This weekend I did not have big travel plans like last week in Copenhagen, but I did plan a day trip to Berlin to see some sights I missed out on last time. The general opinion seems to be that it's foolish to go to Berlin for just a day, but I made it work.
I took an early train and arrived in Berlin by 11 AM, but had to meet my travel buddy Rui, who instead took a bus, arriving at the same time but elsewhere in the city. Unlike me, she was planning to stay overnight at a friend's, so after meeting up, we found our way to her friend's flat and briefly relaxed their. For a single dormitory room, her friend's room was really large, with a lot of open floor space. This seemed unusual for a large city. Finally, we were ready to head out, and we eventually found our way to the DDR Museum. This museum of life in East Germany definitely took itself less seriously than most museums, but was still very interesting and fun. I got to sit in a Trabi, see a model East German apartment, pretend to be in an East German jail cell, and sit in a Stasi interrogation room. Here there was a desk with transducer pads, which when you placed your elbows on with your hands over your ears allowed you to hear the sound of interrogating questions (with the vibrations travelling through your arms to your ears). The museum was also filled with everyday objects. Most of it was quite normal, and just outdated, but it was still a neat exhibition of every day life in the communist East Germany. I also was able to listen to some East German music at the museum.
After the museum, we headed towards Kunsthaus Tacheles, an art center which Melissa recommended I visit while in Germany. Of course her recommendation was a good one; there was a lot of neat art here, and we got to see firsthand the after hand of an attempted eviction by the banks. A room on the top floor had been taken over and guarded by the banks between December and May, and the art in the room was completely destroyed. The room was trashed, and while the room has since been reclaimed, the condition has been preserved to show what the bank has done. The Kunsthaus was definitely an interesting cultural center, providing an outlet for an international group of artists to showcase and sell their work. Near the Kunsthaus we also got to see the "New Synagogue" (New meaning built in 1859-1866). Most of the building was destroyed by the end of WWII and had to be rebuilt, but regardless, this was definitely one of the most beautiful synagogues I've seen.
Next we hopped on a train and headed West of the city to the Olympiastadion, which was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympics. The 1936 Olympics are famous for the fact that Hitler tried to prove his whole "Aryans are the master race" thing, but a group of black American athletes such as Jesse Owens, and John Woodruff (an alumnus of the University of Pittsburgh), ruined that by stealing numerous gold medals from the Nazis (four in the case of Owens). Jackie Robinson's brother Mack won a silver. I'll have to look for John Woodruff's medal on display at the Hillman Library when I return to Pittsburgh in August.
Behind the stadium there was a tower which provided a great view of Berlin. We were on the far west end of the city, but we were able to see the whole city to the East from the tower, it was a great view.
After visiting the Olympic park, I had just enough time to look for Schloß Charlottenburg, the largest palace in Berlin. While it was too late to go in or even close to the palace, we were able to see it, and found that there was a Duckstein festival right by the palace. We ate some flammkuchen (like a thin pizza) and pommes (french fries), and heard some live music. I had just enough time to visit the four sights I hoped to see in my trip, before heading back to the train station. I've added pictures from Saturday to my previous Berlin album here.
After getting back late from Berlin, I slept in Sunday morning. However, after finally getting up I got a text from Billy, another American that I met in Hamburg at the 4th of July barbecue. He was coming to Lübeck with some friends of his and wanted to meet up. Akshay and I biked downtown and met up with the group. They were finishing lunch when we met them, but after that we showed them a little bit of Lübeck, (the Rathaus (city hall), St. Mary's Church, and Holstentor). After relaxing in the field by Holstentor for a while, we decided to go to the beach in Travemünde (the weather has finally started to become summery here in Lübeck, although it's still not nearly as warm as home). Conrad, an Australian working at Airbus, had a car, and we drove to Travemünde. Once we found a parking spot, we walked to the beach, only to find yet another festival going on (I swear I find at least one every single weekend here in Germany, no matter where I go). This one had something to do with sailing (racing I think). We sat on the beach for a while and enjoyed the sun. While this would have been a mediocre beach day at home (it just wasn't warm enough to be perfect), the weather was about the nicest we've had here, so it was great to be at the beach. Of course in Germany, you can enjoy a beer on the beech too (and I also bought a bratwurst from the festival). I added some more pictures from Sunday to my Lübeck/Travemünde album here.
Tonight was Akshay's last night in Lübeck, so we met up downtown with Rui and bought some falafel and döner to eat by the Holstentor. For the second day in a row, I enjoyed good weather and relaxed by the beautiful medieval Holstentor. Tomorrow morning I'll have to say goodbye to my friend Akshay; it's sad that my friends here are now starting to leave.
I have two more days of work this week (I'm finally starting to get a bit more done, I've been developing a program that simulates a BCI with prerecorded data to control the hand, and hopefully I'll eventually develop one that works while acquiring EEG data in real time), and on Thursday morning I'll head to Dresden for the RISE conference. After the conference on Saturday I'll be heading to Prague for the remainder of the weekend. It's hard to believe, but after this weekend, I'll only have two left in Germany. I haven't started planning much yet, but I think I'll do a weekend trip to Munich in two weeks, and my last weekend I will probably spend here in Lübeck (something I've never done before, I've travelled at least one day every weekend!).
Monday, July 23, 2012
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
A Hygge Weekend in København
After my lab's day out last Tuesday (where I left off last time), the remainder of last week was fairly uneventful. Bruno, my Brazilian friend in the guesthouse, bought a grill, so we had a couple barbecues which were fun, and I made tasty grilled chicken (the stores here sell really good marinated chicken). On Friday, I left work early so that I could catch a 6 PM train to Copenhagen (København in Dansk) with Rui, Akshay, and Sam.
We got on the train only to discover that it was the most crowded train any of us had ever been on. While we initially hoped to find four seats together, when we boarded we realized we might not get seats at all. We initially had to sit on the ground by the doors, which was uncomfortable, and we had to move whenever people walked by. Eventually, we split up and took random seats (except Sam, who probably could have found a seat, but chose to just sit by the door the whole time).
After taking a seat, I met yet another Canadian and a Danish claymation artist who produces short films for his company Porkfish. He showed us several of his video clips, which were incredibly detailed for claymation, and then he showed us his new 20 minute film, which he spent two years working on, and is submitting to film festivals. I usually don't meet people on trains, so this was definitely my most interesting train ride.
In addition to meeting people on the train, there is also another unique thing about trains from Germany to Denmark, which probably also explained why there were few seats available. The train had to be smaller than other trains travelling between big cities, because the entire train fit on a ferry. The ferry crosses the Fehmarn Belt between Germany and Denmark. It was neat getting off the train inside a ferry, and taking a break from the train to stand on the top deck as we crossed over to Denmark.
Eventually we arrived at the train station in Copenhagen and met up with Vishal, another RISE student interning in Greifswald. We walked to our hostel to drop off our stuff. The four of us from Lübeck shared a nice private room in the hostel, and Vishal had a bed in the mixed dorm of the same hostel. After dropping off our stuff, we went out to explore a little bit and check out some bars for Danish beer (Carlsberg and Tuborg). We went the last weekend of the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, and we found a bar that had a jazz band playing, but the beer was too expensive (Copenhagen is an expensive city), so we didn't stay too long. We found another bar where we were able to play foosball, dance, and drink more reasonably priced beer, which was fun.
In the morning, Rui, Akshay, Vishal, and I went on a free walking tour of the city, while Sam went exploring on his own. If anyone reading is planning to travel to major European cities at some point, I highly recommend New Europe Tours. The tour guides work only for tips, and give really good, thorough tours. Our guide was actually an American master's student studying in Copenhagen, but she was quite knowledgable and shared lots of great stories. She shared interesting stories about Denmark's role in WWII. While the country surrendered to Germany a mere 2 hours after invasion, Danish people, including King Christian X, continued to protest in some way throughout the war. And of course, Neils Bohr made sure Sweden would offer political asylum to the Danish Jews before agreeing to work on the Manhattan Project, saving 8,000 Jews. 99% of Denmark's Jewish population survived the Holocaust. Our tour guide taught us the Danish word "hygge" (the closest pronunciation an American can do is probably "huga"), which has no direct translation in English, but combines concepts such as coziness and solidarity. Because of hygge, Danes felt a sense of solidarity with the Jews during WWII, which led to the population being saved from the Nazis.
On the tour we saw a lot of great sights in Copenhagen, including the Christiansborg Palace, which houses the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of Denmark (the only building in the world to house all three branches of a country's goverment), and Amalienborg Palace, the home of the Danish royal family. I also noticed some great street musicians while I was on the tour, some of them were affiliated with the jazz festival.
After the tour we met up again with Sam and headed to the Church of Our Savior for the best view in Copenhagen. The spiral church spire was built 260 years ago in 1752, and a climb up the building, you can climb up a staircase on the outside of the spire. This was a bit terrifying (it was windy up there, and while I didn't know exactly when it was built when I was there, I knew it was old), but the view was incredible. After admiring the great view, we headed to Freetown Christiana, which Wikipedia describes as an anarchist community. The residents of the area, which was once owned by the Danish military, claim that Christiania is not part of the EU. Here we got to see a reggae band doing a soundcheck for a concert later in the evening, and eat some shawarma (which was prepared pretty much just like döner in Germany, but smaller because Denmark is more expensive).
After we headed back towards our hostel, briefly stopping by Rosenborg Castle, but the premises were closed so we had to return in the morning. After resting for a while, we went to another bar that had been recommended to Sam as one of the cheaper ones in Denmark, where we danced for a while. We agreed to check out a show affiliated with the jazz festival, but rather than jazz we ended up seeing an electronic musician, Nosaj Thing, that Sam wanted to see. At this point most of us were really exhausted, and I didn't really enjoy the music. Finally we returned to the hostel for some sleep.
On Sunday morning we split up again since we wanted to see the sights Sam saw the day before, and vice versa. We walked around Rosenborg Palace, but could not afford to go inside (in addition to Denmark being expensive, they use Danish Kroners instead of Euros, and we barely exchanged enough money). Next we saw the botanical gardens, which weren't quite as interesting as in Hamburg, but were still nice (and they had butterflies). We then visited Kastellet, a historical fort and memorial to Danish soldiers, before heading to the port to look for one of the city's big tourist attractions, a statue of the Little Mermaid. We walked a bit too far north, and first found a statue of a big mermaid, before eventually finding the actual statue, surrounded by tourists. While the statue has a history of vandalism for various protests, I didn't really see what made it so famous compared to the many, many other statues in the city. For example, we soon found the Geffion Fountain, an epic statue of the Norse goddess Gefjun driving oxen in a large fountain.
Finally we met up with Sam again and visited the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, an art museum notable for its extensive ancient collection. I didn't have time to see the whole museum, but I saw much of the Greek, Roman, and Etruscan collection, including many heads from Roman sculptures (I joked that we were in the head museum) and a lot of ancient pottery. We had to leave the museum early to pick our stuff up from the hostel and find some food before catching our train (despite being nearly out of Kroners). Luckily we found some cheap food: Burger King (which was pretty much the same as in the U.S.) and Nutella crepes. Apparently Sam and Vishal got to try a type of sandwich that Denmark is known for, but the rest of us never found them. Unfortunately, I didn't really get to enjoy Danish cuisine on my short trip (in addition to Burger King we also had a cheap brunch from 7-11, although I did have a good sandwich for lunch on Saturday); my advice to anyone travelling to Copenhagen is to prepare for the expensive city by bringing more money than you think you need so you can actually experience everything you want to in the city.
Finally, we had to catch our train back to Lübeck. We first got onto a car in which all the seats were reserved, and while I initially took a seat, it was reserved from the second stop and I was promptly kicked out. I resigned to sitting by the doors again with Sam, but when the conductor came by, he told us that there were seats in a car on the other side of the train, and we eventually were all able to sit together (other than Akshay, who took a later train). We enjoyed another ferry ride (I remembered my camera this time, and the weather was really nice, although very windy at the front of the boat), and eventually returned to Lübeck. Vishal came with us to Lübeck so that he could stay with us overnight (Akshay has an extra bed) and explore Lübeck the next morning (he got the day off work). We had some late night döner downtown (just about the only place open late in Lübeck) before returning home for some sleep.
Copenhagen was really beautiful, as you can see in my pictures here. I think I came back with a cold, but hopefully I'll get over it soon (I'm already feeling better). Next weekend I'm planning to take a day trip to Berlin to see some more sights I didn't get to see last time. The following week is the RISE conference in Dresden, on Thursday-Saturday (July 26-28th). After the conference ends Saturday afternoon, it sounds like I'll be taking a train to Prague, and returning to Lübeck Sunday night. I initially wasn't expecting to make it to Prague, but it's not very far from Dresden, so there's no good reason not to go. After Dresden and Prague, I only have a couple weekends left before returning home. By then, most of my friends will already be gone, which I'm not looking forward to. But hopefully I'll meet up with other RISE people during my last two weekends. I'm hoping to make a weekend trip down to München (Munich) before leaving, as I have not had a chance to see southern Germany yet.
We got on the train only to discover that it was the most crowded train any of us had ever been on. While we initially hoped to find four seats together, when we boarded we realized we might not get seats at all. We initially had to sit on the ground by the doors, which was uncomfortable, and we had to move whenever people walked by. Eventually, we split up and took random seats (except Sam, who probably could have found a seat, but chose to just sit by the door the whole time).
After taking a seat, I met yet another Canadian and a Danish claymation artist who produces short films for his company Porkfish. He showed us several of his video clips, which were incredibly detailed for claymation, and then he showed us his new 20 minute film, which he spent two years working on, and is submitting to film festivals. I usually don't meet people on trains, so this was definitely my most interesting train ride.
In addition to meeting people on the train, there is also another unique thing about trains from Germany to Denmark, which probably also explained why there were few seats available. The train had to be smaller than other trains travelling between big cities, because the entire train fit on a ferry. The ferry crosses the Fehmarn Belt between Germany and Denmark. It was neat getting off the train inside a ferry, and taking a break from the train to stand on the top deck as we crossed over to Denmark.
Eventually we arrived at the train station in Copenhagen and met up with Vishal, another RISE student interning in Greifswald. We walked to our hostel to drop off our stuff. The four of us from Lübeck shared a nice private room in the hostel, and Vishal had a bed in the mixed dorm of the same hostel. After dropping off our stuff, we went out to explore a little bit and check out some bars for Danish beer (Carlsberg and Tuborg). We went the last weekend of the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, and we found a bar that had a jazz band playing, but the beer was too expensive (Copenhagen is an expensive city), so we didn't stay too long. We found another bar where we were able to play foosball, dance, and drink more reasonably priced beer, which was fun.
In the morning, Rui, Akshay, Vishal, and I went on a free walking tour of the city, while Sam went exploring on his own. If anyone reading is planning to travel to major European cities at some point, I highly recommend New Europe Tours. The tour guides work only for tips, and give really good, thorough tours. Our guide was actually an American master's student studying in Copenhagen, but she was quite knowledgable and shared lots of great stories. She shared interesting stories about Denmark's role in WWII. While the country surrendered to Germany a mere 2 hours after invasion, Danish people, including King Christian X, continued to protest in some way throughout the war. And of course, Neils Bohr made sure Sweden would offer political asylum to the Danish Jews before agreeing to work on the Manhattan Project, saving 8,000 Jews. 99% of Denmark's Jewish population survived the Holocaust. Our tour guide taught us the Danish word "hygge" (the closest pronunciation an American can do is probably "huga"), which has no direct translation in English, but combines concepts such as coziness and solidarity. Because of hygge, Danes felt a sense of solidarity with the Jews during WWII, which led to the population being saved from the Nazis.
On the tour we saw a lot of great sights in Copenhagen, including the Christiansborg Palace, which houses the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of Denmark (the only building in the world to house all three branches of a country's goverment), and Amalienborg Palace, the home of the Danish royal family. I also noticed some great street musicians while I was on the tour, some of them were affiliated with the jazz festival.
After the tour we met up again with Sam and headed to the Church of Our Savior for the best view in Copenhagen. The spiral church spire was built 260 years ago in 1752, and a climb up the building, you can climb up a staircase on the outside of the spire. This was a bit terrifying (it was windy up there, and while I didn't know exactly when it was built when I was there, I knew it was old), but the view was incredible. After admiring the great view, we headed to Freetown Christiana, which Wikipedia describes as an anarchist community. The residents of the area, which was once owned by the Danish military, claim that Christiania is not part of the EU. Here we got to see a reggae band doing a soundcheck for a concert later in the evening, and eat some shawarma (which was prepared pretty much just like döner in Germany, but smaller because Denmark is more expensive).
After we headed back towards our hostel, briefly stopping by Rosenborg Castle, but the premises were closed so we had to return in the morning. After resting for a while, we went to another bar that had been recommended to Sam as one of the cheaper ones in Denmark, where we danced for a while. We agreed to check out a show affiliated with the jazz festival, but rather than jazz we ended up seeing an electronic musician, Nosaj Thing, that Sam wanted to see. At this point most of us were really exhausted, and I didn't really enjoy the music. Finally we returned to the hostel for some sleep.
On Sunday morning we split up again since we wanted to see the sights Sam saw the day before, and vice versa. We walked around Rosenborg Palace, but could not afford to go inside (in addition to Denmark being expensive, they use Danish Kroners instead of Euros, and we barely exchanged enough money). Next we saw the botanical gardens, which weren't quite as interesting as in Hamburg, but were still nice (and they had butterflies). We then visited Kastellet, a historical fort and memorial to Danish soldiers, before heading to the port to look for one of the city's big tourist attractions, a statue of the Little Mermaid. We walked a bit too far north, and first found a statue of a big mermaid, before eventually finding the actual statue, surrounded by tourists. While the statue has a history of vandalism for various protests, I didn't really see what made it so famous compared to the many, many other statues in the city. For example, we soon found the Geffion Fountain, an epic statue of the Norse goddess Gefjun driving oxen in a large fountain.
Finally we met up with Sam again and visited the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, an art museum notable for its extensive ancient collection. I didn't have time to see the whole museum, but I saw much of the Greek, Roman, and Etruscan collection, including many heads from Roman sculptures (I joked that we were in the head museum) and a lot of ancient pottery. We had to leave the museum early to pick our stuff up from the hostel and find some food before catching our train (despite being nearly out of Kroners). Luckily we found some cheap food: Burger King (which was pretty much the same as in the U.S.) and Nutella crepes. Apparently Sam and Vishal got to try a type of sandwich that Denmark is known for, but the rest of us never found them. Unfortunately, I didn't really get to enjoy Danish cuisine on my short trip (in addition to Burger King we also had a cheap brunch from 7-11, although I did have a good sandwich for lunch on Saturday); my advice to anyone travelling to Copenhagen is to prepare for the expensive city by bringing more money than you think you need so you can actually experience everything you want to in the city.
Finally, we had to catch our train back to Lübeck. We first got onto a car in which all the seats were reserved, and while I initially took a seat, it was reserved from the second stop and I was promptly kicked out. I resigned to sitting by the doors again with Sam, but when the conductor came by, he told us that there were seats in a car on the other side of the train, and we eventually were all able to sit together (other than Akshay, who took a later train). We enjoyed another ferry ride (I remembered my camera this time, and the weather was really nice, although very windy at the front of the boat), and eventually returned to Lübeck. Vishal came with us to Lübeck so that he could stay with us overnight (Akshay has an extra bed) and explore Lübeck the next morning (he got the day off work). We had some late night döner downtown (just about the only place open late in Lübeck) before returning home for some sleep.
Copenhagen was really beautiful, as you can see in my pictures here. I think I came back with a cold, but hopefully I'll get over it soon (I'm already feeling better). Next weekend I'm planning to take a day trip to Berlin to see some more sights I didn't get to see last time. The following week is the RISE conference in Dresden, on Thursday-Saturday (July 26-28th). After the conference ends Saturday afternoon, it sounds like I'll be taking a train to Prague, and returning to Lübeck Sunday night. I initially wasn't expecting to make it to Prague, but it's not very far from Dresden, so there's no good reason not to go. After Dresden and Prague, I only have a couple weekends left before returning home. By then, most of my friends will already be gone, which I'm not looking forward to. But hopefully I'll meet up with other RISE people during my last two weekends. I'm hoping to make a weekend trip down to München (Munich) before leaving, as I have not had a chance to see southern Germany yet.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Hamburgers in Hamburg
It's been over a week since I last posted, and I've kept busy. I've been so busy, in fact, that I'm really exhausted now, but I'll write about my past week, perhaps with slightly less detail than usual.
On Wednesday (the 4th of July), after work, Rui and I caught a train to Hamburg (which is 40 minutes away by train, not counting the commute by bus to the train station). We met up with some other RISE students in Stadtpark for a 4th of July/Canada Day (there were actually probably more Canadians there) BBQ. We took an s-bahn from the train station, but the directions I wrote down weren't the best (we got off a stop too early), so we had to walk over a mile to the park, but we eventually found the other RISE students (and some RISE-wannabes, one actually didn't get into the program but independently organized an internship with the same supervisor he wanted to do RISE with). One of the other RISE interns in Hamburg is also an engineering student at Pitt.
I brought some bratwursts, and the Hamburg interns brought a tiny disposable grill, steak, beer, and "American-style hamburgers" (which were awful). I can now say I've eaten hamburgers in Hamburg, but those American-style hamburgers were probably the worst I've ever had. German grocery stores seem to like to sell really cheap products labelled as American-style. They often sell really cheap white bread under names like "America's Finest." Even chocolate-chip cookies are sold as American. Despite the bad burgers, it was nice meeting all of the RISE interns in the nearby city of Hamburg, and it was nice to celebrate the 4th of July (and Canada Day) with a group of other North Americans. The brief visit to Hamburg was also a teaser for the following weekend.
On Saturday morning Rui and I again travelled to Hamburg to see more of Germany's second biggest city. We picked a good day to go, because this weekend was the Schlager Move festival, a huge festival for Schlager music, a type of pop music associated with the '60s. People at the festival wore colorful costumes, which seemed to blend hippie and disco culture, consisting of bright neon wigs or afro wigs, sunglasses, and various disco-style suits. The festival was near the Reeperbahn, which is Hamburg's red light district. Although risque, the Reeperbahn is the most vibrant part of the city, and perhaps the most popular destination in the city. While most stores in Germany do not stay open very late at night, the Reeperbahn is lined with bars and clubs that stay open all night long, and the area attracts so many people at night that even the grocery store is open 24 hours. This is also the area where The Beatles used to play before they became big, when they were only 17-18 years old. During the early afternoon we explored the Reeperbahn area before watching the Schlager Move festival for a while (which was larger than we imagined, it looked like there were at least three simultaneous parades).
After leaving the festival we walked to the city's botanical gardens. We got caught in a thunder storm and took shelter under a bridge by the gardens for a while, but then the sun came out again, and we saw lots of flowers covered with raindrops. We found really cool games at the gardens: one where you had to use a mounted water gun to push a ball suspended a string into a basket (kind of like basketball), and another one that was like soccer (or I guess water polo), and the water guns had to be used to push a ball in the pool into a goal.
After the botanical gardens, we took a subway back to our hostel, which was not far from the Reeperbahn area. We tried to find dinner near the Reeperbahn, but the area mostly only had bars that seemed to only serve drinks, and fast food type places, and we already had döner for lunch. We decided to take another subway to the downtown area near the central train station, where we settled on a Chinese restaurant.
After dinner, we headed back to the Reeperbahn, and met up with Taylor, another American RISE student, and Jakob, a RISE student who is originally from Hamburg (but moved to the U.S., making him eligible for RISE). The four of us visited several bars and clubs in the area. Of course Germans nightlife doesn't really start until 1 AM, so it took a while for the clubs to fill up, but the area was still crowded because of the Schlager Move festival. Because Europeans tend to party so late, a popular thing to do in Hamburg is stay up all night at the bars and clubs and then head to the city's famous fish market, which opens from 5-9 AM on Sundays. It seems that the market is only able to thrive at such an early hour from people that have been up all night long, because few people would be able to get up in time before it closes at 9 AM. Some people have suggested not even bothering to get a hostel in Hamburg, since it is so common to simply stay up all night long, but I assumed we would not have the energy to do this. However, I was right, the vibrant community really does make it pretty easy to stay up all night long, and the fish market is a great way to end the night. If you're concerned about safety, I did not drink too heavily so that I could make sure my friends and I stayed safe and aware, and the area really did seem very safe, simply filled with a lot of people wanting to have a good time. We had fun dancing in the club all night before having our morning fish sandwich. After the fish market, Rui and I headed back to the hostel to catch some sleep. We had to check out by 11 AM, and we probably checked out at about 10:59 AM after getting as much sleep as we could. We then headed back to Lübeck because we were still too tired to spend Sunday continuing to explore the city. Despite not spending Sunday afternoon in the city, we still got to see most of the city on Wednesday and Saturday (plus the day I arrived in Germany), and I think staying up all night in Hamburg was a great experience. You can see my pictures from Hamburg here.
Yesterday in Lübeck I met four Russian medical students who moved into my building. They are some of the friendliest people I have met, but only one of them speaks English. The other three speak German, and one was making a serious effort to pick up English last night despite not studying it, which really impressed me. By then end of the night we were communicating pretty well despite the language barrier. I met them when they were eating dinner in the kitchen, and they offered me some of their extra food. Later we played some card games, which were ideal for people not speaking the same language, and was a lot of fun. One used a special set of cards and involved matching similar looking shapes and racing to grab a wooden totem, which was fun and easy to learn without everyone speaking the same language. The other game was a variant of B.S. using a regular set of cards, and the Russians were able to count in English, which made it easy for us (although we probably should have tried German), although some of the Russians kept getting confused with the words king, queen, and jack. Overall, it was a fun night hanging out with these new friends. On one hand, I was getting used to the fact that everyone in this building spoke English, and most also didn't speak German. But I also had very few friends here (most people who live here are quite a bit older, they're mostly all PhD and MD students, and many of them already have families), so it's nice that there are some really friendly people living here now, despite the language barrier.
Today my lab took a day off for some cross-country cycling, archery, and a barbecue. A week ago I finally went ahead and purchased a bike, but it's pretty embarrassing. It's pink, only has one gear, and the back brake works by pedaling backwards; there's only a handle brake for the front wheel. Despite this bike being terrible, virtually everyone owns one here, and it's nice finally having one as it makes it a lot easier to get around. However, my bike was not designed for the trip we took today. We biked through farmland and woods to a lake south of Lübeck. The trails we biked on really required a mountain bike, and mine is about as far from a mountain bike as it gets. However, my bike and I somehow survived the trip (although I had to push it through some muddy trails), and we eventually ended up at an archery place near campus. Here we had an archery lesson (most people had never done it before), and at first, despite not doing it in about 4 years or so, I was pretty good. However, the people giving the lessons then told me I was doing a few things wrong, and I seemed to get worse after that. The fact that we were drinking beer probably didn't help so much either. At around 5:00 we finally had the barbecue that I thought was going to be for lunch. I bought some bratwurst to grill, but most people brought steak or chicken. They sell pre-marinated chicken here that looks really good, but I expected bratwurst to be normal barbecue food here. I also brought some chips, but I learned that apparently bringing chips to a barbecue is an American thing. While I couldn't take any pictures while I was on the bike, I took a few pictures during the day, and added them to my Lübeck album here.
Now I'm looking forward to Friday, when I'll be leaving after work to head to Copenhagen for the weekend with Rui, Akshay, and Sam. I found out another RISE intern, Vishal, will be going too, and we'll be meeting him in the train station when we get to Copenhagen.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Food, Football, Friends, Hannover, and Travemünde
Well it's been a week since I've last posted, and I've definitely kept busy, and I've also been planning my trips for the next month as well. It's weird, the friends that I've met here have all been here longer than me, so they're already starting to count down their remaining days. I'm already about 1/3 into my stay in Germany, and we've all realized that every weekend really counts. So far I think I've been doing a good job at making the most of my short stay, and I'm glad that I've made some really good friends here, although I'm not looking forward to them leaving a couple weeks before me.
Last week I decided I wanted to get my friends together to cook, since we all agree that cooking and eating by ourselves every night is boring and a bit lonely. I planned for us to get together on Wednesday, which ended up being Rui's birthday. I met Rui at the grocery store, where we picked out birthday cake, beer, and wine, and waited for Akshay and Syrena (another American RISE intern who thought she was alone in Lübeck until she discovered me on Facebook the other week). Once the four of us met up, Syrena asked what we were making, and we revealed to her that none of us were good at cooking and we didn't have an idea in mind. Luckily, she exclaimed, "Okay! I got this!" and we discovered she's a good cook! We ended up making nice, thick burgers with cheese, veggies, and curry ketchup. We had marzipan cake for dessert to celebrate Rui's birthday. After eating, Rui, Akshay and I headed downtown to try to catch the end of the Portugal vs. Spain football match. We would have missed the game if it hadn't gone to overtime (due to a 0-0 score until the penalty kicks at the end), but we ended up at a bar where we got to watch the end of the game and celebrate Rui's birthday with drinks.
On Thursday, Rui, Akshay and I met up again to watch the Germany vs. Italy game at the viewing on campus. We ended up showing up a couple minutes late, but somehow we still managed to get seats together in the second row of the auditorium. The game was a disappointment, however, as we lost the semi-final game to Italy 1-2.
If you're wondering what I accomplished in lab last week, I honestly didn't do as much as the week before. I read up on C++, but rather than applying it, I translated code to control the mechanical hand into Matlab, which I finally got (mostly) working today. Hopefully it won't be hard to interface the mechanical hand with the BCI from here. I also have to apply my native English skills to proofread papers by other lab members (including my supervisor) for English grammar.
After finishing a relatively uninteresting week in lab, I had a lot more fun over the weekend. On Friday night, Rui and I headed downtown in an attempt to find what sort of nightlife Lübeck has to offer (I had heard not that much). Of course we arrived downtown too early, and first simply wandered the streets, only finding empty bars. Rui was hungry, and after trying a restaurant which had stopped serving food (it was about 11 PM), we found a döner place that was still open. A couple German guys approached us there (intrigued to hear English-speaking foreigners), and we found out they were going to a club on Hüxstraße, the street we were previously searching for clubs on. We found out the clubs were at the very end of the street, on the edge of the island. We also learned that the clubs generally don't get busy until about 1 AM. We told the German guys (I believe one was named Nikolaus, the other just 'Laus) we'd look for them at Hüx, the club they were going to. After Rui finished her döner, we headed down Hüxstraße, which started to look livelier now that it was later. We found our new German friends (with another girl) standing near the club. They asked the typical "Why did you come to Germany?!," (my answer: "why not?") but the girl had studied abroad in Oklahoma, so I was able to ask the same question. Eventually we went in the club, and our new friends were very generous; one of the guys paid for Rui's cover charge, and then bought both of us a beer. We danced for over an hour, but while the German's may like to stay up all night, I knew I couldn't since I was catching an early train again the next morning. We left a little after 2:15 (The Germans had us take a sip of their Jäger before we said goodbye), and then, since public transit here stops after 12:30, I took a cab in Lübeck for the second time (but first time that I directly interacted with the cab driver). I got home in time to at least get some rest, although I didn't really sleep, before getting up again at 7:30 to go to Hannover.
After forcing myself to get up, I caught the bus to the train station and met up with Sam. After a stop at the Hamburg train station, we caught the train to Hannover, where we arrived at about noon. At the station, we met up up with my friend Alicia, another BioE at Pitt, who is doing the Hannover research program that I originally intended to do. I'm glad I got into RISE, because I found out they were only able to fund three of the five people that were accepted, so my prior acceptance was not a guarantee. The program sounded a bit unorganized, but it is also a long program, so Alicia has been able to plan a lot of travelling across Europe. I picked a good day to visit, because she normally travels every weekend as well.
After a cheap lunch at the station, we started wandering the town. The station extended into a mall-like area, which was very modern and commercialized. We headed to an more interesting sight, the city's Neues Rathaus (New City Hall). While every city in Germany has a Rathaus (city hall), Hannover's, which was built in 1913 (they have an older one that looks more like Lübeck's), was a huge, elegant building. It was as beautiful and interesting as the castles and palaces I saw in Schwerin and Potsdam a couple weeks ago. Inside there were models of the city at four different points in history: 1689 (when Hannover was a small city on an island, much like Lübeck), 1939 (prior to WWII), 1945 (immediately after being destroyed by the war), and today, now that the city has been completely rebuilt half a century later. The model of the destroyed city was very detailed and revealed how devastating the war was to the city. One of the few buildings that appeared intact in the model was the rathaus, despite being the biggest building in the city.
This weekend Hannover had a big festival called Schützenfest, but all we saw was a big carnival that wasn't too interesting. The fun stuff was probably later in the evening, so we continued on. Hannover has a self-guided tour similar to the Freedom Trail in Boston, called the "red thread." A red line is painted along sidewalks, and Alicia had a guidebook explaining the 36 sights along the line. We decided to check out a few sights along the line, notably the house of Leibniz (which I figured my Dad would be excited to hear I saw). Although, apparently the real house was destroyed, along with most of the city, in WWII, and the rebuilt house wasn't even in the exact same location. After grabbing a beer across the street from Leibnizhaus, we continued walking and Sam flipped through Alicia's red thread book. We decided to check out an art museum, which got us out of the sun (it had been very mild here in Germany, but it finally got pretty warm by this weekend). The museum was large, and we spent several hours there. The museum mostly contained modern art, some of which I really liked. There was one room that looked like it could have belonged in a cool '60s apartment, with relatively simple pieces featuring shapes and colors that some might find bland but I really enjoyed.
After leaving the museum, we continued walking around, admiring many of the old buildings (although they probably all had to be rebuilt after the war). We found several groups of people on the street in costumes for bachelor and bachelorette parties. Eventually we found a Mexican restaurant (Mexican food is nearly nonexistent in Germany) for dinner. However, while the restaurant helped to suppress my craving for Mexican food, I have to say that Germans really don't seem to understand Mexican food. I ordered "enchiladas," while Sam ordered "mini-burritos." We were given almost the same meal, which I would describe as neither enchiladas nor burritos. Still, I liked how the items on the menu were in Spanish, which I could mostly understand, but the descriptions were in German, which I mostly could not understand. After dinner, we headed back to the train station, and Sam and I said goodbye to Alicia and headed back to Lübeck. While it was a short day trip, it was nice to see yet another Pitt student (the fourth I've seen in the 3 weeks I've been here), and it was neat seeing the city where I originally expected to spend my summer. You can see my pictures from Hannover here.
After returning from Hannover, I caught up on much needed sleep, and slept until 1 PM on Sunday! Sunday was the first weekend day I've spent in Lübeck. I took a quick walk around campus (I normally only walk to lab and back, so there are still parts of campus I haven't explored), but at around 6 Rui called me to see if I wanted to go Travemünde Strand, a beach north of Lübeck on the Baltic Sea. Unfortunately, on our way there the weather became cloudy and the temperature began to drop. Earlier in the day would have actually been a good beach day, but we went too late. Still, we walked around a little bit, and we each grabbed a beer to enjoy while sitting on a dock at the beach. After an hour-and-a-half we caught a bus back, and decided to have a movie night. This was a wise decision, because the weather became even more ominous, and we got inside just before it started pouring. Hopefully I'll get to go back to the beach on a day with better weather. I added my cloudy beach pictures to my Lübeck album here.
I'm already planning to do quite a bit more travelling too in the next couple weeks. On Wednesday, I'll be taking a train to Hamburg after work to celebrate the 4th of July and Canada Day at a barbecue with some other RISE interns. Rui and I will also be going back to Hamburg this weekend to explore the city more. In two weeks, Rui, Akshay, Sam, and I will all be going to Copenhagen for the weekend. Apparently there's a big week-and-a-half long jazz festival in Copenhagen, which will continue that weekend, and while all the big names are playing before we get there, I'm still excited to see some interesting jazz groups in Denmark. The week after that, I may take a day trip to Berlin to see some more sights that I failed to see during my two days there (it's such a big city!), and the week after that is the RISE conference in Dresden! I definitely have a lot to look forward to this month.
Last week I decided I wanted to get my friends together to cook, since we all agree that cooking and eating by ourselves every night is boring and a bit lonely. I planned for us to get together on Wednesday, which ended up being Rui's birthday. I met Rui at the grocery store, where we picked out birthday cake, beer, and wine, and waited for Akshay and Syrena (another American RISE intern who thought she was alone in Lübeck until she discovered me on Facebook the other week). Once the four of us met up, Syrena asked what we were making, and we revealed to her that none of us were good at cooking and we didn't have an idea in mind. Luckily, she exclaimed, "Okay! I got this!" and we discovered she's a good cook! We ended up making nice, thick burgers with cheese, veggies, and curry ketchup. We had marzipan cake for dessert to celebrate Rui's birthday. After eating, Rui, Akshay and I headed downtown to try to catch the end of the Portugal vs. Spain football match. We would have missed the game if it hadn't gone to overtime (due to a 0-0 score until the penalty kicks at the end), but we ended up at a bar where we got to watch the end of the game and celebrate Rui's birthday with drinks.
On Thursday, Rui, Akshay and I met up again to watch the Germany vs. Italy game at the viewing on campus. We ended up showing up a couple minutes late, but somehow we still managed to get seats together in the second row of the auditorium. The game was a disappointment, however, as we lost the semi-final game to Italy 1-2.
If you're wondering what I accomplished in lab last week, I honestly didn't do as much as the week before. I read up on C++, but rather than applying it, I translated code to control the mechanical hand into Matlab, which I finally got (mostly) working today. Hopefully it won't be hard to interface the mechanical hand with the BCI from here. I also have to apply my native English skills to proofread papers by other lab members (including my supervisor) for English grammar.
After finishing a relatively uninteresting week in lab, I had a lot more fun over the weekend. On Friday night, Rui and I headed downtown in an attempt to find what sort of nightlife Lübeck has to offer (I had heard not that much). Of course we arrived downtown too early, and first simply wandered the streets, only finding empty bars. Rui was hungry, and after trying a restaurant which had stopped serving food (it was about 11 PM), we found a döner place that was still open. A couple German guys approached us there (intrigued to hear English-speaking foreigners), and we found out they were going to a club on Hüxstraße, the street we were previously searching for clubs on. We found out the clubs were at the very end of the street, on the edge of the island. We also learned that the clubs generally don't get busy until about 1 AM. We told the German guys (I believe one was named Nikolaus, the other just 'Laus) we'd look for them at Hüx, the club they were going to. After Rui finished her döner, we headed down Hüxstraße, which started to look livelier now that it was later. We found our new German friends (with another girl) standing near the club. They asked the typical "Why did you come to Germany?!," (my answer: "why not?") but the girl had studied abroad in Oklahoma, so I was able to ask the same question. Eventually we went in the club, and our new friends were very generous; one of the guys paid for Rui's cover charge, and then bought both of us a beer. We danced for over an hour, but while the German's may like to stay up all night, I knew I couldn't since I was catching an early train again the next morning. We left a little after 2:15 (The Germans had us take a sip of their Jäger before we said goodbye), and then, since public transit here stops after 12:30, I took a cab in Lübeck for the second time (but first time that I directly interacted with the cab driver). I got home in time to at least get some rest, although I didn't really sleep, before getting up again at 7:30 to go to Hannover.
After forcing myself to get up, I caught the bus to the train station and met up with Sam. After a stop at the Hamburg train station, we caught the train to Hannover, where we arrived at about noon. At the station, we met up up with my friend Alicia, another BioE at Pitt, who is doing the Hannover research program that I originally intended to do. I'm glad I got into RISE, because I found out they were only able to fund three of the five people that were accepted, so my prior acceptance was not a guarantee. The program sounded a bit unorganized, but it is also a long program, so Alicia has been able to plan a lot of travelling across Europe. I picked a good day to visit, because she normally travels every weekend as well.
After a cheap lunch at the station, we started wandering the town. The station extended into a mall-like area, which was very modern and commercialized. We headed to an more interesting sight, the city's Neues Rathaus (New City Hall). While every city in Germany has a Rathaus (city hall), Hannover's, which was built in 1913 (they have an older one that looks more like Lübeck's), was a huge, elegant building. It was as beautiful and interesting as the castles and palaces I saw in Schwerin and Potsdam a couple weeks ago. Inside there were models of the city at four different points in history: 1689 (when Hannover was a small city on an island, much like Lübeck), 1939 (prior to WWII), 1945 (immediately after being destroyed by the war), and today, now that the city has been completely rebuilt half a century later. The model of the destroyed city was very detailed and revealed how devastating the war was to the city. One of the few buildings that appeared intact in the model was the rathaus, despite being the biggest building in the city.
This weekend Hannover had a big festival called Schützenfest, but all we saw was a big carnival that wasn't too interesting. The fun stuff was probably later in the evening, so we continued on. Hannover has a self-guided tour similar to the Freedom Trail in Boston, called the "red thread." A red line is painted along sidewalks, and Alicia had a guidebook explaining the 36 sights along the line. We decided to check out a few sights along the line, notably the house of Leibniz (which I figured my Dad would be excited to hear I saw). Although, apparently the real house was destroyed, along with most of the city, in WWII, and the rebuilt house wasn't even in the exact same location. After grabbing a beer across the street from Leibnizhaus, we continued walking and Sam flipped through Alicia's red thread book. We decided to check out an art museum, which got us out of the sun (it had been very mild here in Germany, but it finally got pretty warm by this weekend). The museum was large, and we spent several hours there. The museum mostly contained modern art, some of which I really liked. There was one room that looked like it could have belonged in a cool '60s apartment, with relatively simple pieces featuring shapes and colors that some might find bland but I really enjoyed.
After leaving the museum, we continued walking around, admiring many of the old buildings (although they probably all had to be rebuilt after the war). We found several groups of people on the street in costumes for bachelor and bachelorette parties. Eventually we found a Mexican restaurant (Mexican food is nearly nonexistent in Germany) for dinner. However, while the restaurant helped to suppress my craving for Mexican food, I have to say that Germans really don't seem to understand Mexican food. I ordered "enchiladas," while Sam ordered "mini-burritos." We were given almost the same meal, which I would describe as neither enchiladas nor burritos. Still, I liked how the items on the menu were in Spanish, which I could mostly understand, but the descriptions were in German, which I mostly could not understand. After dinner, we headed back to the train station, and Sam and I said goodbye to Alicia and headed back to Lübeck. While it was a short day trip, it was nice to see yet another Pitt student (the fourth I've seen in the 3 weeks I've been here), and it was neat seeing the city where I originally expected to spend my summer. You can see my pictures from Hannover here.
After returning from Hannover, I caught up on much needed sleep, and slept until 1 PM on Sunday! Sunday was the first weekend day I've spent in Lübeck. I took a quick walk around campus (I normally only walk to lab and back, so there are still parts of campus I haven't explored), but at around 6 Rui called me to see if I wanted to go Travemünde Strand, a beach north of Lübeck on the Baltic Sea. Unfortunately, on our way there the weather became cloudy and the temperature began to drop. Earlier in the day would have actually been a good beach day, but we went too late. Still, we walked around a little bit, and we each grabbed a beer to enjoy while sitting on a dock at the beach. After an hour-and-a-half we caught a bus back, and decided to have a movie night. This was a wise decision, because the weather became even more ominous, and we got inside just before it started pouring. Hopefully I'll get to go back to the beach on a day with better weather. I added my cloudy beach pictures to my Lübeck album here.
I'm already planning to do quite a bit more travelling too in the next couple weeks. On Wednesday, I'll be taking a train to Hamburg after work to celebrate the 4th of July and Canada Day at a barbecue with some other RISE interns. Rui and I will also be going back to Hamburg this weekend to explore the city more. In two weeks, Rui, Akshay, Sam, and I will all be going to Copenhagen for the weekend. Apparently there's a big week-and-a-half long jazz festival in Copenhagen, which will continue that weekend, and while all the big names are playing before we get there, I'm still excited to see some interesting jazz groups in Denmark. The week after that, I may take a day trip to Berlin to see some more sights that I failed to see during my two days there (it's such a big city!), and the week after that is the RISE conference in Dresden! I definitely have a lot to look forward to this month.
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