So my second week in Heidelberg has been amazing so far. I traveled to Berlin to meet up with an Emory international politics study abroad group last Friday night to Sunday morning. On Saturday I explored the city on a boat, rowed down a river to reach the Tiergarten (basically a GIANT natural park with a Zoo and an Aquarium..very peaceful), and visited a few modern art museums. Unfortunately, I did not have time to visit all the historical sites, but hopefully I can travel again to Berlin before I leave. On Saturday night, Germany played Portugal in the EuroCup. While I am typically not the greatest fan of soccer, it was quite the scene. We watched on a a gigantic TV scene in the middle of Brandenburg Gate, and the place was crowded with people decked out in yellow, red, and black with German flags and facepaint galor! One guy was so excited that Germany won that he accidentally punched a girl in the face when waving his flag and cheering. Oops.
German vs. Portugal game
In honor of the EuroCup, the University of Heidelberg puts on its own soccer championship. I played with the "Chemistry department" team today. I am also developing a regular routine now. Typically I arrive at work at 9 am. I live very close...barely 5 mins away.. and I grab breakfast at a bakery along the way. I set up the vacuum for the day, work up overnight reactions from the day before and plan my reactions for the afternoon. We go to the Mensa at 11:30 am for lunch, eat EXTREMELY quickly, and then have a relaxed coffee/desert break after lunch. This coffee break appears to be the "social hour" of the day. I then usually work from 1 to 7 pm. Currently, I am working on the synthesis of N Heterocylic Carbene complexes using a wide range of isonitrile starting materials. There are particular advantages in this lab. For one, we do not have to clean our own glassware, which saves a great deal of time for experimentation. Also, rather than running columns, which is often a tedious and long process, we typically use distillation and recrystallization techniques. Unfortunately, I cannot go into that great of detail on this public blog. Since these results have yet to be published, my mentor asks that I do not release any of our concrete findings or procedures until we have done so.
As you can see, I have been exploring Heidelberg whenever I get the chance.
Kristen
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ReplyDeleteKristen, great update! It's made me realize my body clock is set to the Heidelberg schedule you described. Who knew?!
I loooove the euro cup and the energy here in Germany right now! It's so much fun. Come back to Berlin! I have cool things to show you :)
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