice for 20 seconds per jab. He then tilts my chair up and says, something like wait 5 minutes. I wait...falling asleep in my chair and shaking awake when I hear the door open. The dentist flips my chair back so all the blood rushed to my head. Then he pulls out the dreaded drill. The pain killer had kicked in at this point so I didn't feel much. I did notice, however, that the drill seemed to move from tooth to tooth. I kept thinking that my unfeeling nerves were playing tricks on me. However, after drilling for 20 minutes (no joke, I timed it), the dentist pulls out a mirror and has me look at my mouth. My eyes widen when I realize that the dentist had drilled holes in 3 teeth! The dentist then proceeds to look at another tooth and says...blah blah blah zwischen blah blah. I think zwischen= between. Apparently the dentist was trying to tell me that I had a cavity in between two teeth so he asked if he could drill in yet another tooth! That means that I now had four teeth with holes! The dentist (and me!) had not anticipated that the appointment would last as long as it did, so he kept having to leave to visit other patients and then return. While he was gone, I was left to ponder my poor dental hygeine and the weirdly shaped teeth in my mouth. Finally, nearly two hours after I arrived, the dentist finished.

I wandered into the hallway, a little woozy from the early morning, the blood rush to my head, and the copius amounts of local anaethesia. We try to navigate the bill process, only to discover that the dentist did not accept EC cards. As stated earlier, I did not have dental insurance which meant that I had pay for everything in cash. I ran to the ATM, then rushed back to the dental office to pay the bill. The total bill for 4 fillings, local anaethesia, and 2 hours of the dentist's time came to a little more than 300 Euros, which comes out to 75 Euros per filling. That's actually about what I would pay for a filling in US, after insurance picked up their part.

The experience was a bit terrifying, but the dentist did an amazing job with my fillings (I can barely tell where the tooth ends and filling begins) and tried really hard to keep me comfortable, even dabbing my chin when anaethesia caused drooling. I was told my a German friend that dental care in Germany is rumoured to be quite awesome. I can say that my experience provides support for this rumour, even when I couldn't understand that anything the dentist said.

Check another cultural medical experience off the list...lets hope that I don't have to check out the German hospital system.....

fun with housemates...getting acquainted

2009-04-24T15:31:00.002-06:00

I promise that I will get around to posting details of my excursions over the last few months, but I wanted to write down this evening before I forgot the details.

I have been rather depressed the last week since I had this idea that I was a bad scholar because I didn't travel much. Since I have not traveled I have spent a lot of time in the dormitory that I live in. Even though close to 100 people live in this building, I only come into contact with 17 of them on a consistent basis. Over time, I have come to know them by name and by dish they prefer to cook in the kitchen. I hardly ever talked to my housemates because I was too afraid to talk to them auf Deutsch. However, in the last month, along with having German thoughts, I've felt much more comfortable speaking German. The end result is that conversations with my housemates have evolved from "what do you study" and "where do you come from" to more detailed conversations about politics and dreams. (However, I still have to speak in simple sentences as my German grammar stinks).

Tonight, I spent over an hour hanging out on the balconey, drinking beer and eating wurst, talking about life, studies, and German idiosyncrancies. It was just a normal Friday night, but a good time. As my housemate put it, "Du bist heute nicht allein" or "Today, you are not alone." Probably for the first time since I have lived in Germany, I felt like I fit in. To further push that point, one of my housemates invited me to go camping in late May. I think I may do it, even though it means I won't sleep that well over the weekend and I may have to miss the Peter Fox concert in late May. :-(

Train hopping to Berlin

2009-04-21T06:57:00.012-06:00

On Sunday, I introduced Lala to the joys of German train travel and the Happy Weekend ticket. With the happy weekend ticket up to 5 people can travel to any destination in Germany for only 37 Euros ($45). The catch is that you can only use regional trains. On weekends the regional trains only tend to run about once and hour so you have to plan your travels pretty carefully. Since Lala was on a tight budget, we decided to travel to Berlin using just regional trains, which meant that the normally 4 hour journey would take 7-8 hours. In addition, we planned to make a stop at an important Protestant city along the way (stay tuned for more details).

No fear, we just loaded up our groceries from the the night before into my travel bag and hopped on the first regional train out of Marburg (7:30am...not bad for a lazy bum computational chemist and a jet-lagged American). Because we knew we were train hopping, Lala and I kept everything in our backpacks and didn't carry any big suitcases. Thus we could also run to catch trains if we were running late, which happened several times.

At our first stop, Kassel, we encountered our first hiccup. I had forgotten to print out the schedule, so out of habit, I just assumed that we had to transfer trains at the major Kassel trainstation, Kassel Wilhelmshofe. However, it turns out we were actually supposed to switch trains at Kassel Main train station (which because of the newer station called Wilhelmshofe, is no longer the major train station, weird). But no fear, we had 30 minutes before the next connection so we just hopped another train to the correct station. We even had enough time to grab coffee at a local vendor. We then settled down 5 more hours of train travel, which took us deep into the heart of the former East Germany. The German government has spent a lot of money restoring East German town so it was rather difficult to tell the difference between East and West Germany. Some of the train stops looked a little sketchier than normal Hessen train stops, but that was the only difference we could see. In one train station, we saw 8 heavily armed policemen patrol the station but we never figured out why. Nonetheless, after 5 hours of regional trains, we arrived safely at our Protestant history stop for the trip, Lutherstadt Wittenburg.

For those of you not familiar with Protestant history, Wittenburg is where Martin Luther first posted his 93 theses against the Catholic bishops in town. Being daughters of a Protestant pastor, my sister and I were both pretty stoked to see the town that started our father's (and soon to be my sister's) profession. Lutherstadt is a former eastern German city but the middle (and the oldest) part of town has been completely restored. Its fairly unknown by the tourist crowds so its a great place to visit. I have forgotten all the stuff that we saw, but we spent about 5 hours wandering the streets where Martin Luther once walked. We saw the church door that tradition holds as the place Luther posted his theses.

We also saw the church where Luther married.

We also saw the painting of purgatory marked with the names of students who failed their exams (so claims my lonely planet guidebook).

We also took the time to visit the Haus der Geschichte (or house of history) where a German tour guide took us through apartments set up to look like every decade of DDR life. Even though my English speaking sister and I were the only ones waiting for a tour that day, none of the tour guides spoke English. Instead, a 60 year old DDR resident very skillfully showed us the entire tour, pausing every 2 minutes so I could translate the German into English, which was pretty funny considering my limited German skills. It was one of my favorite parts of the entire trip as we had time to interact with a native German and we learned how much can be expressed through hand signals and smiles. I highly recommend that you visit the museum if you go to Wittenberg! Sorry no pictures cuz they weren't allowed, but you can see the museum here.
Apparently the museum has been used as a set for many German films set in that era.

We saw the seminary founded by Luther's students. Sadly the museum had already closed but we did see a really great name for a beer garden.....My sister, who I consider an expert on this subject, says that Luther was well known for having deep theological conversations while drinking beer.

After a lovely visit to Lutherstadt, we caught our last train of the day.

Forty five minutes later we were already at the stop for our hostel, cutely called Ostel (combination of the German word for east = Ost and hostel). The entire hostel was themed on the former eastern Germany. The rooms were former apartments in real DDR buildings. All the buildings have been renovated so the houses are actually quite nice. The first night in town we were the only ones in a 3 bedroom apartment so we used the time to explore the place. One room had a balconey so I rushed back downstairs to reception and bought two local Berliner beers. Loletuth and I closed the night by talking sisterly things overlooking the playground of the area below....awesome....more to follow later.

meine Schwester and my sister

2009-04-21T06:39:00.004-06:00

I don't feel like yelling at the computer right now and I can't work on my thesis introduction until I hear reviews back from my thesis committee, so I will waste time by writing about my March travels.

After I returned from Switzerland, I worked frantically for two weeks on thesis research. Then, on the 4th of March, I basically stopped working for about 3 weeks to travel. On March 4th, I picked up one of my German sisters from the Marburg train station. Maria came to Marburg to attend a conference on Parkinson's, which worked really well with my schedule. During the day, Maria attended conferences so I could work while at night I got to come home to a not empty room! It was really nice to have someone else around to cook dinner and share deep sisterly stories with. But the sisterly times don't end with Maria. On Friday I headed to Frankfurt airport to pick up my American sister (the one I am actually related to) Loletuth (aka Lala)!

For 36 glorius hours I was thrilled to have my transcontinental 'family' together. While Maria attended the conference on Friday, I introduced Lala to my German research group and took her to the 400+ year old tower overlooking the city of Marburg. Despite Lala's fear of heights, we climbed to the top and saw some pretty cool views of the city. Then we caught the 'short bus' into town to meet Maria and could pick up groceries for dinner. It was really cool to pick out my favorite German foods. We then came back to the dorm and made a lovely smorgeboard of vegetables and vegetarian bratwursts. Somehow, all three of us fit into my little studentendorf room.

On Saturday, Maria left the conference early so I could take her and Lala on a grand tour of Marburg. We visited the castle, saw a German wedding, and enjoyed coffee and cake at my favorite bakery in Marburg. Afterwords, we quickly ran home so Maria could catch the last fast train to her hometown. Loletuth and I then enjoyed a nice dinner of Auflauf and Abelwoi (Hessen speciality) at Cafe Early (best auflauf in town!).

After dinner, Lala and I returned to pack for our train hopping excursion to Berlin....more details to follow...

Ich denke dass ich veruckt bin! (I think that I am crazy)

2009-04-16T07:41:00.003-06:00

Eventually I will document the rest of my travels in March (which include planes, trains, and automobiles) but today I just want to document a very interesting thing that has started happening to me.

For some very strange reason, over the last two months, a larger percentage of my thoughts have been German instead of English. This is very strange considering that I still don't know a lot of German vocabulary and my German comprehension means I still don't comprehend a lot of things around me. Part of this transition was intentional, as I forced myself to think of a German phrase every time I thought of an English phrase. For example, I would think 'my head hurts' but I would quickly follow that thought with 'Mein Kopf schmerzt'. Its only natural that as I have surrounded myself with German speakers, that the German phrase comes to my mind more quickly than the English phrase.

I really want to learn how to think in a different langauge. I called a minor victory in church on Easter Sunday when I realized that I understood about 50% of the words that the pastor spoke. Over Christmas, I only understood about 20-30%. However, now that the Deutsche Gedanken process has begun, I find myself trying to stop it from occurring! An example: I asked the group secretary (in German) why the German professors advertised their classes. Typically, my research group would then reply in English, but on that particular day, the secretary decided to reply in German. I listened to the words she spoke and understood everthing she said. Then, I realized she was speaking German, and my comprehension immeadiately disappeared. I couldn't understand anything she said after that, it was like my mind shut off the German portion.

What scares me more is how much I don't think about thinking in German. I guess that's a good thing since I should be thinking in the language of my host country, but it really freaks me out at times. I am still shocked when I clearly understand the questions that my labmates ask me. I am even more shocked (maybe they are too) when I respond auf Deutsch.

However, there is a down side to my Deutsche Gedanken, I struggle even more to find the correct English words. Today I wrote an email (to Americans) where instead of writing 'I am interested in dinner', I wrote 'I am interesting for dinner', which made my potential dinner companions think I was the main course. ;-) Considering that I am writing my PhD thesis in English instead of German, grammar and word mix-ups are a true cause for concern.

Has any one else experienced this problem before?

99 bottles of beer on the wall....

2009-04-06T19:24:00.003-06:00

No, there are not 99 bottles of beer on my wall, I don't have enough shelf space for that many. I use the reference because I only have 99 days left before I board a plane to return to the US. Only 99 days until my Fulbright fellowship officially ends and I return to normal US civilian life. My time in Germany has been reduced from 340 days to double digits that are slowly approaching zero.

I approach this date much as I expected I would, with trepidation and excitement. My family anxiously awaits my return and I anxiously await to see my family, but at the same time I don't want the adventure to end. As difficult as this time abroad has been, I have learned something new everyday. Part of me feels at home here but I long to be reunited with my those with whom I will make me home. Germany is not my true home and probably never will be, but I still long to stay. An awkward conundrum I now face: to look forward towards my last days in Germany while also looking forward to my home country. I am nervous about how my home country will accept me and how I will accept it.

I feel very comfortable in my American culture but then I think about my life here and think "this fits too". How to deal with this conundrum? I just keep living each day to the fullest. Nuture the friendships I have made thus far and encourage new ones.

Remember that even after I leave, a friend is just an instant message away.

US -centric does not equal globe centric

2009-04-05T08:44:00.004-06:00

Springtime has sprung in Germany and the students have emerged from hibernation and begun to chat with their neighbors. Last night, a housemate and I engaged in a lovely conversation about American culture. (I am the only American on this floor so I am frequently asked questions about the US). I forget what the exact topic was, but I was trying to say that a policy would have to be implemented throughout the US. However, instead of saying throughout the US, I said, throughout the world.

My housemate heard my Freudian slip and jokingly said "ha, you self-centered Americans, always thinking that the United States is the only nation in the world."

I laughed and said, "Yes, you caught me, but at least I acknowledge that fact."

My friend laughed and said "Yes, there is hope for you yet."

Then we moved on to other topics like quantum theory and health care. (don't ask how we transitioned, just know that we moved off the topic.)

A brief exchange, but in some ways a very important one. Since I've been on this exchange, I've been exposed to a lot of my own prejudices, most importantly my prejudice towards thinking that America is the only country that matters. To be honest, I was suprised that something like the above phrase came out of my mouth. Because I travel so much and have friends all over the world, I consider myself a global citizen before an American citizen. However, my freudian slip revealed that deep down, I really think America should make the decisions for the world.

Its understandable to think this way since this American culture exudes the idea of superiority in everything we watch and read. Take science fiction for example. The most blatant example comes from the original Star Trek series. At the time Star Trek was realized, it was ground breaking for how it included foreign looking (read non-white) people in the show. However, the captain of the ship was an American. Interpretation: Its okay to include the voices of foreigners, but Americans make the final decision.

A counter-argument to this example would be that the show was written by Americans, so of course Americans are in charge. I ask the question, why doesn't anyone question why the Americans are the only leaders. In sci-fi or action movies like Deep Impact or Independence Day, Americans are the ones that make decisions for the entire world yet few people in the US stop to think about why that is so. Granted, if we watched more foreign movies we might see a world not lead by Americans but the fact is that most Americans (and many foreigners even) only watch the American produced movies, so they never see how arrogant our viewpoint really is. We hold deep cultural biases that only Americans should be in power.

One could make the claim that since the US is composed of immigrants from all over the world, it makes sense that America should speak for countries all over the world. A Chinese, Brazilian, German, Ghanian, or Native American makes decisions that aren't just good for their adopted country but good for the world. I have no data to refute that statement, I don't believe that is true. An American is an American who will make decisions that reflect their self-interest. It is possible that an immigrant-American makes decisions that will cause much damage to their former country because that decision will make their lives a lot better in the US.

That is why the above conversation was so interesting. I finally realized that I hold deep biases against non-American leadership. I don't want to live in a universe without American leadership. I feel safe when an American makes the decision to jump to warp 7 or when an American wants to stabilize a worn torn country. At gut level, I still feel indignant when a foreign leader objects to American plans. I am not sure how I would respond to a Chinese-led United Nations or a German led NATO. However, with globalization and the current crisis, it is likely that I may live to see those days. However, if American superiority remains, it will be good to remember that a good idea for America is not necessarily the best idea for the world.

At least I know this fact so there just may be hope for me yet.

Austria Day 4...take 2 and day 5

2009-03-28T10:24:00.002-06:00

I forgot to mention that after returning from the cross country skiing with Moritz, I skipped the first afternoon session to visit the only museum in Mariapfarr. The Stille Nacht museum.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

Mariapfarr's little claim to fame is that a young man named Josef Mohr lived in this town in 1816. During the two years he lived here, he wrote one of the most beloved Christmas songs ever known, Stille Nacht, or Silent Night. The museum is only open for 4 hours a week, so I jumped at the chance to visit the museum during one of the hours its open. I walked in and was quickly placed into a tour group where the tour guide spoke enthusiastically about the Catholic artifacts (mostly shreds of Cardinal robes that visited the town). The entire tour took place in Austrian German and I really struggled to keep up. Finally, after 30 minutes of seeing pictures of stained glass windows and long decomposed flower wreaths, the guide took us to the highlight of the tour, a reconstruction of Josef Mohr's bedroom, complete with the original furniture and a plasma screen tv (sorry no pictures allowed). It was a very odd experience. Right before Josef Mohr's room, the people of the village had hand crafted a miniature version of the Creche (Nativity scene) next to a miniature version of what the city looked like in Josef Mohr's time (it hadn't changed much). To save costs (and perhaps the environment), the townspeople used barbie dolls for the women and hand-made period outfits from old clothing. Despite the cheap materials, the entire scene looked completely real! I really wish I could show you photos, the scene was surreal. I now know how Austrian villagers keep themselves entertained on cold winter nights. I also saw the original copy (its a cheap museum) of Stille Nacht. The church where the song was first sung is actually several kilometers away from the village, but the museum was quite nice. Since I couldn't take photos, I bought a few postcards and some souvenirs for the family and headed back to the workshop. On the way back, I saw this lovely little sunset over the alps.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

Now back to the last day of the workshop.....
After the long day before me, I was not looking forward to the 3 hours of student presentations that stood between me and my bed in Marburg. However, I drank some coffee and sat through them anyways. I ended up learning a lot more interesting work. My labmates and I said goodbye to the Uni-Würzbergers and our table companions from the night before, then piled back into the car for the 7 hour drive back to Marburg. Well, it was supposed to be 7 hours. As a fitting closing for the week, the drive back took place in snow and traffic. We didn't arrive back in Marburg until 12 hours after we left Mariapfarr. I checked email for the first time in 5 days, realized that nothing was important enough to keep me from sleeping, and crawled into my own studentendorf bed. Thus ended my Austrian travels. Before I move on to the other posts, I leave you with a link to the photos for this trip. Feel free to leave comments!

Ausria Day 4- Enjoying the farmhouse...

2009-03-28T09:45:00.006-06:00

The last day of the workshop, I decided to slow down a bit and enjoy the farmhouse that we stayed in.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

As much as I really wanted to go downhill skiing again, I felt like I had avoided my labmates all week and that I hadn't given our farmhouse a chance to be cool. Instead of heading back to the slopes with Volker and Wenlan, I headed back to a small lunch with my labmates in our farmhouse. I took the opportunity of sunlight to snap a few pictures of the stuffed animals that adorned our house.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

This little guy freaked me out every time we walked down for breakfast. I always felt like he was hissing at me.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

The farmhouse was located far up in the hills, so far, that we could clearly see the ski slopes that I had been on the day before.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

The farmhouse was very quaint and had this adorable (but incredibly smelly) giant puppy that loved to get attention.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

After I took a short 20 minute nap, I joined my labmate Moritz and headed out to the cross country trail that passed by our little farmhouse. I still had my cross country skis from two days before, so Moritz and I planned on finding out where the trail led. The sky was sunny and clear so it was the perfect day for viewing the hills around us. After navigating the steep section near our farmhouse, the path seemed free and clear. Moritz is seen here saying, "look mom, no poles!" (not really but he could have)

From Austria-Mariapfarr

The trail lead us through snow covered forests and alpine valleys, even more beautiful now that I could actually see them.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

After about 30 minutes, Moritz (wisely) suggested that we head back. I, however, was convinced that a beautiful valley lay just beyond the trees and convinced him to push through. No less than 5 minutes after I convinced Moritz to continue, my last reserve of energy completely gave out. However, stubborn person that I am, I refused to tell Moritz and just pushed ahead anyways. My stubborness paid off as 5 minutes later, we found this amazingly beautiful mountain pass.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

It was like a storybook picture, we even saw a dog hopping through the valley below. We snapped some photos, then hurriedly skiied through the valley and back to the main trail back to our farmhouse. The views were captivating and I kept pausing to snap pictures.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

However, the gently lowering sun reminded us that we had to return for the afternoon session so as quickly as our legs would allow us, we skied back to the farmhouse.

I thought I would make it through the week without a single injury, but on the last slope before the farmhouse, my legs again gave out and I lost my balance on the cross country skis (yes, it is possible to do this). In a scene reminiscent of the day before, I tumbled head over heels. Cross country skis do not release as easily as downhill skis, so my left ski (and leg) ended up criss-crossing with my right leg, twisting my knee in the process. Apparently my camera fell out of my purse and snapped this photo.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

I struggled the 100 meters back to the farmhouse, stripped off the skis, and then crawled back into bed for a 5 minute nap. My knee hurt pretty badly but it was still functional, so I swallowed some pain killers and returned to the workshop. After the last session, all workshop participants piled into a charter bus for a catered meal on top of a mountain. I wish I had taken photos, but my body was completely exhausted at this point so anything other than sleep was completely incomprehensible. Despite consuming a cola (something I never do after 3pm) and wiggling my legs, I kept finding myself collapsing into a pile of jackets beside me. We finally left the restaurant at midnight, which meant that I didn't crawl into bed that night until after 1am! I am pretty sure I fell asleep while my head was falling onto the pillow......

Austria Day 3---Downhill skiing

2009-03-28T08:58:00.003-06:00

On Day 3, I woke up to gentle rays of sunlight pouring through the window. I ran out to the balcony and saw glorious sunshine!

From Austria-Mariapfarr

Hoping that the sun stayed around, I packed my gear for downhill skiing. During the morning coffee break, I conversed with my labmates and discovered that yet again, they would return to the farmhouse for a nap. Wanting to take advantage of the sunny day, I met up with my Uni-Würzburg buddies again and secured skiing companions for a day. As soon as the morning session ended, we drove to the market, picked up some food and water, then ate our way to ski lift 25 minutes away. After arriving, we quickly found the ski rental shop recommended by the lady in town (12 Euros for a half day rental!), strapped on our boots, and headed to the slopes. One of the Uni-Würzberg colleagues had never skiied before. Since the only other colleague only knew how to snowboard, I ended up teaching the new colleague how to ski, a frightening prospect considering that I had only skiied 8 times in my life, usually on a fake mountain in Indiana. I had never skiied on a real mountain. My most realistic ski experience was two days skiing at a Michigan resort. (Michigan is not exactly renowned for its ski terrain). In fact, I had not stepped into downhill skiis in over 2 YEARS!. However, the colleague insisted that I could teach him, so I spent the first hour of my downhill day remembering how to fall safely, turn, stop, and slow down (in that exact order). I couldn't complain too much as the view from the idiot hill (direct translation of the german word for bunny slope) was still pretty amazing.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

Wenlan, was a fast learner so he soon felt confident enough to navigate the easy slopes on his own. Volker (snowboarder) and I (skiier) then took off for the real hill. I was mildly anxious. Mostly because I was still exhausted from the day before. However, I refused to let tiredness overtake me, so Volker and I hopped onto the six seater lift (it even had a little shell that you could close to keep the wind out) and rode to the top. The view from top was AMAZING! The pictures below do not do it justice!

From Austria-Mariapfarr

Volker and I rushed down the hill several times. I learned that falling in fresh snow powder isn't very conducive to downhill skiing. AFter a few wrong turns, we ended up on an advanced slope, where I learned that running into snow piles (although a fairly unpleasant experience) does keep you from running into a tree. Note: The Europeans do not block off hazardous slopes, they just assume that you aren't dumb enough to try them. They also don't really tell you which slopes are really hazardous until you are already on them.

However, Volker and I managed to find our way back to the more basic slopes with just an hour left before the lift closed. We quickly rushed down the hill and discovered the joys of mini ski jumps (microscopic is more like it, but I did achieve air time of about 0.2 seconds and still land safely). I eventually regained my ski legs back with enough time to take three more runs in under 25 minutes! On the last run, however, my ski legs gave out and I had a rather dramatic head over heels tumble where snow somehow permeated through my three layers of ski clothing, one ski ended up 2 meters from where I ended up, and my glasses became completely covered in snow. It took me about 5 minutes to put myself back together and meet Volker at the bottom of the hill. Promptly at 16:00, the skilifts closed and we headed back to ski rental shop to return our skis. We found Wenlan, somehow mixed in with a group of schoolchildren. He had given up for the day and take his skis off already. I however, anxious to partake of all the ski time I could, used piles of snow along the way to relive my downhill experience. We packed up our gear, paid for the half day, then loaded into the car for the trip back. After a few wrong turns, we made it back with 15 minutes to spare before the afternoon session started. Before I could return to the program, I had to snap pictures of the amazing sunset in the mountains.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

I rushed into the women's restroom to change out of my sweaty clothes and then joined my colleagues at the tables. On a previous hike, I had discovered that dried figs can quickly restore energy to the system, so I snacked on dried figs and managed to stay awake for the last two sessions of the day. The group then piled into the car for a dinner in town, where we happened to find the only hotel with a full salad bar. Since one never gets enough veggies when traveling, I was extremely excited, especially since Austrian and German salad bars feature red beans (all vegetarians or semi-vegetarians know the amazingness of this food). After dinner, the group members piled back into the car for the trip back to the farmhouse to enjoy Austrian beer and dried fruits. I rediscovered the wonderful stretching powers of yoga with my Yoga for Skiers yogaamazing podcast and then fell asleep around 12:30am.....

Austria cont....

2009-03-28T08:07:00.004-06:00

My apologies for not finishing with the rest of the Austria entry. I've had a lot happen in the last few weeks (visitors, traveling, traveling + visitors, thesis writing, etc) and I am just not that dedicated to blogging. I'll try to fill you in on the details later. But for now...continuing the Austria story.

Day 2: Massive snowstorm but I'll ski anyways

On day 2, I woke up, peered out the window and saw white. No sun, just white. The light snow the night before had turned into a mini-blizzard. The conference started at 8:45am that day, which meant that we had to leave the farmhouse by 8:30am. We quickly scarf down the fresh bread and homemade jam and load into the car. The driveway up to the road is on a slight incline so we carefully try to drive the car on top of the 5 inches of freshly fallen snow. It turns out that a rear wheel drive car won't actually climb a hill with 5 inches of fresh and 4 inches of old snow. We tried 10 times to get up the hill, at one point coming within 3 meters of the road, only to slide back to the parking area. Finally, after 15 minutes, the owner of the house walks out and tells us to take the hill backwards. We look at him like he's crazy but try anyways. It works! So for the next three days, the only way to get out of the house was to drive backwards. Weird.

We arrive at the conference 15 minutes late and grab seats in the back. If you remember from my last post, I wasn't really registered for this conference, I was just supposed to sit in the back and stay quiet. Our late arrival ensured my spot. However, I should not that because we arrived late, we ended up sitting next to this professor from Berlin. I found out later that he was married to the Chancellor of Germany, so I met the first man of Germany. However, you should never EVER call him that unless you want to be placed on his blacklist. Don't even mention politics unless you want to see an angry German. I really enjoyed hearing about his research on materials chemistry so hope I can run into him again someday. ....Anyways....

The conference schedule for the week looked like this.
07:00 -Wake up, pack for day
07:45am- Breakfast
8:15am - Leave for Conference
8:45am - 10:15am: Conference talk (yes, one speaker, not multiple speakers)
10:15am-10:45am: Coffee break
10:45am- 12:00am: 2nd Conference talk
12:15am- Departure of ski bus
17:00 - "Afternoon" session begins (I love how the afternoon session is really an evening session)
18:00 - Second afternoon session begins (no coffee break)
19:00 - Break for dinner
22:00- Finish dinner, return to farmhouse
22:30- Snacks and Schnapps with labmates
11:30 or 12:30 - Fall into bed

Repeat

That leaves a little more than 6 hours for sleeping at night. I could have taken the option to skip skiing and return to the farmhouse for an afternoon nap, but that would have been crazy. Instead, I decided to "dig in" and go skiing everyday. This meant that I usually dozed off for a few minutes during the 'afternoon' sessions. However, I was shocked to discover that my body could actually keep up with this marathon, in fact, I felt more alive than I had in a long time! It turns out that the body can deal with a lot as long as you pump it full of caffeine and balance it with fruits and protein.

I won't bore you with the details of the talks other than to say that I learned a lot and feel much wiser for having listened. All the presenter slides were included in a book so it was pretty easy to follow along. I will however share a great deal of information about skiing.

On the first ski break, I joined up with some chemists from Uni-Würzburg that I met at the last Austrian conference. My labmates decided to return to the farmhouse to sleep, but I wanted to stay out and enjoy the snow, even if it was pretty nasty outside. So Uni-Würzbergers and I headed to a local eatery to check out the local cuisine (overpriced but filling) and then headed to a ski rental place to rent some skis. After much deliberation, we decided it was too dangerous to downhill ski and instead decided to try Skilaufen, or cross country skiing. After getting fitted and receiving an amazing deal on ski rentals, (7 Euros for skiis and boots per half day!), we headed to the local trail. After spending 20 minutes figuring out how to attire ourselves properly, we finally figured out how to move and set across the lovely expanse of skiland.

Despite the falling snow, the scenary was amazing! The hour long ski run took us through snow covered forests, snow filled bowls, wide open fields, and next to a few quaint Austrian homes. I apologize for the lack of photos. I thought I took dozen of photos on this portion of the trail but I can not find them on my camera. Thus I conclude that I actually didn't take the photos. This photo of the village at the start of the path is the only one I can find. You can see the snow clouds hanging over us. The effect was actually quite nice.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

I learned a lesson the first day of skiing that I should have remembered later. Cross-country skiing in exhausting! It really takes a lot of energy to slide across snow and not fall over. After this first day of skiing, I was ready to collapse. However, I perserved and made it to dinner that night where I dined with current and former students of my boss in Marburg.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

It was really great to connect with former group members and learned how somethings (like the awesomeness of people in the group) never change.

After enjoying our dinner and sampling the local beers (the driver tried non-alcoholic ones), my group then headed back to the farmhouse for Schnapps and snacks. I finally fell asleep sometime around 1:30 in the morning.....and now I will leave for my next post.

Heros are meant to inspire

2009-03-23T16:33:00.005-06:00

While traveling last week, I was greatly saddened to hear of the death of one of my heros, Mickey Sampson, the Director of Resource Development International Cambodia.

I first met Mickey the summer before I started graduate school, where I spent six weeks working with RDIC. I wanted to visit RDIC specifically because of Mickey, the person who received a PhD in chemistry but turned down job offers in the US to follow his heart to Cambodia. Since I was about to embark on my own PhD studies, I was very curious to know how a PhD could be used without being a Professor or Physician. I learned how chemistry could be done in developing country (it is possible, but difficult) but I also learned a lot about fulfilling your potential and how a PhD can open doors that you never knew existed.

The history of RDIC is well documented on their website (www.rdic.org) but what is not documented is the effect that Mickey and his team had on people all over the world. Hundreds of people visited Cambodia as volunteers and hundreds more knew Mickey from water purification communities. When news broke of Mickey's (sudden and unexpected) death, hundreds of people on facebook joined a group celebrating his life. I only knew him personally for 6 weeks in Summer 2003, but hardly a week goes by where I don't reflect on some words he or someone from his team shared. I am grateful for the time spent with Mickey and know that I am a better person for have known him. I still keep in (sporadic) contact with his wife and would send him articles on arsenic testing and developments in arsenic water treatment. Its very difficult to express how great an impact he had on my life.

The voluntourism group Pepy Tours put it best.

Today, the world has lost a true humanitarian, scientist, and dedicated change agent who went out into the world and not only thought "Look at all of the problems out there! How could people have gotten it so wrong!" he also thought "I can do it better than it is being done. I can use my skills to add value to this world." and so he did. Mickey didn't look for medals and awards, he surely wasn't trying to scale up anything to have bigger and further results. Instead he was looking to do it right.

I hope that I can follow in the footsteps of one of my heros and use my gifts to not only find problems, but to find the best way to solve them.

Sampson family and RDIC, you are in my thoughts and prayers just like you always have been.

Austria...Background and Day 1

2009-03-01T16:19:00.004-06:00

So I thought about writing a post about each day I was in Austria. In fact, I planned on writing the posts on my laptop at the end of every day and then posting all of them when I returned. However, my time in Austria was so packed that I barely had time to crawl into bed before my body fell asleep each night! So now I will regale you with tales of my adventures.

Background: Every year, the central european theoretical chemistry community arranges a weeklong workshop in Mariapfarr, Austria; a tiny little Austrian village with two claims to fame.
1) The author of Silent Night, Josef Mohr, lived in Mariapfarr for two years....more on that later
2) The city is situated on the sunny side of the alps, so in the summer, they offer their Sun Guarantee. You will see sun during every day of your stay or you recieve a coupon for an extra hotel night....more on this guarantee later.
The workshop is highly sought after by both theoretical chemistry professors and students alike due to the location and the fact that the morning session ends at 11:45am. The ski bus leaves at noon (the bus stop is directly across the street from the meeting site) and the lifts close at 4pm. The 'afternoon' session conveniently does not begin until 5pm. Its easy to see why this workshop is popular. :-)

I tried to register for the workshop during the second week of October, but it was already full. My research boss, however, was horrified that I would not be able to experience Mariapfarr so he tells me "You will go to Mariapfarr, I will make some calls" I thought he was joking, but I asked him again during the first week of February, "Are you serious, can I really go?" He made the phone call that afternoon. I was going to Mariapfarr! That gave me 6 days to prepare for this ski adventure. I called my parents that day and asked them to mail my ski pants via expedited shipping. They shipped the pants on Saturday with " 5 business day gaurantee". The pants arrived 9 days later...but more on that later.

Housing and travel were easy. One lab mate was driving a family size car, so I would just tag along with them. My travel meant that I would make the group two girls and two guys, so I would just share the double room with the other girl. Perfect! I frantically tried to finish off all my work, packed my suitcase, bought some snack food for the trip...and I was off to Austria!

Monday: Departure from Marburg
My ski pants had not arrived on Friday, so I petitioned my labmates to pick up me in lab, just in case my pants arrived early Monday morning. We were originally supposed to leave at 8am, but I convinced my labmates to pick me up at 8:15 am instead. I dragged myself and all my luggage to lab and waited at my computer before they arrived at 8:25am(I even got a bit of work done), still no pants. As we walked out the building, I ran into to the recieving room to check to see if the pants had arrived....still no luck. We then walked to the car and loaded all of our stuff. The time as we drove out of the parking lot was 8:45am. I found out on Saturday that the pants were delivered at 8:52 am....no joke...we missed the pants by 7 minutes!!!

Anyways....as we drove out of Marburg I fell asleep, dreaming of a delivery trucks dancing in my head. I guess I should have stayed awake, this was only my third time to ever ride on the real German Autobahn, but to me...a road is a road. The most interesting thing about the Autobahn is that you have to pay 50 cents to use the bathroom at Autobahn rest areas. However, you get a 50cent ticket that can be used on anything in the rest area. Its a great way to pay for cleaning the restroom by convincing people to buy a 3 Euro cup of coffee. The day started out clear but as we drove farther south, the temperature dropped and snow began to fall. As we went further south, the snow depth along the road went from .25 inches to 3 inches to 8 inches. (The fact that its colder in southern Germany than middle Germany will never cease to amaze me, even though I know that Bavaria is a little bit higher in altitude).

We stopped for lunch at Burger King where I finally learned how to properly order a menu item in German (Ich hatte gern Menu eins!). However, I didn't want a full menu, so I ordered a kids menu (Ich hatte gern ein cheese burger kinder menu) The toys in Germany are much cooler than anything I remember in the US, so its always an adventure to explore the nifty little toy I get each time. This time, I got a pink pather flashlight. One of my labmates also ordered a kids menu and we spent about 10 minutes attempting to figure out what trouble we could cause....some things just transcend cultural barriers.. :-)

We then hopped back on the road where I promptly fell asleep again for another hour, then woke up as we came to another rest stop...this one with a US Route 66 theme. I should have taken a picture as the rest stop had licsense plates from all 50 US states...It actually took me a moment to figure out why the theme was out of place...why didn't they show German licsense plates? I've been told that many Germans fantisize about the American cowboys (John Wayne, etc). Somehow Route 66 fits in with this theme...I don't get it. Sorry about the lack of photos on this part...I was too tired to pull out my camera.

After the last coffee stop, I was wide awake. However, I accidentally forgot to bring my sudoku book, so I had nothing to keep me entertained. Instead, I pulled out my macbook and discovered that macbooks don't come with games, at least not stupid ones like Chip's Challenge or spheres. Instead, the macbook comes with one game, Chess. Despite Andy's efforts to teach me, I can't play chess...its just too boring for me. However, I had nothing better to do, so I played (and lost) a couple of times before finally deciding to let the computer play itself (which was actually quite entertaining). Finally, after I thought I would die if I saw another checkmate, we saw the Alps! (sorry no photos here either). We saw Salzburg castle covered in snow and glimpses of snow covered peaks. These sights were short lived since the entire area was hit with a snow storm. Visibility was reduced to less than 15 feet so we had to slow down and stare at the white blanket surrounding us, knowing that gorgeous peaks lay just beyond our sights....

We finally arrived in Mariapfarr around 6pm that night. Our hotel, however, was not located in Mariapfarr, but in a village called Tscharra. We were told that the hotel was only 10 minutes away, but apparantly they thought we were used to mountain roads. It turns out that Tscharra was a farmhouse nearly 5 kilometers away. The snow was falling so hard that a 10 minute trip took nearly 30 minutes as we slowly crawled up the mountain.

Größere Kartenansicht

However, we eventually arrived to the farmhouse, to be greeted by a lovely Austrian family with a house that smelled like farm. Not a stinky smell, just a smell like we grow our own chickens and cows here. Very odd, but comforting at the same time. Our rooms were on the top floor and were cozy with nice warm feather duvets on the beds. (sorry forgot to take a photo) Each room had two twin beds, a table with chairs, a couch, and windows that looked out onto the hills. We also had an in room shower! (this is rather rare by European standards) The four of us cobbled together a dinner from dried fruits, chocolate, pretzels, soymilk, and a strange fruity tasting German bread. We then headed back into Mariapfarr to visit with the rest of the people in the workshop.

We survived the drive into town and found a nice cozy hotel with a large room filled to the brim with computational chemists. Clips of german, english, mandarin, and polish could be heard over the the clinking of beer glasses. After sampling the Austria beverages (including a spiced lemonade-like beverage), we said our goodbyes and headed back to our farm hotel. Ready to crash for the night.

However, as I tried to fall asleep, I ran into a problem...silence. I've lived in a student dorm for 6 months now. Even though my dorm is quiet by Marburg standards, it can still become rather loud at night. I cancel out the noise with fan. At the farm, we were surrounded by falling snow. No cars, no slamming doors, not even a mooing cow! The silence was too much to bear. Thankfully, the ever prepared person that I am, I brought earplugs. It turns out that if you put earplugs in your ears, breathing causes it to sound like you are your own personal fan. Thus, in order to fall asleep, I had to use earplugs to make it louder....I finally fell asleep around midnight...which is where I now leave you with a photo of things to come.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

Mailing restrictions for Germany

2009-02-13T07:07:00.003-06:00

I am anxiously awaiting a package from the US containing ski pants for my trip to Austria next week. I leave at 8am on Monday morning so I am hoping that the pants somehow arrive today. Things are not looking so good. The USPS tracking system shows that my pants arrived in Germany on Wednesday and cleared customs late last night. However, as of yet, there has been no sign of them. :-/ I am still crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

In the meantime, my office mate was trying to help me figure out what company will deliver my package today. While browsing the USPS website for Germany, he came across a list of things that are prohibited for shipping. I copied the list below.

***********************************

Prohibitions (130)

Absinthe.

Arms and weapons.

Articles bearing political or religious notations on the address side.

Human remains.

Live plants and animals.

Melatonin.

Perishable infectious biological substances.

Playing cards, except in complete decks properly wrapped.

Pulverized coca beans.

Radioactive materials.

****************************

Improperly wrapped playing cards are banned? Seriously, you have got to be kidding me. Are the Germans worried that they have an overabundance of the Queen of spades?

Surprisingly, incomplete decks of playing cards are accepted in France, but prohibited in Spain.

I am rather curious to see if these prohibitions are ever enforced. So someone send me an incomplete and unwrapped set of playing cards.

:-)

Stranded!

2009-02-11T16:18:00.002-06:00

I write this post on my macbook, hoping that I live to post it online. If you are reading this post on my blog, I obviously lived to tell the tale. I am currently sitting on a bus on the top of the hill where I work. Marburg is a city of hills and by hills, I mean mini mountains. The hills here are as steep (or steeper) than the alps, just not as tall. Taking the 7 minute bus ride from my dorm, which is already 40% of the way up the hill, to the building where I work, on the top of the hill, causes my ears to pop twice. The hill is called the Lahnberge and its the center of science and medicine in my little town.

When I came into work this morning, the sky was sunny, but snow started falling intermittantly. The snow continued to fall, but the streets were warmed by the sun, so the snow melted. As the sun set, the snow started to fall more heavily and the temperature started to drop. When I left to catch the bus around 9pm, the snow was not only sticking to the road, but covering it. From the time I walked out of the building at 8:58pm, the road went from black to solid white. The effect was quite lovely and I stood mesmorized, thinking about how I could describe the enchanting snowfall to my blog readers.

The bus arrives and I board. We make the first stop, the university clinic, and start the short trip (4 minutes) down the hill to my dorm. Like I said, the hills around Marburg are quite steep and the bus ride even in the best of weather sometimes feels like a children's roller coaster as we fly down the road. But the bus driver notices a problem as we start to pull away from the clinic, into the roundabout. Everytime he tries to brake, the bus slides 3-4 inches. This happens even when he moves the bus from a stop and hits the brakes as soon as the bus moves. While testing the brakes, the bus driver effectively moves us from inside the roundabout to halfway into the two lane road. He then decides (probably wisely), that he will not proceed down the hill to studentendorf. He radios the bus terminal and says (Ich stehe heir, Ich warte). Which means, I will stay* here, I will wait. I didn't catch what we were waiting for. (*stehen directly translates as "stand" and bleiben means "stay" but I guess the German bus driver has heard English speakers butcher the German language enough that he says stehen instead of bleiben)

That radio conversation happened 25 minutes ago. I am still on the bus. We haven't moved. The bus driver got out and walked for a bit. but the bus hasn't budged. I guess we are waiting for morning. :-/

However, while I have your attention, I should note that my German has progressed to the point where I can even understand a bus driver speaking 10 feet away from me. That's pretty cool. In fact, I understand a lot more German than I ever dreamed I would. I conversed entirely in German for 4 hours on Friday night and I regularly speak German to my lab mates. Pretty cool I think. Anyways, I digress.

30 minutes have passed....still nothing....I guess I will save this blog entry until the bus actual does something. .....

40 minutes have passed...the bus driver decided to conserve energy and turned the engine off. The heat is still on though...

1 hour later...the bus driver is "dancing" in front of the bus..actually...he is kicking snow around. I wish he would close the door, my toes are freezing. Now he is walking around the bus. Maybe a Chinese fire drill?

65 minutes later...I located the heater so my toes are starting to warm up...still no sign of whatever we are waiting for.. I have passed the time by writing this post and finishing a Daily German podcast....now I move to thesis writing? Four people just left the bus, probably to call a taxi....I may join them soon.

75 minutes later, the AST service showed up and offered to take people to the southern part of town. I live in the northern part, its faster for me to walk home from here than from that part of town.

80 minutes later...we were just told that the bus isn't budging and they ordered three mini AST buses. They arrive in 10 minutes. ...yeah I get to go home!

95 minutes later...I walked in the door...made some warm tea and slipped on my fuzzy slippers (thanks Lala!) We talked to the bus driver, turns out that the Marburg buses don't run if the roads are slick, its too dangerous. In a really interesting twist, I learned how tall Marburg hills really are. At the Lahnberge on the top of the hill, it was snowing heavily while near the bottom of the hill (my dorm) there is no snow at all. Gotta love the weather.

Now that I am home, I guess I should feel lucky for
1) a bus driver who knew to check his brakes before heading down the hill
2) the chance to live a in a town where a 7 minute bus ride is the difference from a mild winter storm and a foggy evening
3) A fully charged macbook, loaded with podcasts and things to do. I probably would not have made it through this ordeal without crying had I not been distracted for so long.

I am posting the only picture I was able to take tonight. In this photo you see two AST mini buses preparing to take the remaining people down the hill. In the back, you can barely see the bus sitting in the roundabout. The dude with the backpack is a Russian who catches the bus nearly every weeknight from the University Clinic. I have never talked to him, but he seems nice.

Election Night 2008

2009-02-08T18:17:00.004-06:00

I am beginning to write on the backlog of posts detailing events that I never discussed on my blog. Tonight, I will begin with a discussion of Election Night 2008.

I was really curious about how the election would be covered in Germany. Would Germans know that the US was electing a new president? How would I watch election night coverage? Would I need to camp out in my lab to enjoy the privilege of streaming video? Would people be offended if I wore red, white, and blue?

Anyone who red the news knew that not only did Germans know we were electing a new president, they were counting down the days until Bush is gone. Not surprisingly, most Germans were fans of Obama and would shout out "Yes we can!" anytime they saw an American. (I liked to respond to these exclamations with Nein, wir können nicht!) In the days leading up the the election, the energy became noticeably more powerful. I often overheard "Obama" and "McCain" in the school mensa (cafeteria) and saw signs for Obama in the hallways. The day of the election, however, felt suprisingly normal. I kept wanting to scream, hello, my country is electing a new leader today! Lets get excited! But in reality, the real excitement would not start until midnight my time, when polls started closing on the east coast.

I tried to find information about an election night party from the large American contingent in Marburg (large but invisible for the most part, but that's another post) but I found no information. So I decided to have my own little election night party in my room. I borrowed a large lcd screen from my lab, trucked it back to my dorm, and hooked it up to my laptop for a two screen election night experience, as you can see below.

I attired myself in red, white, and blue and sat down with some pretzels, fruit, and cnn.com to watch the results come in. (I am on this healthy food kick, unlike my fiance) The results start out pretty boring, Kentucky was called early for McCain (big shock there) and around 2am, I seriously regretted my decision to stay up until I had a new president-elect. However, as the returns continued to come in, the list slowly started to tip for Obama, and you could feel the excitement building through the TV screen. When they finally called Ohio (and the race) for Obama at 4am, I started dancing and jumping up and down.

I ran into the hallways, expecting to hear whoops of joy. I ran onto the balconey, expecting to see fireworks. Instead, I was met with silence. Not the nervous, scary kind of silence, but the calm and restful silence experienced at peace. I was very sad to hear my whoops of joy met with such uter-nothingness, and that's when it hit me. Of course its calm and peaceful here. A new American president won't make a difference to how the Germans sleep at night. The real excitement lies with the Americans. Oh how I wished to be with friends and family in the states, reveling in the excitement of the election, but instead I was here in Germany, celebrating my joy secretly.

However, I did not celebrate completely alone. I called one of the other Fulbrighters in Frankfurt (where she actually found a party) and was able to share a brief moment of joy with an American voice. I stayed up to watch McCain's consession speech and then Obama's acceptance speech, BOTH of which filled me with pride to be an American. I finally forced myself into bed around 5am. I woke up the next morning from a horrible nightmare, that the election continued like the 2000 election. :-) However, when I woke up, I realized that the election was not a dream. I smiled and began the day as an American with a new president.

Here are some pictures and videos from German and Turkish news programs that night.

Election 2008 - Germany

Why am I here?

2009-02-05T18:44:00.003-06:00

After successfully defeating insomnia for 5 days (I actually went to bed before midnight)...it return this week with a vengance. This time, however, I realize the shear amount of work I have to do before I leave Germany. Which leads me to the topic of the post, why am I here in Germany.

The Fulbright program is meant to be both a cultural and intellectual exchange. My exchange focuses mostly on the intellectual part. I came to Germany to work with a specific research group that specializes in computational analysis of chemical reactions. Since the research group is multinational, cultural exchange means dealing with scientists from 4 different continents and the Middle East. For a scientist, cultural exchange typically means that we discuss how science works (or doesn't work at times) in our home countries. For example, a recent lunch conversation discussed how PhD students are evaluated for a degree. In Germany, students receive a grade on their PhD thesis while Brazilian, Turkish, and US students receive a pass or fail on their oral defense and written thesis. We discussed this issue at length for about 20 minutes (it really was an exciting conversation). Other conversations discussed how software codes work on various platforms and the difficulty of obtaining software for your research....but I digress...

The real reason I am here is to engage in intellectual exchange with the German computational group. My research group in the states actually makes the molecules in lab while the computational group just makes models. In my Fulbright proposal I stated that my synthetic knowledge would help the German group improve their models to match the real world while the German group helps me learn computational tools that enable me to make predictions for the real molecules. The interchange is quite nice, but heavily weighted in my favor; I learn much more from my research colleagues than they could ever hope to learn from me. I am in great debt to the amount they have taught me already, but I still have so much more to learn.

In addition, I strongly desire to defend my thesis shortly upon my return to the US, mostly so I can finally move to the same zip code as my fiance. Thus, I end up spending extremely long hours in lab. For a while, I was very disappointed that I could not experience German life as Germans live it but then I remembered, I am not just here to learn about German culture, but to become a better scientist. Thus, I SHOULD be spending long hours in lab, working to create better models (and publish papers) that connect a synthetic group in the US with a computational group in Germany. Besides, my German labmates are there working long hours as well.

I met with my German boss last week and ended up starting three new projects. One project with a postdoc is finished, while the other two projects are barely started. I hope to finish most of the work for one project and write it up (science lingo for write an article) before March 5th. Why March 5th do you ask? That's the day my next (scheduled) guest arrives. Maria, one of my German sisters, will be visiting Marburg for a conference. On March 6th, my US sister (the one that I am legally related to) arrive for a weeklong visit. I want to enjoy all my time with them. Thus, I want to finish as much work as possible. On that note, I should either return to my studies...or try to fall asleep....hopefully the latter.

As I deal with insomnia more, I hope to start posting highlights of the last few months, including pictures and descriptions of the few things that took place outside of research. (what, there is life outside of research?)

I saw Neo!...and other random tidbits

2009-01-29T04:21:00.002-06:00

Things have improved slightly since my last post. I have tried to overcome my lagging heart by absorbing myself more fully into German life. That means reducing facebook face time and forcing myself into bed sooner. Last night, I finally succeeded in falling asleep before midnight. Actually, I fell asleep around 10pm and woke up at 5.30 this morning! It turns out that the promise of a skype date with Andy in the wee hours provides a strong incentive to wake up. :-) Andy and I had the chance to talk for nearly an hour, which was a nice little taste of home.

The skype date brightened my spirits for the day, but I am also celebrating little victories of embracing my German life. My lightbulb went out this morning and I had to go find the house master to figure out how to fix it. Even with my limited German, I succeeded in obtaining the needed Glühlampe (sounds like Gloompa when spoken by meine housemeisterin) and thus will actually have light tonight. My second little victory actually came from paying bills. Bill payment is rarely a pleasant activity, but I am happy that I successfully navigated my German bank website to pay my student fees for the next semester AND pay my German medical bills. (I should be reimbursed for the bills by my Fulbright health insurance). I successfully paid the bills all by myself. :-) Of course, my bank website comes in English so I cheated a little bit. ;-)

My third little victory came at the post office. I ussually went to the automatic post machines each time I needed stamps for the postcards I mail back to the US. However, the automatic machines only accept Münzen (coinage) and I never carry more than 4 Euros in coins. It became really annoying to walk all the way to the Post just to get 1-2 stamps at a time. Today I was able to ask for and recieve a packet of stamps and make sure that my reimbursement letter for health insurance was mailed. All in German of course! So day by day, my ability to navigate this country becomes easier.

Now for the last little detail...I saw Neo on the bus today! Perhaps I am in the Matrix? A very tall slender man with long black hair stepped onto the bus wearing a long black leather jacket and dark sunglasses. I seriously expected him to break into a fight with an agent at any moment. Perhaps my time in Germany is just a very complex computer simulation?

jet lag or lagging heart

2009-01-26T18:17:00.006-06:00

Here I am again, suffering through another night of insomnia. I've been meaning to write a post about about my stateside visit but I haven't been able to force myself to write the words. Now that sleep has escaped me yet again (despite 20 minutes of nightime yoga, relaxing music, and two sleeping pills) perhaps now is the time to compose another blog entry.

I have suffered insomnia ever since I returned from the states nearly 3 weeks ago. At first, I blamed jet lag, as my last days in the states were spent in Seattle, which is 9 hours behind Marburg. Seattlites wake up at 5pm Marburg time and go to sleep at 8am Marburg time so it was no suprise that I struggled to wake up before 2pm during the first few days. However, a few days turned into a few weeks and here I am composing a blog post when most Marburgers are fast asleep in their beds. I pull myself out of bed at 10am during the week (noon or 1pm on weekends). I wander around the office in a daze, finally becoming coherent and productive around 4pm. I hit my stride between 6 and 9pm but I have to rush out of the office by 9pm in order to catch the last bus back to the dorm. I then spend the next 3-4 hours working or trying to respond to friends and family online. I finally force myself into bed around 2am, then lay awake and think about all the exciting email and skype conversations I have to miss because I am 6-9 hours ahead of all the people in the states. After 3 weeks back in Germany, jet lag should no longer be an issue for sleeping. I think the real problem is that my heart is still in the states.

As much as I enjoy my time in Germany, it does not feel like home, which is really surprising for me to admit. Because I moved so often as a child, I have always been proud of the fact that I could make anyplace feel like home in under two months. I was always able to establish friendships and attachments to my new town. However, in all of those cases, I was able to make a clean break from my past. I rarely left loved ones behind. Until college, my family always moved with me. I still kept in contact with friends from my old locations (one girl and I kept a pen pal friendship for 5 years) but I quickly made friends in new locations and didn't worry about maintaining close ties with my old friends.

This time, I leave behind not only my family, but my fiance and many dear friends. The internet has enabled us to stay together, but it has also kept me from taking a clean break. In the past, the minutia of my friend's lives became irrelevant once I moved away. Now with facebook and skype, I know what they had for breakfast, even if their breakfast took place at the same time as my dinner. Because I am feel so involved with my friends lives, I haven't had to force my heart to break off from them. Thus, I suffer not from jet lag, but a lagging heart. My heart refuses to hop on a plane back to Germany.

Jet lag I can treat with a combination of sleeping pills and coffee, I am not sure how to treat lagging heart. Cutting myself off from my fiance is not an option (sorry sweetie, you can't get rid of me that easily ;-) Neither is avoiding my sisters when they call me at night. I have taken steps to absorb myself more fully in my German life. I spend at least two nights a week eating in the kitchen instead of in front of my computer. I try to envelope myself in work during the day, but that seems to fail to get me out of bed. (Sorry, waking up to perform calculations in lab where I can just as easily do them from my laptop on a wifi signal in tahiti is NOT a good incentive to wake up). Sadly, the strategy that seems to work best is to remember that I only have 168 mornings left until I wake up on the same continent as my loved ones. Thus, I wake up every morning in Germany counting down the days until I leave Germany. This is NOT how I pictured spending my time in Europe.

I am unsure of other ways to fix this problem, so I finish this post with a plea for advice. If you know of treatments for lagging heart, please let me know so I can get back to enjoying the precious oppurtunity I have to live here.

Inauguration thoughts

2009-01-25T07:58:00.002-06:00

Its really difficult to derive complete thoughts or sentences about watching the inauguration of the 44th president. But I can begin with a bit of background.

Germans, for the most part, love Obama. In fact, most people outside the US adore Obama. But there is something to note about their love of Obama....they know who Obama is and much about the country that elected him. How many US citizens can say they know the Chancellor of Germany (hint, infamous backrub moment with #43)? How many people know the prime minister of England, which is supposedly our biggest trade partner and ally in the war on terror? Even more so, how many people can name people in Chinese leadership? (Especially important considering that China holds the loans for over 500 billion dollars in US debt) On the other hand, there are few pople in the world that can not name the 43rd and 44th presidents of the US. What is even more telling is that German citizens can often provide more information on US politics (including VP Joe Biden's home state) than German politics. In fact, most countries all over the world could debate the strength and weaknesses of the two main (and some minor) parties. The cititens knew enough to actually prefer one candidate over another. There are not many people outside of Germany that can give an opinion of the Social Democratic Party versus the Christian Democratic Union. One thing the 2008 election confirmed is that the United States of America is incredibly relevant for global politics.

But the global impact of Obama's election and inauguration have been discussed in many articles and many blogs by people much more qualified than me. (just google global reaction to Obama to find a few). I want to focus on thoughts that are unique to my situation.

Just like many expats, and quite a few Americans, I watched the inauguration proceedings online. I logged on to the cnn/facebook partnership around 1pm German time which was 6am EST so I beat the internet traffic jam that others experienced later. My initial reaction was one of annoyance. The commentators at CNN (and I believe all US stations) kept talking about the peaceful change of power that can only take place in the US. So the election of new parties in nearly every Western European nation doesn't count? Great Britain recently elected the first Scottish Prime Minister, switching the center of British power from London to the Scotts (remember Braveheart?). Nobody died in the transition. The inauguration coverage reminded me about all the reasons why Western Europeans consider Americans to be so self-centered. However, I realized that inauguration day was special so I pushed my annoyance to the side to focus on the exciting day.

I logged into the cnn/facebook interface in hopes of connecting with friends and colleagues back in the states who would share comments as the action took place. Sadly, very few of my friends could log in, so I basically had to watch the proceedings alone. Since I was at work, I had to keep up appearances, so I wrote job scripts while listening to Obama's speech. Thus I did not cry or even tear up during the speech. Keeping with the annoyance theme, I actually grew angry at Obama for making such grandiose claims about the specialness of the US. However, after the speech concluded, it hit me, Obama is really my president. I no longer have to listen to 30 minute diatribes about how President Bush's policies have ruined the world. Although I was never afraid to say, 'Ich bin Amerikanerin', I no longer have to wait for the inevietable statement, 'Your president is an idiot.' (heard many times in my travels). I finally have a president that not only understands global culture, he experiences it through his own family (See Obama's family tree). Someone who realizes that our decisions impact not only Joe the Plumber in Ohio, but Soli the seamstress in Indonesia and Chie the Car parts factory worker in China. America's role is no longer just to provide prudent leadership to American citizens, but to global citizens, because the globe impacts America as well.

Because I was unable to celebrate with friends in the US, I decided to throw a spontaneous celebration with my housemates. After a quick run to the supermarket, I returned with 4 bottles of wine and several types of cheeses and set up a spread in the shared kitchen. I grabbed the arms of every person who entered and said 'Ich habe einen neuen Präsident!' Most people smiled and moved on, but about 7 people sat down and partook of my meager feast. Between these 7 people, 7 nationalities were represented. Every one wanted to talk about the new president (see, the US is relevant!) and provided several interesting comments. The conversation lasted for 3 hours and took place in German, English, and French while we watched parade coverage in German.

The conversation that stuck most in my mind focused on the party atmosphere for the US election. One person said, 'The US is the only country where the inauguratioin of a democratic transfer of power resembles that of a dictatorship.' I stopped cold in my tracks. 'Is this guy comparing the US to North Korea?' I thought. It turns out he was not. Part of his comment meant that he was a little jealous that German people and the world would never express that much excitement of the election of a new Chancellor. I responded that I was grateful to be a citizen of a country that captivates the rest of the world. In makes it harder to become homesick and means that I will always be able to converse with people about I feel passionate about (my home country). The rest of his comment dealt with the faith that Americans put into their democratically elected leaders, which provided a very interesting criticism. In his perspective, Americans spend more time electing leaders than actually following what the leaders do. Thus, we place all the responsibility on our elected leaders and none of the responsibility on ourselves.

The US is a democracy, meaning that we have the right to elect our leaders, but we also have the responsibility to lead ourselves. By placing a large amount of trust and all the responsibilty into our leaders, we become people under a democratic dictatorship. Thus, when I went back to watch Obama's inauguration speech two days later, I started to cry. Obama's speech discussed how our leaders have sometimes failed us, but emphasized that its time for individuals to take responsibilty for their actions. We need to 'Pick OURSELVES up, dust OURSELVES up, and begin again the work of renewing America'.

Obama's speech inspired me to go from a self-absorbed student trying desperately to experience an American inaugurationto celebrating a party with people from all over the world. Although I may not agree with everything Obama does, I am overjoyed to have a president who speeches inspire me to become a better American, even a continent away.

North American Tour

2008-12-22T23:52:00.000-06:00

I will begin my tour of the North American continent today. I start with 6 days in KY, then 6 days in Seattle, followed by 6 hours in cincinnatti, then Frankfurt on January 6th. Perhaps the many plane rides will give me a chance to catch up on blog posts.

In other news, I just returned from a brief (28 hours) trip to Berlin and I can now report that I can not wait to go back and visit the city again, its a pretty cool town. See you on the other side of the pond.

Weihnachtsmarkt!

2008-12-14T09:21:00.007-06:00

The Germans looooooove Christmas and celebrate it well. Every Saturday before Advent, nearly every city turns a (or many) pedestrian square(s) into a city of wooden stands for an event called the Weihnachtsmarkt, or Christmas market. Unlike christmas markets in the states that stay open for a few hours on a weekend, German Christmas markets are open every day, even on Sundays when traditional shops are closed.

The Christmas market is more than just a place to shop, its a place to connect with other people in the city. You meet up with friends from across town over a steaming glass of Glühwein (mulled wine) and a freshly cooked bratwurst on a warm Kaiser roll. Instead of sitting by a warm fire, you stomp your feet in freshly fallen snow and warm your hands with the stone Glühwein mug. I have never experienced anything like it in the US and I doubt that I ever will again.
The Germans tell me that every Weihnachtsmarkt is different. At first I didn't believe them because Andy and I visited 7 Weihnachtsmarkts in Germany and all we saw were the same ornaments, the same offers of Glühwein mit suss (hot wine with rum) and the same crowds. Now, after taking the time to visit the Marburg Weihnachtsmarkt twice a week, I realize that the markets really do differ greatly, even markets within the same city! Each market designs different stalls (Nuremberg has cloth and wood stands while Bonn has singing animals) and features a special food or treat that distinguishes it from the rest. (Berlin features currywurst) Some markets, like the Kölner Weihnachtsmarkt in front of the Cologne Cathedral, are placed in absolutely stunning locations.

Marburg has two Weihnachtsmarkts, one next to the 600 year old Elisabethkirche and another next to the 500 year old Rathaus (city hall). The market next to city hall draws college students to the only Glühwein stand open after 8pm while the Elisabethkirche market draws families and the over 30 crowd. The stands in the lower part of the city are mostly made of logs while the stands in the other market are mostly planks. Both markets are charming and beckon me to visit often. Even though the Marburg Weihnachtsmarkt is small and somewhat pathetic when compared to the great tourist attractions of Nuremberg and Cologne, I find that it has a charm unequaled by any other. I love visiting the Weihtnachtspyramid (shown to the right with Maria) and I love visiting the Rathaus at night. I will be really sad to see these markets leave in one week. :-(

I am a horrible blogger

2008-12-08T03:33:00.003-06:00

Hi readers,

I am soooo sorry for taking so long to post another entry. Many ideas for a blog post have come to mind, but I never developed the post to fruition. I promise to do better. Since its been a while since I last posted, let me give a few updates.

Update 1: Doctor's visits
Over the course of 8 weeks I had 6 doctor's appointments, 4 ultrasounds, two rounds of blood tests, and an endoscopy and still no idea what is going on. All tests came back showing that I was in perfect health. The first doctor I visited said that the stomach pains and nausea were most likely physcosomatic and told me to take a vacation. The second doctor thinks that I have stones in my ears that cause naseau and the stomach pains were completely unrelated. He told me to come back when the nasuea returns, except not on Wednesdays because his office isn't open on Wednesdays. The nausea has only returned twice in the last month but of course it only comes on Wednesdays (or weekends). For the time being, I am feeling 100% better. In fact, I started feeling better the day before my last appointment. Hopefully whatever affected me is gone for good but if it comes back I now know that I have two (english speaking) doctors I can talk to. In addition, one of the doctor's offices is right across the street from the best bakery in town, so if I HAVE to visit the doctor again, I can always treat myself to a yummy cake.

Update 2: Watching the election in Germany
Like most Americans (and many Europeans) I stayed up all night to watch the election. I started a blog entry (with pictures) but never finished it. I will finish the post later tonight and post it to this blog, just one month late.

Update 3: Andy and Clair visited
My fiance and another very dear friend visited me in Germany during the last half of November. I hope to post a blog entry about the highlights of their visit. It was really nice to have a taste of home.

Update 4: Christmas is here!
The German Christmas markets (Weihnachtsmarkts) are now open. So far I have been lucky enough to visit 7 of them! I hope to visit at least 3 more before Christmas. I will post pictures and thoughts about this fantastic German tradition.

Update 5: I am going home for Christmas
My family had hoped to come to Germany for Christmas but due to the fact that both of my sisters and myself plan on getting married next year, my family can't come. Instead, I will be traveling back to US for two weeks over the Christmas break. Perhaps the break will give me time to catch up on my blog. :-) It also means that I only have 15 more days to soak up all the German Christmas spirit I can.

I should get back to work now as I have a very important paper due in 2 days and 12 hours. I promise to post more often now.

Fall comes to marburg

2008-10-26T14:52:00.003-06:00

Fall is my favorite time of year in Kentucky. The weather cools down and the trees begin to change color, changing boring drives into spectacular view after spectacular view. I never thought anything could compare to a Kentucky fall. I was wrong.

Marburg is a city of tree covered hills. The hills are extremely steep so when you look from the city center, you see nothing but a rainbow of trees around you. In addition, many city paths lead you on golden trails, covered with freshly fallen leaves. The effect can literally force your mouth from a smile to a frown. I posted some of these pictures on facebook. You can see the photos from the public link below.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2477929&l=f5b2e&id=1920556

As I told one friend earlier this week. "Don't hate me because Marburg is beautiful!" ;-)

First doctor's visit

2008-10-17T14:20:00.004-06:00

I had my first experience at a German doctor this week. For the last few weeks I've felt a bit (or more) out of sorts. I've had nausea, but I never threw up. I've had stomachaches, but nothing that kept me awake at night. But after changing my diet, sleeping more, and avoiding spicy foods, the symptoms continued. So I said to myself, "if the symptoms persist for one more week, I will go to the doctor".

I said that 4 weeks ago.

After one week, I still didn't feel better, so I said, I'll go to the doctor tomorrow, after I look up the German word for nausea (der Brechreiz). The next day, I woke up and felt bad, but I said, I don't know remember the word for stomach (der Magen) so I can't go yet. The next day I woke up and said, I have an essay due next week, so I don't have time to go to the doctor. On the fourth day, I realized that I forgot the word for nausea (hasn't changed, still der Brechreiz), so I didn't go. You get the idea. I kept finding reasons that I couldn't go to the doctor.

Now in the US, everyone gives reasons on why they should not to go to the doctor, but trying to go to the doctor in a foreign country is a completely different issue. For one, you have no idea where to find a doctor, and if you do find a doctor, how do you know that the doctor is good? Does your host country have high standards for doctors? Second, you find a doctor, but you end up misdiagnosed because either you don't explain your symptoms well enough in the local language or your doctor doesn't understand English as well as he/she thinks. Third, and probably the most intimidating is, how am I supposed to pay?

For me, the answer to the doctor and language questions were easily answered, I just contacted another Fulbright fellow who had already visited an English speaking doctor in town. The third question was also easy, the German Fulbright Kommission bought private health insurance for all Fulbright fellows. Since private insurance covers all none pre-existing conditions all I had to do was show my letter of insurance.

But the process was intimidating. It was hard enough for me to find the courage to visit the doctor, even though most of my questions were answered. I can not imagine the fear in a new immigrant when faced with illness. How do they know who to trust? How will they pay? How will they explain their symptoms when they can barely order bread at the supermarket without making grammatical mistakes? What if they say the pain is in their toe when they meant to say their hip hurts? At the very least, the Fulbright experience thus far has given me the opportunity to understand some of the struggles facing people new to a country, which I know will affect my decisions in the future.

As for the doctor's appointment. I finally visited the doctor this past Monday. After some tests, the doctor (fluent in English), gave me some medicine and scheduled another appointment for the following Monday. The medicines have not helped yet but I'm holding out hope that they will. I will update with more information as I have it.

paperwork and blah

2008-10-07T14:41:00.002-06:00

I feel like I've been in a fog ever since I returned from Austria. For one, I was completely exhausted after the trip so it took a few days to recover. Second, all the Fulbrights left last week so I've been at a loss as to what I should do for fun. Third, Marburg has been under fog or rain for most of the last week. Because of the fog, I have a very very very difficult time waking up in the morning, which means when I do wake up (typically 2-3 hours later than I intended), I ended running around like crazy to get to place I wanted to be at 2 hours earlier. It stinks. (and my room stank for a little while after I spilled some machiato flavored soy milk on a pair of slippers, it took me 3 days to figure out the cause of the smell, phletcht)

In addition, my days have been rather boring. The highlight of the last 4 days was going to the registration office in the middle of town (20 min bus ride each way) to try to find Frau H., the Foreign student person (secretary, adminstrator, your guess is as good as mine). The first two times I visited the office with Frau H's name on the door, I was told (in german of course) that Frau H. was in orientation. When Frau H. returned, she would be in the office next door, the office with someone else's name on it. I tried to ask what day Frau H would return only to receive no response. The third time, I visited the office that did not have Frau H's name on the door. I start shoving paperwork in her hands and she looks at me like...what are you doing here? I show her my acceptance letter and said, I am new. She looks at me and says (in german of course), you need to visit Frau H, who is in the office with her name on it. My german skills were not too the point that I could explain that I went to her office because the person in Frau H's office told me that Frau H would be in the office without Frau H's name on it. Thus, she looked at me like I couldn't read (I can read a little German) or I was a rude American (I try hard not to live up to the stereotype).

So, I left the 'wrong' office to stand outside the office for Frau H. The door opens and out walks the lady who told me that I needed to go to the office next door. Guess who this lady is, its none other than Frau H! Frau H was in her office the whole time! The lady should be glad that my German was not good enough to start explaining my grieviences. Plus, I'd spent over 2 hours in the last week trying to finish this paperwork, so at this point I just wanted to finish the paperwork and get back to my room to shower (I woke up late, again, so I had to rush out of my room before showering) and then return to lab. After 10 minutes, my accounts were arranged and I finally received my semester ticket, which enables me to travel all over Hesse (including Kassel and Frankfurt) for free. :-)

So, that's how boring my life is right now. The highlight is succesfully filing my German university paperwork. Now that I have my semester ticket (and money in my German bank account), I can travel. Anyone want me to come visit? (preferably on the European continent)

Quick recap of my birthday and Austria

2008-09-29T15:43:00.002-06:00

Last Friday I had an amazing opportunity to celebrate my birthday in the Austrian Alps. After sitting through a quantum chemistry lecture in German on Friday morning, I decided to skip out on two sessions of talks to explore the hiking trails around the city. After 1.5 hours of hiking uphill, I reached a trailhead. As much as I yearned to explore more, I knew that I needed to return to the conference, so I snapped a few pictures and then walked back down to the conference site.

I sat through a few more hours of conference that day, then left for the Conference excursion to Dachstein Sky Walk, a restaurant and sky walk located 2700m (nearly 9000 feet) above sea level. When we arrived, the entire area was indunated with snow, so my hopes of seeing an alphine sunset were quickly diminished. However, I took the time to enjoy the snow and test out the winterproofness of my new jacket by falling in the snow a few times. I took the time to make a fun video showing my Wurzburg companions and I exploring new and exciting ways to fall in the snow.

I snapped a lot of pictures over the weekend and posted the best ones to my picassa site.

Austria - STC 2008

I hope you enjoy the photos and video!

be afraid or be wrong

2008-09-25T09:26:00.002-06:00

Or...don't be afraid to be wrong. I've noticed that I have two choices while studying here in Germany, I can speak in German and probably say something wrong, or I can be afraid of making a mistake. My mood fluctuates between the two. Sometimes I spend 10 minutes trying to come up with the grammatically correct sentence only to see the person walk away before I can use it. Other times I just blurt out a sentence that makes the German speakers go "huh?". When I think about what I just tried to say, even I go "huh?" I am afraid because I don't want to be labeled an idiot, but if I don't speak, I could possibly be labeled as rude.

This week is the first week that I've been completely surrounded by Germans. The last 6 weeks I've had the ability to fall back into American English with other Fulbrighters. At this conference, the official language is English (ironic considering that the conference is a meeting of German speaking countries) but most people slip back to German during breaks and lunches. Sometimes I understand the German but most of the time I understand about 25% of what they say (similar to my understanding of all the current theoretical talks). If you've ever been to a conference with me, you know that I love to use breaks to network. I smile and make sure that I talk to all the interesting speakers that I meet (which leads to very exciting opportunities). At this conference, I'm often too intimidated by the German (and quantum chemistry) language of the speakers to say anything more than hello.

German, like scientific research, requires that you make a lot of mistakes before things turn out right.

After two days of this behavior I'm sick and tired of it. Why am I so afraid to look like a fool? For my research, its in my best interest to ask as many questions as possible, even if they are extremely simple. Its so much better to look like a fool now when I'm just learning the subject than look like a fool when I try to give my defense. For German speaking, I'm the only person who thinks that I should be fluent in German quantum chemical terms.The language of science is English, so I've had to remind myself that its okay to speak English with other scientists. I also can not expect myself to speak perfect German (or Quantum) after just short study. So I have to overcome my natural shyness (yes, believe it or not, I am naturally shy) and start making mistakes. So today, I stopped forcing myself to talk only in German and embraced my natural desire to network. So far, nothing amazing has happened other than I don't feel as stressed out, but I'll keep you updated if a Nobel Laureate invites me for tea. :-)

Sprachkurs ist fertig!

2008-09-22T18:07:00.002-06:00

I completed my language and culture course requirements today!

3 page long essay on German extremism - done
language test - done
language proficiency - still working on it
poster for Austria conference - done
packing for conference - done
sleeping - um...can I sleep in the car?

It feels weird to say that I've finished the first hurdle of my time in Germany. I now only have 90% of my time in Germany remaining. Wow, time flies fast. I know that I've learned a lot of German, but I still lack fluency. I can carry on simple conversations, but once the conversation moves to more complicated terms (read, anything that is not my family, weather, or where I'm from), then I become quickly confused. If the conversation contains a preposition or past participle, then my mind starts to explode.

But in reality, I've learned that German is not all that different than English. Sure, German uses specific words to indicate direct and indirect objects while English relies on word order, but the fact remains that the Germans still think in terms of direct and indirect objects. The idea behind the language is still the same. I just need to learn which preposition goes with what idea. i.e. uber dem Tisch versus auf dem Tisch...one indicates that the item is flying over the table and the other indicates the item is on the table. (Imagine the expression on a German's face when you say that the flowers flew over the the table.)

Learning German has also forced me to think about how I use my own language. I become frustrated with Germans because their verbs don't conjugate in a logical manner. But then I remember the verb....being.

I am
he, she, it is
he was
I was
they were
they are.....

There is not a trend, I just became accustomed to English phrasing so I never thought about strange conjugation. I have no reason to yell at Germans for creating a difficult language. English can be just as illogical, if not more so than German! I hope that as I hear German spoken around me, that I will eventually pick up on the correct forms of verbs, the correct prepositions, and the correct sentence structure (verb at the end!).

Perhaps in a few months time, English will seem just as odd and German will feel more natural.

P.S. - I visited McDonalds today. Sometimes I'm glad that a little piece of the US can be found in nearly every country you visit.

still alive...just busy

2008-09-21T15:46:00.002-06:00

I'm still around, just incredibly busy with language class, recovering from illness, packing for Austria, and spending time with other Fulbrights. I'll try to catch up sometime next week. In the meantime, know that I am safe. I leave for Austria on Tuesday morning and will return the following Sunday.

The conference takes place in Ramsau am Dachstein, a small Austrian alp village.
http://www.ptc.tugraz.at/stc2008/indexE.html

In addition to meeting lots of colleagues who work on similar project, I will enjoy some beautiful Alps. :-) On Friday, September 26th (my favorite day of the year), I will join other participants on an outdoor excursion to the top of a mountain where I will climb through an ice cave and watch the sun set over the Alps. :-)

I promise to post pictures and blog as soon as possible.

New Beverages = New experiences

2008-09-05T10:16:00.003-06:00

One of my favorite things to do in a new place is to visit the local grocery store. Nothing will help you understand the culture more than to figure out what they like to eat. Germans like food, and they like fresh food. Most Germans buy food to last 1-2 days, not 1-2 weeks like Americans do, so grocery stores are happening places. Today I decided to pick up weekend groceries at Tegut, a local German grocery and I came across Mojito flavored Pepsi Light. That's right, Diet Pepsi with lime and peppermint flavoring. As a 1.25 Liter bottle (no idea why they picked 1.25L) cost only 59 cents, I decided I had to try it.

First impression....its not that bad. It doesn't have any sugar but the lime flavoring tends to mask the aspartame aftertaste. Its not my favorite soda of all time (that title still falls to Diet Berries and Cream Dr. Pepper) I can see how this would taste good on a warm summer day. That's my cultural food note for this week. If you come and visit me, I'll try to save some of this interesting beverage for you.

I hear a picture

2008-09-02T15:22:00.002-06:00

I heard a picture in German today. No, I'm not mixing up English words because I've studied German so long, I really heard a picture in German today. My Sprachkurz teacher was telling a story about a dog and a child in German. Instead of hearing the German word then translating back to English, I created a picture just from the German words. To me, it signals that I'm starting to think in German. I still struggle to understand German spoken much faster than a snail's pace and I often have to ask the speaker to repeat a phrase but I can often respond to the words spoken (albeit with poor grammar and sometimes the wrong verb).

I also reached another significant milestone today, I felt German. Numerous multilingual speakers have told me that their personality changes when they speak a different language. Since I've never spoken another language fluently, I ussually smiled and nodded when others told me of the change, thinking that they were a little crazy. Today, I felt the beginnings of the change. Well, I actually felt the change when I switched back to English after speaking and listening to German for nearly 2 hours. While speaking German, my posture and mannerisms became more deliberate and I spoke more precisely. When I switched back to English, I noticed how my posture changed and I began to speak more loudly (even though all my companions spoke fluent English). The experience was quite uncanny. I hope it happens again soon. :-)

A Real Storm!

2008-08-31T23:43:00.003-06:00

I'm soooo excited. Last summer, I said that I really missed a good old midwest storm. I wake up this morning to thunder and lightening! Yeah! Now I understand why I had such a horrible migraine yesterday. (My migraines predict the weather at times).

decorating my room

2008-08-31T13:55:00.004-06:00

Now that I've officially signed the lease for my room, I decided that I could finally add some color to the white wall and brown decor. On Saturday afternoon, I hit all the local stores that I could find to obtain colorful and useful items to make my room a bit more homey. I hit success at two different stories, Woolworth (yes it exists in Germany) and Kik. Woolworth had some basics like a desk organizer and tape but Kik had the best bargains. I found a duvet cover (a blanket that you use to cover a comforter), dishes, candles, and sheets for under 20 Euros. All items are brightly colored to counteract the bland walls. Its amazing how much a difference a simple duvet makes. The first picture was taken before I added the duvet cover.
Even with Bamu and Buster (my travel companions), the bed still looks pretty lonely. The next photo is after I added the sheets and duvet cover.
My room looks completely different! Instead of feeling like a prison cell, it feels like a freshman year dorm room. To decorate the rest of my room I have to think back to college times, how did I make my room homey on a college student budget? I'm open to any suggestions you may have. I have two completely blank walls to fill.

Dorf Sweet Dorf

2008-08-28T11:32:00.005-06:00

Now I have a place to call my own for the next year. The month of living out of cars, suitcases, or a backpack has ended. I signed the lease for my room today. Instead of moving to an apartment in the old city, I decided to stay in the Studentendorf. Here I will pay less than 200 Euros a month for a bathroom cleaned daily, access to a shared kitchen (also cleaned daily), free internet, water, heat, and electricity. My private room may be quite small (approximately 5 square meters or 50 square feet), but its the closest student building to my chemistry lab. I can see the bus stop from my window if I glance through the forest (in fact, that's all I see my from window) and the students in the dorm will force me to speak German so I should gain proficiency sooner.

I had my heart set on a one room apartment in a 600 year old house, but rents for such a room started at 250 Euros and climbed. Apartments started at 400 Euros a month plus utilities. I just couldn't justify paying twice at much for decorations. I can visit the houses anytime I want. With the money I'm saving each month, I could travel first class to Berlin and back (using my 50% off Bahn Card of course) or dine in the best restaurant in town 3-4 times each month.

My room and kitchen really aren't that bad. The people on this floor really care about their kitchen so they do their best to make it feel like home. The kitchen area is a virtual winter garden with an orange tree (forefront of picture), pepper plants, and various herbs.

I share a fridge and the stove and oven with the other students. I can use my own dishes and store them in a locked cabinet or I can use the dishes of previous residents (some of the pots are missing handles and none of the plates or bowls match). I don't have a picture of the rest of the kitchen yet but I will include one soon.

I will include picture of 'mein Zimmer' after I make it homey with some decorations other than the white washed walls.

The Simpsons, auf deutsch

2008-08-26T14:59:00.004-06:00

Traveling while American is probably the easiest way to travel. American culture and tv shows can be found all over the world so finding a piece of home is often only a tv away. While cooking dinner tonight, one of my housemates (I have at least 10 on this floor) reminded me that a good way to practice German comprehension is to listen to the TV while cooking. While waiting for the water to boil, I turned on the tv and found The Simpsons, in German. I taped a bit for your language enjoyment.

What a difference a video makes

2008-08-26T00:21:00.002-06:00

This morning, I finally had a chance to talk to my fiance on Skype. I bought him a webcam a few weeks ago so we could talk face to face. Although we've been able to type with each other nearly everyday for 5-10 minutes, being able to see his face made my day much brighter. When you are slightly homesick, its amazing how little things like a picture help ease the pain.

sadness and general malaise

2008-08-25T15:24:00.002-06:00

The past few days have been a struggle physically and emotionally. I haven't been eating dinner because I haven't felt like cooking dinner for one and did not have the energy to trek back into town (a 25 minute hike downhill then uphill each way) to purchase a cheap dinner. No dinner for a week = very unhealthy me, so my body finally protested this weekend and forced me to sleep. In addition, I spent a lot more time in my room than I should have. My computer/internet connection have kept me anxiously awaiting phone calls and messages from home. Its extremely hard to stay away, especially when I haven't talked to some family members in over 10 days.

As a result of staying in my room all weekend, my German comprehension decreased to the point that I only understood 50% of the what the teacher said today. Needless to say, today was not the best of days for me socially.

After traveling many times, I know that the worst way to combat homesickness is to sit at home waiting for messages from your home country. Instead of holing up in my dormroom, it would have been much more advantageous for me to study in the dorm common room or even a coffee shop in town. Perhaps over the next few days I will endeavor to explore new parts of Marburg or even just study in the parts I already know about. This means I'm even less likely to post on my blog, but at this point, German language is my most important focus.

language course and blog absences

2008-08-23T04:37:00.003-06:00

Every weekday, I take a language course at the university. I really love my language course. From day 1, we spoke only German in class, which forces me to think in German. At the beginning of the course last week, I spent a lot of time thinking of a sentence in English and then translating to German. Now, however, I think of the question in German, albeit it very grammatically incorrect German. However, its improvement. Last week, I understood about 30% of what my instructor said. Now, I understand about 80% and I sometimes can even understand his jokes (something I ussually can't even do in English).

All this German learning is quite taxing on the brain. Class starts at 8:45am every morning. However, I have to leave my apartment by 8:15am in order to arrive in time (those of you who know me can guess how rarely this happens). I typically wake up around 7am, shower, then do chemistry research (I'm still on stipend in the US so I have to work on chemistry as well), catch up on email, then take off for German class, ussually rushing out the door around 8:35 or 8:40am. I think speak and think in German for 4 hours, take a lunch break, then return to study German or German culture (in English) from 2-4pm. Even if I'm able to return home immeadiately, I ussually don't arrive again until 5pm. (the trek to the class is downhill while the trek away from class is uphill so it takes longer to get home). Ussually though, I have to run errands in town so I don't return home until 6 or 7pm. By that time, I'm ussually too exhausted to think about dinner (hence why I don't really eat dinner any more). And even less likely to write blog posts or chemistry scripts. So I'm not trying to ignore you, I'm really just too tired to think about anything in English or German.

I'm going to try to do better. Now that I'm in a schedule, I hope to get more work done next week. I still have German homework and Chemistry scripts to write so I'll be on the computer more today. Feel free to im or call me if you have the time. I'd love to hear from you. (you can leave posts on the blog as well).

1 meter long bandage

2008-08-16T13:33:00.004-06:00

I saw this bandage at the store and thought, wow, that's a neat idea. I didn't realize that the bandage is nearly 4 shoes long (and I have big feet)! I guess I have enough bandages to last a while.

its only a flesh wound

2008-08-16T07:01:00.005-06:00

I had my first (I'm sure of many) falls in Marburg today. While admiring the view of Marburg castle from my hill,
I backed into a drainage ditch next to the road.
I then proceeded to topple downhill for 5 meters, puncturing a hole in my jeans and scratching my knee.

I then had to return to my dorm on the 4 floor to bandage myself.
I'm now preparing to leave again, hopefully with no falls this time.

Teaching a German to speak Southern- a followup

2008-08-16T05:32:00.002-06:00

In my last blog entry, I mentioned that I tried to teach one of my German lab mates how to speak Southern. I tried to emphasize the idea that people in the south often refer to others as Dahling, sweetheart, or honey. I will now followup with a slightly awkward situation that followed this event.

When I left the German's apartment at 10pm, I was so tired that I walked out without my jacket, or my mobile phone, but the German promised to bring the item to lab the next day. So this male German brought my jacket and handy into the lab and left them on my desk. I thought nothing of it. Later that day, when I left the lab to leave for Fulbright orientation, the German said "Goodbye Darling." Two other labmates in the room looked rather surprised at this salutation, especially considering that this lab mate brought in items that I 'forgot' at his house. In fact, their jaws seemed to drop. I realized that the salution and situation seemed to suggest that something other than talking happened between myself and this male labmate. I quickly talked about how Southerners refer to each other as darling, sweetheart, or honey. I demonstrated by calling another labmate sweetheart, which received another blank stare.

Now perhaps I misinterpretted the silence and blank stares. But at the very least, I how now explained a strange Southern custom to other German people.

If this labmate reads this blog. I wish this German labmate all the best in Houston! Veil Glucke!

readjusting to German life...and Marburgs hills

2008-08-16T04:47:00.002-06:00

Location: dorm room, Studentendorf (student dorms), Marburg, Germany, Europe

Listening to: birds chirping in the forest hills and cars trying to drive up the steep Panoramestraße less than 30 meters away, accompanied by the occasional voice speaking an unknown language.

I finally have internet access in my room, which means that I can start regular blog entries again. A lot has happened in the last few days, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to even describe the events of the last week. Instead of listing everything in this blog entry, I will try to break the blog into various parts such as first day in Marburg, language course, living with multiple cultures, walking in Marburg, my shrinking pant size, meeting other Fulbrights, running late in precise germany, saying goodbye to family, and any other titles I may think of.

I won't waste precious cyberspace describing my rather uneventful trip overseas other than to say that I sat next to a German who like Harley Davidson motorcycles. We talked a bit but I actually tried to sleep for most of the trip. I will also add that United airline food is nowhere near as good as the food on any other European airline.

I arrive in Marburg around 13:00 (1pm in the US) after boarding the correct train to the Frankfurt Main station, then to Marburg (I told you my trip was rather uneventful). I spent most of the train ride trying to remember how to call the US from Germany so I could notify my parents of my arrival (I eventually figured it out), then trying to remember how to call German handys (mobile phones) from my German mobile number.

Just a note for people not familiar with my phone habits. When traveling in Europe, I use my US phone, but I switch out sim cards so when I visit Germany I have a German phone number, which means that Germans can call me for rather cheap. When I am in the US, I switch back to my US number. I also have a UK sim card. Sim cards in Europe are rather cheap, so its easy to buy a different card for each country. All my European cards are also prepaid, so I just buy more minutes when I need them.

Anyways, I arrived in Marburg in early afternoon, where my host drove me to my new home for the next 6 weeks in Losomonov Haus in Studentendorf. The dorm room is identical to the one I had last year in Carl-Ludwig Haus, except that this room has an internet connection. :-) The room is quite small, only 9 feet by 9 feet for the bedroom part and 9 feet by 3 feet for the sink/closet part. I'll try to take some pictures to post later. After dropping my stuff in my room, showering, taking a quick nap (15 minutes), I caught the bus to the Chemistry building to meet with Prof. Frenking and the research group. I stayed for about 1hour, long enough to find my desk and reintroduce myself to the group. I then rushed back to my dorm to drop off my laptop and buy some groceries before the stores closed downtown.

Afterwards, I met with a Frenking labmate who is preparing to move to the US. He offered to make me dinner while I borrowed his internet connection. :-) We spent the next 4 hours discussing US and southern culture (he is preparing a move to Houston). I also tried to teach him some Southern terms (y'all, dahling, etc) before he gave me a ride back around 22:00. Instead of falling back asleep, I was wired for the night so I watched two of the 48 movies that I brought from the US. I finally crashed around 4am, only to wake up 5 hours later at 9am.

I'm going to stop this entry now as I realized that instead of discussing my journey in Europe, I'm just listing all my activities. I believe that my mind is a little too overwhelmed with new sights, smells, tastes, and experiences so I'm going to take a break, then try to explain a bit more about my time in Germany.

safe arrival but no internet...for now

2008-08-12T06:04:00.003-06:00

I write this blog entry on a German keyboard so please excuse any strange characters you may see.

I arrived safe in Marburg on Monday afternoon where I met with the Fulbright advisor for the day and reconnected with the research group. Before I left Champaign, a lab mate in Marburg configured my laptop for wireless access in Marburg, or so we thought. We have not been able to configure my laptop for wired or wireless access in my dorm or even in the lab. :-( I write this post from the imac the lab provided for me to use (its very nice). Until my laptop decides to work (it worked for about 10 minutes earlier today then stopped), I will not be able to answer skype phone calls or may take a while to answer emails.

Marburg in the News!

2008-08-08T08:34:00.004-06:00

I was browsing through the international herald tribune this morning and I came across an article titled

German townsfolk wonder: Is it possible to be too green?

The townsfolk hailed from Marburg Germany, which will soon be my new home. Apparently the city adopted an ordinance requiring that all homeowners add solar panels when they renovate their homes or fix their roofs. I'm all for green activities but requiring people to add solar panels is a little excessive. According to the article, most people in town support the spirit of the resolution but don't necessarily support the ordinance. You can read the article using the link below.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/07/europe/journal.php

In the picture from the article above, you see solar panels in the foreground with Marburg Castle in the background, illustrating how Germans have created a vibrant forwarding-thinking economy while embracing their long and storied past. I can not wait to experience this culture and hopefully embrace my own Germanic heritage.

more luggage issues

2008-08-07T09:58:00.002-06:00

no, American did not lose my carryon bag. The bag agent was sympathetic to my plight and sent the bag on the very first flight from Dallas to Louisville. My luggage arrived at 11am on Wednesday. I then drove to my parents house in rural Kentucky (town has two stoplights) to unload the car from Champaign (packed nearly 10 days prior) and repack for Germany. I hoped to pack everything for Germany into a large suitcase and use my red carryon for books. Around midnight last night I realized I had a problem. My large (26 inches tall) suitcase was half full and already 5 pounds overweight. My free baggage allowance is 100 pounds, or 50 pounds per suitcase, which sounds like a lot, but have you ever tried packing a year's worth of stuff? With my books, the red carryon is already 50 pounds so I can't add anything else to it without going over. Plus, do I really want to haul over 100 pounds worth of stuff from the airport, to the Frankfurst train station, then from the Marburg train station to my place of residence? After sleeping only 6 hours the night before? This afternoon I just have to sit down and repack the entire suitcase. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. :-(

Offers to ship items using teleportation will be accepted eagerly. :-)

Adding to the long list of airline gripes

2008-08-05T20:49:00.003-06:00

....besides the fact that I was delayed 3 hours! on Thursday due to weather somewhere in the United States, (a butterfly probably flapped its wings in Utah which led to flight cancellations in Chicago)....I arrived in Louisville airport today, only 30 minutes late (that's early on airline time). I decided to check my luggage today so I wouldn't have to deal with the 3 ounce rule on baggage rules. I began to regret that decision when I visited baggage claim to pick up my luggage and my luggage never appeared. The gate service agent said that weather was bad in Dallas (cloudless skies = bad weather in airline lingo) so my luggage didn't arrive in Louisville. Thankfully, I always carry one change of clothes and toiletries in my carryon, so I have some underclothes to wear for tomorrow. But my pajamas and sandals are in the bag. Thankfully I'm staying with my grandmother and she immeadiately took me to target to get a pair of pajama pants.

Now normally lost luggage would not be a big deal for me but when the baggage claim specialist asked me for a shipping address, I realized I had a serious problem. I kindly explained to the agent that I have a mailing address in Louisville until 11am on WEdnesday, then an address in rural Kentucky until Thursday, then Louisville until Sunday. If my luggage didn't show up by Sunday, they would have to send it to Germany. I seriously hope my luggage arrives sooner rather than later as I planned on using my smaller bag to carry books and heavy items. I can probably fit all my stuff into one suitcase, but I will have a to pay a lot in baggage fees. :-/

For now, I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for a phone call from American at 8am tomorrow morning. :-/

Mount St. Helens

2008-08-04T21:52:00.003-06:00

I started my transient phase a little over a week ago. After Bloomington, IN and a short sojourn to Louisville, KY...and many hours delayed on or near planes, I finally arrived in Seattle, where I'm visiting with my fiance. Andy's parents and sister were here for the first two days so we spent some time visiting Pike's Place Market and downtown Seattle. Then Andy and I took off to explore more of town. On Saturday, we just visited downtown Redmond and watched a movie. Then we took off early on Sunday morning to visit Mount St Helens.

The view was amazing! We hiked close to 9 miles that day, mostly over volcanic ash. I posted pictures to my picasa website.

Lufthansa Strike!

2008-07-28T20:58:00.004-06:00

After my last post, I read a quite alarming article.

Lufthansa strike to hit Frankfurt and Hamburg

According to the article above, over 52,000 Lufthansa employees will strike this week, disrupting air travel in many airports around the world. Lufthansa has already cancelled over 100 flights for Tuesday with even more cancellations expected.

My flight for Germany is actually on United but my United flight would be serviced by Lufthansa in Frankfurt. For those of you not familiar with airline alliances, Lufthansa and United are both in the Star Alliance, which is one of the largest alliances in the world. (and my favorite) The airlines are so close, that sometimes they seem indistiguishable from one another.

My United flight doesn't leave for 12 more days so the union and airline have plenty of time to resolve their differences before my flight and the Frankfurt airport can return to being one of largest airports in the world. However, I'm not convinced this strike will end soon as the airport employees are demanding a 9.7% wage increase for all employees to counter inflation. Nearly 10% !!!!! Who gets that kind of money?

I guess I should prepare for strikes at airports. My daily phrase German course even devotes an entire lesson to preparing for train strikes. Since my flight is nearly 2 weeks out, I guess I just have to cross my fingers and hope for the best.

On the road

2008-07-28T20:45:00.004-06:00

I said goodbye to Champaign on Sunday. Parting was much harder than I thought it would be. I didn't leave Champaign until after 7pm, nearly 4 hours later than I intended as I kept finding reasons to stay a bit longer. It was hard to leave the town that I chose to call home for 5 years. I will greatly miss my friends and roomate of 5 years.

But enough sadness. I arrived in Bloomington, IN for the 20th Biennial Conference on Chemical Education. http://bcce2008.indiana.edu/
In less than 24 hours I reconnected with my chemical education research advisor, professors from various universities that sabbaticalled with said research advisor, and even former graduate students/postdocs from UIUC. I'm very grateful for going to a school with such a robust alumni unit. I love coming to conferences because I love reconnecting with people and making new connections. Its been very therapuetic.

As I drove away from Champaign, I began to fear that I would not be able to make friends in my new home. However, this conference reminds me how its much more likely that I'll make so many friends that I won't be able to feel lonely again. Only time will tell.

1 more day left

2008-07-24T21:06:00.002-06:00

Wow, only 1 more official day in lab and then I leave for a year. This week has been incredibly productive for those tiny things that you always need to get done before leaving town, but incredibly unproductive for actual work. I learned a valuable lesson this summer, write all papers and take care of work that needs actual thought at least three weeks before you leave. By the time the last three weeks arrive, you are too caught up with saying goodbye and tying up loose ends that you can not concentrate for more than 10 minutes at a time. On Wednesday I had to practically lock myself to my computer to write a 2 paragraph abstract for a conference. Now the abstract is 'nearly' done. I just have to make one picture and then submit it.

As one of my final acts before leaving, I had a very detailed meeting with my primary advisor today where we discussed a timeline for my graduation and the work I needed to do in Germany. I was completely surprised when he not only supported my accelerated timeline (graduating within 2 months of returning from Europe), he even considered the possibility that I could even schedule a 'virtual defense'. I would give my final defense in Germany while my thesis committee watched me on a computer screen. :-) As interesting as the idea sounded, I decided that it would probably be easier to visit Champaign for a few weeks and finish up all details. Earlier this year I though I needed a 6 month lease, hoping that I could graduate by December 2009. Now it looks like I may not even stay long enough to justify anything more than a hotel room for a couple of weeks!

I am extremely excited about graduating sooner than expected, but I am saddened by the finality that today's meeting portended. Now when I take the bus home for the night, I realize it may be the last time I take the bus 'home'. My next bus trip may only be to a hotel for the night, or more likely to a friends home to sleep on their couch. I wrote this post on the bus, and now it appears that my bus ride is over...another last moment, gone.

Details make the going tough

2008-07-15T11:32:00.003-06:00

26 days until I leave for Germany.

It seems like I still have a while before I leave, but perhaps these numbers make more sense

3 days until I move out of my house
12 days until I leave champaign for a year
21 days until I bid farewell to Andy on US soil

Time flies quickly when you're busy. My desk at home and in lab is covered with post-it notes, detailing all the things I have to do before I leave town. The sheer number of post it notes is overwhelming and causes me to lose motivation. Add in the fact that I'm also trying to sell out my stock of Mary Kay before I leave (help me out by visiting www.marykay.com/chariteach) and give 30 free facials before July 22nd, it makes for one very busy person.

Preparing to go overseas for a year is very very stressful and exciting at the same time. So far, I think I'm managing but I think its because I'm procrastinating. I still haven't even started my presentation for a conference in two weeks and I still have to draft 3 papers before I leave town. I have a draft of one paper, the other two have outlines. I keep thinking that time will just appear out of nowhere or that I will somehow become ubermotivated before I leave. So far, motivation eludes me.

One of the hardest parts of leaving is that I don't know what is going to happen. If you know me, you know that I love to plan and plan for contingencies if the first plan fails. I have no idea what my expenses will look like next year, how I can find time to visit the grocery store when the lab is on the top of the hill, or how I'm going to learn Quantum Mechanics in a language I can barely understand! I try to remind myself that I will survive, even if I have to eat Mensa food for lunch every day (2 Euros for a 3 course meal) or if I fail Quantum Mechanics (my grade will not transfer back to the University anyways).

My research advisors obviously think I can handle a year abroad or they wouldn't have written the application letters. My fiance is convinced that next year will be absolutely amazing, despite the fact we will be seperated by an ocean for another year. Deep down, I believe them and I believe that the next year will be exciting as well. I could continue more on that thought, but the army of post-it notes is threatening to invade unless I start taking them out one by one. Hopefully next time I post, the army will be reduced by a battalion or two. :-)

Travels begin again

2008-06-23T18:48:00.005-06:00

Oh my, I haven't posted in quite some time. I've haven't had the heart to post to my blog since I passed my prelim...but its not because I haven't traveled. In fact, I've traveled a great deal. From a spring conference in New Orleans to a grand American Road Trip along I-70 to a summer conference in Vegas. (BTW: a rather exciting event occurred on the road trip to Seattle. Check out my Picture website for details.) I've earned over 10000 frequent flier miles this alone, which brings me halfway towards my goal of elite status on a major airline. My next three flights will be on different carriers so it doesn't look like I reach that goal this year.

I should explain why I'm resurrecting my blog. After returning from my CESRI travels in Central Europe, I decided that I wasn't content to study in the corn fields of Champaign anymore so I spent two weeks preparing an application for the Fulbright program. If you aren't familiar with the Fulbright program, I will give you a short summary (and of course a link to the Wikipedia article).

The program was created in 1946 by an act of Congress. Named after US Senator J William Fulbright, the program seeks to forge ties between nations through intellectual and cultural exchange. Every year the US government send students and faculty overseas to study the culture of their host country while also acting as an intellectual ambassador for the United States of America. (Note: the program also brings foreign students and faculty to study and teach at American Universities). This year, nearly 7000 people worldwide were selected as Fulbright Scholars. In mid-April, I found out that I was one of those people!

I was awarded a 9 month student fellowship and 6 week language training to Germany. I will be returning to work with the Frenking Group at Phillips-Universitat in Marburg, Germany. I leave for Germany in less than 7 weeks. In the meantime, I'll try to keep you posted on all important travel items, including the mounds of paperwork to fill out.

I am deeply honored and incredibly excited to receive the Fulbright this year. I hope to learn a lot of German and a little bit of chemistry along the way. Auf Wiedersehen!

self-imposed exile is now over

2007-12-10T13:00:00.000-06:00

I passed! I passed my preliminary oral exam and I am now an official PhD candidate. :-) so now I can smile with confidence! :-)

disappeared from blogging but wishing I could disapear from life for a while

2007-11-14T15:15:00.000-06:00

Wow, the last few weeks have been absolutely torturous. I've really struggled with a sense of alienation lately. Most of the alienation stems from my self-imposed exile from life outside of the research lab. Since I am a rather social person and quantum chemical calculations are not social, I have become rather depressed and lonely. But let me back track...Why did I exile myself from life outside of the lab?

One: I take my oral exam for my Phd on Dec. 10th. The oral exam is meant to test your ability to defend and describe your research. But in order to defend and describe your research, you must know and love it. I can do neither, which has lead to many thoughts about the meaning of life and why I really want a PhD, which of course spirals down into an empty abyss of self-loathing and hopelessness.

By placing myself into exile, I decided to let research consume my being. Anything that was not research related was considered frivolous and must be disposed of. Gone are the big and small joys of my life.

Graditeam list - replaced by the Gaussian03 Users Manual
Dinners with friends - replaced by dinners in front of the terminal screen
Phone calls- screened and returned only in the case of emergency
Church - attended when necessary
Family - see phone calls
sleep - replaced by caffeine and papers
Boyfriend - seen 1-2 times a week for moral support (you can guess that this causes a slight strain on the relationship)
Instant Messenger - turned off

I even went so far to turn off my gmail news feed so I won't get distracted by inane newstories or advertisements for quantum chemistry packages.

So my life has been stripped down to my computer, papers, food prepared one week in advance, and meetings with my advisor.....and occasionally an hour or two with the boyfriend.

The problem with this life...it stinks.

I don't love my research. I can barely tolerate it at times. Being absorbed into my research may be the source of the mysterious twitching that has developed recently. But the thing is....if I want to pass this prelim...I have to learn to love my research. So I figure the best way to do that is to continue to spend inordinate amounts of time on it until I get to know it in a personal way. Love will stem from a mutual sense of hatred into a beautiful flower of brilliant research.

I must now disappear into research world again.

Continuing the Tour

2007-09-07T17:51:00.001-06:00

Hi, I'm back...

After a one month hiatus I decided to continue the blog. My European travels may be over (for the time being) but my adventures continue. So if you don't mind, I'm going to continue to post to my blog. Hopefully people still read it. :-)

In the last month I moved, visited family in KY, finished a portion of a project, helped with Teaching Assistant Training, started my own course, and finished a huge fellowship application. Now that my 800 students have checked into lab and my room is mostly completed, I believe my life can continue on.

I miss Europe. I miss the sense of adventure I felt every weekend as I explored a new place and I missed trying new things everyday. But I've learned to appreciate the things I love about home. I love the Champaign bus service and the fact that I am walking distance from my boyfriends apartment (2.3 miles is walking distance if you give yourself 40 minutes to walk it). I also love visiting my favorite organic food store (Strawberry Fields) after I make my Saturday morning farmer's market run. I love the ability to use my cell phone to call home as much as I want without paying ridiculous roaming fees.

But I think the thing I love most is knowing that I know my country. I may not understand why we have 20 different types of yogurt, but I know which kind I want. I love not having to ask someone how to operate the vending machine or what type of food I'm ordering off the menu. I also know how to navigate cell phone customer service. I guess I just like things to be normal, so I don't have to ask for help every time I want to try something new. But at the same time, I know that after a few months of normal, I'm going to start begging for travel experiences soon.

Just as a precaution for boring days ahead, anyone want me to visit?

Dream experience?

2007-07-26T04:36:00.000-06:00

So I'm safe in the US now, back in the same house I've lived in for 4 years. Walking to front door, my hands began shaking, not because I was nervous about how things had changed since I left, but because so little has changed that I'm afraid the past 2 months will turn out to be a dream. I walked into my apartment, turned the key the wrong way like I always have, opened the door, and smelled the mustiness that I've grown accustomed to in the last year. My bathroom towel still hung in the same place I left it 10 weeks ago.

As I walked through the door, scenes from the summer flashed through my mind. Watching the Hungarian symphony in a a gilded opera house, watching the alps zoom past the train window in the superfast train, walking through the streets of Goslar with my long lost German sister. I have to wonder, did all of this really happen? Did I really spend 10 amazing weeks roaming the streets of 7 European countries? Did I really meet people from 30 different countries? Well, this blog, unless I can write blog entries in my sleep, proves that I did in fact do all these amazing things, and much more.

I still have so much to write about. So much happened on this trip that the blog hasn't even begun to explain all the memories in my mind. Hopefully I can catch up on some of the amazing experiences later this week as I wake up 2-3 hours before everyone else (I made it to 5:30am this morning. But until I can write again, I leave you with the last picture I took in Marbug, which really makes me think that this trip was a dream.

MIA for a while

2007-07-23T10:45:00.000-06:00

Just so you know, I will probably be MIA for the next few days as I travel from Marburg to Frankfurt to Geneva to Amsterdam to Chicago and finally Champaign. Pray that no air traffic controllers strike in Switzerland, the Netherlands, or Chicago and that I make all my trains (I have 4 tomorrow alone) :-/

As much as Reuti wants me to have an eventful trip...I hope its plain boring.

Tata for now!

Caught unawares....but at least I had my towel

2007-07-23T09:12:00.000-06:00

I leave for the US on Wednesday but I had to check out of my dorm today. However, I didn't know that I had to check out of my dorm today. I got up around 8:45...headed to the shower. I share a shower with 15 other people...which you might think is gross, but people keep the shower clean so its really not that bad. But I have to walk down the hall to use the shower.

Anyways, I'm down the hall, taking a shower, shampooing my hair, when someone bangs really loud on the door. I wonder if the door is going to crash in. Then I hear a female voice yelling "drei hundert neunzehn"....which is my room number. I turn off the shower, get soap in my eyes and yell back. "Ya, drei hundert neunzehn" . She then bangs on the door again and yells something in German...I have no idea what she said....I listen...I pause...and I reply "Ich verstehe nicht"....(I don't understand) to which she says another 30 words in German of which the only part I understand is "aus".....which ussually comes paired with questions that ask about travel. I then realize that someone was coming to see me....and apparantly they wanted to know when I'm leaving. I reply...with my very limited German "Dienstag!" (Tuesday)....she then says .aa/s.mdf/.amdsf;lasjksdf;ljsa or something....I have no idea....and walks away. Thinking that the exchange was over...I finish my shower....get the soap out of my eyes...and wrap up in a towel for the 5 meter walk back to my room.

I step into the hallway, wearing just a towel (I time my escape so no one sees me) and rush to my door...only to be blocked by a large woman dressed in white with hair the color of a coke bottle. She clutched what looked to be 2 folders, one with my name emblazoned across the top. Before letting me into my room, she proceeds to pester me with questions in very fast german....questions that I only catch one or two words of before becoming completely lost. I listen and listen..and eventually figure out that she wanted to know when I was leaving and if I paid my deposit. I say yes, and then say that I'm going to pay my rent that very day. During this time she grabs a tall Arabic guy and asks him to translate for us....even though I'm standing in the hallway wearing nothing but a towel!!!!

We then finish our conversation outside, after which she explains that she needs to see my room, but she doesn't give me the option to dress beforehand. So I open the door to my room, dreading her expression. I had just started packing and entire closet now lay between my floor and bed...sorted into piles that only I understood. I had not cleaned the sink (a task I saved for tonight) and my desk was covered in piles of dead moths (another task for this evening). She quickly walked through the room, with me hurriedly throwing things into a suitcase with one hand and grasping my towel with the other. She then told me that I would be charged a cleaning fee....(not surprised considering the state of my room). And then she left, leaving the door open so everyone could see me in my towel. :-/

I closed the door, quickly dressed, and then began cleaning the room. However, damage had been done, I would now be charged a cleaning fee, all because I had no idea that I had to check out one day before I left. :-/

Thus ends my story.

The Moral: Never leave without your towel.

Success!!!`

2007-07-20T17:13:00.000-06:00

As the title suggests...I achieved success today as the 11th person in Marburg to obtain a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The evening started around 10pm when Amir and I walked to the city center (busses stopped running so we had to walk.

After wandering around for a bit, we finally found the bookstore that sold the book at this hour.

Around 12:30, a line began to form, so we decided to get in line.

By 1am, the line stretched around the block.

But at 1:01, the doors opened and we all walked in to obtain our copy of the book, which was even gift wrapped for us. :-)

So here I am with the bag...and the book...

I'm happy to report that the ending is...........

addendum to Harry Potter post

2007-07-20T05:46:00.000-06:00

I should also add that I was able to watch the fourth movie in Germany this week...in English even. I'm beginning to wonder why I need to go back to the states...I can get all the books and watch all the movies I want.

Exciting plans for the weekend

2007-07-20T03:15:00.000-06:00

Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the last year, you know that Harry Potter book 7 is released at midnight tonight. Well, the book is released at midnight in great Britain, which means it will be released at 1am in central Europe. Even so, 1am in Germany is still 5 hours ahead of midnight in the states, so if I go to a book store at 1am, I will have my hands on a copy at least 4 hours before my friends in the states. :-) But I will also have the original British version instead of the "translated" American version.

I figure, I'm in Europe, I might as well take advantage of the timezone change. :-) Yesterday Reuti, a labmate, found the only bookstore in Marburg that will actually open at 1am to sell the book. So this morning I set out to the Altstadt (old marburg) to reserve my own copy of the book.

Thanks to Reuti's excellent map, I quickly found the bookstore and went in to order my copy. The bookstore owner laughed when he heard my american accent and said "you traveled a long way to get one book!" I successfully ordered my own copy of the book, so keep you eyes open for an exciting picture to appear around 1:30am my time, (6:30pm CST). Perhaps I'll even open the last page for you. :-)

Highlights from Krakow

2007-07-18T01:55:00.000-06:00

This past weekend I traveled to Poland, specifically Warsaw and Krakow, to meet with CESRI fellows and IIE staff for a debrief.

If I had to pick out my favorite thing about Krakow, I would pick hanging out with all the CESRI fellows and IIE staff. It was really nice to see everyone again after 7 weeks in our seperate countries and to hear all about the various projects and experiences of each of the other scholars. It was also great to see Chris and Agi from Budapest and to meet Vijay (with whom I had many phone conversations with) and Mark, the creator of the CESRI program. Chris had impeccable dining taste (he really should write a guidebook) and took us to the most fantastic restaurants in Krakow where we tried dishes such as roast duck, grilled pheasant, blueberry peirogies, and delightful borsh (beet soup). We also took advantage of the large number of people (one table for one shot means just trying a sip of each drink) to sample a large variety of polish vodkas including the incredibly smooth Zubrowka, herbal Wodka Zoladkow Gorzka, and hot honey vodka. We also tried freshly squeezed bison grass (green but rather tasty) and mint apple juice. Needless to say, the weekend was a culinary treat.

But I also experienced a lovely culture and two beautiful cities. Since it was cheaper to fly to Warsaw than Krakow, Cau (CESRI scholar in Marburg) and I flew to Warsaw to stay with Mike, another CESRI fellow who studied in Warsaw this summer. Mike lived in Warsaw until he was 14, so he spoke fluent Polish and could show us around town. We visited the palace of culture and discovered yummy polish pastries. We then took the express train from Warsaw to Krakow (under 3 hours on a track devoted to high speed trains, excellent). In Krakow, we stayed in a hotel jut outside the Floridian gate of the old city. Since we were so close we spent time exploring the lovely inner city. In my own opinion, Krakow ranks far above Prague. Prague was lovely but incredibly crowded and seemed quite dirty (unwashed buildings, dirty streets, etc). Krakow on the other hand contained a lot of tourists, but the wide medievel walkways and large marketplace could handle the large crowd of tourists (one guidebook said that restaurants on the main square could easily hold over 1000 people at one time, which I think was a low number). The main square contained the cloth hall which still served as a marketplace where shopkeepers sold traditional Polish boxes, amber, embroidery, and leathergoods in stalls over 500 years old. Krakow also seemed to host more street entertainment with Polish quartets, Klesmer bands, marionette puppets, and even an elaborate puppet opera could be found on evenings. One never tired of things to see in Krakow. Even after three solid days of touring, including a guided tour of the Nicolas Copernicus Museum with our Polish guide, I found myself yearning for a monthlong stay.

On Sunday, after Chris and Agi left and we finished our powerpoint presentations, we had to fend for ourself gastonomically. However, since krakow is the culinary capital of Poland, we had no trouble finding lovely cafes for a sit down meal and even found yummy snacks on the main square. I tasted my first sheep cheese (squeaky) and fried apple pancakes. We even found restaurants with complimentary pig lard (no joke). To get out of the city on a hot day, we traveled to the Weiczocka salt mines, where 600 years of rock salt mining and artists produced spectacular caves full of statues and chapels. The cool salty air helped clear out our lungs to the point that we all began coughing once we emerged from the mine 3 hours later. After the mine, we grabbed some more sheep's cheese and black current juice and headed to a concert in a recently restored Baroque cathedral. After relishing the amazing accoustics and gilded altars, we traveled to a polish cafe where we all "shared a bed" together as we tried the soup parade of traditional polish soups or dined on 10 different types of meat (I didn't know there were that many). After dinner, the night was still young, so we headed off towards the jewish quarter where Eric showed us his superpowers. After a round of drinks, we began a rousing rendition of Big Booty (video here) with small breaks of zoom and piffle. The calm atmosphere of the jewish quarter was a welcome difference to crazy fireworks displays of the city center. Then around 2am in the morning...we finally headed back to the hotel for a short nap, before some of use arose early to visit the state apartments of Wawel castle and cathedral and the ornate cathedral of St. Mary's (no pictures allowed inside but here is a link to the websites).

I finished off Monday with a final visit to the cloth hall and a leather shop down the street. Then Mike and I met at the train station (see previous post) and I returned safely back to Marburg.

I don't have a whole lot of pictures from this trip, but Mike just posted some excellent photos with his blog post.

You can read the post here.

My photos can be seen here

Poland

Navigating trains and making mistakes

2007-07-17T11:44:00.000-06:00

After living and traveling in Europe for two months, one would think that I would understand rail travel in Europe. I love traveling by train, and I've spent over 78 hours on various trains in Europe this summer. I've ridden on extremely fast InterCityExpress and the painfully slow local trains. I've ridden in an air-conditioned luxurious sleeping car from Vienna to Frankfurt and over-crowded unair-conditiioned leaky (it started raining mid trip) train from Bratislava to Prague (same for a night train as well). Even my worst train experiences were fun and I couldn't wait to ride the train again. This past weekend...I had some interesting lessons to learn about train tickets. For nearly all my train travel, I used a rail pass or a pass designated for a certain route. This past weekend, I decided to 'go native' and actually purchase point to point tickets.

Most of my travels were uneventful, but my return trips were rather exciting. On Monday, I had a fairly tight travel schedule. I started out in Krakow (southern poland) where I would catch an express train from Krakow to Warsaw around 2pm, then around 6pm catch a bus from Warsaw to the Warsaw airport to catch my flight to Frankfurt. After arriving in frankfurt, I would then have to catch the S-bahn (regional train) from the airport to Frankfurt Main Station, where I would have to catch a train to Marburg, hopefully arriving around 11:30pm at night.

Incident 1: For the Krakow to Warsaw train, Mike (CESRI scholar who lived in Poland for the summer) and I decided to catch the 2pm train. However, we had a slight miscommunication. I thought Mike would buy our tickets in the morning, and then I would meet him on the train station at 1:40pm. I arrived at what I though was the main hall of the train station at 1;35 and became confused when I received a text message from Mike saying that he was running late and needed some extra cash to purchase tickets. I sent Mike a message saying that I could help...and this is where breakdown occured. I assumed that I was waiting just outside the main hall, so I became worried when I still didn't see Mike at 1:50pm. It turns out the the main hall of the train station was 100 meters away from the actual train tracks, so what I thought was a main hall was actually an underground walkway. I race across the tracks, carrying my 30 lb backpack, a large bottle of water in one hand, and fragile souvenirs in another hand while getting smacked with every step by the Kelty compression sack attached to my backpack. I finally find Mike, who is rushing out the station clutching what appears to be two tickets for the express train. We meet, and we run 100 meters back towards the train tracks....arriving just as people began boarding the train. We get on the train, find a sparsely occupied car...and sit down to enjoy the lovely 3 hour train ride to Warsaw, confident in our ticket purchase. However, when the conductor walks by 1 hour later, he looks at Mike's ticket and asks for the real ticket. Mike looks bewildered. We look at the "ticket stubs" and realize that the attendant only gave Mike one ticket...and I was on board with out a ticket. Mike asks (in fluent Polish, btw) if we can buy a ticket...and the conductor assures us that we can. I thankfully have my credit card with me, so I buy ticket on the train...only charged 4 zlotys ($1.30) for the missed ticket. We then arrive in Warsaw without major incident, and even have time to enjoy authentic polish pancakes before I take off for Warsaw airport (which btw, is the most ineffeciently run airport I have encounted to date).

Incident 2: I arrive at Frankfurt airport without incident, board the S-bahn for town and then arrive at the main train station. I've transferred in the train station several times before, so I understand the layout quite well. I also know how to purchase train tickets at the kiosk.... My s-bahn arrives a few minutes late so instead of stopping at the kiosk, I walk straight to the train (taking care to board the car marked Marburg instead of the Dillenburg) and plan on buying my ticket on the train (which had been done previously in Poland and witnessed on several other train trips in Germany). When the conductor came by 30 minutes later, he told me that I couldn't buy my ticket on the train and I had two choices, give him my passport or I pay a 40 Euro fine. Thankfully I still had some Euros, so I could pay the 40 Euro fine...but it still hurt a bit. My actually train ticket was supposed to cost 12 Euro...so I actually only paid 28 Euros extra...but the embarassment of a "smackdown" from a conductor was quite painful. My lab mates then explained to me that you can buy a ticket on express trains...but you can't buy a ticket on regional trains...even though the regional train conductors use the exact same ticket issuing slips as the express train conductors.

So now I can say I've learned my lesson, always double check your ticket, before you board....and then check it again. I'll write more later about my trip to poland...once I edit some pictures.

A first for Charity...a worst for the team

2007-07-11T08:55:00.000-06:00

Today I "bonded" with my lab mates through a typical german university experience, the department soccer tournament. I was recruited for the team, despite my lack on soccer skills and knowledge. I only played soccer once in 4th grade and I've only watched 3 soccer games in my entire life. Today I played in 4 games, so I can say I've played in more games than I've seen. :-/ Anyways, I survived the tournament with only a scratch on my leg. (one of the more agressive teams stepped on my ankle). I had a great time but my team did not fair well. We scored one goal against our opponents while our opponents (4 different teams) scored no less than 10 goals against us. Not too bad for a team that never practiced together, at least we scored one goal. :-) I've attached a picture of our team below.
This post will be my last for a while as I leave for Krakow, Poland this weekend. I will return to Marburg on Tuesday. Until then...Tchuss!

pictures from visit with maria

2007-07-10T04:46:00.001-06:00

You can see pictures from my visit with Maria here.

Visiting Maria

Also, I hope to post once or twice more before I leave for Krakow, but I forgot that I was recruited for the group soccer team, so I may be too sore to post tomorrow.

a sister in any other country is still a sister

2007-07-09T11:31:00.000-06:00

This weekend I got a very special treat. Several years ago, my family hosted a foreign exchange student from Berlin named Maria. Over the course of a year, my family grew very close to Maria. Two years later, Maria came to visit for a summer and then her sister followed to live with us for a year. I consider Maria and her sister Louisa to be family so I was very excited to visit 'meine Schwester' in her home town. Here is a picture of Maria (with her beautiful red hair) at the door to her flat.

Maria lives in a Gottingen, a university town one and a half hours north of Marburg. Most people know Gottingen for the home of the first Max Planck institute and indeed Gottingen reminds you constantly that its a science town. The information booth in the train station looked like an astronomical chart. The city layout also included a 1:2 millionth model of the solar system (I forgot to take pictures).

On friday night, I arrived at the train station, and found Maria immediately. We embraced and then started talking like no time had passed at all. Maria quickly led me through town and then helped me bike the 4 km uphill to her flat in the suburbs of Gottingen. We then stayed up and talked until well past midnight and only stopped talking after we realized we still had two days to talk. :-) Maria made a traditional German breakfast of fresh bread, cheese, cucumber, tomatoes, and tea....but she brought out some jam and honey for me. For some reason the "traditional' german breakfast feels normal when you eat it with a friend. On Saturday, Maria showed me around Gottingen, making sure to point out the school she attends (800 people applied to a school that only accepted 12) and the science buildings. She forgot to take me to the statue of Bunsen (its in Gottingen, not Marburg) but she promised to take a picture and send it to me. :-)

Since neither of us really cared for traditional German lunch (she's vegetarian) but we do care for chocolate, we ate 'lunch' at a chocolate cafe where I dined on a special layer cake and shared a delicious mocca. My cake consisted of several thin layers of dried pineapple, dark chocolate, a creamy torte, and sugar cake. Yum yum yum. Maria told me that these cakes can sometimes grow as tall as 1 meter high! We then walked off our lunch in a botanical garden that was first started over 400 years ago. (Pictures to be posted tomorrow Jenny).

We then visited an African restuarant where I tasted my first green german beir. Yum yum yum.. We then bicycled over to an American style bar to meet up with some of her friends (ooops forgot to take pictures again)...where we won (and then lost dramatically) on a few games of pool. Then...late on Saturday night, we headed uphill again to maria's flat. (we only had to walk for 300 meters this time).

On Sunday, after snapping a lot of photos of Maria and her apartment (don't worry, they will be posted soon too), we headed to the train station to catch a train to Goslar, a UNESCO world heritage site one hour north of Gottingen. However, the train we boarded went east, not north. When the conductor looked at our tickets, he laughed and told us that we boarded the wrong train. hehehe....ooopps.... Maria turned the same shade as her hair, especially when an elderly German couple treated her like an American tourist by slowly explaining how trains work in Germany. After laughing for about 10 minutes, we got off the train in Heilingenstadt, a small German village that was part of the former GDR (communist block) where we discovered that the next train to Gottingen wouldn't leave for an hour. So we took the time to explore the lovely city of Heilingenstadt, home to four lovely churches. We think they are used for pilgramages, but we never really confirmed this fact. Instead, we got to see a lovely restored city.
After returning to Gottingen and boarding the correct train for Goslar, we finally arrived at this lovely medieval city. Goslar is famous for its 800 year old ore mine (didn't have time to explore) and its large and well preserved medieval city. Goslar also served as the summer palace home of early Germanic Emporers and you can still see the original Kaiser throne. Besides visiting the salt mines, the only thing to do in Goslar is walk the old city, which we did for several hours, while talking and catching up on life the entire time. We talked about American politics, German politics, world politics, life, love, relationships, family, struggles, and dreams...all the typical sisterly stuff...while enveloped in a town 600 years old. We finished our day by enjoying ice cream and watching the Glockenspiel, then chatting the entire train ride back to Gottingen. We took the time to enjoy one last meal together at a local indian restaurant, and then I was able to meet Maria's boyfriend Jens, whose train arrived 5 minutes before mine departed. But before I left...I was able to catch one last shot of Maria and her boyfriend and get one last hug. Hopefully we can meet up again sometime....

Homesickness hits....hard

2007-07-03T08:31:00.000-06:00

Wow, it took nearly two months for homesickness to hit but it finally hit me this week...I like hanging out with my friends and family in the states. Exploring cities and meeting new people is wonderful, but sometimes you just long to talk to people that you understand and understand you. Marburg has been my primary destination for several weeks now. When I arrived, part of me hoped to make friends quickly and find people to hang out with. I've found one or two people to talk to, but no one that I can call up and say...hey lets go for a picnic today. Making true friends takes time, and I don't have much of that left. So I'm stuck with two choices, try really really hard to make friends that I will only know for 3 more weeks...or just float through the rest of the period with casual acquitances....I'll probably try a mix of the two.

Part of my problem is that I'm not stable on weekends. I also travel to some excited radical state where I hang out with other radicals. However, I don't linger long enough to make long lasting bonds. :-)

sorry...bad chemistry joke

Anyways...I wanted to write more here but the bus got in the way. Instead, I must head off
to catch the bus...I have much to write about ...and lots of experiences to share...perhaps I will catch up on the bus.

Tchuss!

Research goes and goes and goes...

2007-07-02T11:44:00.001-06:00

.....And I fill up the server with 30 jobs at a time.....I feel a little bad about taking up all this space except that

1. I need the space because I have a great amount of calculations to run in a short period of time
2. No one else is using it...I submit jobs like everyone else.

But today I took a short break from submitting 20 jobs (I was using up nearly 25% of the group's server) and decided to play around with some of the structures I made. So here is a picture of 3 molecules I "made" last week....just to prove that I have done some work during my travels.

First week in Marburg

2007-06-30T04:41:00.000-06:00

I've posted a lot about my travels outside of Marburg but I haven't posted much about Marburg, other than I arrived. (I'm still here). Marburg is a university town about an hour north of Frankfurt. The population of the town is somewhere around 80,000 pepeople where 40,000 of those people are students (sounds like Champaign, except German). Most of the town lives is dorms or guest houses, I live in a dorm. Unlike most university towns where the town is seperated into University and city....the university is spread out over the entire town, and sometimes expands into towns next door. Reason why....Ich habe keine Ahnung! (I have no idea, a phrase I use often.) Actually, I do have some idea. If you look on a 2-D map, the city seems quite compact, but if you look at a topological map, you realize that the building 0.5 km away is actually 0.5 km west and 0.25 up. The city is very very hilly, meaning that if you want to get anywhere, you have to take a bus or hike uphill. The city center is concentrated into a 1.0 km radius at the base of the hill, while everything else is spread out on the hill tops. The chemistry building appears to be 1 km away from the main train station, but in reality, you have to hike 2.0 km to get to the building or take a 6 km bus ride.

If you decide to hike though, the view is quite lovely. Germany is very green. This area of Germany receives 1-2 inches of rainfall every two days so things are always growing and the air is always fresh. The hiking paths are well marked with pine needles. In order to get to the bus stop, I actually have to hike along some of these paths, and its a highlight of my day. To get an idea of the town, I've posted some pictures on picassa.

I've also posted pictures of my train trip to Marburg (I slept in a 2 bed couchette) and my room in the dorm. My train trip to Marburg wasn't nearly as exciting as the train trip from Switzerland but one point is worth mentioning....sometimes is worth it to pay the extra money for a two person bed. My room was air conditioned, clean, and the attendant came to wake me up when my station was close. Much better than the italian train. Anyways...I'm going to stop blabbering and let you see the pictures. Enjoy!

Marburg Week 1

By popular request

2007-06-27T05:31:00.000-06:00

Pictures of the blisters...by popular request. Beware...these pictures are pretty gross.. I posted the bandaged photo here....but you can see the other photos at the following link

BEWARE! These pictures are gross!

10 reasons to never take an italian train...but a really cool story anyways.

2007-06-26T11:55:00.000-06:00

Okay...some of these things weren't caused my the italian train system but the swiss...but I place all the blame on the swiss system.

first...after hiking 22 miles on Saturday...I was still in a lot of pain on Sunday. I had booked a seat on a night train after hearing how wonderful the seats were. Everybody said that the seat (5 Euros) was worth more than the bed (50 Euros). So I took everyone's advice and booked a seat, although, I'm not sure a bed would have been much better.

So I left Andy at 10:13pm. My train then proceed from Martigny to Brig, where I was supposed to have a 10 minute layover before leaving on my next train. Shockingly, my swiss train was delayed 8 minutes (reasons never explained in any language) and the night train was already waiting on the tracks when my Swiss train arrived. I ended up running from one train to another (keep in mind that my knees would still hurt when I walked...even more so when I ran) and then running across the platform to find my seat...which ended up at the very front of the train. Thankfully, the train waited for everyone to board before leaving.

Upon boarding, I was greeted not by a clean air conditioned train (as promised by german rail systems), but an old, dirty, loud, un air conditioned train. My seat was not a nice normal train seat, but instead one seat in a room of 6 seats where 5 of the 6 seats was already occupied. :-/
If you aren't familiar with European trains, these rooms are set up so 3 seats face another 3 seats...supposedly its more comfortable to stare and play footsie at complete strangers instead of the back of their seat.

One of the seats was taken up by an older italian women, who, upon seeing that 4 young women would occupy the cabin, left to find space in another cabin or sleep in the lounge. I wish I had followed her. The four young women in the cabin included 25 year old me, a 22 year Swiss girl named Emily, and two Italian sisters named Deborah and Julia, who claimed they were 18 and 17 respectively. Deborah and Julia spoke Italian and French, Emily spoke German, French, some italian and English, while I spoke English and somewhat understood german and French. Deborah and Julia greeted Emily and I (we raced from the tardy Brig train to the night train together) with open arms and readily shared cold tea that their mom had packed for the trip. Deborah also tried to make us a sandwich, which we refused 5 times before she finally gave up.

Even though it was already midnight, Deborah and Julia wanted to talk the entire night....and they did, even though I had a pillow and I kept yawning. Julia especially wanted to practice English with me. So try to capture this image, four young women, on a hot and loud (the window was open) train, trying to carry on a conversation when no one understood all the languages, and trying to make hand gestures in a room lit only by starlight. Sentences began in Italian, shifted to French, and included one English word. Responses usually began in German or French,...then switched to Italian or English...then back to German or French. I don't think anyone actually knew what we were talking about until the sentence was repeated three times. Conversation topics (I think) ranged from family to boyfriends to politics to travel. Perhaps one or two other topics were discussed I'm not sure. This talking went on for over an hour...until around 1:30am Around 1:30, we decided to sleep, and Deborah decided that she needed to kick her sister out of her seat and take over three seats on one side of the train, leaving the rest of us to 'sleep' on the other side, staring at her. She did offer to let us put our feet on her side...which was not an option for me because my knees hurt so bad.

Around 1;35...right after we settled down...we apparantly crossed the swiss/german border, so the border guard came to see our passports. He collected our passports...and we all settled back down..apparently the train driver settled down as well because the train stayed at passport control for 45 minutes! This fact becomes important later....

We calmly settle back down until 4:30 am when a person comes running through the train asking for someone who speaks English. I say I did and she keeps asking about a train stop I know nothing about. it turns out she was supposed to get off at 4:30am and the train hadn't stopped, but no one told her why. It turns out the train was delayed for an hour...but NOT ONE EVER TOLD ANYONE! I didn't find this fact out until later when I woke up to my phone alarm at 5:50, because I was supposed to get off the train at 6:00 am in Frankfurt. The train stops at 6am comes and I go to get off the train...but I'm stopped when people point out the sign....at 6:00am the train had only reached Dresden...its was still an hour away from Frankfurt! BUT NO ONE TOLD US! If the older italian women hadn't grabbed my hand, I would have been stuck in Dresden for a few days.

The train arrived in FRankfurt at 6:55am. My train connection to Marburg left at 6:23am...which meant I missed my train...but no fear...there are twice hourly train between Frankfurt and marburg...The only problem was that I had no idea which of the 25 trains in the station would take me there. However, the train station had an internet kiosk (1 euro for 10 minutes) which allowed me to check the Deutschbahn website and figure out which train to catch. I eventually found a train and boarded.

I arrived in marburg one and a half hours later than expected. When I got home, I showered, changed, and ran to catch a bus so I could attend seminar at 10:15am. I don't remember much of the seminar except that the speaker had a cool history, I'll try to recite it sometime.

Well...that's the end of my scary train journey. I'm sure I'll think of other details but for now I have to run to catch the last bus home.

I will walk 500 miles.....

2007-06-25T09:09:00.000-06:00

So, I didn't quite walk 500 miles (but don't tell that to my knees, they will disagree), but Andy and I did walk 22 miles on Saturday while ascending and descending over one mile!

Some of you know that my boyfriend has studied in Switzerland the past year. He was going to return to the states this week, so I decided to utilize my German/Swiss/Austria rail pass to go visit him. So I took a 7 and a half hour train ride from Marburg to Martigny, riding on 4 different types of trains (double decker German Inter Region, really fast InterCity Express, Swiss InterCity, and Swiss Inter Region) and hearing about 10 different languages in route. I arrived on Friday night to Andy in a tie-died t-shirt ready to take me to dinner and discuss our hike the next morning. I knew that this weekend was his last in Switzerland so I let him pick out the hike for the next day, which was a great (and not so smart idea). He picked out a hike that he was certain I wouldn't complete (great boyfriend). He was so convinced that I would make him turn around, that he only looked up the train schedule for our departure point and not the bus schedule for our return point (which became a problem later).

Anyways, we set off at 9am towards the St. Bernard Pass...and start climbing...and climbing...and climbing...then walking uphill...then climbing again. Eventually we reach a lake...and I realize that one hour into the hike, I've developed hot spots (never a good sign). I bandage up my heels, tighten up my laces...and proceed onward. I convince Andy to take a chair lift up the alps to this mountain (and to give my legs a break). We get some amazing views of the valley that holds Andy's village. (Pictures to follow soon). Then we hiked downhill some 300 feet to begin our path towards some pass...

We take our time, relishing the amazing Swiss countryside and breathtaking views (I really want to insert pictures here but they aren't available yet). But picture heaven...but drier and with snow and alpine flowers and you may be close. We make it up to what we think is the top of the pass and take the time to scale what we think is a big rock. It turns out...we weren't even a third of the way up the pass. Less than 30 minutes later, what we thought was a large rock...was barely visible from the 500 meters we had climbed. It took us 5 hours to reach the top of this pass..and in order to get there, we had to clamber over bolders the size of my parent's van and snow packed so tightly it was blue. We reach the "top" of the pass around 3pm and decide that we want lunch, so we scale around 300 boulders to the mid point of a peak to find some bolders arranged like a couch, where we sit down to dine on our high fiber bread and water (cuz somebody forgot to buy peanut butter and jelly at the store). While we dine, we partake of an ABSOLUTELY AMAZING view of a mile long glacier and snow-capped mountains. Behind our "couch" we saw the green, alpine flower filled valley from whence we came.

Thinking that the worst of the hike was over, we take our time with lunch and snap some cool photos before heading down the mountain. It turns out that the bolder and snow infested side was the "easy side". The trail on the other side consisted of a series of steep dirt trails where numerous hikers had already dislodged most of the footholds that we so desperately desired. The steep trail jack-knifed across the "sunny side" of the mountain (which meant we turned into giant lobsters) yet still dropped 1000 feet in under 2 hours!!! I feel once, but thankfully I fell backwards into soft dirt instead of forwards into the rocks. After about two hours...Andy kept saying...I think we're near the end , I think we're almost there. After about 5 times, I didn't believe him anymore. My knees and feet were screaming in pain but I knew that the only way to relieve them was to hike the rest of the day.

Which I'm glad we did hike, because about 2/3rds of the way down (while the trail merged with a small stream, testing the waterproofness of my boots), we came across a large herd of sheep grazing in the mountains. Andy was able to find one before it became bored and found its own grass.

Eventually we made it to the end of the pass, were we hiked the trail that Andy had taken Jenny, Bryce, Jon, and Chris on (yeah I finally got to see the glacier that everyone talked about). And then we walked to the bus stop, only to find out that we missed the last bus by 15 minutes (this is where Someone forgot to check the bus schedule before we left). With no real option but to walk back, Andy and I filled up our water bottles and started on the two hour downhill trek back to Martigny. Poor Andy had to deal with a lot of complaints and near tears as every step in my boots caused exruciating pain. My knees were so sore from walking down the mountain that at the end, I could only shuffle down the valley path. Even now, two days later, I can't walk downstairs with out cringing in pain, causing my labmates to speculate that I fell down the mountain instead of climbed down. (I only fell once). However, around 9:15pm, 12 hours after we set out, we finally arrived at Andy's apartment building. Too tired to walk much further, we willed our legs to the restaurant in front of his building and enjoyed some food (I was soooo hungry that I almost finished an entire pizza). Then we hobbled back to Andy's apartment where I bandaged up the enormous blisters on my feet. (picture not to follow due to the sensitivities of people reading this blog). I was so tired that I apparently fell asleep mid sentence.

Anyways....so that's the story of the 500 mile hike through the swiss alps. I'm really glad that Andy and I could hike to such a beautiful place and I'm extremely glad that I lived to tell the tale. Andy said that it was the longest time he had hiked since arriving in Switzerland and he was impressed that I could keep up (at least until the last 3 hours). I'm still healing and I still can't walk down stairs without cringing in pain and shoes are rather painful to wear no matter how many pairs of socks I put one..but I have some amazing memories and some great pictures that I hope to share sometime soon...once Andy figures out the problem with his camera.

Stay tuned for updates about my train ride home......otherwise known as the top 10 reasons to NEVER take an italian night train.

Safe in Marburg, the city of hills

2007-06-20T04:58:00.000-06:00

I arrived safely in Marburg this morning. The train ride was smooth but I didn't sleep much. I had too much on my mind with work to do in Marburg and Andy's job offers. I arrived at the train station pretty exhausted and ready to collapse into a bed. But it turns out that my ride couldn't find me at the train station, despite the fact I was the only person with a HUGE suitcase and I was wearing a bright pink shirt.

So another lab person had to come find me. He searched for 10 minutes before finally finding me in front of the station wearing my bright pink shirt and hauling my enormous suitcase. Since this lab person didn't have a car or the keys to my flat, we had to take the bus from the Main Train station to the lab. During the long uphill ride, I tried to balance myself, a backpack, and two suitcases on the sharp turns. On one turn (conveniently close to the hospital), I lost my balance and crashed into the two suitcases and knocked over a baby carriage next to me. The entire bus burst into laughter (and rightly so) and I gingerly picked up two suitcases and a baby carriage (sans baby). If I was tired enough, I would have burst into tears, but instead, I was able to see the humour in the situation (I looked pretty ridiculous on top of two suitcases and a carriage) and I laughed along.

After recovering from my fall (my suitcase was padded so I didn't even develop a bruise), we arrived at the lab, only to discover that the lab was farther up a series of 30 stairs. Reuti, lab mate without a car, takes pity on me to carry the suitcase up half of the stairs. Then we trek the half kilometer to lab, which conveniently had an elevator. I arrived in the lab, hoping to find Robin (lab mate with car) to no avail. But I do meet three people in the lab, including Prof. Frenking, the professor that I will work with. Prof. Frenking said hello and then said "I don't have time to meet you today but I think I can fit you in for 30 minutes tomorrow morning". Is this the start of things to come? Probably......

After 20 minutes of wandering around aimlessly, meeting a guy from Tennessee who was dissapointed to NOT hear a Kentucky accent, and unpacking my laptop; Robin (lab mate with car), arrives and says that he can take me immediately or at 5pm...I take the immeadiately. We then find my flat, only to realize that it too...is uphill....I'm beginning to think that Marburg is a freak of nature... paths only go uphill and never lead downhill, especially when you have a large suitcase. Robin took pity on my tired and pathetic arms and carried the suitcase up the one flight of stairs. After unpacking a little, I fell into my bed for a much needed nap.

Now I'm safe in lab and already running calculations. :-) We'll see how long I can go on my 45 minute nap. Ciao!

Country Hopping and speaking german with a Slovak

2007-06-20T04:53:00.000-06:00

Most people who know me at all, know that I have traveled quite a bit for a girl from rural Kentucky. Before I turned 21, I had already visited 5 countries and tried to learn 5 different languages. Its really amazing to think how much I have adapeted to international travel since then. In the past month, I have visited 6 countries and tried to learn 5 new languages. (Switzerland- French, Hungary-Maygar, Slovakia -Slovak, Czech Republic - Czech, Austria and Germany - Deutsch). I actually write this post while on my very first night train, somewhere in Vienna. I find it odd that I consider normal to not understand the conversations around me. Its odd that odd things (like cheese and sardines for lunch) are the new normal. On some trips, I froze at the thought at trying to communicate to someone who spoke one word of Engligh (yes) or who didn't speak English at all.

On the train from Bratislava to Vienna, I actually spoke over an hour with two Slovaks. I met Maria, a cook originally from middle Slovakia who now works months away from her family in Vienna. She visits Slovakia only for birthdays and holidays. I also met Stefan, the train attendent who kept trying to steer the conversation to sexual matters. The odd part about these people is that they didn't speak any English. The entire conversationw as carried out in Slovak or German. (which led to some pretty awkward pauses as I looked up phrases in my phrase book). I was sooo proud of myself, my first real conversation auf Deutsch. :-) I'm sure I will have many more.

Another thought struck me on the night train tonight. (my first night train ever). Every body has something to share, even though you might not understand it. Maria expressed sadness over missing her family. (she has three children, but she says they aren't boys and they aren't girls....so they would birls?). She also could tell me all about weight problems in central slovakia (she doesn't drink beer but she will drink wine). She also asked about my boyfriend and wanted to know how we spent so much time apart. It was amazing! This lady, 50 years old, and living halfway across the world had the same concerns as some of my friends in America. She also cared about me. later on the train, she helped me with my (very very heavy) suitcase and even gave me instructions for the train. It was great.

So now I end this post with a hope that I actually sleep on the train. The train still shakes a little but my bed looks comfortable and my roomate (Christina from Berlin) is extremely nice. I will add more when I arrive in Marburg. Guten Tag!

Going to Marburg

2007-06-19T08:37:00.001-06:00

Oh, in case you didn't know. I'm leaving Slovakia on the night train for Marburg, Germany to work with the Frenking group. I'll post new messages once I arrive....and I'll catch up on photos from Andy's visit, Vienna, and Prague.

A Day in the life of Slovakian Charity

2007-06-19T08:22:00.000-06:00

Before I leave Bratislava, I figured that I should post a typical day in the life of blog. Because I running out of time, I've resorted to pictures instead of words.

This first picture is of my building. I walk into the building every day and enter using my magnetic key. An older lady usually "guards" the door and makes us write down the names of visitors.

This next picture is of the lab group during the last outing. We celebrated Elena's birthday with a pizza party in her suburb. From left to right you see Micheal (studied at Purdue for three months last year, Bryce), Vladmir, Olga, Stano, and Elena.

Finally, here is a picture of the cafeteria where we eat lunch and take coffee break every day. During lunch, the line stretches to the door (where I'm standing), and the glass case is full of food. During coffee break (around 14:00 everyday), the building is almost empty. we ussually get a chocolate or fruit pastry (around 25-50 cents) and a cola or coffee.

Total cost: $1

Surprisingly, the 50 cent cake is usually excellent, although I recommend against the chocolate one with the white puff on top. Its a sneaky one. You would think that the fluffy white thing was soft...but it turns out...its solid with the consistency of sand.

Well, I wanted to post more photos, but Blogger won't let me. Instead, I'll provide a link to the picassa album. Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/chariteach/DayInSlovakia

back from Prague

2007-06-17T14:54:00.000-06:00

Hi,

I'm back from Prague. The town was amazing, despite the hordes of tourists. I'm taking my laptop home so I can label pictures. I'll try to post some tomorrow.

Off to Prague for the weekend

2007-06-15T03:15:00.000-06:00

I'm off to Prague this weekend so I won't post much again until I return on Monday. I hope to have a lot of pictures by then. But before I leave, I wanted to note of a large difference between US and European research groups...especially in the summer....European groups expect you to take time off.

The group looked at me in horror when I said I wanted to work the first weekend. They were right. I shouldn't have come in. Nobody was in the lab and the lab director even made me sign in before I could enter the building. since the first weekend, I've taken every weekend off. Last weekend Andy and I went to Vienna. This weekend, Prague. Next weekend...probably Switzerland. The list goes on and on. Anyways. I look forward to all these travel and I hope that the weekend travel pays off with increased focus during the week. (hasn't happened much yet because I'm too busy planning my weekends). Alas...today I'm taking the train so I'll probably read some articles on the way.

Anyways, I'm off to Prague. Have a great weekend!

So what can one do during their third week in Bratislava

2007-06-14T13:56:00.000-06:00

....in short...not much....I've seen all the touristy sites and its too hot to hike (its too hot to do anything but roast actually). Plus, I'm afraid to go outside because I'll get eaten by killer mosquitos (they chase me in my office as well, I already have 20 bites). Tonight is actually quite nice. A rain storm came by this afternoon so the wind picked up and the town cooled down a bit. I actually got to wear jeans this evening! I haven't worn jeans since the Matterhorn!

Anyways...so I've been trying to find things to do to keep myself busy during the evenings. However, this week proved to be easier than most. Andy visited for four days last weekend and we took the time to explore more castle ruins, the entire old town of Bratislava, and even took a day trip to Vienna. Andy was able to experience the cheap and hearty food from the mensa and even got to see the mean dogs when we returned late from Vienna. (a really funny story here about how one late tram can lead to a pile of crazy happenings, to be told when I get around to labeling pictures from that weekend).

So back on track...this week I got to spend some more time with my labmates. I should explain a bit about my labmates, they are a family. I mean that literally, not figuratively. Nearly everyone in the group is related to each other some how. My advisor, Olga Malkina, is married to Vladmir Malkin. Together they have produced many wonderful articles and two human offspring. Like their parents both daughters, Elina and Elena, study physics and mathematics. Elina currently resides in Zurich with her husband (also a scientist) while Elena lives at home with her parents. Elena is engaged to Stano, who is a graduate student with her father Vladmir. Elena officially works for another professor in the university but she spends most of her time in the same lab as her parents. Then there is another student, Michal. Michal is the only non-related person in the group. But it doesn't matter because he practically lives at the Malkin house (they have a couch just for him). Then are some extraneous people like Peter (engaged to an organic chemist down the hall) and Stefan (my office mate whose connection to the group I still haven't figured out yet). I don't think this intermarrying thing is common in Europe (anybody else see this type of activity in their group?).

While I gently tease the group about this closeness, its actually really neat to watch them work.
Research is much more collaborative, in fact, its like 5 people thinking in the exact same way, like some sort of organic research mind blob that moves in several directions at once....okay...maybe I'm not describing it properly.....its really hard to explain. One member of the group looks at the other and the other person nods and says "Yes I agree" even though no words were spoken. I feel like an outsider...Of course some of that may be due to the fact that the group conversation switches between Slovak, English, German, French, and then English, Slovak, etc, etc. Its hard to keep up.

I say that I feel like an outsider, but the group is actually very warm and welcoming. Vladmir and Olga treat me like their own daughter and tell me to call them if I have any problems. In fact, they told me to call them if anything happens while in Prague...they will come pick me up if necessary.

So I mention the group because this week has been a time of celebrations. On Wednesday, we celebrated Elena's birthday. We all went to a pizza place in the suburb where everybody but me lives. I took the time to snap this quick picture of the group.

From left to right you see Michal, Vladmir, Olga, Stano, and Elena (on the phone). Peter and his fiance decided not to come.

Today (Thursday) we took the afternoon off to celebrate Peter's upcoming nuptials. The group bought him a bowl made of fine china (famous in Slovakia) and he responded by bringing in bottles of Slovak wine. The entire group sat in the computer lab and drank wine for two hours. Then everybody left to go home. On Friday, the celebrations continue (without me because I'm going to Prague) with a "Sports Day" for the entire Slovak Academy of Sciences. The entire academy visits a park across the street (actually a small mountain). For most of the day they will play sports like volleyball and tennis or hike through the park. Around noon, they settle for a soup with drinks. Then, since its Friday, they probably all go home. (I however will be en route to Prague so I will miss out on the festivities).

Despite all the celebrations, work is still be accomplished. I started some calculations today...they all died. Not surprising. But I started calculations anyways...I'm always relearning linear algebra. More to add later. Well, its time to head home before the dogs are released. I'll post more later.

Ooopss...long time...no post

2007-06-12T02:46:00.000-06:00

Looking at my post log, I realized that I haven't posted in 6 days!! Incredible. I am no remedying that problem with a post about a Budapest (four weeks and four countries ago, I'm a little behind). I just posted pictures from the 4 day orientation in the lovely and enchanting town of Budapest. Ten scholars from across the US (CA, MA, MO, IL, KY, NC, ????) and across disciplines (but mostly bio and chemie) met on a boat on the Danube on Sunday May 16th. After introductions by Agi and Chris (people who work for the Institute for International Education, our host organization), we started a week of lectures, tours, travel, food, and little sleep. (like 4 hours a night if we were lucky).

Budapest is actually two cities, Buda is the older (tourist inundated) part on the west side of the Danube while Pest is the more residential east side). Nearly all of our time was spent in Pest because the IIE offices were right next to the Hungarian academy of sciences on Roosevelt Ter (plaza) in Pest. Sunday night we visited a traditional Hungarian pub (forgot my camera so no pictures). Monday we sat through a lot of lectures and then visited a wine bar where we partook of a large amount of wine and water carbonated at the restaurant. The next day, we sat through more lectures, visited the Hungarian academy of sciences, saw the chemistry building of a Hungarian college, and saw the symphony (a true highlight of my experience). On Wednesday we took off for a day trip to Bratislava....I didn't take any pictures of Bratislava because I knew I would return later. On Thursday, we sat through seminars in the morning and then some of us took off for some Turkish baths. After relaxing for 2 hours in the baths of various temperature and mineral content and enjoying the 2000 year old building, we left for a dinner cruise across the Danube. After the dinner cruise we visited a "budha bar" with small huts overlooking the Danube and a giant statue of Budha on the dance floor. After the buda bar, we visited the beer garden that had chairs on the side of the walls...it was very odd. After returning to the boatel at 2am, I packed up my remaining items and slept for two hours before waking up at 5am to catch a 7am flight to the states. Phew.... a very busy week indeed. Anyways...here are the pictures...enjoy.

http://picasaweb.google.com/chariteach/BudapestOrientation02

Hiking to a Castle

2007-06-06T13:52:00.000-06:00

So Saturday night, Elena (the daughter of my host and a member of the research group...the whole family thing to be explained when I get around to taking pictures of my research group) called to tell me about a day hike that one of her friends from the university just organized. All she said was that four people were going hiking the next day and that I was invited. Since I obviously had nothing better to do and I was anxious to see the Slovak countryside, I said yes right away. And I'm very glad I did.

All the guidebooks I looked at told me of the glorious Slovak countryside and how hiking was a common past time for all Slovak residents. Since one of my main goals of this trip (second to ground breaking research, of course) was to experience the country as a local, I excitedly prepared for the trip by packing light (only water and some food in my backpack) and waking up early (Slovak's are early risers..most places open at 7am or earlier)

So I set off to the bus station at 9am (not really that early but early for me) and met up with Eleana. We actually didn't leave for the trip until 11am because we had to do some last minute shopping for food and the buses left later than we expected). After a short 20 minute bus ride to the Bratislava suburbs, we disembarked and headed for our goal...which at this point...I thought was a leisurely walk through the woods. An hour into our hike, which proved that the Bratislava countryside was quite lovely, Mike..."our guide for the day" pointed to ruins on a distant peak and said...that's where we're going... (I was going to post a photo here but Blogger won't cooperate).

Anyways....I peer into the fog (the day was incredibly rainy and foggy) and I see ancient ruins surrounded by a lush landscape!!! Wow...this totally turned my day around....I couldn't wait to see these ruins up close....two hours later...we arrived and I saw some really cool ruins from th 13th Century..

According the bratislava.com

" The ruins of the Pajstun castle are found in the forests of the Small Carpathian Mountains, above the small Borinka, 25 km far from Bratislava. The access on foot to the castle takes 45 minutes, with one light climb that leave from Borinka village. The Pajstun castle was for the first time mentioned in the 13th century and made part of the frontier castles complex. The castle was the seat of estate until the 1810 when Napoleon's soldiers destroyed it."

I've posted pictures of my trip here

http://picasaweb.google.com/chariteach/CastlePashtjun

Anyways...the purpose for this post...when someone in your lab asks you to join them on a hike...say yes...and bring your camera.

Exploring the city on my own....and getting hit on

2007-06-02T13:41:00.000-06:00

My host was MIA today so I decided to set out and explore the city on my own. I have to say that I really hated Bratislava at first, I thought the city was dirty and messy, and boring. It turns out that I was correct, about my part of town. I went back to the city center this afternoon and took the time to really explore the old town. Its actually quite nice and modern with a pedestrian only zone for about 25 city blocks. Trams run along the Danube and through parts of the zone. The Pedestrian zone is paved with bricks and kept very clean.

The city also plans lots of events downtown too. Today I walked in on a wine tasting party. Vineyards from all over the country offered tastings for 10Kr (about 75 cents). You could rent a wine glass for 50 Kr ($2) and then visit one booth after another. The tasting were 50 mL which doesn't sound like much, but can add up quickly. Hence why I only tried two (very excellent) wines. I stopped trying wines when a rather boisterous group of Australian men tried to hit on me. I quickly ran to the other side until they had enough "tastings" to annoy everyone else in the party and finally get kicked out. Phew...that was annoying. Anyways....

After the wine tasting...I visited the main square and ordered boiled corn from a street vendor who then proceeded to give me corn and then ask for my number....what is it with this town....do they think they can hit on any woman? Anyways...I want to write more but I think I have to leave before I get eaten by dogs...more on that another time. Do videenya!

Trapped in Lab

2007-06-01T11:15:00.000-06:00

Every night from 19-19:30, the building I work in is locked. No one can come in or out. The reason: because its an eastern European country? I have no idea. Some lady always sits in the front desk and watches us come in and out of the laboratory. She doesn't do anything but watch people buzz themselves in. Perhaps this job is a relic of communism where every one had a job but not everybody worked? Anyways, I mention this strange fact because I forgot that the lab was closed from 7-7:30 and tried to leave at 7:10 to meet some friends downtown at 7:45. Now I'm stuck in lab with no chance of making my 7:45 meeting and no way of telling the people I will be 15-30 minutes late (they don't have a cell phone and no one is answering the phone at the hostel).

Woe is me!

Dancing time away in Bratislava

2007-05-31T12:36:00.000-06:00

I've reached the end of day 4 in Bratislava and I must say that I'm slowing begining to love this country and the people The people in the research group have been excellent hosts. Last night, they took me to a local restaurant in the city where i got a full meal (drinks, salad, and one large dish of food) for only $4.25! No joke. My entire meal was under $5, and I couldn't even finish it. It was crazy. Every day at 3pm we all take off for a coffee break in the academy cafeteria where coffee and a desert cost only 75 cents! Its great. Anyways.....enough about the cheap food.

Today I started working on my actual research. Its been over two weeks since I last performed calculations so I was a little rusty to say the least. It took me over an hour to set up a calculation that ussually only take 5 minutes. But at least, I started the calculation in time. I even had time to make some pretty pictures today. See the picture on the right.

I took off early this afternoon (just like every one else) so I could do some grocery shopping at Tesco. Tesco is like a Walmart. In fact, they sell the same clothes Walmart does. (Cherokee anyone?).

So Tesco is this really big store about three blocks away. Its so big, it even has its own bus stop, and McDonalds. (I must add a quick note about McDonalds, slovak's don't eat there because the food is too expensive. I have to agree, the average McDonald's meal costs $5, which is much more expensive than my large healthy meal in the city.) Tesco is pretty big, even for someone accustomed to Super Walmart. Tesco sells furniture ($300 for a couch isn't bad), clothes, electronics, movies, gas, and finally food. The quality of food isn't great but the selection is pretty decent. But I still haven't been able to find hummus. (My slovak hosts had never heard of hummus so they couldn't help).

Anyways, another highlight of my day was waiting for me at home. I walked into my apartment building to really loud dance music. My first thought was...oh no, one of my neighbors is having a party tonight. Well, I was somewhat correct. My apartment overlooks a small school for developmentally impaired children. I often wake up to them playing on the playground (I live on the 7th floor so its not too loud). Today was "Celebrate the Child" day so the school brought in inflatable games, motorcycles, and a dj for the kids. Earlier today they sold handicrafts that the children made. When I came home around 7pm, a bunch of kids were dancing on the pavillion and getting rides on motorcycles. If you look past the trees, you can see kids waiting in line to get on the motorcycles. The dj was stationed under the gazebo. A bunch of kids just stood around a danced. One kid who couldn't walk was pushed around in a wheelchair while the rest of the kids danced around him. With nothing better to do, I just pulled a chair to my balcony and watched them all dance for a while. Just watching the kids brought a huge smile to my face. My only hope is that they stop dancing before 11pm so I can go to sleep. I'm sure they will. Anyways, I'm need to get back to work. I miss you all very much and I hope to post more pictures soon.

Home sweet Gulag

2007-05-28T09:08:00.000-06:00

So I arrived in Bratislava today. Strangely, I had no problems with travel despite the fact I had to catch two planes, a bus, a train, and somehow contact my hosts within a 14 hour period. I'm happy to say that I succeeded and I made it safely and on time to Bratislava. I actually met an American student and a Hungarian professor on the train and we had a lovely conversation about European culture and life in general. It turns out that we all had a strong interest in fantasy and science fiction novels. Who knew? Anyways, because I talked the entire train ride, I couldn't nap, so I'm extremely tired right now. Even though its only 5pm local time, it feels like 11pm. I feel like I could sleep for weeks. I probably will. My hosts are supposed to take me shopping and then I plan on crashing for the night. Hopefully I can tell you more about Slovakia once I've slept. I also have to tell you about switzerland and Budapest and the American wedding. So much to say, so little brain power to say it all. But in the mean time, I've posted pictures of my Slovakian apartment.

http://picasaweb.google.com/chariteach/SlovakiaMyHome

I actually like my apartment, even though I refer to it as a gulag. The building is pretty ugly but the interior was recently renovated so my room is quite cheery and clean. I can't say the same for the elevator. The lift (aka closet as it can only hold 3 people at a time) has a plywood floor and 6 shades of paint peeling off of it. I would take the stairs but my room is on the 6th floor (7th floor American). I have access to a group kitchen and a tv room down the hall, but other than that, I don't have much. However, the room should do quite nicely for 3 weeks. Well, I'm really tired so I'm going to sign off. Hopefully I will see some of you online tommorow.

I miss you all very much!

Some Budapest Pictures up

2007-05-27T12:13:00.001-06:00

I just wanted to let you know that budapest pictures are up. You can check the pictures online at

http://picasaweb.google.com/chariteach/BudapestOrientation

I'm added notes so you have some idea what you are looking at. I'll upload more pictures when I have time.

elite status in a frequent flyer program

2007-05-27T11:51:00.000-06:00

I decided today that I will try to gain elite status in a frequent flyer program. I haven't decided which one, but I will soon. I discovered today that if I had flown all my flights on the same carrier, I would have earned elite status two flights ago, giving me free access to airline lounges. I speak of airline lounges because I am in one right now. My northwest ticket came with a day pass to their day lounge. The only problem was that I had to use it before July 25th. Considering that today is the last day I will be in Ohare before July 25th, I decided to use it. The lounges really make flying a much more pleasant experience. No noisy crowds or crying babies. Instead an empty chair with free drinks and snacks and free wireless. Now I just have to decide which carrier to use. American airlines services more domestic destinations but flying isn't always a pleasant experience. I definitely won't use them internationally. For international flights, I prefer swiss air and lufthansa, which share miles with united. I definitely prefer the service on united flights, but they don't service all the airports I need domestically. I'm closest to elite status on Northwest, but I really hate flying them, so I think I will avoid them for the time being. Does anyone have a suggestion for a frequent flyer club?

P.S. - If you didn't know, I'm writing this post from the Ohare airport. I flew back to the US for a wedding and now I fly back to Europe to start my fellowship. I'm sorry if I didn't call you. I was only on US soil for 48 hours so I didn't have much time to call people. We can still email. :-)

Budapest is awesome but tiring

2007-05-24T07:50:00.000-06:00

So much has happened in the last few days. I wish I had time to share but I don't. I will try later this week. Here are highlights, I ate chicken parts (ask me about them), I slept on a boat, I went to a symphony in a European concert hall, met my mentor, and fell asleep on two trains. Today I'm on my way to a real Turkish bath. Which is why I can't write long. Budapest is full of sights and things to do and the fellowship has kept me very busy. Its crazy. I will try to write me while I"m traveling this week. I promise to respond to emails next week!

exploring the pest in buda

2007-05-21T11:01:00.000-06:00

Wow, its crazy that sooo much can happen in just two days. In 48 hours, I said goodbye to the man I love (that would be Andy if you are confused) and a dear friend (Jenny) and hello to an entirely new culture and group of people. I've spent the night on the Danube river (my hotel is a boat), enjoyed my first bowl of Hungarian cuisine (it was really cheesy), gotten lost in Pest, seen three amazing cathedrals, and learned much about European research life. Its crazy. I've taken pictures but I still haven't been able to find an internet connection strong enough to load them to picassa. I promise to load them as soon as I can. I also want to write more about how amazing these people are and the rich history I've learned in just two days. But we have to be at a dinner 20 minutes across town in 15 minutes. But since I can't share all of my experiences, I will leave you with a link to the wikipedia article on St. Stephen's Basilica.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Stephen's_Basilica

Enjoy! I will post more once I can get more internet time.

Safe in Hungary

2007-05-20T07:25:00.000-06:00

I am now safe in country number 2 (well 4 if you count layovers in Belgium and the netherlands, but I don't). Typing on foreign keyboards is always an adventure. I am deeply sorry for any typos. So far I can say two words in hungarian, yes and thank you (but I still mispronononce thank you). I will post pictures of my house boat soon (once I can connect my laptop to the internet). Well, my time is almost up. I will talk to you later!

Say Cheese

2007-05-17T14:48:00.000-06:00

It rained today, which meant that we couldn't go hiking like we planned. But have no fear, Jenny and I purchased swiss rail passes before we left, so we all decided to take the train somewhere fun. WE ended up taking the train to Gruyeres, which is a small German town in the alps. Gruyeres is famous for two things, cheese and the chateau. We experienced both. We got to visit a cheese factory and watch cheese mold. Its really more exciting than you think. The cheese factory is mechanized so you see this robot flip huge rows of cheese around. After sampling 6month old, 8 month old, and 10 month cheese (included in the museum price), we hiked half a mile to a chateau in a perfectly preserved medieval village. We saw amazing veiws of the alps shrouded in clouds and some really cool flowers. I'll include pictures later. Right now, my internet connection is weak so I can't really do much more than post to this blog.

Also, its nearly 11pm and I need to wake up early for the trip to Zermatt. Pray it doesn't rain again so we can actually see the Matterhorn.

Safe in Martigny

2007-05-16T07:29:00.000-06:00

Hi, I made it into Martigny with all luggage. I was able to get some sleep on the plane and I even got to take a shower in Amsterdam. You can rent a shower stall for an hour. Actually, its more like a large walk in closet with a shower at the end of it. They provide two towels, shampoo, soap, a shower cap, and a hairdryer. Its really nice. I definitely felt more human after washing off the grime of the airplane.

What is it about airplanes that makes you feel so gross? I was ready to take a scalding hot shower 2 hours into the flight. Oh yeah, the guy next to me was sick, so I may end up with a cold later this week. :-/ But alas, I am safe and sound and hogging the internet at Andy's apartment. Andy's getting impatient to show us around town so I guess I'd better go soon. More posts to come!

Charity