Kekulé

Creativity at its best!

Ice Ice Baby

Clothes

I love clothes, no secret. Unfortunately my paycheck doesn't allow excesses during shoppingtrips. Therefore I have become an expert in bying things on sale. But now I have found a great site in Germany called Kleiderkreisel. Almost everything is findable, because people (mainly women) bought something that didn't fit them or they didn't like. You've gotta love women. ;-)

Teeth

Or removal of teeth. Just had two of my wisdomtheeth removed today, and it hurts! And it sucks! I'm not aloud to drink milkproducts, black tea, coffee or hot beverages for three days. Oh yeah, and no sports for 14 days...
And the worst thing...I have to go through this again. :-S

News

I'm a newsaddict! I get up in the morning and turn on the radio and listen to the news. The first homepage i check on my computer is the newspage. The only thing I'm missing is a newspaper.
I knew which newspaper I prefered in Denmark (there aren't that many to choose from) but in Germany I'm lost. Should I go for a local newspaper such as Bonner Generalanzeiger? Or a national one like Die Zeit? Or maybe I only need a newpaper in the weekend?
Help!!!!

Heat

Or lack thereof. The heater in my appartmentbuilding has been broken for two weeks, and at  the moment my room reaches a stunning 16 degrees celcius. My kitchen is heated by the oven, and watching TV is only possible wrapped in wool. This goes for sleeping too.
So far all we know is that the repairman was here friday and will now agree on a price with the landlord. When this will result in actual heat coming out of my radiator is unknown.
I'm bying an electric heater today.....

Algarve

Portimao

Boattrip

Loulé

Estoi

Beach

Lisbon

Sardines, a shop full of sardines. :-)

 

Curious dog

 

Boyfriend. 

 

Beautiful house completely covered in azulejos-tiles.

The narrow streets in Lisbon pose a challenge to every map-control-freak.

Dog

My dog Lukas as he resides in the sunshine. ;-)

Past

This is Nürnberg and in the background is one of the great creations of Albert Speer, Hitler's chief architect. It was never finished but was supposed to be a roofed colosseum, only bigger.

In front of it is a ferris wheel, part of the "Folksfest" in Nürnberg. I find that kind of funny and ironic. ;-)

PhD

For me the draft in the lab is the main reason

Picture from PhD-comics.

Closet

Due to the limited amount of space in my apparment combined with my talent to hoard furniture the placement of a bed posed severe problems. They were solved however by the help of a folding bed.

Found on ebay, carried to the 2nd floor by great helpers and screwed into the wall. 

Practical but not pretty. So several options were considered ranging from painting to posters and finally I decided on selfadhesive wallpaper from Knauber. The result is shown underneath.

The boxes and the carpet were bought in IKEA.

Library

This is a Bookshelf....an open bookshelf

It's placed on the Poppelsdorfer Allé and the idea is to pick a book and bring it back when you read it or put in another book instead. It's absolutely brilliant, and people use it. Sometimes people stop by in the middle of the night on the way back from a party and start reading. 

However the most impressive thing is, that it never gets vandalized. This is the first step towards a perfect society.

Castle

The last two days were spent at our G4-meeting, which is a fancy name for a meeting of four different scientific groups once a year. This year it all went down at Burg Bischofstein, a camp school near the Mosel. 

It's quite beautiful, however the shared showers and rooms with 6, 180 cm bunk beds certainly put a damper on things. We did have fun though, for example when we put a 2 m tall wooden knights statue in on of the professor's beds. ;-)

Traditions

When a baby is born friends decorate the house. I love that tradition. And happy birthday Marie. ;-)

Humour

This is Peter

He was found in the lab's dishwasher today.

We don't quite know what Peter's purpose is, but since he is a rather charming fellow we decided to name and keep him. 

(Chemist's sense of humour, you don't have to laugh)

Snob

Jobsnobs or actually....educationsnobs. The world is full of them! So is the blogosphere.
People that claim to be smarter because of their education, or simply because they have an education. Craftsmen are probably good at what they do, but you can't have an intelligent conversation with them.

However I'm willing to testify that many academics are impossible to listen too and talk with. In short: Intelligence doesn't depend on education. 

Neverthelss many seem to believe that this is the case. Denmark and other Scandinavian countries are a beautiful example of this snobbery. Every child is more or less expected to go to highschool or corresponding educational establishment, everything else is failure. Moreover university graduates will claim that they have nothing in common with people, with a lower education level.

I have many different friends, with whom I have many different things in common. But none of them are my friends because we are equally educated. Qualities such as empathy, great humour and commitment are more important to me and I've found these qualities in all types of people.

It would be nice if we could throw this idea of the supremacy of higher education overboard and just see people for who they are, instead of what they are.

Friends

In this case I'm talking about the friends in the lab, more specifically machines that make life in the lab easier.
This cute little thing, called the "Fraksammler", and collects fractions from a column.

For all non-chemists: a column is used to purify compounds after reactions and looks something like this:

The magic about this machine is that you don't have to be around your column all the time to check and switch test tubes. Basically it makes you lazier but faster. ;-)

Trick

As you may or may not have noticed, I live in Bonn. The picture at the top of my blog is the main building of the 200 years old Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University of Bonn. This is the building where you find the faculties of theology, philosophy and the institutes of history, egyptology, archaeology, anthropology and so on.
Another beautifull building is the 300 year old Poppelsdorfer Palace. Here you will find the institutes of zoology and LIMES, Life and Medical Sciences. Pretty okay, right?

So, now you ask, where am I? Where are the chemists? Well they used to be here, right next to the Poppelsdorfer Palace with a very versatile statue of Kekulé in front of it.

Not bad either, right? Well, the institute of Microbiology and Biotechnology has taken over. In stead teh lucky chemists have been placed  here:

Great! Building! The ceiling plates a coming down everywhere so small wood pieces have been attached at every corner. This week fluid was dripping through the ceiling in the mens bathroom. Oh yeah, and no airconditioning combined with an endless number of windows. I`m pretty sure the architect didn't win any prices for this one. On the good side, we have elevators and the company is good. ;-)

Retro

Bonn is a beautiful old city, 2000 years old actually. Allthough not much of the original buildings remains. Still since only 30 % of the city was destroyes during World War II, many lovely old buildings remain such as this one.

It's a flowershop and I'm considering entering it just to see how it looks from the inside. :-)

Surprise

Last Sunday I found this little surprise in my kitchen. Really big fellow that one, but looks nice with the orange watch. ;-)

Better

Moving is fun, I love decorating a new place, seing the possiblities. I was looking forward to finishing my thesis and beginning my PhD in Germany in a group I already knew.
But things never turn out the way you expect. The first two months were incredibly hard. Even though knowing some people, good friends are scarce. Everybody is new, everything is new, new rutines have to built, nothing is easy and everything requires an disproportionate amount of energy.
But now, things are suddenly getting better. During a couple of days I've beginning to feel better, just better. I don't feel lonely, I'm getting used to how things run at work and rutines have been established.
Still I recommend everyone, who want's to move to another country, to think twice. And download Skype. 

Bikes

Since moving to Germany my bike has started a small mutiny. First the prop stand broke off leaving the fitting....the rusty fitting. So rusty, that I couldn't get it off. This led to my first encounter with the bicycle repairer. Who gave me a prop stand, that didn't fit onto my bike. Fortunately it fitted onto a colleagues bike, who had just lost the prop stand. Lucky....just not for me.
Bying another prop stand at the repair shop did not help since it didn't fit on my bike either due to my disc brakes. Back to the shop, return the prop stand and ask if they have one that fits.
I show the bike, he repairer looks at it and says: Yes, these brakes are very rare.
Well, depends on where you come from. ;-)
Generally a neat bike in Germany looks like this:

 

 While in Denmark this is a neat bike:

 

The main difference is the creativity. German bikes are of good quality and look comfortable....and boring, soooo boring. A slim saddel is not standard equipment, and people look with wonder at my bike, which is not exactly high tech.
Moreover Germans are big fans of dynamo sets. And led-lights. And big chunky bike helmets.
I will not succomb to this trend!

I love

 
From H&M and of course sold out in my size. ;-) They are so wonderfully retro and basically scream Yvonne from Olsen-Banden.

Ribbons

Bought some ribbon and some pearls and made myself a necklace.

The left over ribbon I used to make a new strap for my new bag.

How do you like it? :-)

Centralisation the second

The Parliament is in Copenhagen. Every ministry is in Copenhagen. The National Museum is in Copenhagen. The National Archives are in Copenhagen. The largest University of the country is in Copenhagen. Everything is in Copenhagen.

The small schools in the provinces are closed. The small hospitals as well.

Apparently the government is deliberately pursuing a strategy aiming towards concentrating everything around the biggest cities in the country. The overall thought behind this is that the more expertise is concentrated on one spot, the better therapy, education and so on.

But is this really the case and at what cost does it come at?

The outskirts of Denmark, which by now include everything except Copenhagen and Aarhus, is in a poor health. Jobs are few or non-existing. The small villages have been stripped of state institutions such as schools or day care. Maybe that’s the reason why young people and families with children choose to leave the villages in order to get everyday life to function.

In Germany the outskirts are flourishing. Every tiny village has a day care, school, tennis court and many small clubs. And of course the indispensable ALDI. And people live there, young, old, children; because the rent is cheap and everyday life is possible.

This is due to a specific strategy pursued by the German government. As opposed to Denmark the strategy is about spreading public jobs and support local communities. When the Parliament moved from Bonn to Berlin, several other state institutions moved the other way. This is the reason that Bonn is still a living, breathing city.

Four years ago a technical university opened in Remagen, a city with a population of 10.000. This would be unthinkable in Denmark, but nevertheless works south of the border.

The question is, is it too late to turn around this development in Denmark? Moving the tax department to Ringkøbing was a start, but the general picture does not point towards decentralization. One can only hope, that Fælleslisten is able to convert their goals into votes, and that these votes are heard. Otherwise an important part of Denmark will be lost.  

Centralisation

Had a letter published i jp.dk today. Check it out. If you are not a native Dane, a translation will be given as soon as I can eat normally again. ;-)

Fever

Everybody has cought a fever, the last unaffected specimens have fallen ill this Sunday. All because of 22 men on a field chasing a single ball.
Hysteria has broken out, resulting in oddly coloured cheeks, unusual oral behaviour and an inexplicable attraction to cafes and bars.
Sadly, even though I've been spared so far, unwillingness to go along with these sudden symptoms will result in immediate exclusion of the team.

So, for my and my colleagues garden party next Saturday we will have to put up a widescreen showing the soccermatch between Germany and Argentina.
Today, while I was paying for my groceries, I was asked by the cashier if I wanted fan-make-up. I answered no thanks and was asked: "really?"
Honestly, can it get any worse?

Strawberries

Bought strawberries today. Half of them were bad, but the other half tasted great. The taste of summer. :-)

Signature

Found it at a flea market in Bad Godesberg. Loved it, bought it and put it in the kitchen. ;-)

Wanting

Finally a good solution for otherwise ugly cables.

Picture from design3000.de

Roadtrip

When my mom went to visit me I drove home with her from Odense. After 1 hour we hit a massive tailback due to an airshow by the danish military. This view is not good publicity for the military. We spent 1½ hours traversing 6 km because the exit couldn't take the traffic.

Flea

Pictures of the bargains made at lasts weekends fleamarkets

Old tin and yellow vase

Porcelain souvenir

Book with collectors cards of dancers

Smart

S-Klasse Rettungskapsel

Travelling

Today I have a letter in the newspaper concerning a suggestion from the oppostition in Denmark, where newly qualified have to pay back their otherwise free education if the leave Denmark for too long. Have fun reading. :-)

Sun

I finally remembered why i decided to move to Bonn.

Sunday

Strictly speaking it's not Sunday today, but since it's Ascension Day today I still can't go grocery shopping. Not that grocery shopping is number one on my list of favorite things to do, but for too long I have not appreciated open supermarkets on Sundays.
Since I now live in an catholic country I will have to get used to it. I have to plan! A horrible prospect for a student....or just someone like me, who remebers what she needs five minuts before she needs it.
Actually supermarkets in Germany do open on Sundays....four times a year. But even that is too much for the German catholic church, they actually call it a sacrilege.
Wich me, the anti-religious atheist, good luck! 

Exhaustion

After one and a half week of work I still only barely manage to do my 8 hours in the lab. One of the reasons is that I run from one end of the lab to the other looking for substances and labequipment. Since there is a total lack of methodology in the location of the chemicals, I have to check on the computer every time I need something. Moreover I have to borrow a computer from one of my colleagues, since all the group-computers were taken. Also all the desks were taken, so my workspace is a narrow "room" with an old chair and my own old laptop. Not very cosy!

All of this makes work sort of unpleasent and tough and at two o'clock I could lie down and sleep on the spot. I hope in time, when the lab becomes more familiar to me I can actually start working effectively.

Wish me luck!

Fire

The first Saturday in May every year is a special day for the cities along the river Rhine. The day is called Rhine in Flames. Ships with lights on travel along the river, bridges are lit up and music is playing. Several cities along the river arrange a gigantic firework to a music theme. In Bonn a big funfair mixed with discomusic and beer entices most of the minors in Bonn and surroundings to come to the Rheinaue.

As an "almost grown-up" 14 year olds lighting up deodorant is not the essence of a nice evening. However we manged to have a lot of fun, trying every food booth and sqeezing siz people on to one blanket. 

Home