August 24

We had a nice easy morning with a delicious breakfast by Petra and Edward, then headed out to see Groningen a bit before noon.  In Groningen province, going to Groningen the city is referred to as "going to town" because it is essentially the only large city among the rural countryside primarily used for farming.  It is a university town, which was quite apparent from the amount of young people that we saw.  It also confirmed something that I had known for a while, which is that the Dutch women are perhaps the prettiest in the world.  We saw a number of the sights in Groningen including the university and the most famous tower, called the "Old Grey Man".  The tower affords quite a nice view of the city as well, as long as you can handle the gusty wind at the top, and cramped winding staircase (we did of course not mind at all).  Additionally, we went on a boat tour of the canals which was a very cool way to see the city.  It was nice to be able to walk around a city with people who know it extremely well, and can tell you all about it.  The rain held off for essentially the entire day, then resumed as we were riding back in their car.  Pretty much perfect.  We had dinner at a nice Chinese/Indonesian restaurant by them, which was quite the treat.  Each of us ordered something completely different, so we could try a bit of everything.  Petra and Edward are really wonderful to be around, and are excellent, generous hosts.  We are really enjoying ourselves by them.

August 23

This morning I got my things ready to go that were still unpacked (which was not very many things), then headed in the rain with everything, first to the gate at Boehringer to drop off my apartment keys, then back to the Bahnhof, to wait for my train to Koblenz, then an IC train to Köln where I stopped to get a couple of souvenirs.  I met Marc there on the track just fine, and we took an ICE the rest of the way to Leer(Ostfriesl) where we met Petra and Edward who picked us up and brought us to their home which is about 10km in from the Netherlands/German border.  We had dinner with them and another retired doctor friend of theirs, which was quite wonderful and delicious, accompanied by two desserts.  I was quite quite full by the end of that.  After dinner I got to talk to the family because they have a nice Wifi connection here that I could use.  Petra and Edward have been nothing but completely hospitable to us, and I have enjoyed their company quite a lot.  I also caught up on email and my computer furiously updated itself as well, as soon as it could take a long sip of internet after a summer of mostly drought.  I am looking forward to staying in the Netherlands for a while, and not hurriedly traveling everywhere.  It is not that I didn't have a really great time traveling, but sometimes a slower pace is nice too.  A week from today I will be home too.  That is quite something to think about.

August 22

Well, it was Sunday today, so it was pretty quiet and restful for me.  During the afternoon and evening I met Dirk in Bad Kreuznach, and hung out with him and some friends, then with his niece (just turned 5 and has the same bday as Katie), sister and brother-in-law.  It was nice to see him one last time, and to see what a fair type thing looks like in Germany.  It was quite similar to what the Hudsonville fair is like, except with German food and such.  I spent the evening getting the rest of my things ready to leave on Monday morning.

August 21 Picture

August 21

I slept in until 8 this morning and got some things done in terms of getting organized and packed.  Most everything is in order now.  I just have to do some wash on Sunday, then pack that away, and pack my most immediate needs in my backpack.  In the afternoon I finally explored the Kaiser Pfalz area of Ingelheim.  It is where Charlemagne had a local palace/administrative location.  I went into the museum first, which had some relics and a lot of German to read.  That was tricky, so I looked around at a lot of the stuff, then actually went outside to see the grounds.  It is set up very strangely, because they began reconstruction and preservation after people already had homes and businesses there.  For this reason, you walk past a lot of backyards, and in some cases through yards.  The ruins often border private houses as well, so it is like walking through a neighborhood where people live, that is also a museum.  And furthermore, today there was a wedding that took place in the Pfalz.  They had the ceremony in the Aula regia, which was the throne room of Charlemagne.  It is now a grassy place, surrounded by some broken wall fragments, and an 18^th century Jewish cemetery.  So I spent my time just walking around and seeing the stuff there.  It was all free of course, except for the museum, because you can't charge admission to a neighborhood where people live.  The ground is all cobblestone there, as it is in many places in Ingelheim.  But what they have done is to outline in darker stones, where the old walls and towers are that do not remain standing.  It was a nice little walk about a part of town that I had inexplicably neglected to visit until the second to last day I was here.  In fact, there are a lot of parts of town that I have not seen, mostly because they look quite similar to the rest of the city.  I think that I have seen enough though; at least the most interesting parts.  Today was relaxing, which was nice before we travel next week and school starts.  Oh, and also, KATIE'S BIRTHDAY‼‼  I called home tonight and got to talk to her and Dad and Jeff for a while, which was quite nice.  Her card even arrived a day before her birthday, which was quite something, considering that I mailed in on Monday afternoon (4 days is pretty typical though I guess).  I like Ingelheim, but I am ready to be home now.

August 20

LAST DAY OF WORK!  It was a good last day too.  In the morning I had to run around a little bit to take care of getting paid for August, but got everything taken care of just fine, and in German.  Luckily my last reaction only had a couple of non-messy steps for me to take care of, which was a nice way to finish.  My protocols were mostly all in order, so now it is just a matter of Dirk getting the results, appending them, then finalizing the reports.  Quite a simple process.  I am glad that I gave my cards to everyone yesterday, because a lot of people were gone early today.  I got to say my goodbyes to the people that I wanted to, and got some email addresses and such as well.  It really was a nice last day.  On the way out, I talked to a guy that I had known very peripherally in one of the neighboring labs.  He will have worked at Boehringer for 40 years on September 1.  I was happy that I could hold a decent conversation with him, because sometimes Germans who are a little older (maybe like in the States too), are harder to understand; he was not the rule though.  All I had to do at the gate was then turn in my card, and that was it.  Now I just have to pack up, hang out with Dirk on Sunday, then be ready to head to the Netherlands on Monday morning.  Oh, and I gave running a try tonight.  I made it a good ways before it felt like I had done enough.

August 19

It was my second to last day of work today!  Unbelievable!  I finished up the last bit of work with my parallel reactions today, the colorful ones.  The second step of my last reaction went pretty well I think, but I still had no crystals by the end of the day, which could prove to be a problem tomorrow.  It was also my last day at work with Dirk, which was too bad, but I suppose that this summer has to come to an end.  And really, right now I am very much looking forward to being home around the people that I love.  I handed out some thank you cards to people at work today as well.  I wrote them all in German, which was kind of what I did for the last couple of nights on my computer, because there were maybe 8 of them to write, to 8 very cool people.  Hopefully there weren't too many mistakes made.  I think that they could at least understand quite well what I was getting at.  Proficiency would be a plus though.  After work I went to ALDI to get some last groceries to hold me over the weekend.  I am going to miss that ALDI (not really, it's just a store), it was like most every other ALDI that I have been in.