May 26

Well, I got to the alarm situation settled finally. I do some calculations before bed based on the current time, and when I want to get up, factoring in the amount of seconds in a minute. Simple, but annoying to be sure. I got to work at 7:30 and kind of continued my figuring out of the German language, particularly the technical part, using LEO.org, a very handy translator. In the morning I went with Barbara to get my bank account set up so that I can be paid. Things went smoothly except that my driver’s license is not a legal document here, so I had to run back to my apartment for the passport. With that set up, I continued my morning as I was before. Lunch was good again with Wurst and Nudeln mit Spinache. It was rainy today, and I was glad that I brought an umbrella with me at the last minute, but a bit sad that I took the most broken and sad looking umbrella known to man. Dirk got a good laugh out of that. We had lunch with his friend from the Analytical department there. In the afternoon I got a longer tour of what exactly is in the lab, and got to start putting my Apparatur together. There wasn’t really time for me to be able to start the reaction but I got the starting material weighed out for tomorrow. It was rainy today and cool, a little more typical apparently. After work I did the usual short nap combined with reading and writing a bit. It’s relaxing and this way I can type on a keyboard that makes sense to my hands, rather than one with the “y” and “z” keys switched, as well as other various punctuational annoyances. I will say however that it is nice to have the “ß,” “ä,” “ö” and “ü” keys directly on the keyboard. Out of annoyance at the alt codes on my computer I just have MSWord auto-correct “ae” to ä, “oe” to ö and “uu” to ü. It works well enough. After my brief rest, I decided to explore a street that I had only been on with Dr. Heckmann. I really wanted to get back to where he had shown me on Monday, and eventually I was successful, only this time with my camera. Today was pretty cloudy of course and a bit darker, so you really couldn’t see the whole valley, but I got some nice pictures featuring the Bergkirche and the vineyards on the hill above Ober-Ingelheim. There was an abundance of snails today due to the moisture and cooler conditions. The unfortunate thing about snails is that they are slow, and they like to hang out on roads sometimes. They don’t for long though. There’s plenty of evidence of that. The city is fun to walk around in, which is good, because eventually I won’t have any more Popular Science to read. I’ll be saving those for rainy days from now on. Apparently my TV isn’t going to work in the apartment, so evenings have been spent listening to German radio. There are quite a few stations that play American pop, so if I get a bit homesick I can always listen to them. I already do listen to them, but so far I’m only the normal homesick, from being nearly alone in a foreign country (not really that true). I like it though, no complaints so far. I’m excited to run the first reaction that they’ve been working on tomorrow.