June 17

I got almost caught up with E-Lab today at work, and even had time to blow a whole lot of reaction mixture through a distillation column (I was searching for where I was losing suction, finally found it, but unfortunately chose to fix the problem while the vacuum was operating at full, so a good portion of my mixture got sucked through quickly rather than just the toluol). So to fix that, I have to distill it three times now to clean the system out. Go Steve. Plus, now I have to figure out how to say that I blew the reaction mixture through the apparatus in German, which will be quite the treat. Dirk did give me some cool German music today though (Lena, Peter Fox, Seeed and the Fantastische Vier), which was wonderful. I left work a bit early today to meet Petra and Edward here in Ingelheim. They were visiting Edward’s relatives in the south of Holland, which is relatively close to here (about 350km, so not that close). I tried calling them from a payphone first, but failed miserably and lost €0.5 while I was at it. Luckily I could hustle back to work and use a phone there with Barbara’s help. We ended up meeting at the train station, which worked well, then went to the Waldeck restaurant in their car. That’s the one that is near the Bismarckturm and has the tigers. I wish it would have been nicer weather today, because the view is great from the tower when there aren’t clouds and rain. There was still a decent view though, so that was ok. It was still a great place for a dinner, quiet with good food and a nice atmosphere. They bought me a fantastic dinner with two desserts! We talked for a while about just about everything (language, family, cultures), and I had a wonderful time. They are really cool people. Later this summer I’ll go visit them in the Netherlands, maybe a couple of times, who knows. It feels good to be full of tasty food…oh yes it does. Well, it’s soccer watching tonight, then sleep and plenty of distillation tomorrow. Woot! I can’t believe that it is already Cincinnati this week. Of course I’m quite jealous right now, it will be the first time since seven years that I won’t be going :(. I trust that God’s will is being done there though, and I hope that Britnee and Taylor have a fantastic first time meeting people and serving God with our youth. It will truly be a sad day if we lose that relationship as a church and youth group (I really can’t even imagine that happening though). I’m praying for you guys, especially Katie, because it’s her first time serving there; I can’t wait to hear stories. Anyway, like I was saying, podcasts, soccer-watching and sleep.