A bit of Physics, Prisons and Picasso

Yes, I did end up doing a lot of things this week... while being productive at the same time. So good for me I guess. Research update: my experiment is nearly up and running. We did a test run with the big shaker earlier in the week and it looks promising. I’m glad I finally learned how to use that beast... and now I’m not as scared of it as I used to be. haha. I think we should have everything running by the end of the week. I’ll update you guys when that happens. Let's just say that I'm pretty excited!Now onto other things. I went to a Bavarian pub to watch Fussball ( Brazil vs.North Korea) earlier this week. I ordered coke (yes, coke owns my soul) and spilled it all over my office mate. Whoops. But it’s all good because now everyone knows that coke owns my soul (and Emory’s soul) and I’m exploding because I’ve had way too much of it in the past 2 years. And if you’re wondering about the German Team and Football, let me just say that the whole country came to a standstill after Friday's fiasco. Did I mention that I got the rest of the day off on Friday just to watch the game? I guess we were hoping to celebrate, but ended up sulking the rest of the day.

One of the PhD students had a birthday party at a German frat house... and let’s just say that the amount of beer available puts American frat houses to shame.German fraternities are fencing fraternities and these fencing duels are a matter of enormous pride. You fence without helmets and the one with the least number of cuts on his face wins. Yeah... pretty traumatizing. The party was a lot of fun and made me marvel at how international my frat, i mean lab, is. I also had the chance to meet my fellow DAAD peeps in Goettingen! We had dinner earlier this week and went hiking to a castle on Saturday and had a picnic there. They’re pretty chill and are working at the university on astrophysics and particle physics stuff. I guess I’m the intense experimentalist among the theorists. I also realized that I just got really lucky with my lab being super diverse, which in turn requires it to run in English, because it’s not the same for them. Friday was a special day for Goettingen because it was “Nacht der Kulture” (Night of Culture) for the town. The town set up 24 locations with the city center where they had concerts and shows all night long... and it was really difficult when it came to figuring out which shows to go to! But I ended up going for 6 events, starting with the Picasso exhibit and ending with the RnB concert. [Above]Country music in Goettingen..? I'll take it. lol [Below] RnB and Soul concert. I also went to a jazz concert and classical concert... and yes, saw some pieces by picasso! But nothing too famous :)
I went for a city tour on Sunday and then took the day off to get some rest (and feast on a Doener kebab). My city tour discovery:

A prison cell for university students in the past. It was trendy to have spent at least one night here while in college. I'm sure Austin would have ended up here at some point. haha. :D

And on a food note (I know Jie will appreciate this), there are these heavenly baked good one finds at bakeries here called Wuppies and they’re triangular sweet breads with chocolate chips in them. YUM. I also realized that I should make an effort to be healthy, so this is where I go running, or rather, enjoy nature at its best:

Looking forward to another exciting week and I may have weekend travel plans too! PROST! :)