Humiliation, thy name is wifi poaching

I am in a tunnel under a building.

Prewritten post starts here:

So. As you may have noticed, this blog sucks. The number one reason for suckage is lack of internet access. Even at internet cafes, you have to use their computers, so I don’t have my photos. But there is a wifi café in Mannheim that looked pretty nice and which I got a recommendation for, so this will probably be posted from there tomorrow or the next day. (<-actually not true)

A quick recap:

I can’t tell you anything about work except that it’s in an awkward stage right now, but should pick up soon.

On Tuesday after work I went into Mannheim to play pub trivia with other English speaker expats. I got horribly lost due to faulty google maps action, but I managed to not cry and eventually found my party and answered a few questions in the category “German Literature” (“Well, if you don’t know, guess Goethe!”- true for all of German Studies) But the highlight of the evening was realizing that the guy sitting next to me was an author on THE fly paper that published their results the day I started the same experiment. His advisor is the author of basically every other drosophila calorie restriction paper ever. Small world. So, against all odds, I actually did get to exclaim “I got different results!” I was not surprised to hear that the empirical results from that particular setup will vary among different species and yeast sources. Well, it’s no secret that my fly experiment was not Nobel-quality. But he has just finished research on a Ph.D. thesis in the area and is starting to write. (Consideration: they may have to beat my Ph.D. thesis out of me.) He had some very interesting things to say about the peculiarities of the field, and told me a little about a paper he’s submitting to Nature. I will not expand on it, because I do not want him scooped. Did I ever tell you about the time that once a housefly landed next to me after I’d been working with fruit flies all day and I almost had a heart attack? Anyway…

Yesterday (Thurs) there was a mini-conference at the company about industrial biotechnology. There was a general overview, and then we took a few tours and were told about how these concepts applied to our company. Good stuff. Then we got “oriented” again, and I asked about regional food, and after the laughter died down I was told about “Saumagen” which used to be wrapped in pig stomach (hence the name) but isn’t anymore. It sounded otherwise kind of like corned beef hash. Hell, I’ll try it.

Today was the most anticlimactic 4^th of July ever. We’re all going to a scholarship dinner in Heidelberg tonight, and I don’t know when it’s over, but if it’s early we might go to fireworks at the American garrison in Mannheim. I guess I’ll know by the time I blog this. UPDATE: Dinner was fun. Kamila and I couldn’t make it to the official bus, so we took the train and then another bus, and we were like 4 minutes late, but since there were approximately a billion people in attendance they were still on their way in. So we drank and nommed, and we were sitting at a table with a few kids from the other program: one cute, outgoing, German/bio guy and one jackass blowhard. These things happen. Then we left for the train station and discovered that the only train left that night was in an hour, and that the next one came at 5am. So that was fine except that we were in the middle of nowhere and I really had to go to the bathroom. So when a bus pulled in, I asked the driver if it went to the other, bigger train station, and he said “yes”, so I dragged the other kids onto the bus so we could at least be somewhere well lit with bathrooms. But then the bus didn’t go to the other station, it went further and further from civilization, so we bailed in the middle of nowhere, and used Kevin’s GPS to speedwalk like a mile so we didn’t miss The Last Train Evar. That part was less fun.

I found a patch of blackberries while lost in Limburgerhof (where I work) on Wednesday, and I went back and picked a Tupperware full today. The bushes are very close to the train station but nobody else seems interested. While I was picking them today, I could hear trains pulling in and out and I realized that life ain’t bad when you find yourself saying “Oh, well, I’ll just pick these plump berries, if that makes me miss my train, it just means I can read poetry until the next one comes.” I did miss a train, but since the station is basically a “why not?” stop on main lines that run frequently, I had to wait all of seven minutes for the next one. Of course the blackberries reminded me of picking blackberries outside the slaughterhouse gates in Dresden with Jess. (Note to self: Brew a black lager with blackberries and call it “Dresden Sommer”). I realized that I’d found the blackberries both times by walking somewhere where other people don’t (which is why they’re probably coated in exhaust fumes). So if someone would like to make that into a bumper sticker (maybe without the last part), you go ahead and do that.

I also looked up Stars and Stripes online, and found the Volksmarch listings for Europe, which someone had told me to look into. I guess they’re just healthy, fresh air hikes that robust Germans go on and invite others, and then at the end you get like, a medal or a beer mug or a scarf or something. There are none particularly nearby, but I might be willing to travel. There’s also a WaterFire-like event near Mainz, but it’s too soon to make plans.

The other kids in the building have all banded together for internet access, and are searching for hotspots, and if you can read this, it means I found one.