More Odds and Ends

So here's some more random little pieces for you.


Uni Paderborn does not have any school colors or an official team mascot. Dr. Tiemann did remember that occasionally a rhino is used on school pamphlets on the like, but maybe 1 of every 200 students knows this. I was like, what do you mean you have no school colors?? I can understand no mascot (sort of), but you have got to have a color scheme. Nope. What do your teams wear? No teams. Germany (and really the rest of Europe too) do not have collegiate sports. They have club teams and intramurals and the like, but no official school teams. Very different system.

Windows here open in two directions. Turn the handle sideways and it swings open like a cabinet door. Turn the handle up and it leans in from the top, to form an opening of about 3 in. Turn the handle down and it locks in place.

Everything shuts down on sundays. I complained about this when I was in France, I'm complaining about it here, and I will probably complain about it somewhere else. I'm sorry, but it's not like they're all in church all day or something. The least you could do is have the grocery open for reduced hours so I can go get fresh bread. Geez. Also, the whole town shuts down at about 6. Literally every thing is closed except the movie theater and there is no one around.

It stays light here until like 10:30 and the sun rises at like 5 am. I've never thought about it before, but people talk about "the dark Georgia night" as just so encompassing. I guess if you're used to this, the southern US would seem to have a very deep shade of night.

I've tried a few sodas over here. Mezzomix is pretty good. I'm not sure if I've only been getting the orange flavor (like Cherry Coke) or if that's what Mezzomix is: a coke-like soda with some orange flavoring. I was also in the grocery store and saw "The Spirit of Georgia: Traditional Refreshment". (It also clearly says "Made in Germany"). It comes in two flavors, Blood Orange, and Peach-Lime. I felt compelled as a person actually from Georgia to try both and test the validity of their claims. Neither would I call a "traditional refreshment", at least not traditional to Georgia, but that said both were pretty decent. The Peach-Lime is better than the Blood Orange.

Universities in Germany are almost never campuses. They're usually a conglomeration of different buildings around a city or an area. Steffi tells me that where she did her undergrad, the science buildings were located a full 30 minutes away from the university offices. Uni Paderborn is apparently very much a special case in that it is a campus university. However, it is still not  a residential campus the way you see in the US. In the US, most college students live in on-campus housing of some kind, with the rest in nearby off-campus housing, and commuter students being the minority. At Paderborn, they do have 2 campus "dorms" (loosely defined here), but the vast majority of students live around the city or commute from home. Two of the guys I work with come from small towns about 20-30 minutes away so they just live at home and commute. This accounts for the fact that the mensa only serves lunch and even the snack bar is closed by 4.

Where I live

 Dr. Tiemann teaches an experiment-based intro chem class. He's about to drop an egg onto a bowl of silica gel that theoretically will absorb the impact, leaving the egg intact. I say theoretically because his aim was a little off and the egg cracked on the side of the bowl. 

 This is the front entrance to the school. It's more or less one interconnected building, with many offshoots. The giant letters? Markers so you know which section of the building you're in. It goes through P as far as I can tell. The school was started in the 70s but they've added on and renovated several times.  

No campus is complete without an army of bicycles. 

The main walkway which I use to get home. 

My apartment house, Mallinckrodtstr. 60. 

My room. You can see my bed in the corner. To the left of the desk is a bookcase and behind the camera is my closet. 

My bathroom. Small, but clean. 

Pictures of the lab/groupmates forthcoming. 

Experiments in Laundry, Internet, and Climate Change

None of these topics are particularly related to each other, but none of them really deserve their own post either. So bear with me.

Laundry is something of a milestone when traveling. Lots of people travel, especially domestically. Being away from home is really not that alien a concept. Most people at some point in their life will have to pack a suitcase or duffel bag or whatever and spend at least a few days somewhere besides home. That's the world we live in. Vacation probably accounts for most travel, be at during the holidays or simply some time off. However there's a difference between traveling and going someplace on vacation. That difference is laundry. If you're not gone long enough to need to do laundry, you're not really traveling. You're just visiting. Laundry anywhere but home can be tricky, but in a foreign country it takes on an extra challenge.

When I was in a home-stay in France, I had to ask my host-mom about when I could do laundry, and how to use the washer, and where is the non-existent dryer, etc. David is staying in a hotel, which means he has two options: laundry in his sink or laundry at the possible laundromat somewhere by the train station (he chose the first). I suppose if you are not on a student budget you would probably be in a hotel with laundry service but I digress. For me, this meant going to the office at the designated laundry-token-selling time to get laundry tokens from the nuns. They were very nice, but they don't speak english. We sort of gestured back and forth for a bit, and finally I got what I wanted (3 tokens) and they got what they wanted (euros). They also wanted information. I could tell I was going to be the topic of discussion that night at dinner at the convent. All they could really get from me though is Studentin, Chemie, Studentin, USA, Atlanta, Ja. I have no idea if I answered the questions they asked, but I answered. Of course, that still left me with the problem of how do I use the machines...

The laundry room is in the basement and has about 6 washers and 4 dryers. I swear, I thought my mom's washer/dryer set had a lot of options. No. These things are old and crickety and they put hers to shame on the options count. I have no idea what I chose; I just went with what appeared to be the most popular settings . For all I know I chose everything wrong, but it worked. My clothes are clean. The dryer took forever (almost 2 hours straight), but I didn't have to pay for it so I don't care. I used the free sample of Spee laundry detergent I got, and I approve. I did not dry my jeans because that's iffy at home let alone with a dryer I don't know, so I hung them to dry in my closet.


Internet. Oh the internet. Nothing is ever as simple as it appears to be. You know how I said I bought a month's worth of internet? I was wrong. I bought the starter set which comes with 10 euros worth of internet time. Which of course I've already gone through because it was set to the daily rate. Oops. So I went back yesterday and bought 15 euros worth (with the help of a very nice british woman) and have set it to the monthly rate.


People talk about jet lag and being up at all the wrong hours and not being hungry at the right times. BS. I got over all that after like a day and a half. The thing that kills me is the climate. It is not only much cooler here, it is also much much dryer. I know, I know, I'm from the South. I'm used to ridiculous amounts of humidity; I'm not a good judge. I'm not kidding, this is comparable to when I've been on vacation (we didn't have to do laundry) in the Rockies. I'm using chapstick like there's no tomorrow and I think I'm actually getting the doctor's recommended daily water intake for once in my life. Maybe as it gets more towards summer it'll get better?

First Weekend

I've had my first weekend in Germany. For the record I plan on utilizing each and every one of my weekends to its fullest potential. This weekend was a Paderborn weekend.

Saturday David and I met up at the HNF computer museum. According to the brochures, it is the world's largest computer museum. Personally, I'm inclined to think it is probably also the world's only computer museum, but you never know. I fully intended to take pictures, but then completely forgot except for one picture of a Jacquard loom. My apologies.

Jacquard loom: it actually worked and everything!

It (the museum) really was huge though. It took the two of us three hours to get through the whole thing, and we couldn't even read any of the descriptions. If you know German, you could easily spend the whole day there. There was a lot of neat stuff. Remember when I took that History of Science and Technology class? Well, this was kind of like taking a walk through that text book. They also had an impressive collection of old cell phones, calculators, and computers. (Remember the original Macintosh?) They had a lot of cool newer technology in there as well that you could play around with. There was this one were you sat down and it scanned your face and then you picked a famous portrait and background for it to put your face on. Not that cool? Try doing it only using your eyes. It was really hard to control so I know have pictures of myself as Lara Croft on a beach and Napoleon Bonaparte on the startrek set. I would share but they're just print outs so you'll have to wait until I have a scanner again.

After lunch, we went to Schloss Neuhaus, the castle in Paderborn. It's not terribly big, but then neither is Paderborn. It's in very good condition overall. There's a small, free-entrance museum, but you can't go into the rest of the building. The gardens were nice though.

Schloss Neuhaus, as seen from the back, with garden

Yesterday, David found a cineplex that was showing the new pirates movie in english, so we went to go see it.  We had to see it in 3D, which ordinarily would have meant more money, but we had accidently stumbled upon their monthly Ladies Night. We got funny looks for paying seperately, but we only had to pay 8 euros instead of 9. Woohoo. The movie itself? Not bad. I rank it above the 2nd and 3rd pirates movies but it's not as good as the original.

Foosball

Foosball: Traversing Language Barriers One Game at a Time.

Friday afternoon the guys (Christian, Simon, Dominik, and Thorston) invited me to join them for a little after lunch foosball. Over in the chemical engineering building there's a foosball table and a ping pong table that they frequent. I am sadly out of practice and definitely the worst player. I lost every single game. Terribly sad, but I'm sure I'll get better. The wonderful thing about foosball is that you don't need to talk to enjoy it. A lot of the time people just talk in German which I don't understand, so I sort of zone out. The conversation naturally tends to just sort of bypass me because I have no idea what they're talking about. Thorston chides me and tells me I need to complain more because they need to practice their english anyway. Mostly though it just doesn't bother me enough. Foosball however is the exception. Cries of delight and moans of despair are pretty much universally understood. We can all play foosball and no one needs a translation to be a part of what's going on. We laughed and teased each other about times when the goalie accidently knocked the ball into his own goal or when the kickers in the middle bounced the ball back to the other team. Foosball is great, and I may like soccer just a tiny bit more because of it.

Lunch

I think I mentioned before that we have lunch together in the mensa (dining hall) everyday as a group. Well, after a week of school lunches I've come up with a few conclusions.

1.) I intend on buying lunch a majority of the time. It's 2 euros for whatever you can fit on your plate from either of the two main lines, and at 10 euros a week, I can't really do any better.

2.) German students eat slightly better food than American students (at least at all the schools I've attended), but it's essentially on the same level. The food really isn't that bad at all. I didn't care for the meatloaf too much, but I've never been a huge fan of meatloaf. The fried tilapia filet I had today was probably my favorite so far.

3.) Trends: Germans have a lot more sauce-based meals. They also eat more rice, which is fine with me because I like rice. I just don't put pepper on it the way they do. (No salt, just pepper). They also eat this white lumpy dessert stuff that I'm slightly scared to try, but considering how many of them eat it almost everyday I think I'll have to. I got up the nerve to ask what it was and I think it may be some kind of rice pudding.

4.) I've also gotten to observe the crowd of Uni Paderborn students eating lunch. They mostly look like the crowd you would see at Russell House. Slightly preppy on average, and with more scarves. Part of the differences I think are seasonal, but others are just Europe vs. America. Mostly though people are wearing the same sorts of tops and jeans people wear back home.

5.) I'm not sure where this comes from but for whatever reason the stereotype is that most Germans are blond. I'm going to go ahead and call this myth Busted. I probably have the lightest colored hair of anyone in our group, minus Dr. Tiemann who is actually blond, and definitely most everyone I see around has darker hair. Brunettes are by far the majority.

6.) I knew this before but I thought I'd reiterate for those who are unfamiliar with europe: they cut up everything. They use a fork and knife on every item on their plate that does not require a spoon. Even french fries. Absolutely hysterical. I'm doing my best to fit in, but I feel awkward. I kind of hope the mensa serves sandwiches or burgers or something like that one day just so I can watch them cut it up.

Chapter 3: In which I wander around aimlessly

Yesterday was a fairly normal day as far as that goes. The silica gel stuff takes a while to make, which means that as of right now I'm not doing a hell of a lot in the lab because that's all I'm doing. So I'm slowly going through the literature they've given me to read. It's boring. I can't help it. The project sounds very interesting and I'm excited to get to work, but reading papers is awfully dull. At least they're in english. After work I walked back to the apartment to drop off my backpack and then headed downtown to just sort of meander. I'm pretty good at meandering. Saw lots of pretty buildings, passed by the town hall, and such.

One of the main streets in the town center

"Paderborner Rathaus": Town hall

I was just thinking to myself, "I wonder where the church is. There's got to be at least two or three around here," when I heard the bells chiming. So I let my ears lead me and I walked straight into an open square with a modern art museum, a fountain, and three churches. Good job cantwell. After ensuring that my phone was on silent I slipped into the "dom", or cathedral. Based on my limited understanding of german and the pictures, it looked like it had be destroyed (and I do mean flattened) several times. Each time the people just sort of got together and built it back up again. Only a few sections are still in stone, but many of the altars/side chapels/sculptures/etc had been saved. Really I was surprised at how much of the older pieces had survived the wear of time (and bombs) considering it was built in the late 700s. A small mass was starting in the crypt (which I gather is where they have their smaller services) so I got to hear the organ reverberating through the cathedral. Just beautiful. The cathedral by the way holds the relics of St. Liborius. The church across the street has the shrine and relics of St. Ulrich.

Fountain in square, you can see the cathedral in the background.
The weird looking building is  the Diocesan  museum.

Another look at the cathedral

I then started to wander back and became intrigued by the large stone wall that bordered the sidewalk I was using. So I followed in around until I found a gate. The wall went so long without interruption I was beginning to get a "secret garden" kind of feeling from the pine trees sticking up of the wall. Not exactly a secret garden, but perhaps a holy one. I had found the local convent. It's possible that's where the nuns who run my apartment building live. Oh yes, my place is run by nuns. I'm not allowed to have visitors after 11 (and definitely no overnight guests!) and there's a cross on the wall by my bed. 

A house in my neighborhood; I hope they like ivy...

I'm really not sure why there's a giant wiener.

My "secret garden" wall

Stay tuned for the next page turning adventure!

Odds and Ends

Mostly these are just random happenings of today, but some random thoughts are mixed in as well.

Today after lunch there was this big give-away thing. Apparently on a semi-regular basis these people show up with dozens of boxes filled with bags and any student who walks up gets a bag full of freebies. Now like any good college student I have a built-in radar for free stuff, but generally at USC, freebies are usually flyers, chapsticks, key chains, the ever-popular coozie, etc. Oh no, this is different. They actually get free samples. From real companies. Now, there's a lot of little coupon-flyer things in the bag too but among the free stuff I got: one load's worth of Spee Black laundry detergent, BeBe "happy" body lotion sample, Loreal soft bronzing lotion, Calvin Klein "one" perfume sample, Garnier Fructis Glanz-Shampoo sample, a packet of french salad dressing, a travel size bottle of Nivea showel gel, and the March 2011 issue of Maxi magazine. Neat, huh? After we all got our bags and got back to the lab we sat around the common room going through our stuff like little kids taking inventory of their Halloween candy. Someone came across a sample for a home-waxing product. I'm not sure how he ended up getting volunteered for this but the next thing you knew, Christian (the one who picked me up from the airport) was sitting in a chair with two waxing strips on his leg. All I will say is that I can personally vouch for the effectiveness of this product. And I hope his hair grows back soon or he's going to have  a funny tan. We also each got a different flavor of this carbonated juice drink and it's terrible.

Yesterday the fire alarm went off in the chemistry building. No worries, it turned out that someone had spilled something on a heater which created a lot of steam which set off the alarm. It still took 3 fire trucks, an ambulance, and 2 police cars two hours to fix everything so we could go back in. Dr. Tiemann was cold and tired of waiting outside so we followed him into his office next door and watched everything from there.

You know how everyone says that Germans are tall? Well I've decided that I'll never know. Why? It's simple. At home in the US, everyone is taller than me. Here in Germany, everyone is taller than me. I have no basis for comparison.

Carbonated water ("Sparkling Water") is the norm here. I've been warned to be careful if I buy a bottle of water because most of the time the companies don't bother to specify that it's sparkling. If I want "distilled" water, I'm going to have to drink tap, or find specifically labelled "Distilled" bottled water. The group members who haven't visited the US were surprised to hear that a) I don't like sparkling water, b) most people don't like sparkling water in the US, and c) sparkling water would be harder to find in the US. The reason all this came up was that the group has a bunch of crates of sparkling water bottles for group use. I did take one because I wanted the bottle to fill up with regular water. It's huge and more than worth the 30 cents. Isn't it weird how tastes are sometimes reversed in different cultures?

My internet works! It's slow but that's ok. I've definitely put up with worse. I had to buy a wireless stick and a prepaid simcard for it. I probably could have gotten a cheaper stick somewhere else but the Aldi had the cheapest service so as a whole it was cheapest there. Only 15 euros a month and you buy a month at a time so it's not like I'll be paying for service after I've stopped needing it. Plus I can reuse the stick again and again,  so in the long run I think it'll pay off. Definitely a good option for anyone needing internet in a foreign country.

Also, I got Kinder bars at the grocery store today. I love them; I've missed them. I'm trying to figure out what it will take to get them sold in the US. If you're curious what I'm talking about google search Kinder Bueno. It was first released in Germany but it's actually made by Ferrero, the Italian chocolate company. Mmmmm yummy.

The Lab and The Group-mates

I've met the whole group at this point, I think. More or less anyway. And I'm pretty sure I know everyone's name. Sort of. I can identify the two Christian's, Steffi, Dominik, Anna, Sabrina, Danielle, and Simon. And Dr. Tiemann, our boss. I'm only sort of sure who Thorston is, but I'll get there. I also feel like there's someone I'm forgetting but oh well. They're all super nice and friendly. And they do all speak some english, but they mostly speak German unless they're talking to me. My german is improving by the way. Drucken means push and ziehen means pull, which I know because all the doors at the university are labelled. Also, they call foosball "kicker" or so it sounded to me. They thought "foosball" was a pretty interesting label but I haven't the slightest idea why we call it that. This led into a discussion about how americans don't care at all about soccer. They thought it was very funny that it's sort of something we have our kids play, but when they get older most of them stop playing soccer and pick a "real sport".

Oh and the lab is beautiful. It was built only a year ago so it's brand new and shiny and pretty. It's large too and all the students have individual desk spaces. Really nice. I'll try to remember to take pictures so you can see. The other thing about this lab group is they're very close knit. Apparently we have lunch together every day in the cafeteria. (The food in the mensa is pretty good and very reasonably priced btw). Even Dr. Tiemann eats with us. He buys his food there just like the rest of us. Very cool. His english is really good too, although he has a distinctly British accent when he talks, which is kind of funny. Then, tonight a bunch of people from the group (like 7 of us) met up with David and his grad student Martin at the school pub. Yes, you read correctly, school pub. As in serves-alcohol-on-campus school pub. I just had a coke but it was fun. We sat outside and just talked and laughed for like 2 hours. I'm really happy with my group; it's going to be a fun summer.

I'll put some of my other odds and ends in another post. Tschus!

The Past Three Days

I'm in Germany! Woo.

So here's how it went. I said many times that the only thing I was worried about was the first two days because I knew they were going to be beyond hectic. I was right. 

I flew from Atlanta to Charlotte Sunday morning. I got to the airport way too early, breezed through security and sat around doing nothing until my flight at 11. The quick flight to Charlotte was rough, to put it mildly. I was glad of my long layover before the flight to Munich because frankly it was nice to keep my feet on the ground for a bit. Then I had the long flight to Munich which was very smooth overall. Huge plane, 10 seats across with two aisles. The bathrooms were down these stairs which I had not encountered before and which I thought was pretty neat. I watched Tangled twice (it was a long flight) as well as Megamind. I slept for a little bit but I couldn't really get to sleep for any long amount of time. I had another fairly long layover in the Munich airport. It was really very empty, at least over where I was. Very few people around. Then I got on the plane and knew why. My plane to Paderborn could not have held more than 25 people. Frankly my first impression was a school bus with wings. It was so small that we had to take a little bus over to the plane which we boarded from the outside thanks to the fold-up stairs on the plane door and I'm pretty sure the bus was bigger. I had a window seat next to a business man who was clearly trying very hard to memorize some presentation. It was only a fifty minute flight, shorter than the one from ATL to Charlotte, but unlike the US Air flight I still got a drink and a snack. The only way I can describe this thing is to say it reminded me of a chocolate-covered twinkie. Too sweet for my taste, but way better than a bag of nuts. 

Arriving in Paderborn was very simple. It's a small airport, and before most of the people on our flight had even finished riding the escalator to baggage claim, the (only) carousel had started delivering our luggage. Mine was thankfully near the beginning so I only had to spend a few minutes worrying about all the many ways in which my suitcase might become lost. I had already had my passport stamped in munich, but I had never done the "customs" thing. I was beginning to wonder if they did it at all here, when a uniformed man stopped me and asked where I was from. "Atlanta?" "Ja, oo-ess-ahh?" "Ja (accompanied here by vigorous head nodding)" "OK, yoo haf anyting yoo bring vit yoo? like giffs oo pakages fyer frends?" "uh, nein" "OK, gut". And he walked away. Apparently that was customs, and I apparently passed. Yay. 

Christian, a member of the group, met me at the airport. There weren't many people waiting for our plane (gee wonder why) so he was pretty easy to spot. Then we headed to his car and off to the university where we met up with Steffi (pronounced Shteffi). From there we all went to the apartment. It's Beautiful. I swear it is nicer (and larger) than any place I've lived on campus. I'm on the fifth floor (labelled 4 because it's Europe), I have my own bathroom, and everything is clean. I have sheets, a pillow, a comforter, an extra blanket, and a full set of towels. I successfully timed the walk this morning and it takes me about 3 minutes to get to campus and then maybe 7 or 8 minutes to complete the walk across campus to the chemistry building (clear on the other side of campus of course). 

Yesterday we took care of some of the business-y things of living in a foreign country. Steffi took me to the registration building and then the bank. In Germany, everyone, even German citizens, have to register with the government whenever they move in or out of a town. So I'm now an officially registered Paderbornerin, with a new shiny bag that says so. It had a lot of junk in it that I'm sure would be useful information if I could read German, but the bag itself will make a good shopping bag. Note: stores in Germany do not provide bags, so bring your own! The bank was also a major stop. To receive my scholarship I must have a German bank account so they can deposit the money. This can be an issue because many banks won't open an account for you for such a short term. We may have *implied* that I was going to be in country for *slightly* longer than is actually true, but the bank woman had the dates in front of her and didn't say a word. So I'm getting a free student checking account, bare bones, no frills. I do have to wait though because the branches don't set up the account; they have to send it to the headquarters. I will eventually get a confirmation, a formal contract type-thing, and then a debit card. I'm glad this bank worked out because this is the one that has atm's on campus. Super convenient. Eventually when I get my money I will pay back Mrs. Brebeck from the international student office who paid my first rent. 

Let's see what else have I done... Oh, yes, I've been to the grocery and got a small amount of food. I've eaten a doner (sort of sandwich made out of pita-like bread with meat). I can't think of much else at the moment. I'll write more about the group and the lab later. This post is already way too long. Feel free to ask questions in the comments though. 

PS: we also clearly took care of my internet and I met up with David but again this post is too long so I'll tell you later. 

Background

A little background on this next adventure of mine. In ten days I am leaving for Germany. I'm going to be in Paderborn until July 15. The next week I will be hanging with my former and future roommate Becky in Bamberg, where she has been for a couple months already. Then I will be going to Heidelberg for two days for a conference, more on that in a bit. I leave Germany on the 26th and come home for the remainder of my summer vacation. Sound like a plan? Gosh I hope so.

So by now you're saying, Jackie that sounds delightful! But what are you doing over there for all that time? Are you doing study abroad?

Well, sort of. I'm doing a research internship through the RISE program of the DAAD (website here). It's a great  program that accepts undergrads from the US, the UK, and Canada and pairs them up with PhD students in Germany. Basically how it works is they have German PhD students submit project proposals. The undergrads then apply and pick out their three favorite projects. The DAAD people then match up undergrads and projects, starting with the best students and the most popular projects. They say most everybody ends up with their first or second choice. Then they award the scholarships. The internships are different lengths so the amount you get varies, but it's a fairly ample amount. Thank you government funding! The wonderful thing is that the system is very flexible. You and your PhD student work out the dates you're going to be there (provided it's after a certain start date) and the DAAD gets the work permit taken care of for you. I'm going to be at the University of Paderborn doing research on inorganic nanoporous materials.

Another cool part of the internship is that they get all the undergrads together in Heidelberg for a couple days of conference. There are two other RISE students from USC so I think a picture in Heidelberg is definitely in order.

Oh, and no, I don't speak German. I've taken a semester, but I didn't learn much. Just the basics, but it's enough to get around. The working language will be English. I've already been in contact with my PhD student, Steffi, and her English is great. I've also gotten in touch with another RISE student who will be in the chem dept at Paderborn and he seems nice. His German is worse than mine so it should be interesting.

Hm let's see...what else...oh yeah! Accommodations. Where will I be living? Well, the University of Paderborn has dorms like most universities, but they're slightly overpriced (like most universities) and booked. So Steffi found an apartment place for me to live. It's literally across the street from the university and from what I can tell is part of the hospital grounds. A picture from Google Earth says it's the dorm for student nurses. Anyway it's a great situation. I'm pretty sure that's all for now...I'll keep you posted.