One Blog to Rule them All

Yes, yes, I know I haven’t been posting as nearly as much as I wanted to. There is hardly a dull moment here in Germany that I’m looking forward to having a “quiet week” where I’m not moving a lot but still enjoying the atmosphere. Soooo (imitating my supervisor), in lab I’ve been coming between 8:30 and 9 in the morning and on average leave lab between 5:30 to 6:30. There is almost always work to do but we frequently socialize in lab (auf Deutsch natuerlich!, in german of course). But really, it’s starting to become 50:50 between English and German during my conversations in lab. I’ve even made progress in my German chemistry. And my conversational german has really made great strides in the short time I’ve been here. Short because I can almost smell the end of my time here in Germany, which I don’t look forward to.

And when there is a dull moment in lab, my supervisors Robert or Stefan, “moechtest du ein Bier?” Would you like a beer? This occurs in the afternoons, so we’re not morning alcoholics. And so after work the group is either having a barbeque, soccer, or dodgeball. And when I don’t have these things occupying my time, I have to do grocery shopping, laundry, skyping home, planning my weekends, or again, socializing with German/European Exchange students in my dorm. Ahh, if only my time here was not so finite!

Anyhow/ways, back to the weekend/annual/bimonthly report. I finally irradiated my flavins so that they could oxidize paramethoxy-benzalcohol substrates

We irradiated with 440 nanometer light for five minutes under several pH ranges and had a corresponding relation for the conversion factors. I think we had 75% conversion at around pH 6ish.

After my weekend in Baden-Baden, I went to visit my friend and former German TA at Emory German Studies department, Benjamin Becker in Koeln, or as we know it in English, Cologne. Okay, Okay, Italian churches look nice and fancy and I’ve been to Notre Dame, but the church in Cologne is the titanic of churches. I can’t even come up with words to describe adequately how huge it is. It easily towers anything in the city.

I met up with Ben and we toured the city and also met his Uni-friends from Koeln/Cologne. We watched the Netherlands/Russia game at the D4 (German TV station) and afterwards we got to be in the live audience of the German post-game show “Nach getreten”, which is more of a comedy-spin show for the European championships. I’ll try to find a clip sometime.

We also saw the Gestapo museum. Apparently the Gestapo had an office in Koeln, as they did in many places, but this one also functioned as a small prison. I would like to describe the Gestapo with much more graphic language but I must control such impulses. I also had the opportunity to taste some of the local Cologne beer, which is surprisingly taken in smaller quantities when compared to the Bavarian cousin. The following photo is of me with Benjamin at his office in Koeln before we departed. When he’s not working in the German department in the US, he’s working in the English Department at Koeln/Cologne.

The week following Koeln/Cologne was different because my supervisor, Robert, left for Venezuela on his honeymoon. Therefore, I continued working with the other PhD student in the lab, Stefan, who happened to already have 2 other undergrads working with him. His work has similar applications but instead he works with Friedel craft reactions and Graetzel cells. So up until now I’ve been working with Stefan.

On the week of the 4th, I had the RISE/DAAD conference in Heidelberg, which started on a Wednesday. Therefore I decided to take off the week days leading up to the conference to make a long weekend starting on July 27th. And in that time, I visited Lisbon and Madrid.

I was coincidentally in Madrid the same time as the European Football Championship game. I stayed in La Plaza Colon, which was the main viewing area for the game. They had setup a small open air studio that hosted live artists as well as the pregame, halftime game and post game show. During the game, there was almost no breathing room in that mass of human beings. As we all know, Spain won, and the reaction in Madrid and I’m sure all over Spain was epic. Looking down any street, all you saw was people sporting the nation’s colors, red and yellow. Fireworks were launching and people were celebrating like it was the last night on Earth. I, myself, almost got hit by a rogue firework that someone had set off in the street. Incredible and unforgettable are the only words to describe the atmosphere and feeling that night.

The rest of the time was spent in Lisbon, Portugal. Its a really pretty city and definitely has a different feeling to it from the any German city. For one, it’s an Atlantic coastal city, which there aren’t very many of in Europe, at least, not of the size of Lisbon. The city has many monuments to the famous Portuguese explorers who set sail around the world. There is also a really big castle on one of the higher hills, which overlooks the city. Unlike the German castles that we think of, which are basically fancy palaces, this castle was an actual fortification. It was originally built by the Portuguese Moors but conquered by King Afonso Henriques ( I believe) and since named after Sao Jorge (St. George). Ironically, just like another Portuguese-speaking city, Rio de Janeiro, Lisbon has a huge Christ statue facing the city from across the water. Lisbon also has the largest stone arch in the world, if you’re a big arch fan.Parque Eduardo VII (looking onto Rio Tejo that flows into Atlantic)

(25th of April Bridge leading to Cristo Rei statue on other side. A little bit like the Golden Gate bridge? Well, the same construction company built this one too).

Castelo de Sao Jorge. (Its way too big to fit in one picture obviously)

I couldn't resist not taking a photo of this.

From Lisbon, I went to Munich, and from there I went to Heidelberg. The RISE DAAD program hosted us in the local Hostel, which wasn’t bad and used the University of Heidelberg to host the introduction and welcome. In the introduction, the head of the RISE program, Dr. Christian Schaefer, introduced himself and welcomed us on the behalf of the DAAD. Following his introduction, spokespersons from both the Canadian and US embassies came to give us further welcome. The introduction was followed by an information lecture on PhD and masters programs in Germany that were specifically targeted towards North American students. I recall one of them being very rigorous with only a two week Christmas vacation and a little bigger break somewhere during a masters course of study.

RISE students at the Universitaet Heidelberg.

Dr. Christian Schaefer giving his welcome speech.Heidelberg seen from the Castle on the hill.

The next day they divided us into groups based on our research interests and sent us off to different industries in the vicinity of Heidelberg. I went to BASF: THE Chemical Company. In size, the main factory and HQ took up a square area half the size of Manhattan or Rio de Janeiro. If I’m not mistaken, I think it is the biggest chemical industry and thus deserves the title, THE Chemical company. BASF started out by giving us an hour introduction on their research and what they do as well as introduce PhD’s who were doing work there. We then were divided into smaller groups to tour the different regions of the BASF factory. I went to the Polymer section and we saw the R&D labs for polymers that were used to make thin films as well as the surfaces that make cars better scratch resistant. The tour and information session was very informative and well organized but I don’t think it really inspired me to go into chemical industry. The highlight of the BASF tour was that we were catered extremely well in one of their private catering restaurants. For a catering job, I would say it was probably one of the best jobs I’ve seen. Other RISE students visited John Deere, Merck, and Mercedes Benz. I don’t think they were nearly as well catered as those of us who went on the BASF tour.

The night was followed by a RISE dinner at one of the local restaurants in Heidelberg. The food wasn’t bad but it took a while to get it because we had a party of 300. During my nights at Heidelberg, I had the opportunity to meet a lot of the other students around Germany. Overall, it was a very diverse group of people. You had your Ivy’s, State schools, Canadian schools, as well as a collection of schools that I’ve never heard of. Some had been there since May 12th like myself and the others had just been there only two weeks.

The next day, we had a tour of Heidelberg as well as the castle that overlooked the city on a hill. Supposedly, Heidelberg has 20,000 Americans who live there. The city has a long and distinguished history and luckily it escaped the bombings of World War 2. I also semi-celebrated the 4th in Heidelberg. Although I didn’t see any fireworks, I celebrated it with the other Americans in the RISE program.

After Heidelberg, I finished off the weekend at Stuttgart with a friend I made at the conference. We met up with his other friends in Stuttgart. All three of them are from MIT and the two not in the RISE program were doing internships as well and one is also living in Regensburg. We saw the Porsche and Mercedes Benz museums, the latter being the highlight of the trip in Stuttgart. The Porsche museum was tiny but they are currently and almost finished constructing their new museum to rival those of Mercedes and BMW. The Mercedes Benz museum is an actual history museum and it has tons of exhibits and not to mention cars. You start out on the top of the museum at the beginning of the history of automobiles and Mercedes Benz and then make your way down through history until it culminates into the dealership, which had cars worth easily several entering freshman 4 year college tuitions at Emory.

Pope-Mobile at the Mercedes Benz museum!

Mercedes Benz Mclaren. Only a few Euros..

The following Tuesday, the 8th of July, was the annual Chemcup for Fussball (soccer). There were over ten teams in total representing the different chem research groups. We were the Fussballkoenigs because our PI is Dr. Koenig. Koenig means King in German. Our first game was a lost, then we had a tie, then a win, and then the last two games were losses. We didn’t make it to the semifinals but it was a lot of fun and I even got a t-shirt out of it. The chemcup was followed by a barbeque with plenty of beer and sausages. Typical german.

Koenigfussball!

This weekend, I went to Munich with the two other RISE students in Regensburg and we met up with a few other RISE students in Munich. In Munich we saw the Deutsches Museum, a charity soccer game, and the BMW world. The Deutsches Museum or German museum is supposedly the biggest science museum in the world and I wouldn’t disagree because in the 4 hours we were there, we barely scratched the surface of the exhibits. The charity soccer game was hosted in the Allianz Arena of Munich and we saw renowned players like Michael Ballack (GER), Kaka(BRAZ), Gattuso (ITALY), and Seedorf (NED). It was a benefit to send more aid to Africa. Nelson Mandela was also a spectator at the game.

O yea, hanging ten in a river in Munich.

Allianz Arena inside. Ballack and Gattuso are somewhere on the field.

Allianz Arena outside.

The BMW world is also pretty cool and it’s also free. The BMW world is an exhibition of the recent technology coming from BMW as well as their newest cars. In addition, BMW has a museum but we didn’t have time to see it.

Me with the other RISE students, Rince, Oscar and Taehun, or RISErs as we call ourselves at the BMW World.

You could say, "we be RISIN' DIRTY!! "(A lame pun on a recent rap hit, "Ridin' Dirty")

Now, I’m back in Regensburg. Again, I apologize for another late post but I hope the sheer length makes up for it. Unfortunately, I can count my lab days with both of my hands. Yes, I leave Regensburg next Tuesday but I will be more prompt in my posts. I will also be in Europe for another two weeks for pure vacation.

And so concludes the post to rule them all.

Bis später,
Miguel