End of a rainy week

Today is the end of yet another rainy week. After one week of beautiful sunshine, we got two weeks of grey and rain. This afternoon was actually halfway nice, but tomorrow the rain's supposed to return. Na ja. Enough about the weather.
This was actually a good week at work. We currently have a master's student in the lab who is using the same finicky ethernet module as me, and on Monday I helped integrate what I've done into his project. I was happy to see that it seemed to work a bit better for him, so it may be that all (or more likely some) of my problems may lie on my hand-made soldering job. Anyho. I shouldn't speak too soon because I'm sure it'll stop working for him too this week.
Thursday was Accention Day and Fathers Day here in Germany, and on Wednesday I went to a salsa party with my roommate and a friend of hers. It was good times. I learned a bit of mereunge (I'm sure that's spelled wrong), which was new for me. Thursday I did absolutely nothing.
Saturday my roommate and I went to an art museum in Köln. It displayed works from the 13th to 19th centuries. One floor was dedicated to 13th to 16th century Baroque works, and my roommate spent the entire time complaining about how bad it was. We learned that our art tastes are rather opposite, which made for some interesting commentary. Anyho! Afterwards was a bagel time. A bagel store opened near the main bus station a couple months ago, so I had my first blueberry bagel with wildberry cream cheese in I don't know how long. It's the little things in life.
(You might have heard this before...I know I have. Sorry iTunes just decided to play Alice's Restaurant)
Today I went to the new Asterix film. Asterix is a popular comic in Europe, which I don't think is really known in the US. Several films have been made from the comics, which are rather cute and funny. This was was Asterix and the Vikings. It wasn't as good as some of the others I've seen but still cute.
So that's my life these last few days. In other news my sister graduated from high school yesterday. I was sad to miss it, but everything went well. It's crazy to think that both of my sisters are now out of high school.
Happy Memorial Day everyone.

Bike tour

Hallo everyone!
Ok. I've finally found time to post my adventures from the last week.
A week ago Friday two of my colleagues took me on a motorcycle tour through the Eifel, the mountainous region south of Bonn where the two of them live. After a short trip we stopped at Cafe Fahrtwind, which is where the local bikers stop for a Milchkaffe (Cafe au Lait). Here I am in front of the building.



The tour was actually a lot of fun. We had absolutely perfect weather for a drive through the mountains. After a somewhat longer drive, we stopped at the base of the old castle Nürburg. First off here's a pic of the bikes:



We also climbed up the Burg's tower, which offers a great view of the Eifel.



That evening I continued on with Andreas to another one of our labmates who was having a party to celebrate the birth of his daughter. This also gave me a change to see the house he and his father have been building for the last three years or so. It's going to be a really beautiful house when it's finished.
The rest of the weekend was relativly boring compared to Friday, and I really don't remember what it was that I did.
As I said in my short post, I was at a neutron star conference this week. I had absolutly nothing to present, but as I'm interested in maybe studying pulsars at Cornell, I though it would be interesting attend. In the end I understood less than I expected, but many of the talks were more theoretical and I'm no theorist. But I met some cool people and did learn something, so in the end it was worth it.
Otherwise at my irish dance class on Tuesday I messed up my foot and have been hobbling all week. I think it's getting better. I just have to avoid walking on it too much, which is tough.
Otherwise this weekend has been relatively quiet. Friday night I saw the movie "Elementarteilchen", which is a German movie and probably not released in the US. It was interesting.
This week begins a string of holiday weeks. Thursday is Accention Day. I guess it's the day Jesus goes to heaven. The advantage to living in region that's heavily catholic is they celebrate way more holidays than the protestants. The following two weeks also have at least one holiday.
It's hard to believe, but I only have two more months in Germany before heading back to the US. Still so much to do and so little time.
Have a good week everyone.

Yes, yes I know

I know I haven't updated in a while. This week I'm attending a Pulsar & Neutron Star conference in Bad Honnef (just south of Bonn), so I haven't been in front of a computer (i.e. at work) much this week.
I promise to post soon about my latest adventures.
Hope all of you on the other side of the pond are enjoying the start of summer vacation!

Freiburg

Hi everyone!
I though I'd better post before Kris get's on my case. (Just joking. :-) )
Last weekend was a lot of fun. I traveled down south to visit Andy's sister Anna in Freiburg.
The trip southward on Friday afternoon was an adventure. It was probably the first big traveling weekend of the "summer", and the Deutsche Bahn hadn't really finished hibernating yet. All of the long distance trains were late and overcrowded. Fortuntely it was sunny, so I was too irritated.
Saturday Anna showed me around Freiburg. Freiburg is way down in southwest Germany, almost in France, on the end of the Black Forest (Schwartzwald), so it's a cute city. At the center is an beautiful Romantic/gothic church (technically a Munster, how a Munster varies from a cathedral or basilika, I couldn't tell you).
We also hung out with some of her American friends, and it was the first time I'd been around more than two Americans since I've arrived. It was actually really fun joking around with other American students.
Sunday we took a tram up to the top of one of the near-by mountains. From there we had a good view of the Black Forest, and other than a little rain, it was very pleasant.
Otherwise things are good. The weather's been amazing. Sunny and mid-70's. Things are finally green. Just don't ask about work.
It also recently dawned on me that this coming weekend marks one year since I finished at Iowa. Craziness. For all of you who are going through the whole graduation thing, enjoy it and congrats!

Long weekend

Hi there!
So, as my title suggests, last weekend was rather long. Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday I was in Köln for a DAAD (organization that pays me every month) Stipendatentreffen (meeting for fellowship holders). There were close to 450 Stipendaten there, plus a hundred or so husbands, wives, and kids. The whole grand adventure started on Friday morning when I entered the bus, arrived in Köln, and checked into the hotel. In the afternoon I watched the quarter and semifinal games of the DAAD Soccer World Cup. Sixteen teams comprised of foreign students studying in Germany which met over the weekend for a mini-World Cup. With the actual World Cup in Germany in a little over a month, soccer is every where here. The games were fairly amusing.
In the evening on Friday was the official opening, which was a two-hour long program sitting on the brink of chaos. I knew it was going to be a long evening when six of the students protesting university tuition just down the hall came in with a giant banner proclaiming "Rektorat sofort besetzt!". They were having a sit-in in an office of sombureaucratat protesting the fact that the University of Köln wants to charge 500 euros in tuition per semester. Coming from America and having to live with our tuition, I really didn't feel sorry for them. Things didn't really improve much after that.
Saturday morning began with a couple lectures. Saturday afternoon was the final game of the DAAD World Cup. West Africa (or more precisely, a team comprised of people from various West African countries) against Brazil. West Africa won. I was glad because the Africans are really good at celebrating. It usually involves drums, singing, and dancing. Not the kind of thing you see much in Germany. When German teams win they mostly just wave their hands around a bit and smile.
Saturday night was a dance. Nothing terribly special. I did meet my first Iraqi. There were actually twice as many students at the meeting from Iraq than the US. Not sure how to interpret that, but interesting none the less. So I'd been sort of dreading the thought of meeting someone from Iraq because I didn't know what I'd say to them. It actually went better than I thought. He said he has nothing against Americans (at least those who didn't vote for Bush). He believes Americans are truly nice and friendly people, and if they had any idea what was really happening in Iraq, they'd be against the war. Sad when an Iraqi has more faith in Americans than I do. I asked him if things were actually getting better, as Bush insists they are. He responded with a very definite, "no, they're getting worse". He also insisted that what's shown on CNN is no where near the real truth. Funny considering all of the conservatives who bitch about the "liberal media" and complain that CNN is blatantly against the war, when from the point of view of an Iraqi, it's severely biased in the pro-US and pro-war direction Unfortunately our conversation was cut short.
Sunday was sight-seeing day. I went on a trip to a castle just outside of Düsseldorf. It was ok. Sadly we didn't have much time there. Finally after two long days it was time to head back home.
Sunday night I went to a Salsa party. Apparently Salsa's fairly popular in Germany.
Today I was back at work. Things were quiet around here. I think I may actually be slowly winning my battle with VHDL. (Knock on wood.)
I was also recently made aware that more people then I realize might be reading my blog. If you don't understand the messages below, don't worry about it.

Hi Manuel. Apenas registré en Skype y no recibí ningún mensaje que decía que usted desea agregarme como contacto. Se es un rato puesto que agregué cualquier persona, y no recuerdo cómo trabaja. Espero que las gafas no mataran su lengua demasiado.

Ha ha! Je suis parvenu à apprendre le français au cours du fin de semana. Ok pas vraiment. Avec reconnaissance Google le sait déjà. J'ai entendu que la France veut le développer doit posséder Google. Ce devrait être intéressant. Espoir vous avez apprécié la partie dimanche. Natation juste de subsistance.

Tschüß!