Celebrating My Last German Weekend with Mr. X Game!

Hello all!! Last weekend was my last weekend in Germany before heading back to good old Arizona. I have mixed feelings about this, I really really miss home, but I am also sad that this amazing journey is coming to an end. This past weekend, I played Mr. X with some people from the lab and friends (shout out to Gesa and Mareike for inviting me to so many things this summer and being  awesome friends to me in the lab). This is where you get a clue every half hour of where Mr. X is in Bielefeld and you have to use public transport to find him. We definitely did not find him on accident (which means we totally did) but we did it!! We found Mr. X!

Well this is one of my last posts for Kali's DAAD RISE blog, thank you all for following along with me on my adventures and I will see y'all in AZ soon!!

(post Mr. X on the train)

Hamburg

Last weekend Kolja showed me his hometown of Hamburg, Germany. We had a great time in a great city! I only have one more weekend of travel left before heading back home! I'm thinking of going to Berlin, what do you all think?

Routine, Routine, Routine...

Since I have been here for 8 weeks now (crazyyyyyy), I have fallen into a daily routine. Of course, things change day to day, but I thought I'd share my routine for the work day.

7am: wake up and get ready
8am: make toast and jelly and put my morning coffee in my to-go cup
8:07am: leave for the tram station
8:21 am: Take the tram #1 from Schildesche to Bielefeld Hauptbahnof
8:38 am: Take the tram #4 from Hauptbahnof to Universitat
8:55am: arrive at CeBiTec and work on various activities
11:30am (on the dot): go to lunch with the 11:30 lunch group. Lunch is great and here is a picture of a normal meal; a main dish, veggies, carb of some sort, and dessert

12:30pm (Wednesdays): go to seminar, someone is usually presenting their research. I presented on mine and my university this week
4:30pm-6pm: go home for the day
When I get home: Run to the lake in Schildesche
8pm: I cook dinner to unwind from the day (I have found that I love cooking every evening when I have time to)
9pm: hang out in the kitchen with roommates
10:30pm: go to bed to start it over again in the morning

Not super exciting, but that is my Bielefeld life!

Brussels, Belgium

Hello! Last weekend Kolja and I went to Brussels! It was a great trip. The city was so beautiful and we happened to go during their national celebration! Seeing the city festivities was amazing. 

This arch was built in 50 A.D. 

I got excited when I found a Kali sized door

Of course, I had to try the waffles!!

More techniques!!

Alright, hopefully in seven weeks I learned a thing or two in the lab. Here is an updated list of the protocols I have learned and now have done on my own at least once:

Over Half Way Done!

Hi everyone!! Few things to update y'all on. First of all, I only have a little over 5 weeks here in Germany!! Time has really flown by.

Also, here is a picture of all of the DAAD RISE Scholars! We are the group who were awarded the scholarships to be in Germany for 3 months and this picture was taken at the RISE meeting in Heidelberg two weekends ago.

I thought I'd end this post with some of the differences between Germany and the US that I thought were kind of strange/interesting

1. Milk is boxed and doesn't need to be refrigerated
2. Supermarkets and a lot of other stores are closed on Sundays
3. Public bathrooms are not free
4. You may not name your baby a "weird" name
5. People are very blunt (not mean just say what's on their mind) and don't waste time with flowery talk
6. There is no German word for pie (meaning my apple pie I made was always referred to as a cake)
7. You must bring your own bag to the supermarket and pack your groceries up yourself. My roommates were flabbergasted that we pay people to pack our grocery bags

Reckenfeld, Germany

This weekend my roommate Tabea treated a few of the house members to a trip to her hometown of Reckfeld! It was a lot of fun and I got to see the hometown of one of my best friends here in Germany. I met her family and we spent the day at the lake. It was beautiful. Enjoy the beauty of German nature. 

Me and Christiane!

DAAD RISE Meeting!

Hi everyone! This weekend I got to travel to beautiful Heidelberg, Germany where I had a meeting with all of the other RISE scholars! There were some 300 or something of us! It was great hearing my fellow scholars talk and getting a tour of the historic city. Here’s some pics from the weekend. 

CeBiTec BBQ/Party!

Hi all! Yesterday the biology department had a party and our lab was in charge of it! So, we had been preparing all week and the outcome was great! A few of my roommates even came to it. I've gotten pretty close to some of my roommates, and here is me and Tabea at the party! She's super awesome and I am so lucky to have her as a friend here in Germany!

Ups and Downs

So, work in the lab has been pleasantly successful! My experiments have ended well with at least some sort of product. However, I have had some pretty impressive failures as well! Failures so terrible I am actually proud of it XD One of my duties is to create phylogenetic trees and I have around ten plausible and good-looking trees. But, when I tried to concatenate the data I ended up with the worst phylogenetic tree I have ever seen. I am seriously debating getting it printed and framed. Take a look:

(taxon names deleted for obvious reasons)
Gorgeous, isn't it?

The daily grind

So I’m in my third week in the lab and things are going great! I  completed my first solo experiment yesterday and I should be starting my own project next week! I shall keep you all updated!

A lab coat goes with any outfit :)

Art is a universal language

This weekend I was fairly busy exploring Bielefeld a little more. Saturday I went to the Kunsthalle art gallery with a roommate which was showcasing pieces by Michael Majerus and Olaf Nicolai. And today I went to the kletterpark (climbing park) with coworkers in the lab! I am very thankful for all of the people in Bielefeld taking the time and showing me what makes this city great!

After One Week...

After one week of working in the lab I have already learned many new techniques and studied protocols for many others. I thought it would be useful to keep an updated list of new things I have done in the lab. This week I will be learning much more and I can't wait to share my new list with you next week.

Walking Through Bielefeld

Just a few pictures from the shops and such across the street from the house

First Day of Work

Hi everyone! I had my first day at Bielefeld Universitat! Today I only did paperwork and tomorrow I start actually working in the lab.

The view from our kitchen in the house

Where I'll be working

Universitat Bielefeld (I'll get better pictures)