Thanksgiving, B-day

Hallo!
I hope everyone had a happy and safe Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was a little different for me this year. I decided that I couldn't just let the second most important american holiday go by with out any notice, so I made an apple pie from scratch Wednesday evening. It was certainly a learning experience. For one, I didn't have any american measuring cups, so I had to estimate amounts using a coffee cup and serving spoon. Secondly I couldn't find a normal pie tin, so used a glass cake pan. The problem with this was the bottom crust didn't cook. It was certainly the worst pie I've ever eaten, but I think my colleages appreciated the thought.
Thursday evening my roommate Fanny, an aquintance of hers, and I met at the Bonn Christmas market. Unfortuntely it was cold and rainy, but we quickly found a stand with a roof and drank a couple glasses of Glühwein (hot, spiced wine). After being warmed up by the wine, Fanny and I braved the rain for some typical German food. The moral of the story is German Christmas markets are fun.
Friday was my birthday. I decided to take a "Feiernachmittag" and traveled to Wuppertal in the afternoon. Within an hour I entered a winter wonderland. Wuppertal had received about 10 cm of snow Thursday evening and more was predicated. By the end of the weekend there was well over a foot on the ground, the roads were a mess, and much of the public transportation wasn't running. In fact the situation a bit farther north was so bad over 100,000 people were without power. Fortuntely the roads were clear enough that Dorothea, Matthias, Christian, and I made a trek to Duesseldorf to watch the new Harry Potter movie. Other than the 45 minutes of commercials and previews and the break in the middle of the movie, I rather enjoyed it. It was a good adaptation of the book and rather funny, at least in German. Otherwise we had a very quiet weekend sitting around watching the snow fall.
Today I started to program my ethernet module. I sucessfully managed to set the IP address registers using VHDL. If I can successfully read a byte from the FPGA through ethernet, my boss has to buy another round at our lab christmas celebration. The Germans know how to motivate. :-) Sadly this is a little bit more complicated than setting a memory register.

First Kanzlerin

Today the German government elected its first female Chancelor and the first person from the former east Germany, so it was a somewhat historic day.
Otherwise I've accomplished absolutely nothing today. This morning was a progress meeting for a space debris project my lab is involved in. Finally I know what it is my colleagues have been working on these past few weeks. What was rather surprising is that I had an easier time understanding the German than the technicial information. Craziness.
I'm also very happy to report that Andy's coming to visit at the end of December. Ya visitors!
It's short, but that's all for now.

Saarbrücken

This weekend I traveled to Saarbrücken, the capital of Saarland, which is the smallest of the German states. Saarland is in far western Germany and shares a boarder with France. Andreas's sister and brother-in-law live there, and we went to celebrate her birthday.
Saturday afternoon we did some shopping and a little eating. Later in the evening we met up with some of Mathia's friends (the sister) and played a little indoor soccer. The "field" was tiny, but it was good because there were only six of us. The only one of us who had any regular soccer experience was Mathia's husband, so I'm sure we looked pretty pathetic, but we had a lot of fun. Much to my surprise, it turns out that I'm actually not so bad at soccer. Given that I haven't played it since I was about 10, and then extremely poorly, I was rather pleased with myself. The Germans were certainly amazed that an "Ami" can play "Fussball". :-)
Afterward there was more eating and drinking. It was also cold. I finally had to break down and wear my full winter coat. Oh well. Such is life in the north.
I also really enjoyed the trip. It takes about 2 hours to go from Bonn to Saarbruecken, most of which through the Eifel. The Eifel resembles Pennsylvania or upstate New York. On the way down on Saturday the sun was actually shining most of the way (amazing!), but suddenly, within five seconds, were were driving through dense fog. After about 15 minutes, we were through the cloud and back in sunshine. Everything this is smaller here in Europe, this includes the clouds. It was also fun to ride on the Autobahn. (Mom, don't read the next sentance.) I can now say I've been in a car going over 120 mph. It was a good weekend.
But one must also look to the future! This week is birthday week in the lab. Three of us in fact. It's also Thanksgiving. Needless to say my Thanksgiving will be a bit different this year. I hope everyone travels safely this week and eat some Turkey for me. :-)

DAAD People

Hallo!
So far this has been a rather busy week.
Monday evening I met my DAAD mentor, a DAAD-scholarship alum who spent a year at UW Madison, who is supposed to help me get settled in Bonn. Of course it would've helped if we'd met about two months sooner, but never the less, it's always good to know more people. She is actually very nice. We had coffee and discussed various things about Germany and the US.
Last night I attended a meeting of DAAD scholarship holders in Bonn. First of all I was surprised by how many there were. There are around 50 in Bonn alone, and of course many more in other german cities. My second surprise was how many different nationalities were represented. I should perhaps preface this by saying DAAD is an organization funded by the German government to send Germans to study in other countries and bring people from all over the world to German universities. Last night there were around thiry "Stipendatin" from (but not limited to) US (duh), Italy, Poland, France, Sweden, Venezuela, Kenya, Philipeans, Pakistan, India, Egypt, and China. Of course we did the whole big-group, round-robin introduction with our name, country, field of study, etc, and there was a somewhat akward moment for me. The second or third person was a student from Venezuela. After he was finished a man in the corner asked what he though of Chavez. The Venezuelan explained in a very "ya, ya...ok" tone that Chavez is known for being a loud opponent of Bush. And cheers came from a couple guys in the corner. My though: Uh oh. So I was about five people later. I stood up and said, "Hi, my name is Laura. I probably shouldn't admit this, but I'm American..." Fortunetly the guys in the corner didn't say anything. It turns out they were from Pakistan. Later that evening the guy from Venezuela apologized for putting me in that position even though it wasn't really his fault. Several of us agreed that even though the governments of two countries don't get along, the "normal" people can work together and learn from one another. I think this is my big cultural eye-opening experience.
Otherwise work has been frustrating. My current task is to find some way to read data in and out of my FPGA, and we want to do it through ethernet. The lab has a little ethernet module which one can connect to microcontrollers and communicate through TCP, but I have NO idea how to do it. Thankfully I like challenges.
As far as politics goes, the German coalitions have finally come to an agreement, and it looks like Germany will have its first Kanzlerin on the 22nd. Part of the agreement is that in 2007 the Mehrwertssteuer, which is more or less analogous to our sales tax, will increase to %17 (or %19, I can't remember exactly). Compared to the typical value of %5 or %6 in Iowa, that's pretty crazy. Right now in Germany it's %7 (I think).
On Monday it was reported that Bush's approval ratings continued to drop. I must admit I find this rather satisfying. It's good to know that eventually people start to wake up and smell the coffee. If only the election had been this year. I just hope the rest of the world is noticing this.
Anyho! I should probably get back to work.

Bonn Orchestra, Fussball

Not much to report from this side of the pond.
Friday night I went to a Beethoven Orchestra Bonn concert. It'd been way too long since I've been to an orchestra concert. On the program was Dvorak's Cello Concerto, Mozart's Symphony #29, and Shostikovich's Symphony #6. It was a pretty good concert. The Mozart symphony was boring, but that's nothing surprising.
Otherwise the rest of the weekend was quiet. I spent some time getting to know my new roommate Fannie and her friend Sabine. Saturday evening we watched a game the French and German National Soccer teams. Fannie of course was for France (Viva la France!) and Sabine and I were for Germany. In the end neither team pulled off a single goal, so we couldn't give each other a hard time. It was rather anti-climactic.
Today the weather was awful. Grey and gloomy. A good day to stay inside and sleep.
I was glad to hear Iowa pulled off a win against Wisconsin at the end of the game away from home.
All for now.

Kölsches Grundgesetz

Already half way to another weekend! Yippe!
All in all this has been a good week.
Sunday Manuel and I discovered a HUGE park in southern Bonn, and I mean huge by American standards. We walked along the Rhine and had a beer. Coming from Iowa, which is so very rural, I'm always happy to find open spaces in Germany.
Otherwise the week's been good. Monday I spent a lot of time correcting my boss's english for institute progress reports. (Yes mother... go ahead and laugh.) Work-wise I spent my time programming my FPGA to send and receive the proper signals to make my ADC work. Today I finally accomplished it, but of course killed one ADC in the process. Such is the way of electronics.
Today was particularly exciting. One of my coworkers set up an old cell phone of his for me to use. There's a system here which is simlar to the US Go-Phones. It's by no means the cheapest way, but it's good for connecting up with people. Also I came home this evening to a new roommate. In the short time that we've spoken she seems very nice. She's originally from France but, lucky for me, speaks perfect German. My apartment is starting to be come a mini-UN. The current occupants are american and french and the landlord is iranian. Just goes to show you that even if the governments of countries are at odds, the average people can still work and live together.

Now I want to do my part to spread some German culture. Below is my "homework" that was assigned to me by one of my coworkers. The top line of every article is the "high" German translation of a typical Köln-dialect phrase. Those of you who know German should enjoy it. The rest of you...well. Sorry.

--Kölsches Grundgesetz--

+Artikel 1
Sieh den Tatsachen ins Auge.
Et es, wie et es.

+Artikel 2
Habe keine Angst vor der Zukunft.
Et kütt, wie et kütt.

+Artikel 3
Lerne aus der Vergangenheit.
Et hätt noch immer jet jejange.

+Artikel 4
Jammere den Dingen nicht nach.
Wat fott es, es fott.

+Artikel 5
Sei offen für Neuerungen.
Et bliev nix, wie et wor.

+Artikel 6
Sei kritisch, wenn Neuerungen überhand nehmen.
Kenne mer nit, bruche mer nit, fott domit.

+Artikel 7
Füge Dich in Dein Schicksal.
Wat wellste maache.

+Artikel 8
Achte auf Deine Gesundheit.
Maach et jot, ävver nit ze of.

+Artikel 9
Stelle immer erst die Universalfrage.
Wat soll dä Quatsch?

+Artikel 10
Komme dem Gebot der Gasfreundschaft nach!
Drinkste eine met?

+Artikel 11
Bewahre Dir eine gesunde Einstellung zum Humor.
Do laachste Dich kapott.

+Artikel 12
Zeige immer eine positive Einstellung zur Arbeit.
Mer kann och alles üvverdrieve.

The Simple Things in Life

Hallo!
I thought it'd be kinda fun to post some pictures of the some of the unexciting, but important parts of my life.


Here's my bedroom. Other than the very, very white walls, I really like it.



Here's a view out of my window. Unfortunelty I know nothing about the church. But every 15 minutes from 7 am to 10 pm a bell chimes the time and at around 7 pm every evening the full choir of church bells go off, which is actually pretty cool sounding.



If you walk out of my apartment, walk to the end of the block and look left this is what you see. A very typical German street with a typical German bus.



Here's the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Radioastronmie. Ugly, like most scientific buildings.




Here's my lab. I work at the computer in the corner.



Here's a close up of my spot. Sorry for the over exposed windows.



Here is what I'm working on. The yellow bit is what I've added. The green part at the top was designed and build by the lab as a general purpose test board for FPGA's. My FPGA is on the underside of the square circuit board in the middle. You can see all the little connections.

Lola the Superhero

I was really hoping for Capt. Jack Sparrow, but I'm not really all about hats. Oh well. Batman does have a pretty cool car. Someone want to tell me who Maximus is?

You scored as Batman, the Dark Knight. As the Dark Knight of Gotham, Batman is a vigilante who deals out his own brand of justice to the criminals and corrupt of the city. He follows his own code and is often misunderstood. He has few friends or allies, but finds comfort in his cause. Batman, the Dark Knight 71% Maximus 67% Indiana Jones 63% The Amazing Spider-Man 54% Captain Jack Sparrow 50% William Wallace 50% Neo, the "One" 42% Lara Croft 38% James Bond, Agent 007 38% The Terminator 29% El Zorro 17% Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com

All Saints Day, new apartment

Once again we're arrived at Friday afternoon. Thankfully a full 7th of my life is Fridays. This week I was particularly lucky because the catholics here like to take November 1st and celebrate all of their saints, which means, more or less, a mini-weekend. Personally I spent the day in Koeln (me? in Koeln?! what a shock!) celebrating St. Koelsch with a coworker of mine and some of his friends. There's really not much to tell. The picture says it all.



Otherwise I spent the rest of the week officially moving into my apartment. I needed to buy a few things such as bedding, towel, etc. I also ended up moving to the apartment above mine. It has real wood floors and is a little nicer. My only complaint is that it's so very white. Unfortunetly I can't tape anything to the walls, so they'll have to stay white. Still no roommates, but hopefully the landlord will find some soon.
My analog-to-digital converter (ADC) finally arrived, so I've been spending my time at work getting it all wired up. This I finished today. Now it's time to start programming the FPGA, which I'll do on Monday. I figure it's best not to start new projects at 4:30 on Friday afternoon.
So far I have no plans for this weekend. We'll see what happens.