Aus Deutschland

So,

last I left everyone I was escaping chemical spills and gallavanting around Munich. Hmmm, what's new?

Well I started my "work" for one. Thus far I'm doing basically a training program on the use of Gaussian which is a very popular computational chemistry program. For those that are interested (all one of you) the sorts of things I've been doing with this training are doing a series of calculations on a particular system, say the atomization of formaldehyde, with different computational methods, different basis sets, different orientations, and then comparing the results against each other and to experiment as well as evaluating the flaws and strengths of each particular method (does it cope with spin coupling, is it computationally efficient, etc.). Everything I've done so far is very well known and studied both computationally and experimentally but once I'm done with this training section I'll be moving on to some problems where the answers aren't known and in some cases the existence of an answer isn't entirely certain... that's the more interesting part of research. And it seems like the professor is interested in getting me to work on some solid state stuff so maybe that will be my area.

Everybody in the lab is really nice in general. Nobody here understands me if I speak normally in English so I feel like at the end of the summer my English will get worse since I'm constantly simplifying myself and slowing myself down. I share a room with Egor and at about 6 PM everyday when we start to get very bored and anxious for the day to be over we start to chit chat about Russia or America and comparisons of the two. I have to say I never thought I'd learn so much about Russia while in Germany, but I won't complain. And I think I've made a couple good friends out of Sergey and Manuela. Sergey is also Russian, but Manuela is German, from central Germany type area. Sergey has spent a few days just showing me around Munich and going to biergartens with me and whenever possible Manuela (Manu for short) joins us. I went running with them the other day. They ran about a total of 10 km I think (which is around 6 miles). I however was not able to keep up with them and I think I only managed maybe 4 miles. They literally ran circles around me at certain points. But it was still fun although I'm still very sore. Monday is a holiday here so we may go up to the Alps or do something like that on that day. Oh and Manu told me that my pronunciation in German is actually quite good which made my day... it's just everything else about the language I have to fix.

Also, another Russian from the lab gave me his old bike today so now I have a bike to get myself around! The main city area where I can buy groceries and such is only about 10 to 15 minutes away by bike and I believe Munich itself is maybe 30 by bike so this will be very useful and I'm excited about the prospect. I mean it's a crappy little bike but it goes so I'm happy.

FOOD! I actually haven't been eating much since I've been here but when I do eat it tends to be in the Mensa here. Mensa pretty much translates to cafeteria but I feel like they are different experiences and even when people speak english here they still refer to it as the Mensa so I will do the same. I have this habit to look at food and think to myself "hmm, what looks the strangest and least enjoyable? Ah yes I will try that!" Since Mensa food is not necessarily the best it hasn't always worked out for me. I also don't pay attention to the names or signs since I can't actually read them so I couldn't even tell you what it is. For example, today I had some asparagus like vegetable (although certainly not asparagus) with a cheese sauce, rice and salad. And another day I had basically a sweet roll with some strange fruit filling in the center. I think this drive to try the stuff that looks the strangest to me might just get me into trouble at some point but so far no harm done. I have had trouble trying to find some German restaurants because apparently Germans don't eat German food. Everyone tells me all about great Greek restaurants or great Italian restaurants but nobody has recommended to me a "good" German restaurant.

I can't really think of much else to add to that for now and it's getting late here so I think I will call it a night. I've started to post my emails on the blog I made so if I happened to forget someone (and I hope I haven't) in one of them they are all here. Maybe in the future I'll put something up there that is not exactly an email but maybe you'll have to check to find out! And I'm still working on getting some good pictures but for now I have some on my picasa account, although they're mostly crap.

I will try to say more later, but I'm going to go to sleep now. Gute Nacht.

Shane