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!