All In All It Was Just Bricks In The Wall (Berlin)

I have now been in Lübeck for a full two weeks, and I'm starting to become settled, or at least about as settled as I expect to be before leaving again. I'll briefly talk about last week from where I left off before talking about my weekend trip to Berlin.


Last week in lab I continued working on my flex sensing glove, finishing it on Friday. It's definitely a prototype, which is fragile and I didn't even test it enough to see if it really works that well (it likely doesn't, the smaller sensors might not bend with the small joints), but at least I verified it was able to control the mechanical hand (which Stephen hasn't finished anyway, only one finger can be independently controlled right now), although perhaps not too accurately. Regardless, I do not wish to continue this project and perfect it, because I want to get experience with the BCI, which I will start working with tomorrow morning.


Coming home from work during the week can sometimes be boring, but for a while I kept having things go wrong at night, which I guess kept me occupied. Early last week I attempted to make canned ravioli as a quick dinner, only to find the can opener in the kitchen was broken, and it took me well over half-an-hour to remove the ravioli from the can. Then, the next night I discovered washing machines are very different here. I tried to wash my clothes, only to discover the machine tried to wash my clothes for several hours, which I later learned is normal here. I eventually cancelled the cycle instead of waiting, only to end up with soaking wet clothes which required 4 dry cycles to dry. Luckily laundry is free here, but next time I'll need to plan ahead now that I know laundry takes much longer here.


Later in the week things went more smoothly and I was also more social after work. On Wednesday I went downtown with Akshay and Rui and we explored some more of downtown that we hadn't all seen before. As I've said, downtown is pretty small and you can explore most of it in a few hours (or less), but nevertheless we still found places to explore. I have since added more pictures to my Lübeck album here. On Thursday night I didn't go out, but I watched a movie with Akshay here in the guesthouse.


On Friday I planned to meet up with Sam to watch the soccer game downtown, but earlier in the day I ran into Bruno, another guesthouse resident (from Brazil), in the kitchen, and he invited me to watch with him too. I ended up hanging out with him, Max (another guy, from Russia, who lives here but is leaving soon), and Bruno's German friend (I think his name was Stephan) in Bruno's room for a while, drinking beer and taking turns playing a soccer game on Bruno's PS3 (he's probably the only person who has a TV in the guesthouse). Thursday was the first time I cooked enough to have leftovers, which were handy as I quickly ate them before leaving with the group to go downtown and meet up with Sam. The 5 of us then headed to a public viewing in a warehouse by the port. When we entered, the security guards stamped our hands "DON'T FORGET TO GO HOME," (in English) which was definitely funny to see when I woke up early the next morning. After the game (which Germany won), the guys convinced me to stay out and we went to a couple more bars (leaving the first after the German pop music annoyed them). Since Lübeck is a smaller city, you can't catch a bus here past 12:30 AM, so the three of us heading back to the guesthouse had to share a taxi. Of course in Germany the taxis are mostly all Mercedes (the main exception being VW vans).


After staying out late, I somehow managed to get myself up early and to the train station to catch a 9:10 train to Berlin. I didn't get any more sleep on the train, but I did spend my time on the train (there and back on Sunday) listening to the Radiolab podcast, which I would highly recommend. Once I arrived at the train station in Berlin, I met up with Andrew, a RISE intern from Scotland who is interning in Karlsruhe. While I didn't get much sleep the night before, he didn't either, because he had to get up at 4 AM to get to Berlin by 11:30 AM from Karlsruhe (in Southwestern Germany). Regardless, we decided not to waste time, and head out into the city. Luckily he brought a guidebook and map, because I came completely unprepared, and Berlin is a huge city!


We were both hungry, but instead of eating the station we walked around the city a bit looking for places to eat. We ended up finding a Chinese restaurant, and I ordered Gong-Bao chicken, which is an alternate spelling of Kung-Pao, but it was a bit different than the Kung-Pao I order at home. There were no peanuts and the sauce was different, but the other ingredients were similar.


After lunch, we walked toward the Reichstag. On the way I called my friend Tommy, a RISE intern in Berlin who also goes to Pitt, but he ended up leaving the city for the afternoon. So Andrew and I spent the weekend exploring by ourselves. We got to the Reichstag, the German parliament building, but we we found out you needed a reservation to get inside. After sitting in the field in front of the Reichstag to rest, we kept walking (toward the Brandenburg Gate) and ended up at an outdoor festival. There were many food and beer vendors, as well as big jumbotrons. I later learned they usually have outdoor viewings of the soccer games there, but there was another big event this day that we discovered a little later. We saw that they were setting up for concerts, which we missed, but I did get to hear a drummer and bassist doing a soundcheck, and they were funky! The bassist was playing an Esperanza Spalding lick that I liked. We found a large foosball table and a guy asked us if we wanted to play. I expected him to want money, but it ended up just being a free game of foosball. We played for a little while, and I scored once but also failed to stop a lot more goals on my side. Still, playing foosball with some strangers in Berlin was some unexpected and fun.


Next we found the Brandenburg Gate, where there were many tourists taking pictures with various people in costume. Some of them were wearing American and Russian military uniforms, while others were in more bizarre costumes such as Darth Vader. There was even a guy in a bear costume, although a bear is on Berlin's flag/coat of arms. By this tourist area, we also saw a really cool break dance group perform. They were actually really talented, and when they finished by playing the ABBA song "Money Money Money" I didn't mind giving them a little.


After seeing the Brandenburg gate, I was determined to find Hansa Tonstudio, a recording studio where in 1977 David Bowie, Brian Eno, and Iggy Pop recorded the albums Low, "Heroes," The Idiot, and Lust for Life. The studio used to be right by the wall as well. We walked through part of the tiergarten on the way there, and ran into a friendly German man who gave us directions and alerted us about the gay pride parade up ahead. Sure enough, after leaving the tiergarten and returning to the city streets, we found that the gay pride parade had just begun, and we ended up in the middle of the crowd. The studio was right by the parade route, and we had to cross the parade to get there. After shoving through the crowd, we ended up with stickers on us, but we soon found the studio. Satisfied that I found the building where a couple of my favorite albums were recorded, we then watched a little more of the parade before continuing on.


Next we decided to walk towards Checkpoint Charlie, which was the checkpoint between the American and Soviet quarters of Berlin, and a critical location during the Cold War. On the way there, we saw a section of the Berlin Wall that was preserved by an outdoor museum called the Topography of Terror. The museum was about Germany under Hitler's Nazi regime, and under the wall stood remains of the basement of the Gestapo headquarters. Next we found Checkpoint Charlie, where we arrived just in time to hear a tour guide discussing the checkpoint, and saw another tour group drive by in loud Trabants, a small car made for decades in East Germany with a two-stroke engine that sounds like a chainsaw. We also saw another tour group go by on a bierbike, which is essentially a mobile bar in which everyone helps pedal, while drinking beer.


Now it was getting later, and Andrew and I were both tired of carrying around our backpacks all day. Tommy, who I was staying with, was on his way back to the city, and Andrew decided to drop his stuff off at his hostel. We were near a u-bahn (subway) station, but the lines didn't go where I needed to go. After a stop or two, Andrew suggested I get off, but now I was alone, without a map, and still had no idea where to go. I studied the transit map in the station, but the map was confusing (Berlin has a lot of trains (u-bahns, s-bahns, plus regional, and there might have even been additional trams)), and I ended up just walking to the main train station, even though I knew the train I needed didn't go there. I tried to call Tommy hoping he could meet me there, but he didn't pick up. When I got to the train station, I ended up getting help from the information desk, caught a train that went through the station I was originally at, to another station where I could transfer to the right line. I finally got in touch with Tommy, who tried to give me directions to his place from the nearest station, but the directions to his place were also very confusing, and he soon met me near the station. Finally I dropped off my bag, and we headed out to meet some of his friends for dinner.


We met one of his friends at another u-bahn station, and expecting his other friends to take a while, we walked to a grocery store to grab some beer to drink while we waited (you can tell that I really like being able to drink beer on the street here). Soon we met up with Tommy's friends, and attempted to find a German restaurant he had been to once before, but the address he looked up was for another restaurant: a rib house. After searching for a while, we realized we were hungry (it was rather late for dinner), and a rib house sounded really good. Andrew met up with us again at the restaurant, and we all enjoyed ribs with potatoes, sauerkraut (which I didn't like at home, but I guess it's better here), and of course beer.


After dinner (which we didn't finish until around 11), we decided to head towards the brandenburg gate, where I saw a concert being set up earlier. However, when we got there we saw everyone leaving because we were too late. Regardless, the gate looked pretty lit up at night, and we stood around and talked while one of Tommy's friends went off to find a friend, and Andrew went with her. We thought they were coming back, but they never did. We didn't mind, because we were having a good time, and met another American, who was trying to meet up with a friend-of-a-friend-of-a....of-a-friend without a working phone (they never met up either), but ended up hanging out with us instead. He was a bit crazy, he told us how he was tackled earlier while trying to cross train tracks near a train station, and accused of terrorism, but he played the ignorant American card. Finally we left, and I Tommy and I headed back to his place.


Saturday night was rough, because Tommy had a very small apartment, and I had to sleep on the wooden floor next to his bed. I packed a towel to lay down over the floor, and a small pillow. He let me use one of his sweatshirts as a blanket (although I eventually just wore it as it got colder later in the night). I didn't get much sleep, but at least I was able to stay in Berlin overnight despite the fact that I waited too long to book a hostel, and hey, it was free.


The next day, I hung out with Tommy and some of his friends, and I didn't end up meeting up with Andrew again. We went to another outdoor museum, which had a border fence and information about the wall, and people escaping from East Berlin. We then went to a large flea market, which was more like an enormous yard sale. A lot of random old junk was being sold, and Tommy said much of it, the bikes in particular, was probably stolen. There was also food being sold there (we originally were planning to grab lunch there), and one guy was smelling spices that smelled amazing even from several feet away. Outside the flea market we briefly watched a band play, but then we left to find somewhere else to grab lunch. We found a döner place, and since I was hungry and knew I'd be on a train during dinner time, I pigged out and had both a döner and currywurst with fries. Tommy and his friends then grabbed ice cream that looked really good at a subway station, but I was too full to have any. I was hoping they'd have the same ice cream at the central train station later, but I didn't find any.


After eating, we headed to the East Side Gallery, which was probably my favorite site in Berlin. This was a stretch of the Berlin wall, probably about a mile long, which had been painted over on one side with various murals. Many of the murals were very interesting, and I took a lot of pictures here. One mural even featured artwork from Pink Floyd's The Wall. Another mural superimposed the Israeli flag onto the German flag. Some of the art was defaced with graffiti, but much of it was very beautiful.


Next we headed back to the Reichstag, because Tommy planned to meet up with more people there and play soccer. I was too physically exhausted to play soccer, but I did throw around a frisbee for a few minutes before leaving to quickly see some more sights with another one of Tommy's friends, who was visiting Berlin for the second weekend in a row from Dresden, before we both had to catch our trains. I briefly visited the Holocaust memorial, an area with a collection of large blocks symbolizing tombs, and then briefly saw parts of the French Quarter and the Berlin State Library. Outside the library is a glass floor, where you can look down to see a room empty (except for empty shelves), symbolizing the missing books destroyed in a book burning by the Nazis. I also saw the location of Hitler's bunker (where he committed suicide). After this final quick tour, I headed back to the Reichstag to meet up with Tommy again, and found him just as he was leaving and it was starting to run. I still had time before my train, and we tried to hang out at a Starbucks, but it was too crowded, so we headed to the train station, where Tommy was able to go grocery shopping (most stores are closed on Sundays, except in the train station, which also functions much like a mall). After he finished shopping, I said bye to Tommy, and waited for my train. I was exhausted after a weekend of little sleep, but I had a great time!


Despite observing that Berlin is probably the dirtiest place in Germany (broken bottles and litter were all over the place), I found much beauty in the city, even in the preserved sections of the wall covered in graffiti. The city is Germany's largest, and I'm sure there was much I didn't get a chance to see. If I have time I'll definitely try to go back before I leave the country. You can see my pictures from the trip here.


After I finally got home, I was exhausted, but I still had to get up in the morning for work, which meant I was tired at work all day (and not too productive, I just spend the day reading articles and a refresher text on C++). I finally caught up on sleep by this morning, but I had to get up early again for an appointment downtown at the immigration office. I had to make this appointment when I registered two weeks ago, but I wasn't sure why, and I found out the other interns did not have to do this. I was asked to bring several documents, including €100, which I planned to ask why I had to pay. When my appointment started, I was first asked for my passport and a passport-sized photo. I had cut out my picture from a printed out copy of my passport, which the woman said was unacceptable, and I had to pay €6 to use a photo booth. After I did this, I gave the woman the rest of my paperwork, and when she realized I was only in Germany for 2 months, she realized she didn't need any of this, and the entire appointment was a mistake. The guy I talked to two months ago apparently thought I was staying for 9 months, not 9 weeks, and scheduled me an appointment for a visa (without telling me what the appointment was for). While I was glad I didn't have to pay €100 to the government (especially since my stipend, from the government, is small to begin with), it was annoying that I wasted my time, plus money on the photos and bus fare. I again didn't do much in lab after returning back to campus, but tomorrow I'll finally start working with the brain-computer interface!


Finally, tonight I felt like I'm finally starting to get the hang of cooking, as I improvised a recipe that actually tasted pretty good, and even had leftovers! I just fried up some sliced potatoes (they came sliced in a box...) and ground beef(/mystery meat?), added it to pasta, with the remainder of my tomato sauce, and then added some random spices/seasonings that were in the kitchen (oregano, thyme, curry, something I couldn't translate that I think was a mix.. I just threw everything in there). It tasted good, and I've learned it's more fun to cook while listening to music and enjoying a beer (yeah I know, you can tell I've been drinking plenty of it here), and a little seasoning can greatly improve the taste of anything. I'm trying to get the other interns to meet after work to shop, cook, and eat together, and perhaps make it a weekly event. We might do that tomorrow night. On Thursday I'll go out to see the soccer game (Germany vs. Italy in the Eurocup semi-finals), and another Pitt student who's interning in Hamburg mentioned he might visit Lübeck on Friday. While yesterday I was figuring I would just relax next weekend (all this travelling is exhausting!), it already looks like I might be visiting Hannover. Clearly, I'm getting better at occupying my time, and hopefully I'll have less boring nights after working in lab all day. While not knowing German still makes living here difficult, I'm definitely starting to become more comfortable here, and it's really great meeting people and travelling around the country every weekend.

From Schwerin to Potsdam: A Busy Weekend

Guten Abend everyone,

I had a great weekend full of spur-of-the-moment travelling. Last weekend I had no idea I'd be travelling both days this weekend, and I initially thought I'd be going to Hamburg or Kiel, as some of my new friends originally planned, but I ended up doing neither. Instead, I spent Saturday in Schwerin, the capital of the neighboring state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and a city I had never heard of until Sam (another American, whom I did not meet in person until Saturday morning) suggested going there on Friday. Rui and Akshay joined us as well. While Amanda still had plans to go to Kiel with her coworkers on Sunday, Rui and I discussed the possibility of travelling somewhere further to take advantage of her rail pass before it expired, and after returning to Lübeck she suggested Potsdam, which is near Berlin (about 3.5 hours away by train). While Potsdam is a bit far for a day trip, both cities were a lot of fun, and the travelling resulted in a great weekend, as well as an opportunity to get to know my new friends better.

Schwerin is a small city (even smaller than Lübeck), and we were easily able to walk around the city during the day. However, unlike Lübeck, they had a tram system. After spending my first weekend in the larger city of Bremen, I have found Lübeck's public transit to be disappointing, as there are no trams (probably because downtown is located on a small island), and the buses do not run very late at night. Additionally, Lübeck's buses come less frequently and do not stop everywhere at night, which is an issue for my friends who live towards the end of the bus line south of the city. While I don't know if the comparably-sized Schwerin has the same issues with public transit late at night, the mere fact that they had trams seemed like an improvement over Lübeck, although we did not need to use them.

After wandering downtown Schwerin, which I would definitely describe as "quaint," we headed over to the city's main attraction: Schweriner Schloss, a large castle possibly dating back in some form to the 10th century, and currently the seat of the state parliament. The castle was both enormous and beautiful. We even saw a wedding reception on the premises. After exploring and admiring the castle and taking a self-guided tour inside, our hungry stomachs dragged us back downtown to find lunch. After only finding several expensive touristy places and more affordable places that were closed, we finally found a place to enjoy brats and beer outside. Sam had currywurst (which I tried to order, but the man misheard me), and he offered us all a bite. This was when I learned how delicious currywurst is! It's essentially a bratwurst cut into bite-sized pieces and covered in a sweet curry-ketchup sauce (which Heinz sells here). We took our beers (Lübzer Pils) to go, celebrating the fact that there are no open container laws in Germany and we can walk around with "street beers" (or straßebier) as I refer to them. Additionally, many places sells bottles of beer in both a kleine (small) size (0.33 L) and groß (large) size (1.5 L). Since I finished a small bottle with my lunch, I of course needed to get a large one to go.

After lunch we headed to an art museum next to the castle. Some of the modern art, such as a music video and short film, only confused or mildly offended us, but much of the classic art was very beautiful. After the art museum we walked around a bit more, and then stopped by a grocery store to buy some more beer (Paulaner Weißbier, which I of course had to try due to my last name) to enjoy while sitting and relaxing in a small park. After an afternoon of exploring, we finally took the train back to Lübeck, and had dinner downtown while watching the first half of the Czech vs. Poland football match. Despite being the newest person to Germany in our group, I was able to suggest something on the menu that no one else knew about, Flammkuchen, which is similar to pizza and I had for my first lunch in Germany after landing in Hamburg. However, I couldn't resist ordering a spicy currywurst, but Akshay shared his large portion of flammkuchen as well. I also had a third type of beer, Carlsberg (which is actually Danish) with dinner. The day was very relaxing and fun, and I feel lucky that the other interns I have met in Lübeck are so nice and fun to hang out with. You can see my pictures from Schwerin here.

I woke up early again the next morning to head to the train station and head to Potsdam. Rui and I were worried we might miss the train because she was taking the first bus that stopped at her nearest bus stop, which was only scheduled to arrive at the bus station (across the street from the train station) a minute before the train was scheduled to leave. Because Potsdam is 3.5 hours away, it would not have been worth it to take a later train for a day trip. However, our backup plan was to join Amanda and her coworkers in Kiel. I attempted to arrive at the station with plenty of time to activate my Eurail pass and wait for Rui, but several people took an absurdly long time at the ticket window. Finally Rui arrived and I got my pass activated just in time for us to catch the train. We transferred trains in Hamburg, and we got to take a nice intercity train to Berlin. This train was faster, and the time went by fast. Because it was an intercity train, we thought it was going straight to the Berlin Hauptbahnhof (main train station), but we accidentally got off two stations early in a part of Berlin called Spandau. While we lost a little bit of time, getting off early was not a big problem, and we hopped on the next train to the hauptbahnhof, and then caught an s-bahn (a smaller metro-type train) to Potsdam (but only after having a quick lunch at the Berlin train station). Finally we arrived, and while the travel time was well over 3 hours, it seemed to go by quickly.

When we walked out of the train station, we found that Potsdam was clearly a large city, and there was no way we would see that much of it in one afternoon (it was already nearly 1 PM at this point). However, we wasted no time, and started walking towards Sanssouci, a palace that Rui was very excited to see. While the palace was not as large and extravagant as the castle in Schwerin, it was beautiful, placed on a hill with a great view. While in walking distance from the urban city, the palace in a forest/park area. Behind the palace there were "artificial ancient ruins" built by Frederick the Great to provide his palace with a scenic view. We hiked through the woods to the ruins, and further explored the area, which also had a windmill. We eventually made our way to another nearby palace, the Orangery Palace. While Sanssouci is older, I found this palace much more interesting. The palace was larger, with a very beautiful lawn. We took the self-guided tour inside, and we able to climb up the tower (on a very narrow spiral staircase). There was a very beautiful view on top of the tower.

Since we had a long trip back to Lübeck, we realized we already had to slowly make our way back in the direction of the train station. We were able to see several other beautiful building from a distance during our walk in the park until we eventually arrived back in the urban city. We got back to the train station with plenty of time to spare, but we were exhausted, and sat down in a large field to relax for a while. We had done a lot of walking during the weekend, and it was nice to just sit and enjoy the weather, which was the warmest and sunniest since I arrived in Germany. Finally we had a quick dinner in the train station before the journey back to Lübeck. Despite travelling so far to see only a small part of Potsdam, the day was a lot of fun and I did see some beautiful sights. You can see my pictures from the day here.

After doing so much exhausting travelling this weekend, I found it hard to get up this morning for work (especially since I don't have a defined schedule), but I eventually dragged myself there. I missed most of a lab meeting that I wasn't informed about, but I accomplished a good amount today. I solved my circuit issue by taking out an unnecessary component (granted it was only an engineer's solution, I know I fixed it, but I don't know why it didn't work before), and I also learned about servos. I successfully used the flex sensors to control a servo motor, and hopefully tomorrow I'll actually build a flex-sensing glove (I might have to take a trip downtown to buy a glove to use). Hopefully I will finish this project soon, and then can start working with the BCI system, the reason I applied for this internship. Now it's already nearly time for bed, these posts take a long time to write. Hopefully I will have more travel stories next weekend, and hopefully I will have some interesting results in lab by the end of the week.

A Day in the Lab (I Read the News Today, Oh Boy)

I spent most of my day today working on my own in the lab. If you're only interested in reading about my travels, then I guess you can skip to the next paragraph, but I'll discuss my lab work a little bit for anyone who's interested. The room I was working in usually has several people working in it, and believe it or not I was the first one in there this morning. I continued reading some articles about BCIs, including one about Dr. Schwartz's research at Pitt that first got me interested in the subject. This video from the online appendix to that paper was shown to me sophomore year, and directly led to my interest in neural engineering. Yes, that's a monkey controlling a prosthetic arm with its mind, and no, my research isn't quite as cool as that (but I wish it was). However, I find it hard to stay awake just reading papers, so I continued messing with the Arduino and flex sensors. I found out how to interface the Arduino with Matlab, which I'm generally much more comfortable with, and I was able to quickly write code to graph the sensor output in real time. This proved that a single sensor works well, but for some reason my circuit breaks when I try to include multiple. I'm planning to make a flex sensing glove with 15 of these sensors, but my circuit stops working with only two. So far, I haven't been able to figure this out (after troubleshooting all afternoon), but hopefully I will soon, as I thought this project would be pretty easy and wouldn't take too long.

After leaving lab I did some more grocery shopping so I would have food for dinner, and hopefully enough for the weekend (stores are closed on Sundays). I tried the third of the four grocery stores near campus. This one is called Norma, and it has a sign in front of it with a picture of Marilyn Monroe that reads "Ich heiße Norma" ("My name is Norma"). All of these stores are very similar to each other (and pretty similar to Aldi in the U.S.). You have to buy or bring your own bags, and the selection is limited. While I still refuse to believe they don't carry it, I have failed to find milk at any of these stores! However, when I got back, I decided I could hold off on cooking for a while and go out again. I considered going to the fourth store, but I knew it would probably close soon (I believe they all close at 8 PM). However, I had been told there was a store called Real that was similar to Walmart and was open until midnight. I found my way there (near the other end of campus), and found that there was a whole little mall I didn't know about. I found Real, which was really kind of like a Super Walmart, it was a large supermarket that also sold things like electronics and clothes. Real seemed to be a little bit more expensive than the other stores, but with a much greater selection. I finally found milk (they have the non-refrigerated kind here), as well as plenty of easy things to make like ramen and chili. I also realized that Heinz seems to sell more of their "57 varieties" here than in Pittsburgh. Next time I go I'll have to take my camera and take a picture of the condiments I've never seen before (things like curry ketchup).

I finally made some pasta for dinner, and met someone else living at the Gasthause in the kitchen. He was a Russian bioinformatics PhD student staying here for a month. He also could not speak German, but spoke pretty good English. I got the impression that he didn't know many people here, but we talked for a while as I made dinner. He was enjoying a bottle of wine by himself, so he offered me a glass (although the glass I was given here is very tiny). We talked about bikes, and since he's only here for another two weeks, I offered to possibly buy his bike when he leaves if I don't get one before then. Most people bike here, and it's easier than waiting and paying for buses all the time.

Tomorrow I'm getting up early to go to Shwerin (a city I never heard of until today) with the other RISE interns in Lübeck, and on Sunday I might go to Kiel with them too.

From Bremen to Lübeck

I'm finally starting to get settled in Lübeck. I apologize for failing to update this blog, but I've been very busy and overwhelmed since I've arrived in Germany. I'll try to pick up from where I left off last time.

Last Sunday, the day after I arrived in Germany, I slept all morning after a very long day. I then helped chop some fresh cherries and we had cherry-peach pancakes for breakfast, before going out to explore Bremen. I saw the famous statue of the Bremen Town Musicians, a donkey, dog, cat, and rooster stacked on top of each other, from a Brother's Grimm fairly tale. I was also able to have my first "street beer" as I like to call it. Here in Germany there are no open container laws, so I was able to buy a bottle of beer at a convenience store and walk around the street with it. We also walked along the Weser River. For dinner, we all helped cook spargle (white asparagus) with meat and potatoes. I wasn't crazy about the spargle, but then again I don't really like green asparagus either.

On Monday, Drew had to work, so I spent the afternoon with Gabby. We went out to Bürgerpark, a large park, which also had something like a mini-zoo, but with mostly farm animals. There were alpacas and baby goats, which were cute. For lunch I had my first döner, which is very similar to shwarma or gyros. Apparently it's actually Turkish, but it's popular here. After Drew came home from work, we went out to dinner to an awesome restaurant we had seen the day before while walking along the river: the Pannekoekschip. It was a pancake restaurant on a pirate ship. We sat outside on the deck of the ship and I enjoyed a huge pancakes and beer. Definitely one of the most interesting restaurants I've been to.

That night I said goodbye to Drew and Gabby, as I had to leave early in the morning to catch my train to Lübeck. It was excellent spending time with them though, and I really enjoyed my time in Bremen, which is a great city. You can see my pictures from Bremen here.

Tuesday was a very long and exhausting day. I did not sleep well Monday night, and I had to catch a 7:30 train out of Bremen. I grabbed a couple pieces of toast before running out the door with my backpack and two suitcases to catch a tram to the Hauptbahnhof (central train station) before my friends woke up. My train to Hamburg was a few minutes late, and when I arrived in Hamburg I only had minutes to carry my luggage through a dense crowd up and down stairs to the opposite side of the train station to catch my train to Lübeck. This train was much more crowded, and I felt lucky to find a seat fairly quickly since it was difficult to move between cars with my luggage. On the train I felt quite anxious that I was all on my own in a foreign country where I did not speak the language. I was also already very tired and hungry. When I arrived in Lübeck, I managed to order a double cheeseburger from McDonald's before catching my train from the train station across the street. It was clear to people that I was a foreigner, and while I figured out where I needed to go, someone tried to convince me I was planning to take the wrong bus (although they were trying to be friendly). Finally I arrived at the University, where I had to first find the office to get my key (which was pretty easy), and then my find the guesthouse where I'm living (which was a little bit harder to find). Finally I had made it! My arms were sore from carrying my luggage so much, and I felt dead. However, I was happy to find my room, which is very nice, and I ate my cheeseburger and had a shower to relax.

Despite feeling like I was incapable of doing anything for the rest of the day, I decided to search for the lab to meet my supervisor and colleagues. While Mehrnaz (my supervisor) was surprised I came in on my first day in Lübeck, no time was wasted. I met Stephen, a Canadian master's student who is working on a mechanical hand, and he showed me some of his code and had me start reading about Arduino microcontrollers and thinking about designing a flex sensing glove (which I sort of already did for class at Pitt). Mehrnaz took me to the Mensa (cafeteria) for lunch, and then after hanging out at the lab for a while, Stephen took some time and lent me his second bike to show me around the city.

Now keep in mind how exhausting my day had been up to this point, plus I hadn't even been on a bike in a few years. Stephen's extra bike was pretty much broken, it had shoddy brakes and horrendous steering. Most people bike here, and there are bike lanes, but regardless I thought I was going to die, as sometimes I did have to bike on the side of the street as cars zoomed past, and the steering really was awful on that bike. However I survived the trip downtown, and Stephen showed me around a bit. Downtown Lübeck is pretty small, and is situated on an island. Unlike the larger Bremen, there are no trams here, only buses. I needed to open a bank account, and Stephen recommended Sparkasse. He told me they speak English there and went with me, where in my tired state I had an awkward conversation after just blurting out in English ("I need to open a bank account.") The woman wasn't thrilled to open an account for such a short time, but agreed to make me an appointment since I didn't have any of the documents I needed on me. After wandering around downtown, we biked back, and Stephen pointed out the grocery stores and beer store near campus. At this point I was so exhausted that I failed to even pay enough attention when we biked through campus, and after parking the bikes and parting ways, I managed to get a bit lost on campus. Finally I made it back to my room, but then I still had to go grocery shopping and buy food for dinner! I went to Aldi, and not being in the mood to cook, bought a frozen chicken dinner that I expected to be microwavable, but actually had to be fried (luckily I had Google Translate for the directions). I also briefly met Akshay, another international intern in my lab, who happens to live directly across the hall from me. Finally, I went to bed early after an extremely long day.

Yesterday (Wednesday) I got up relatively early to go downtown to register at the Immigration Office. It took me a while to find the building (I kept walking by it, thinking it was a museum or something), only to find that it was closed on Wednesdays. However, I went and bought myself a prepaid cell phone and wandered around downtown to get more familiar with the area. I brought my camera to get my touristy pictures out of the way, which you can see here. I had some good cheap pizza for lunch. Here they use salami instead of pepperoni, which is really good. I then came back to campus and did a some more grocery shopping at Lidl, which was similar to Aldi. Like Aldi, you need to bring your own bag (I didn't), and I failed to find basic things such as milk. At least I was able to get cereal for breakfast and dinner for two nights. I then went to lab for a few hours before finally meeting some of the other RISE interns in Lübeck. I went out to watch the Germany vs. Netherlands football match (for the Eurocup tournament) at a bar with Amanda, Rui, and Akshay. The day was much more relaxing than Tuesday, which was overwhelming, and it was great to meet some new people.

Today I got up early enough to once again try to get registered at the immigration office before my appointment at the bank. Once I found the person I needed to talk to and waited my turn, the process was relatively easy as he spoke good English and filled out all the paperwork. However, I still don't really understand why he made me schedule an appointment next week, in which I apparently have to pay € 100, I'm going to go broke here. I also had to bring the paperwork he gave me to another room where I had to pull a ticket and wait for my number, like at the DMV, and briefly talk to someone else before getting my registration paper. The DMV-like process made me nervous about getting to my bank appointment in time, but I ended up have plenty of time to wander the streets before going to the bank, where I found that the woman forgot about my appointment, and she asked me to come back an hour later. So I wasted one more hour in the city, and got döner for lunch. Finally I successfully opened my bank account, so hopefully I'll get my stipend from DAAD soon. I've already managed to spend nearly € 200, and the international ATM fees are expensive. I then returned to campus so I could get to lab, where I played around with the Arduino and flex sensors some more, in addition to searching and starting to read literature about using brain computer interfaces (BCIs) to control prosthetic hands. Stephen wants me to work on the flex sensing glove, while Mehrnaz wants me to do a literature review on BCIs, so it seems I have some multitasking to do, and should be busy tomorrow, which will be the first time I should be able to spend all day at the lab.

This weekend I might be visiting Kiel, so hopefully you can expect an interesting update soon!
Tschüs!

First Day in Germany

Guten Morgen,

I have now been safely in Germany for over a day. The flights over here were long, and I failed to sleep. However, the adrenaline from being in a new foreign country gave me energy to keep going throughout the day. On the plane I started to become a bit nervous about the fact that I don't speak German. However, throughout the day I realized this is less of an issue than I imagined.

Soon after landing I met my friends Drew and Gabby, who came to the Hamburg Airport from Bremen to meet me. It was nice meeting up with Drew, my former roommate, whom I had not seen in over a year. We took a tram from the airport to the Hamburg Hauptbahnhof,  or main train station. From there we walked around a small part of downtown Hamburg. Of course, I still had all my luggage with me, so I wasn't able to see too much. We had a very nice lunch at a small restaurant. The menu was tough, as I recognized very few words on it. Adding to that, while Drew was able to translate the sections of the menu and some of the items, I discovered he also didn't understand most of it. He then revealed that his German hadn't become fluent as I expected, and usually conversed in English. While he began talking to the waiter in German, he soon switched over to English, which was much easier for everyone. So I imagine it will be easy to get by speaking English, but I am trying to at least learn some important phrases and words in German.

After lunch we walked around a little bit more and while waiting for our train we sat outside a museum with a cool statue that looked like it belonged in War of the Worlds. We watched some kids skateboard and sat around talking until it was time to walk back to the Hauptbahnhof to catch our train to Bremen. The trains are very nice here in Germany, very quiet and with nice seats. The train was an hour, which gave me some time to sit and rest. When we got to Bremen Hauptbahnhof, we took another tram and eventually got to Drew's apartment. Here I met some of Drew's friends, and discovered I wouldn't be sleeping on a floor or even a couch; they had a whole extra mattress for me! (plus an incredibly comfortable pillow). I took a brief power nap, which was much needed after travelling.

A while after my nap, we walked to a nearby Penny Markt to buy a few groceries to make a dinner inspired by a youtube video called Hawaii Toast Song. We covered pieces of bread with ham, cheese, and pineapple, and cooked them like pizza... or toast... but in the oven. It was surprisingly good (and simple, I may use that recipe again). After eating we ventured out again to meet some of Drew's friends at an outdoor viewing of the Eurocup games. They failed to give Drew proper directions, so I got to see some more of Bremen before finally finding the viewing. We got there in time to grab seats and see Denmark win the first game against Netherlands. We drank some beer (Beck's, made in Bremen), and waited for the second game, Germany vs. Portugal, in which Germany won 1-0. We then headed to an outdoor festival where there was music, beer, and food. I had a bratwurst, and we enjoyed the festival until late at night.

Finally, we took a bus back to Drew's apartment, and I was finally able to get a good night of sleep. It was a fun and exciting day, and hopefully now that I've rested I can experience more of Bremen, although Drew mentioned most places are closed on Sundays.

Leaving the U.S. and Heading to Deutschland

Well, it's 1:30 AM on Friday, June 8th, and my flight's at 18:25 (6:25 PM) out of Boston. I should probably pack before I go. Soon I'll sleep in my bed one more time, and then I'll pack in the morning before heading to Logan Airport to say goodbye to the U.S. and catch my flight to Germany. I'll be flying Aer Lingus, and I'll have an hour-and-a-half layover in Dublin, before eventually arriving in Hamburg on Saturday at 9:50 AM . In Hamburg I'll meet up with my friends Drew and Gabby, and I'll spend the weekend with them in Bremen. Finally, on Tuesday morning I'll take a train to Lübeck, and then a bus to the University of Lübeck where I'll move into my on-campus housing, and then visit the Institute for Signal Processing, where I'll meet Mehrnaz and my other colleagues. I'm definitely a bit nervous about the fact that I don't speak German and will have to navigate a foreign public transportation system by myself, but I'm also very excited to travel and cannot wait to arrive! I intend to continuously update this blog with details and photos of my travels, so check back soon!