Two Days

Okay, so I guess I have about two days worth of stuff to get caught up on.

Honestly, everything is settling into a pretty nice routine. I get up, go in to work, help Steffi collect virgin flies, go to the molecular laboratory to do a bit of work (i.e. finishing up the in situ, which takes three days), have lunch with everyone at the mensa, and then do whatever else needs to be done until I go home.

One cool thing about Thursday was that I was invited to go with everyone to see a movie. It was a scientific movie about a Nobel Prize winner who was originally from Austria, but it was still pretty neat. The movie, thank goodness, was in English with German subtitles (I learned lots of cool new words that way!), but the discussion afterwards was all in German. I was able to pick up the occasional phrase, but for the most part, everyone simply spoke too quickly.

After the movie I was hoping that we would all go out for dinner because I hadn't eaten yet and it was about 10:30. Unfortunately, people from another laboratory came to join us, and I felt bad because I was the only one who couldn't speak German. I didn't want to make David translate for me all night, or have all of them speak English for my benefit, so I walked home with Guvanch instead. That night was pretty depressing. I'm learning so much German here and I can usually figure out the gist of what is going on around me, but my vocabulary is still so limited that it is difficult for me to keep up with a fast conversation. It was very frustrating to know that as much as I want to be fluent in this language, I am far from that point and it is limiting the things that I am able to do while I am here.

Friday was, once again, a pretty typical day. Except that when I got to work Martin popped his head in and asked if I was busy. He wanted to know if I wanted to come see the house that he was building. He hadn't been to check on it in a few weeks, and he wanted to see how it was coming along. So he, Steffi, and I all piled into her car and drove up to Nikolausberg (it is technically part of Gottingen, but it is set off from the central city) to see his house. It was super cool. We also dropped by Steffi's house, because she lives up there too, and I met her husband and her daughter. Her house, by the way, is AWESOME. She has bookshelves built into the walls!!! Whoo!

I noticed a few cultural differences Friday as well. (Or at least I thought they were cultural differences. Maybe I'm just weird/crazy/have odd and unrealistic expectations). Coming home from lunch, David asked me if I had any plans for the weekend. I was super excited, because I didn't, and I was hoping that he'd invite me along to do something, because that's generally what happens when someone asks if you have plans. Right? (Am I nuts?? Isn't "Do you have plans for the weekend?" usually followed by "Well, I was just asking because such and such is going on and I was wondering if you wanted to come....?") So I said no, except for Sunday when I am supposed to have lunch with Steffi, and he said, "Oh, okay." And so, I asked if he had plans, and he said he was going to a music festival and he was going to hang out with some friends, etc, etc. And that was the end of the conversation. He was honestly just curious as to whether or not I had plans.

At the end of the day, I found out that both Robert and David were going to the festival, and they left a bit early to get there. I stayed with Simon and William and tried to figure out what to do with the rest of my evening/weekend. The weekends are always a bit depressing because everyone goes off to do their own thing and I have to figure out how to entertain myself alone.

Anyway, there was this really weird moment when William asked me if I had wanted to go with Robert and David. I said that it would probably have been cool, and he said "Well then, why didn't you go?" And I sort of looked confused and said "Erm....because they didn't invite me?" ....And both Simon and William sort of stared at me like I was completely off my rocker. Maybe I'm a bit old fashioned, but you generally don't just invite yourself along to stuff, right? Especially when a person would have to make special accomodations for you (i.e. spend the evening speaking English so that I could understand what was going on). But apparently here, if you want to go with someone to do something, you just go. ::Shrugs:: Oh well. I thought about going to the festival anyway and trying to meet up with them there, but I found out that it was an hour walk to get there because it was up in Nikolausberg.

So, I walked down to the central city instead, and went into a few book shops and such. Completely by accident, I wandered into some of the other people from my program, so we all went to have dinner at one of the many Biergartens here. It was a lot of fun, actually. I love the way that eating at restaurants works here. You essentially walk in and find a place to sit down. Then, after a few minutes someone comes over to take your order and then essentially leaves you alone until you wave them over for something. There is none of this "please wait to be seated" stuff, or having your waiter or waitress popping over to ask you if everything is okay while you're in the middle of a mouthful of food or an interesting conversation. If there aren't any available seats, you find someplace else to eat. It's very cool. I like it because it is very hands-off and very low stress.

I found out that the RISE people were all riding their bikes down to a castle today. I really wanted to go, but unfortunately I don't have a bike (I really need to go rent one) and it is supposed to rain today. Plus, it was way too far to walk (about 20 miles). ::Sigh:: Oh well. I seriously need to go do laundry today anyway.

That was pretty much the entire day, to be honest. I'm going to walk back down to the city tonight because there is a concert that I really want to see. I'll probably get dinner while I'm down there. But first, I will do laundry! I hope it isn't too hard to figure out, but I guess I'll see! Wish me luck!