Germany is a land famous for rules. These rules not only mean that you have to register yourself when you move into a new apartment and sign everything several times, but also that there are unwritten rules that govern interactions with other people. I am not sure what they all are, but I've learned a little bit, mostly about elevator greeting.
Most of the labs here at the Institut für Organische Chemie are housed in a 6-story (7-story, American style) building referred to as the tower (die Turm). The group I'm in is on the 5th floor, so of course we take the elevator (the elevator was recently broken for a day and productivity dropped because no one wanted to walk down to the ground floor to drop off NMR samples). I was in the elevator with some labmates on the way back from eating some disgusting food in the Mensa, and some one from a new research group entered the elevator. They didn't say hi to us, and we didn't say hi to them. When they got out, my labmate remarked that the Rueping lab people are funny because they never say hi. I asked if anyone in our lab had tried to say hi to them, and my labmate answered that they were required to say hi to us because they had entered the elevator after us. Why can't people just say hi?
This rule also applies to when you approach a group of people in other situations, such as walking into the coffee area when people are already there. The new person is apparently supposed to interrupt the conversation the others are already engaged in and say hello. If you say nothing, you will pretty much be ignored. Why didn't anyone explain this to me sooner? I did not know about these rules and thought that people were just unfriendly. I can confirm that people will really just ignore you if you don't say hello first, which seems ridiculous.
You may be thinking that there are situations in which two people approach each other at the same time, for example passing in a hallway. Who is supposed to be the first to greet then? Apparently, the younger person has to be the one to greet. Are there any rules I'm missing? Is this why I don't have many (read:any) German friends?
Another unrelated note about greetings--the email sign-off "greetz" at the end of English emails written by non-native English speakers is apparently very popular. Why have they come to think it is correct? I can understand directly translating the German "Viele Grüße" into "many greetings," which is also not a standard English sign off, but where did they get the idea to ghetto-ize it into Greetz. It reminds me of Bratz, and I don't ever want to be remind of Bratz dolls.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Die Bahn
This is kind of another German product review. This time I'm reviewing more of a service--the German railways or Deutsche Bahn. My review is sparked by an incident that occured on my way home from Sweden.
Here are some facts about the Deutsche Bahn:
1. They have somehow received a reputation for Pünktlichkeit (punctuality). You can set your clock by German trains, people say. No, you can't. You must have them confused with the Swiss. Usually ICE trains are on time, I would say, but you really can't trust Nahverkehr (the ones that don't go too far). When I lived with Claudia and Roger and took the train every day, I basically had the message memorized. "Meine Damen and Herren am Gleis (pause) 2, bitte beachten Sie, Regional Express 4 von Dortmund nach Aachen (pause) Hbf..." If the train is delayed by 10 minutes or less, they offer no excuse. If it's more, they usually offer the excuse of Verzogerungen im Betrieb (delays in operations), which drives me crazy. I mean, what they are basically saying is that the train will be delayed because there are delays. Just say you're incompetent.
2. As Shane pointed out, there is something called the Deutsche Bahn law. It states that if you expect a train to be late, it will be on time. If you expect the train to be on time, it will be late. This basically means that if you're ever running a little late and could use a five-minute delay, you won't get it. But when you're early and especially if you're for some reason really early, the train will be delayed. I have found this pretty much always to hold true.
3. On the Deutsche Bahn website (which they improved in December to be uglier and harder to use), the local bus schedules are somehow linked. Convenient, right? I can type in my local bus stop and my final destination and it will tell me what bus to take to make it to the train station on time. On time, that is, to watch my train pull away after running off the bus to the platform while incurring the wrath of larger German women who get off buses excruciatingly slowly and do not appreciate attempts to get around them. This is not totally the Bahn's fault--part of the blame rests on the AVV (local transportation authority) which should put plus/minus 5 minutes next to all their bus times (Myth of German punctuality: BUSTED!)
Anyways, on the way back from Sweden, I was on a packed Sunday night train back to Aachen (Friday afternoons and Sunday evenings are the worst time to ride trains around here...half the students in Aachen apparently go home to have their mothers do their laundry on the weekends). We arrived at a stop and after the new passengers boards, we just didn't move. We sat there for a few minutes before we were informed that our train was delayed for the reason of people on the tracks and that the police were already underway to get them off. We sat there for about 20-30 minutes and they repeated the same message once, before saying the dreaded words "Dieser Zug endet hier. Die Strecke ist gesperrt." (This train ends here. The stretch of track is blocked off.) Apparently the people on the tracks got hit. So we all stepped off the train into a rainy evening and waited for the promised "Ersatzverkehr" (replacement transportation--usually they'll send a bus or something). We waited about 40 minutes. A few taxis came, and whenever one appeared, 20 people would run out into the rain towards it. Then, a train came going in the right direction. We all started walking towards it. The train driver stuck her head out the window and looked at us like we were crazy. Someone asked her if the train was going all the way to Aachen and she said yes, of course, like there was no reason for it not to go to Aachen. We finally left the station and then at some point stopped in the middle of nowhere. I saw people running next to the train. Then we started moving again. Finally, we arrived in Aachen at 12:45 am, about 80 minutes after the train was supposed to get there and after all the buses had stopped running. Thanks, Deutsche Bahn.
Here are some facts about the Deutsche Bahn:
1. They have somehow received a reputation for Pünktlichkeit (punctuality). You can set your clock by German trains, people say. No, you can't. You must have them confused with the Swiss. Usually ICE trains are on time, I would say, but you really can't trust Nahverkehr (the ones that don't go too far). When I lived with Claudia and Roger and took the train every day, I basically had the message memorized. "Meine Damen and Herren am Gleis (pause) 2, bitte beachten Sie, Regional Express 4 von Dortmund nach Aachen (pause) Hbf..." If the train is delayed by 10 minutes or less, they offer no excuse. If it's more, they usually offer the excuse of Verzogerungen im Betrieb (delays in operations), which drives me crazy. I mean, what they are basically saying is that the train will be delayed because there are delays. Just say you're incompetent.
2. As Shane pointed out, there is something called the Deutsche Bahn law. It states that if you expect a train to be late, it will be on time. If you expect the train to be on time, it will be late. This basically means that if you're ever running a little late and could use a five-minute delay, you won't get it. But when you're early and especially if you're for some reason really early, the train will be delayed. I have found this pretty much always to hold true.
3. On the Deutsche Bahn website (which they improved in December to be uglier and harder to use), the local bus schedules are somehow linked. Convenient, right? I can type in my local bus stop and my final destination and it will tell me what bus to take to make it to the train station on time. On time, that is, to watch my train pull away after running off the bus to the platform while incurring the wrath of larger German women who get off buses excruciatingly slowly and do not appreciate attempts to get around them. This is not totally the Bahn's fault--part of the blame rests on the AVV (local transportation authority) which should put plus/minus 5 minutes next to all their bus times (Myth of German punctuality: BUSTED!)
Anyways, on the way back from Sweden, I was on a packed Sunday night train back to Aachen (Friday afternoons and Sunday evenings are the worst time to ride trains around here...half the students in Aachen apparently go home to have their mothers do their laundry on the weekends). We arrived at a stop and after the new passengers boards, we just didn't move. We sat there for a few minutes before we were informed that our train was delayed for the reason of people on the tracks and that the police were already underway to get them off. We sat there for about 20-30 minutes and they repeated the same message once, before saying the dreaded words "Dieser Zug endet hier. Die Strecke ist gesperrt." (This train ends here. The stretch of track is blocked off.) Apparently the people on the tracks got hit. So we all stepped off the train into a rainy evening and waited for the promised "Ersatzverkehr" (replacement transportation--usually they'll send a bus or something). We waited about 40 minutes. A few taxis came, and whenever one appeared, 20 people would run out into the rain towards it. Then, a train came going in the right direction. We all started walking towards it. The train driver stuck her head out the window and looked at us like we were crazy. Someone asked her if the train was going all the way to Aachen and she said yes, of course, like there was no reason for it not to go to Aachen. We finally left the station and then at some point stopped in the middle of nowhere. I saw people running next to the train. Then we started moving again. Finally, we arrived in Aachen at 12:45 am, about 80 minutes after the train was supposed to get there and after all the buses had stopped running. Thanks, Deutsche Bahn.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
100 days
One day when I was not working in lab, I counted the days left until I return home on July 31. Today is the 100 day mark. I will not go into too many thoughts and feelings at this point...I will save that for the end. Instead, here are two lists--one of the things I miss about America and one of things I think I will miss about Germany.
Things I miss about America
apple cider
contact solution with the flippy lid
Pandora--my music taste is not growing
Watching TV shows online for free in high quality without Chinese subtitles
Sam Adams Summer Ale
my family
Max the dog
solvent delivery systems, analytical grade solvents, stockrooms that are open more than two hours a day, taking my own NMRs
getting a free credit report
Things I will probably miss about Germany
baked goods, particularly the Brötchen and a good German breakfast
Kölsch
the apple juice from my roommate's garden
carbonated water not ever being seen as elitist
high speed trains
Überweisungen (bank transfers)--a logical and efficient system for paying for things, much better than checks.
Things I miss about America
apple cider
contact solution with the flippy lid
Pandora--my music taste is not growing
Watching TV shows online for free in high quality without Chinese subtitles
Sam Adams Summer Ale
my family
Max the dog
solvent delivery systems, analytical grade solvents, stockrooms that are open more than two hours a day, taking my own NMRs
getting a free credit report
Things I will probably miss about Germany
baked goods, particularly the Brötchen and a good German breakfast
Kölsch
the apple juice from my roommate's garden
carbonated water not ever being seen as elitist
high speed trains
Überweisungen (bank transfers)--a logical and efficient system for paying for things, much better than checks.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
German product reviews
In this edition, I would like to review two German products. Well, one of them is not German, but I was introduced to it here, so whatever.
1. German contact solution.
Yesterday I realized that I was out of contact solution. Ahhh! What to do? In America, it would be simple, right? Go to any supermarket, drugstore, Target, etc., and you will be greeted by a whole section of contact solution and various contact products. More than you what to do with, really. My first obstacle to overcome in my quest was figuring out which type of store sells contact solution. See, here in Germany, you can only get prescription drugs and over the counter drugs at the Apotheke, not at CVS-minus-prescription-type stores called Drogeries. There is no convenient have your prescription filled while shop in-store pharmacy (I know, Mom, I know! What would you do here?!?) I wasn't sure which of these stores would carry it, or if I might even have to go to an Optiker (you can figure that one out). My preference was for the Drogerie, where interaction is minimal. (You see, although my German is pretty okay, I get nervous when I have to ask for something in a new situation. I practice in my head beforehand and make sure I know the genders of all the nouns that may be involved. Yes, this is overkill. Yes, everyone speaks English anyway.)
I decided to look at an ex-pat message board, which was not helpful, as some people said you could not buy it in Apothekes or Drogeries, while other people swore up and down that they'd bought it in both places. Others suggested ebay. Not quite ready to trust my eyes to Ebay, I decided to suck it up and head to my local dm (think CVS). It was hard at first to find the contact solution. There was a tiny section in the very bottom row, next to the vitamins and under the pregnancy tests and condoms. I debated between Kombi-Lösung and Kombi-Comfort, while a middle-aged skeezy Turkish guy debated between fruity flavors and textures. He ended up going with flavored pink in an 8-pack (8-pack, who's he kidding?). There was only one brand of contact solution at dm and it had the name "eyelike," so I decided to head to Rossman, another Drogerie, for a better selection.
On my way to Rossman, I saw a middle-aged American couple looking confusedly at a map. After hearing them debate which way to go in American english (I have developed Ami-dar in Aachen, because we don't get too many here), I decided to offer my help. At the end of the conservation, the guy friendily put his hand on my shoulder and said "danke" in his Texan accent and I responded with a cheery bitte. Now I am wondering if they thought I was German. Is this how those all Germans speak perfect accent free English rumors got started (people were always telling me this before I came over here)? Because those rumors are not true. As someone whose German sounds strongly of American, I'm not making a judgement, just a statement of fact.
But I digress. I made it to Rossman, where they had a bigger selection and the solutions were logically placed--under the reading glasses, not with the condoms. I ended up settling on the Rossman store brand "All-in-One Lösung." So far I am pleased.
The cap design I find to be less than optimal. It is a screw-off cap, instead of the typical American attached flip-off cap. What if I drop the cap on the floor of a grimy hostel and it contaminates my solutions? I think the Germans are counting on me to be less clumsy than I am.
The second product I would like to review is the Bodum milk frother, which is actually made by a Danish company. I have known for some time that it was possible to make myself a cappuccino, right here in my apartment on Aretzstrasse, but I didn't know how to work the espresso and milk frother machines (I believe I offered Ashlan coffee and when she accepted, said I didn't know how to use the machines. Next time, Ashlan!). Today, as I was avoiding go into work (which I'm still doing at this moment...it's getting really bad.) I took the leap. Well, not entirely...my roommates had already made espresso this morning and I decided to use it cold for an iced cappuccino (iced coffee--something unheard of in Germany, except at Starbucks). The milk frother is amazing!! I love milk foam. If anyone is looking for a housewarming gift for mine and Molly's as yet unfound apartment in Illinois, this would be perfect. Molly, my lovely future roommate, is going to have to live with my European tendencies--mainly a love for cappuccino, bubbly water, and having coffee and cake on Sunday afternoons.
The first cappuccino I ever made. The baby pictures are a weird consequence of living in a subletted room--my desk has a glass overlay and all the pictures underneath are of small children I don't know (presumably Eva, my subletter and her brothers)
1. German contact solution.
Yesterday I realized that I was out of contact solution. Ahhh! What to do? In America, it would be simple, right? Go to any supermarket, drugstore, Target, etc., and you will be greeted by a whole section of contact solution and various contact products. More than you what to do with, really. My first obstacle to overcome in my quest was figuring out which type of store sells contact solution. See, here in Germany, you can only get prescription drugs and over the counter drugs at the Apotheke, not at CVS-minus-prescription-type stores called Drogeries. There is no convenient have your prescription filled while shop in-store pharmacy (I know, Mom, I know! What would you do here?!?) I wasn't sure which of these stores would carry it, or if I might even have to go to an Optiker (you can figure that one out). My preference was for the Drogerie, where interaction is minimal. (You see, although my German is pretty okay, I get nervous when I have to ask for something in a new situation. I practice in my head beforehand and make sure I know the genders of all the nouns that may be involved. Yes, this is overkill. Yes, everyone speaks English anyway.)
I decided to look at an ex-pat message board, which was not helpful, as some people said you could not buy it in Apothekes or Drogeries, while other people swore up and down that they'd bought it in both places. Others suggested ebay. Not quite ready to trust my eyes to Ebay, I decided to suck it up and head to my local dm (think CVS). It was hard at first to find the contact solution. There was a tiny section in the very bottom row, next to the vitamins and under the pregnancy tests and condoms. I debated between Kombi-Lösung and Kombi-Comfort, while a middle-aged skeezy Turkish guy debated between fruity flavors and textures. He ended up going with flavored pink in an 8-pack (8-pack, who's he kidding?). There was only one brand of contact solution at dm and it had the name "eyelike," so I decided to head to Rossman, another Drogerie, for a better selection.
On my way to Rossman, I saw a middle-aged American couple looking confusedly at a map. After hearing them debate which way to go in American english (I have developed Ami-dar in Aachen, because we don't get too many here), I decided to offer my help. At the end of the conservation, the guy friendily put his hand on my shoulder and said "danke" in his Texan accent and I responded with a cheery bitte. Now I am wondering if they thought I was German. Is this how those all Germans speak perfect accent free English rumors got started (people were always telling me this before I came over here)? Because those rumors are not true. As someone whose German sounds strongly of American, I'm not making a judgement, just a statement of fact.
But I digress. I made it to Rossman, where they had a bigger selection and the solutions were logically placed--under the reading glasses, not with the condoms. I ended up settling on the Rossman store brand "All-in-One Lösung." So far I am pleased.
The cap design I find to be less than optimal. It is a screw-off cap, instead of the typical American attached flip-off cap. What if I drop the cap on the floor of a grimy hostel and it contaminates my solutions? I think the Germans are counting on me to be less clumsy than I am.
The second product I would like to review is the Bodum milk frother, which is actually made by a Danish company. I have known for some time that it was possible to make myself a cappuccino, right here in my apartment on Aretzstrasse, but I didn't know how to work the espresso and milk frother machines (I believe I offered Ashlan coffee and when she accepted, said I didn't know how to use the machines. Next time, Ashlan!). Today, as I was avoiding go into work (which I'm still doing at this moment...it's getting really bad.) I took the leap. Well, not entirely...my roommates had already made espresso this morning and I decided to use it cold for an iced cappuccino (iced coffee--something unheard of in Germany, except at Starbucks). The milk frother is amazing!! I love milk foam. If anyone is looking for a housewarming gift for mine and Molly's as yet unfound apartment in Illinois, this would be perfect. Molly, my lovely future roommate, is going to have to live with my European tendencies--mainly a love for cappuccino, bubbly water, and having coffee and cake on Sunday afternoons.
The first cappuccino I ever made. The baby pictures are a weird consequence of living in a subletted room--my desk has a glass overlay and all the pictures underneath are of small children I don't know (presumably Eva, my subletter and her brothers)
I know that I have slacking on the blog front lately, and that I've made many promises to catch on travel blogging that I haven't really fulfilled. I've just been in kind of a slump lately, if you can't tell from the last entry, and have been spending my free time watching Numb3rs on the internet. If you scroll down and page back, you will find some more entries. I like to keep it all in the order in which it happened, so some things are a little buried.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Chemical (de)motivation
Figure 1. Erin's motivation to do chemistry (in arbitary, unnamed units) vs. time in months.It's a little hard to make it out, so I'll walk you through it:
first peak: around the time I started working on a new project that I never actually finished (I will spare the non-chemists from even having to read the words that they don't understand). I emerged from some sort of mid-semester slump with the winning of a Fulbright and the K-dawg forcing me and Seiko to be friends again after some fight we'd had after both being really stressed out by making us talk about new chemistry ideas.
Then, I got a little sick of working 40 hours a week and maybe got a little burned out, but then I went to Germany, took a horrible German glass, and drank German beer and wine and ate delicious Brötchen, and started to long for the lab. That is the second peak.
Then, I got to the lab, realized I had to distill solvents for everything, could pick these solvents up for 30 min. each day, that it took hours to get a simple proton NMR back, that the stockroom was only open two hours a day, that I've never actually had a one-on-one meeting with the professor I'm working for, and that my research is kind of pointless, and I got discouraged.
Then, I got into grad school, went on visits, and thought I maybe should use my time in Germany to learn all that I possibly could. This is the third peak.
Then, I came back to Germany, realized that took more initiative than I could muster, and that even if I worked pretty hard, my research wasn't going to get anywhere in the time I had left, and my motivation plummeted.
Let's just hope it picks up when I get to grad school.
At least I get to travel and eat Brötchen. (I know bread rolls shouldn't be that exciting, but if you've never had a German roll, or better yet, a German breakfast with rolls, don't judge. SOO delicious.)
first peak: around the time I started working on a new project that I never actually finished (I will spare the non-chemists from even having to read the words that they don't understand). I emerged from some sort of mid-semester slump with the winning of a Fulbright and the K-dawg forcing me and Seiko to be friends again after some fight we'd had after both being really stressed out by making us talk about new chemistry ideas.
Then, I got a little sick of working 40 hours a week and maybe got a little burned out, but then I went to Germany, took a horrible German glass, and drank German beer and wine and ate delicious Brötchen, and started to long for the lab. That is the second peak.
Then, I got to the lab, realized I had to distill solvents for everything, could pick these solvents up for 30 min. each day, that it took hours to get a simple proton NMR back, that the stockroom was only open two hours a day, that I've never actually had a one-on-one meeting with the professor I'm working for, and that my research is kind of pointless, and I got discouraged.
Then, I got into grad school, went on visits, and thought I maybe should use my time in Germany to learn all that I possibly could. This is the third peak.
Then, I came back to Germany, realized that took more initiative than I could muster, and that even if I worked pretty hard, my research wasn't going to get anywhere in the time I had left, and my motivation plummeted.
Let's just hope it picks up when I get to grad school.
At least I get to travel and eat Brötchen. (I know bread rolls shouldn't be that exciting, but if you've never had a German roll, or better yet, a German breakfast with rolls, don't judge. SOO delicious.)
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Copenhagen
After Berlin, it was off to Copenhagen. I've always had fond associations with Denmark--Hans Christian Andersen, the Danish butter cookies in the blue tin that Grandma always bought, and I had seriously considered studying abroad there. I ended up not studying there because I took intro chem and choose chemistry over Denmark (who does that? I guess it was the right choice.) So I was really excited to head up north with Ashlan, Marty, Matt and Miya, especially since I only paid 15 Euros for the flight from Berlin and 29 Euro for the train (inc. train ferry! more on that later!)
We arrived in Denmark without event and settled into our hotel, which turned into one giant bed. The next day, we woke up and headed to the National Museum to check out the history of Denmark.
The Nationalmuseet was great and very thorough. The above picture is a real Danish couple's living room from the 70s. It had a lot of detailed information about the couple and when they git married.
This is a pastry I ate as lunch/snack. It was so intensely buttery that the grease bled through the bag to the point where there was basically standing grease on the outside.
The cheapest thing you can buy to eat in Denmark--only 19 Kroner including bun. That's about 2.50 Euro or $3.30--still a little steep for a hot dog that you buy from a trailer on the street, especially when it's such a baby hot dog.
I loved taking pictures of boats and colorful houses along water. Everything was so pretty! It made photo editing difficult at the end.
Our viewing of art was interrupted by an especially shrill fire alarm.
Fortunately we were allowed to continue. Someone probably just burnt some popcorn.
We were endlessly amused by the Slutspurt signs. It apparently means something like final clearance.
7-11 is apparently more popular in Copenhagen than in Northeastern Ohio. Who knew??
OMG! I can see myself and my friends multiple times.
Christiana, the free hippie town in the middle of Copenhagen. Unfortunately, we didn't get to explore much because someone got scared of the fact that there were non-threatening drug dealers.
We arrived in Denmark without event and settled into our hotel, which turned into one giant bed. The next day, we woke up and headed to the National Museum to check out the history of Denmark.
The Nationalmuseet was great and very thorough. The above picture is a real Danish couple's living room from the 70s. It had a lot of detailed information about the couple and when they git married.
This is a pastry I ate as lunch/snack. It was so intensely buttery that the grease bled through the bag to the point where there was basically standing grease on the outside.
The cheapest thing you can buy to eat in Denmark--only 19 Kroner including bun. That's about 2.50 Euro or $3.30--still a little steep for a hot dog that you buy from a trailer on the street, especially when it's such a baby hot dog.
I loved taking pictures of boats and colorful houses along water. Everything was so pretty! It made photo editing difficult at the end.
Our viewing of art was interrupted by an especially shrill fire alarm.
Fortunately we were allowed to continue. Someone probably just burnt some popcorn.
We were endlessly amused by the Slutspurt signs. It apparently means something like final clearance.
7-11 is apparently more popular in Copenhagen than in Northeastern Ohio. Who knew??
OMG! I can see myself and my friends multiple times.
Christiana, the free hippie town in the middle of Copenhagen. Unfortunately, we didn't get to explore much because someone got scared of the fact that there were non-threatening drug dealers.After a mad dash to the train and I really mean mad dash, we miraculously made it onboard, and were on our way to the train ferry. Unfortunately, there was some sort of construction work on the tracks, so we had to load on a bus and did not experience the train boat docking process, which was going to be the highlight of my trip. But, we did see the train tracks in the hold of the ship, and that was almost enough.
Leaving Denmark on the train ferry. I'm leaving on a train ferry...
Leaving Denmark on the train ferry. I'm leaving on a train ferry...
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