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.
No comments:
Post a Comment