A Beautiful Weekend

Those of us in Germany were given at least one more beautiful weekend. I couldn't have asked for better weather. Sunny, warm (for the end of October), and not too windy. Ausgezeichnet!
Saturday I finally signed my lease contract. I'm glad to have that taken care of, and I'll be even more glad when the landlord finds people for the other two rooms and all the renovations are really, really done. Anyho! That's not so interesting. The important point is I have a place to live for the next nine months.
Last night I traveled to Köln to meet up with a friend of mine. He and I worked together in the digital lab last summer. He currently works in Bavaria and was in Köln visiting friends. It was good to see him again. The rest of the evening was largely hopping from one beer locale to the next. First we met some of his friends at the Opera House. Then we migrated to a very odd, artsy "lounge", and when we had had enough of "high" culture, the two of us wondered over to a party. Nothing terribly exciting really. Just hanging out and drinking Kölsch. A concept familiar to college students. It was also great for me because I was able to speak a lot of German. It helps when the conversation is something other than computers, receivers, and other technobabble.
Tuesday's also a holiday. Some catholic holiday. Nobody I've asked knows what the holiday's for, but the important part is that we don't have to work. Thank God for catholic holidays. :-)
Otherwise I'm looking forward to a quiet evening. I've added some photos to my post about Düsseldorf. Kuck mal!

Copy Cat

Ok...so I stole this from Kris's blog, who in turn stole it from her sister. Such things travel from blog to blog faster than light.

Rules of 5

10 Years Ago: In 1995 I was 12 (almost 13!) and in 7 grade. I don't remember much from 7th grade. It kinda blends in with 6th. I'm also sure I had some friends, though I don't rememeber who. This was the year I started playing in a youth orchestra, and this may have been the year I soloed with the school orchestra. At this point my goal in life was to join the DSM symphony. The summer after 7th grade was also the last time I went to church regularly.

5 Years Ago: In 2000 I was a senior in high school. My life was consumed by music (two orchestras, jazz band & combo, and about 5 students). I was working at the science center. I had recently decided that I wanted to study astronomy in college instead of music, and I'm glad that I did. The winter that year was particularly bad.

1 Year Ago: Last year I was taking too many classes, applying for my Go-To-Germany scholarship, stressing about the GRE, and deciding which grad schools to go to. It was starting to dawn on me that there would be no "next year" in Iowa City. Later in the year I visited five grad schools, learned that I was going to Germany for 10 months, and had to make one of the most important decisions in my life: which grad school to go to.

1 Week Ago: I had my first session of "Astrophysics of Miniquasars" and spent my time in the lab reading about pulsar research. In the evening I met my future landlord and saw the apartment I'll be moving into and then met a group of grad students from MPIfR at an Irish pub.

Yesterday: Work was more reading scientific publications in German, while waiting for my analog-to-digital converter to arrive. The sun shone all day. Made another trip to the apartment with the landlord.

5 favorite foods: the curry dishes at Masala, cheese enchilladas, cheese cake, my mom's meatloaf, currywurst

5 things I'd do with 100 million dollars: Buy a car, pay for my sisters' and friends' education, travel, fund some cool new radio telescope, invest some (in Google) so I don't have to worry about money for the rest of my life.

5 places I want to see: Serengeti in Africa, New Zealand, pyramids in Mexico, Grand Canyon, Antarctica in the summer when the sun never sets.

5 Bad Habits: Do call people as often as I should, pick at my chin, procrastinate, never do half the things I tell myself I should, keep falling out of the habit of jogging regularly

5 Good Qualities: Reliable, kind, open-minded (though sometimes not at first), always want to learn something new, my hair

Duesseldorf, A Quiet Place

Hallo Liebe Anschauer!
So I had a fun and exciting weekend. Saturday Manuel and I traveled to Duesseldorf, which is the capital of Nordrhein-Westfallen and more "modern" than Cologne or Bonn. Duesseldorf is well known internationally for fasion, and as a result, has a lot of high-class clothing stores. Neither Manuel or I can afford anything in these stores, but is was enjoyable walking past them. What was not enjoyable was the rain, for which we were not prepared. Oh well. The Altstadt (old town) was particularly pretty. Probably because it looked old and European rather than new and American. I also had my first Currywurst in over a year and my first "Alt" beer, the trademark beer of the city. There is something of a competition between Duesseldorf and Koeln because while Duesseldorf is the capital, Koeln is larger. So people tend to be "Duesseldorf people" or "Koeln people", and what that really translates into, is whether you like Koelsch or Alt better. The trip further confermed what I already knew: I am a Koeln person. There was also some sort of winter/ski fest going on in the Altstadt, and they had imported snow for people to sled and ski on. It was very odd. Duesseldorf also has the world's largest decimal clock. I'll post pictures next time I connect my laptop to the internet. Our train back to Bonn was full of Fussball fans from Kaiserslautern. I preview of what I can expect next summer during the World Cup. :-) It also reminded me of Hawkeye (american) football games.
Sunday also turned out to be rather fun. First of all I discovered the "Daily Show International Edition", produced (believe it or not) for International CNN. Needless to say I was thrilled to get my Daily Show fix for the first time in almost a month. In the afternoon I met up with about 10 students to go to the Rheinishes LandesMuseum. Even though I'd been there two weeks ago, I went anyway because I didn't see it all the first time. Afterwards we went to an irish pub and exchanged cultures for about 5 hours. There were four people from Romania, two from Chile, one from Scotland, one German, and me. One advantage to working here is the number of international students who study at the International Max Planck Research School. The downside is I'm spending my weekends speaking English instead of German, but I think meeting so many cool people from all over the world is well worth it.
Work is mostly unexciting. Yesterday I got my new computer. I've been passing most of my time reading PhD disserations about pulsars in German. It's slow going, and the primary thing I've learned is that German has too many words.
I also found a place to live. It's a three bedroom apartment which I will share with two other girls I've never met. The owner just bought it and had the inside remodeled, so it's in good condition. It's also only a five minute walk or so from the institute.
I was sad to hear Iowa lost to Michigan. So much for the streak. Hopefully there's no Karma involved, so we're not required to loose 22 home games in a row.
That's all for now. Tschuess!

Here are the photos:


On the left is a man-made snow hill in the middle of a very German-like old marketplace complete with man-on-horse statue.



This is me next to the Rhine. The tower behind me is also the world's largest decimal clock. From the horizonal row of lights you can tell the time, and I think you can see them well enough in this picture to figure out when I was there.

Photos from Koeln

Here are a couple photos from my trip to Koeln last weekend.

End of Week 3

And once again it's Friday, and I've already been there for almost a month. I don't know where the time goes.
My week was pretty good. My major success in the lab was making my FPGA into an adder. Using a bank of eight switches I can add the number 1 through 8 together (up to 31), and the result is displayed in binary on five LED's. The next step is adding an analog-to-digital converter to learn how to read in "data". My new computer finally arrived today, but it currently has no operating system. That will have to wait until Monday.
Classes also began this week. My sub-mm course looks to be an overview of the major research areas and technology of sub-mm astronomy. This is a good thing to learn about because this wavelength range (in between radio and infrared) is just now being used. The big project at MPIfR right now is the APEX telescope, which is a 12-meter single dish antenna in the Atacama desert of Chile, and has only been operating for the last year or so. This is also the area that ALMA will eventually study.
My other course is Astrophysics of Miniquasars and is of interest to me because I spent a summer studing microquasar SS 433 in Socorro. Sadly both course are taught in English because there are several international students who don't know German.
Otherwise I've started to meet more of the grad students and post-docs. I'm still working on convincing the German students that they should speak German with me.
I also think I've found a place to live. It's a newly remodeled three bedroom apartment only a five minute walk from the institute. It's nice.
Time for afternoon coffee. Tschuess!

Lukasmarkt

Greetings!
I had a fun and exciting weekend. Saturday evening I traveled with my coworker Andreas to the Lukasmarkt in Mayen. Mayen is a small town in a region southwest of Bonn called the Eifel. First off, the Eifel is beautiful. The land is mountainous with cute little German towns scattered here and there. Andreas himself is from one such small town, and therefore speaks a dialect of German also called Eifel, which is particularly hard for me to understand. In fact it's far enough removed from "High German" that he jokes that German is a foreign language to him as well.
Side note: Thanks to the wonder that is the German Autobahn, I can now say that I have gone faster then 100 mph, but I won't say how much faster for fear of worrying my mother too much. :-)
We met up with some friends of Andreas's and continued on to Mayen. So I was sitting in a car with three people speaking Eifel when suddenly we came around a bend and below us was a gigantic ferris wheel and other carnival rides. So Lukasmarkt turned out to be like the Midway at the Iowa State Fair, but without all the scary people...and a lot more beer.Oh and one other big difference: it was held in a castle (a Burg) from the middle ages. There were quite a few rides, a lot of food, plenty of Bitburger stands, and A LOT of people. We waded through the hordes for a while trying not to get too cold, rode on a couple rides, and had a few beers. The carnival itself was very American-like, so the night was a fun mix between Germany and the US. And though I was totally lost in the dialect, I think it's cool that the language can vary so much over such small (by American standards) regions. It's a fun challenge, so I'm not complaining.
On Sunday I took Manuel (I think that's how his name is spelled) to Koeln. He's a new grad student from Chile and wanted to see the big city. We made a quick stop in the Dom but mostly wandered around pedestrian district next to the Dom. Nothing fancy. Just a nice quiet afternoon.
I have some pictures from Koeln that I will post as soon as I get them onto a computer with internet.
That's all I have for now. Gute Nacht!

Friday already

I really have no idea where the week went, but I have no complaints. All-in-all it was a pretty good week.
I succeeded in navigating myself through much of the German bureauacracy including successfully enrolling in the University of Bonn and opening a bank account. Ya me! I was also thrilled to find out that my student ID doubles as a bus/train pass within a large area that includes Bonn and Koeln. That means that I have 11,60 euros more for beer when I go to Koeln! :-) Now I just need an apartment.
I also finally got something to do at work. Bernd, our fearless leader, decided that I should learn the hardware programming language VHDL, which stands for V(ery Fast Integrated Circuit - or some such thing) H(ardware) D(evelopment) L(anguage). I'm gaining experience by programing a FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) from Xilinx. This is great for me because FPGA's are the up-and-coming technology. The current Xilinx test board has only a couple LED's for testing, so I'm going to be building my own expansion board to add switches and what not, which means soldering. :-)
Classes start next week as well. I'm planning on taking sub-mm Astronomie and one other class, though I'm not sure which one.
As far as news from home, my family got a new puppy. She's a Doberman/Lab mix. So far the cat has been merely avoiding her, but we hope they'll make friends soon.
Now I'm looking forward to another beautiful weekend with temps in mid-70's or so. Very unusual for Germany this time of year.

Here's a peak into my inner child:

Your Inner Child Is Surprised

You see many things through the eyes of a child. Meaning, you're rarely cynical or jaded. You cherish all of the details in life. Easily fascinated, you enjoy experiencing new things.

How Is Your Inner Child?

Those of you going to the game tomorrow, have fun!
Anyho! As they say here, it's time for Feierabend!

Montag

Hallo all!
Once again we've arrived at Monday, and the weather is still beautiful, which is more than can be said for Iowa from what I hear.Very glad to here the Hawkeyes pulled off a win away from home and that Penn State managed to beat Ohio State.
The weekend was pretty quiet. Saturday I wandered around Bonn a bit, trying to become better acquanted with my new (temporary) home. I'm proud to say I did not get lost. :-)
Sunday was a little more interesting. I visited the Rhineish Landmuseum, which is all about the cultural history of the Rhineland. It was much larger than I expected and very well put together. In the 3.5 hours I was there I wasn't able to see everything.
Otherwise my matriculation into Germany is progressing, although slowly. I finally met the woman who helps foreign students get through the paperwork, and hopefully she can help with the apartment situation.
I also met a very nice grad student from Chile who's living in the guest house. He just arrived as well and speaks no German. It's good to find someone in a similar situation as me.
I'm also almost through my "Firefly" DVD's. The CEO at Fox who decided to cancel the show is a complete moron. It really is amazingly good.
Anyho! I'd best run to the store before it closes. ::Roll eyes::

I'm confused

So I'm apparently half Kaylee and half River. That's an interesting mix.

You scored as Kaylee Frye. The Mechanic. You are a natural mechanic, and you are far too sweet and cheerful to live out here. How you can see the good in everyone around you boggles the mind occationally. Still you don't seem to be any crazier than that, and it is a nice kinda crazy. Kaylee Frye 56% River Tam 56% The Operative 50% Zoe Alleyne Washburne 50% Simon Tam 44% Shepherd Derrial Book 38% Capt. Mal Reynolds 31% Inara Serra 25% Hoban 'Wash' Washburne 19% Jayne Cobb 19% Which Serenity character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Stress

So the stress of getting adjusted in a new country as finally hit. I tried to open a bank account so I can get paid next Monday, but I can´t until I have residency. To get residency I need to find an apartment, fill out a long form, and have it approved by the ¨Residency Declaration Office¨. So in short, I´m not going to get paid next Monday and will have to wait a month probably. Arg. But I do have a couple queries out about places to live. Hopefully I´ll get quick responses. I also have to register at the university still.
On the upside it was a beautiful day. The sun was actually shining for most of it. Very unusual here in this time of year.

Tag der deutschen Einheit

Today the Germans celebrate the reunification of East and West Germany back into Germany by not going to work. There aren't any official festivities like fireworks or parades, so I decided to celebrate the "Einheit" of my new temporary home by making a pilgrimage to Köln. (Or in English, Cologne, but as I'm trying to talk like a German, I'll use the german name.) Those of you who know me well know exactly why I went to Köln. The Dom. (aka. the cathedral. sorry. Get used to the occasional German word here and there.) The Kölner Dom is 700-year-old gothic cathedral and is my favorite spot in the Bundesrepublik Deutschland. You know how sometimes things aren't as great as you remember them to be? Well this was not one of those times. Our reunion was as happy as I could've imagined. In fact I was in luck. The church officials opened up the choir for public. This area is normally closed, so I was able to go to a part of the Dom I'd never been, which was a great treat. The semi-circular path goes behind the alter and choir. Along the wall, are little chapels and tombs of former archbishops. On the inside of the arc is the choir benches and the shrine of the Three Magi, the outside of which is plated in gold. Such an amazing Dom was build in Cologne because in the 12th century the remains of the Three Magi (yes, THE three Magi, or at least so they believe) were brought to the city from Milan. It immediately became a famous pilgrimage location and pilgrims brought money. But that was not the end of the new places. I shortly thereafter discovered the cathedral treasury, which is where the church stores all of the relics it's collected in the last 700 or so years. As you may imagine, there is some pretty amazing things, and for only a small fee, you too can see some of the pretty shiny things they've put on display. (What can I say, just another pilgrim I guess.) The only thing the reunion needed was for someone to jump up into the organ loft and bust out a Bach Toccata and Fugue. I was also fortunate that the sun came out, not something that it's been doing a lot of these last couple days, so the huge stain glass windows were extra pretty.
After communing with the gigantic stone building, I wandered down the Rhine and through the streets in search of a second Köln treasure: a glass of Kölsch. Finally I sat myself down in a Biergarten and had my 0.2 liters of the best beer in Germany (or at least the best beer I've had in Germany).
Otherwise this has a pretty slow weekend. The jetlag's really a bitch, so I've been sleeping weird hours, reading a bunch, and lamenting how boring German TV is. Everytime I turn it on, I hope for some dubbed american TV show. Anyho! That's all for now!