Good mood today.

I've been in a consistently good mood today.

It think it has to do with listening to happy music in the morning, then later in the day. I also thing that the 2pm break for a nutella filled croissant with accompanying chocolate milk helped as well. :-)

Here's a tip for anyone visiting Germany, if something has "nougat" in it, they mean nutella. Which is a very, very good thing.

Sometimes I tell stories in my head while I'm walking, pretending that I'm showing other people around.

Here is the train station where I would undoubtably meet my imaginary visitors.



In front of the train station there is this statue of horses. I think that horses played prominently in the history of the region at some point.

Pistachios, Yum!

Pistachios are one of my favorite nuts. I think it is because they are green. Isn't that so weird!

Anyway, I found today a little turkish or arabic Nut and Candy (but mostly nuts) shop near where I live. The have all these bins of different nuts that you can get.

So, I bought 200g of unsalted, shelled pistachios.

I also got an orange soda.
It's a very good orange soda. It says ""MIRANDA" and "orange" on it, and a whole lot of some backwards written language that I can't begin to read.

Pictures:

Every weekend

It seems that there is something happening around the town center every weekend!
This weekend is the beginning of the 10 day "Aachen September Special", a free outdoor music festival!
Here is the website in German
And here is a babelfish translation.

There are stages set up all over the city center, and a giant ferris wheel.



I tried to record a short movie of one of the bands playing with my camera.
I hope that this works...



It's just a 15 second clip, but you get the idea.

The sniffles

I'm home with a cold today.
I've been starting to get a runny nose, and sneezes and a bit of a cough for the last couple of days. Yesterday was worst than the day before, so I've decide to stay home today to rest and regain my strength.

I made a nice mushroom risotto for lunch, and now I'm full.

It seems as though autumn has started to set in here. It starting to get cooler, and leaves are starting to turn and fall.

I think that I'll maybe curl up in bed with a book for a bit now.

Payment

So, I don't actually know how much I'm supposed to be getting paid here.

This is the story so far.

I had assumed that it would be an amount A.

A week and a half ago there was a deposit into my account from the people paying me of amount B.
Now B is 1/2 of A. So I though, okay, payment is probably on a twice a month, or every two weeks thing.
That would make sense.

But today I asked, and no, payment is usually once a month. So am I only getting amount B?
Of course, my contract doesn't go out and say how much I make. It says something about Row 13, column 1, of TVoD Table A, or something the like.
Of course, wen I look that up, the number it gives, let's say amount C, is 3 time what was deposited into my account.
Also, amount C is an odd number with decimal places that is calculated via funny math, where amount B is a nice round number.

So what's happening? I went back to my internet banking site (which is all in german), and ran the couple of words that I didn't understand from the deposit through a translator.

It turns out that amount B was an "anticipated deposit" or something. and not the actual payment.
Which in confusing, but okay, since I was able to use it to pay rent. :-)

Anyway, I hope to get it all figured out tomorrow.

Statues on my way home from work

I decided to take some pictures of some of the statues that I passed on my walk home from work today.
These should be in the order that I passed them.

Some weird stone thing,


A street sweeper,


Some guys wrestling,


Some king or emperor, quite possibly Charlemagne,


Some guy who steals chickens,


A large jungle cat, probably a panther,

Steamed Buns.

I made chinese-style steamed buns (bao), on Sunday.
That means on Saturday I had to go to the asian grocery store down the street to pick up a bamboo steamer and some oyster sauce. It felt kind of tricky, since nothing in the asian supermarket has much german writing on the labels, I was on an even playing field. In fact, I was at an advantage since some of the labels did have the occasional english phrase.
I made a garlic chicken filling for them, and it was yum. I think that the garlic that I got here is a lot milder than the stuff we get in Minneapolis, as I was able to use twice as much garlic as I would normally put in.

I also found a much fancier grocery store on the bottom floor of the department store that I walk past every day. You can buy a whole pig's head there! Cool!
I don't know what I would do with a pig's head, though.

I returned to the cool graveyard like I said I would last week.

Here are a bunch of pictures;











Also, here is a cute little plastic shovel that I got with a gelato the other day.

A few days.

It's been a few days since my last post.
Sooo, what has happened since.
In Germany, I went out to a Spanish Tapas bar, for the going away party for an Italian, as invited along by a Scotsman. It was fun.
Here's a picture, it may not be clear, but there is a table, some tapas, and some drinks.



Lots of fun. At some point, I think the conversation spent some time on English grammar. Non-native english speakers hate the comma splice. I also learned a trick called the semi-colon shotgun. It is where you move a semi-colon word by word down a sentence until your word processor's grammar checker stops complaining at you.

The next day, thursday, I spent preparing for my presentation, which I think went well enough. Then that nigh some of my flat-mate's friends were over to celebrate/recover from their last exam. Then we all went out clubbing. It was lots of fun. I got home at about 3:30 in the morning. Then, as if by magic, I was able to wake up at 7:30 feeling fully rested and ready for a new day!
I think that my presentation went well, there was a fair amount of questions afterwards, which is fine because I like answering the questions. Some people here are in the middle of trying to implement something that I got working a month or so ago, so I think I may be able to help them with that.

Oh, and here is a pretty coloured rose that I saw the other day.



Hmm, I seem to have problems focusing on flowers with my camera.
Actually, I think that it may have a setting specifically for flowers. Let me check.
.
.
.
Yes it does. A setting called "Close up of Flowers in bright light."
I will have to use that next time.

Hungry, Full, then Tired.

It turns out that the big market that was on Sunday was a once a year art fair thing. Which is pretty cool.
The next day, all of the market stalls where gone, but in their play, People where setting up for what looked like an outdoor concert. Always something new.



I forgot my wallet at home today, so I wasn't able buy lunch today. I drank a couple of cups of espresso instead, as caffeine is an appetite suppressant. Of course, by the end of the day, I was feeling a bit jittery from caffeine on an empty stomach.
After getting back to my flat, I went out to the grocer for some fixings for soup.
Chicken, and garlic, and carrots, and some leek-like thing that wasn't a leek because the leaves were tender all the way to their tips... I don't know what it was, some vegetable faintly like an onion/leek from the Turkish grocer.

So, I made soup. I ate soup. And now I am both full, and all tuckered out.

Arg! My wireless internet connection keeps dropping while I I'm messaging people.
I think it may work better if I was connected directly with a network cable, but the only cable that I brought with me is only 4ft long. I'm connected directly out in the hallway now, but it is not convenient!
I guess that I could try and pick up a new cable here, but I never have this problem with the Apple Airport back home.
I don't even know what time of wireless router we have here. It says FRITZ!Box Fon WLAN on it. I'm not sure that even means anything in german.

To anyone I may get disconnected from whilst chatting, I don't mean to hang up on you like that!


Also, The only mirror here is in the bathroom, so sometimes I use the built in video camera on my laptop as a mirror.

Me adjusting a tuft.

Sunday walk

Oh-my!
It was market day today. I wonder if it is like this every sunday!

Here is the same square where they where doing pole vaulting the other day;



But the market stalls were not just confined there, they were all over the city center!

I bought, and ate a Grillwurst mit Brotchen (grilled sausage ina bun) There was many, many cool things to see ad buy. Oh course I was to busy looking to take pictures of it all. :-)

Here are some other pictures, though, of some funny things I saw walking about.

Brutal Polka



You never know what goes into that donner/kabab meat.

Bank Info and Graveyard

I received the information and atm card for my german bank account today. That is good, because it means that I can finnish up the paperwork I need to do with the university on monday. Yay.

I went on an exploring walk for a bit today, in the direction away from the city center this time, and came across a pretty cool graveyard. Most of what I was were large family plot memorials, with dates ranging from the 1800s to recently. Many where quite large and ornate. There was also a lot of trees, bushes and plants all around. I will have to go back soon with my camera so that I can take pictures.
Bonnie and I have discussed the idea of taking up land for dead people a couple of times before. I kind of like the idea of a family memorial, where names can be added as needed without extra land being taken up. I also like the idea of an ossuary where the bones are moved after a finite time in the ground, though that is completely illegal in the US.

Anyway, I promise to go back again and take pictures to share.

Also, I think that the small markets everywhere are much cooler than the large grocerystores back home. At least for fruits and vegetables. I saw figs today! actual green and purple fresh figs, not the dried brownish type that there are back home. I almost bought one, but then realized that I have no Idea how to eat a fig.
Probably just put it in your mouth and bite... but still. Somehow figs seem so weird and foreign to me.
Isn't it weird that figs seem foreign, but not pomnegramnets (sp?), lychee, kiwis, bananas or pineapples?
Dragonfruit are also strange, but I don't think anyone would doubt that.

The world of Hypersonics.

Formally, the only two universities that I actively knew of that had good hypersonics research groups were the U of Mn, and U of Queensland, Australia. It now seems that RWTH-Aachen can be added to the list. Most of the people in the room I'm in work on something to do with scramjets. Plus, two of the other students here had been at U of Queensland, either originally or at some point.

Actually, the person who invited to pool last night is a visiting student from UofQueensland. He's Scottish, and pretty fun. The bartender made him say the name of the beer he wanted properly before she would give it to him.

Oh, and I learned that everyone, everywhere plays pool by different rules. And that pretty much nobody, anywhere plays by whatever the official international rules are. Insisting that the rules that you play by are the real rules will probably get you hit across the back of the head somewhere, so stop complaining.

Good bread is cheap and plentiful here.
Today I bought, for 2 euros, a 1 Kg loaf of Rye Bread (technically, it is a mixed rye/white bread).
Picture bellow.



I also bought some cured meat, some cheese, and a couple of pears. (not pictured)

A good nights sleep.

I was able to get a good nights sleep last night. Maybe even a bit longer a sleep than I intended!
I went to work today, and spent a lot of time trying to compile code on my mac workstation. Pretty much all of the computers there are macs. The only thing that gets in the way is that it is an older version of OSX than I have on the laptop, and is missing some of the cool little tools and utilities that I'm used to.

Here is a blurry picture of the room that I am now working in.




And here is a picture of the key that lets me in.



It is a fun little key. It has an LCD face on it that smiles when you put it into a door you have access to (smile, smile), and frowns when you put it into a door that you do not have access to (frown, frown).

Later tonight I will be meeting some people from work to play some pool. I hope that it will be fun, I am looking forward to it.

Double Passport.

I now have a Double Passport!! Also to be known as the king of all passport stamps.



This says that I'm allowed to come, go, and live in germany until March 15th, 2010.
I'm not going to be here that long, but I needed at least 6 months of permit to open a bank account here.
I also got set up at my new office space, but more on that tomorrow when I have pictures.

On the way back to my flat, people where setting up a pole vault competition in the square between the town hall and the cathedral here.

The Cathedral in the background.



The town hall in the background.




The Cathedral from the other side.

First Day

After extensive travel adventures I was quite tired, but I knew that if I fell asleep then I would be out for quite a bit.
I received the keys to my flat, and took a cool shower which freshened me up quite nicely.

I met up with the person here (Vera), who is helping me get all set up. We met up at a cafe (espresso is easy to order in any language), and then set off to try and get papers that I will need for other things.
Two or more hours of waiting for my number to come up, then 5 minutes at a desk, and I am now registered as a resident of Aachen. I still need some other paperwork before I can open a bank account here. Which will be necessary for me to get paid, and to pay rent.

The weather here is similar to Seattle. Light rain, but not enough to really worry about.

I had Thai food for dinner. A red curry with pork, pineapple and lychee. Yum, yum, yum.

All, or nearly all the bottled water here is carbonated mineral water. I don't mind at all, in fact, I had a craving for fizzy mineral water whilst waiting in the Minneapolis airport. Funny how that works.

Oh, and the german word "Bad" means bath. So, if a german town has the word "Bad" in front of it, it means that the town was likely founded on a hot springs/spa.

-v

Getting to Aachen

I have arrived to my destination, as safe as can be hoped for.
It was a bit of an adventure. I had a layover in Philadelphia. Not really a layover, though, more of a panicked sprint across the terminal. And what a dumb layout the airport has anyway. There was airplane traffic jams on the way up to the place where the planes unload.
Fortunately I made it to the gate just (they had just announced that they were about to close the doors) in time, any amazingly enough my luggage also made it. I think that the distance between my arrival and departure gates was only 100 yards on the outside, but over half a mile on the inside.The train ride from frankfurt to aachen was a bit of an adventure as well. It turns out that the train was actually two trains connected. I didn't realize this, and got on the Amsterdam train by mistake. I was quite embarrassed when the they told me so. I had dash to the proper half of the train when it had a 4 minute stop in koln (cologne), before the two halves separated.

Here are some photos of the train station in frankfurt.

Here are some photos of my room in aachen. (from four corners.)