Die Nacht der Kultur and Other Things

Guten Morgen, alles!

I feel much better this morning after a full night's sleep. It is fabulous to sleep in a bit!

Yesterday was a pretty good day, except that I spent the vast majority of it in what I lovingly call "the hole," otherwise known as the dark room. I know, not overly creative, but it really is like a hole in the wall. And not the sort of "hole in the wall" in which you can find really good food. I made quite a bit of progress with my testing, which is great, but I couldn't spend more than about 45 minutes at a time in the room, because it is literally nothing more than a glorified closet. And I discovered that it is very difficult to work in red light.

After I finished with my "experiments" for the day, I decided to hang out for a while and see if the internet could magically find anything interesting to do in the city for this weekend. Surprise of all surprises, it did! Last night was the Gottinger Nacht der Kultur. Essentially, it was just a big festival in the main city with live performances, plays, and lots of food. I was sort of hoping that someone from the lab would go with me because it is always more fun to do things with a group of people and it is even better when that group of people can speak the language. But Martin had disappeared, Robert went to Paris for the weekend with his girlfriend, and David had to stay late to take some more measurements. No one else in the lab was around. So, I decided, "You know what, who needs 'em!" and walked the two miles down to the main city.

It was actually very nice. It was very crowded, but very nice. I saw all sorts of really neat performances (with the exception of one pretty bad A Cappella quartet). I had a lot of fun listening to the Gottinger Orchestra. They played a lot of very famous classical music, plus a medley of Henry Mancini music (The Pink Panther, anyone?). That one literally made me giggle out loud with glee. The festivities were supposed to continue until midnight, but at about 10 I decided that I was cold (the weather is still very cold at night, although it is warmer during the day than it was when I first got here), and I wanted to get back before it got dark.

All in all, it was a lot of fun!

I think that today I am going to walk back down to the city to go to the farmer's market (called the Wochenmarkt) and buy some fresh Gemuse and Obst (veggies and fruits) for the week. I'll probably also go to the regular grocery store and buy a few more things. I am going to have to start actually cooking for myself. I've had about all I can take of peanut butter and pseudo-jelly and Ramen. I also need to drop by an ATM (or Geldautomat, here) and get some money, as I think I have about 10 euro left to my name. Lunch at the mensa is much more expensive if you are not a student at the university, so a lot of the money that I had left went onto my ID card in order to buy lunch.

Otherwise, I think I'm going to try to get in touch with some of the other people from the RISE program who are in Gottingen. I'd like to meet them all. Maybe we can get together for ice cream or something tomorrow.

Anyway, those are my plans for the day. I'll let everyone know how it works out!

Oh, and for all of you who haven't seen it yet, here is a link where you can see pictures of everyone in my lab. That way, you can put names and faces together. (Surprisingly, there are three women in my lab, although you don't hear about them too much because they only work half-days. There will be even more when Pingkalai gets back! Whoo!)

http://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/114693.html

Just click on the names to see individual pictures of people!

Alright, see you all later!