my last-minute weekend in Frankfurt

As many of you know, my friend Jenny lives in Frankfurt with her husband Leo and their new daughter Janka who was born in November. Since moving here I've talked to her a couple of times, and emailed a bit, and we were trying to work out a good weekend to visit. This past weekend was booked for them, as a family from Hamburg was going to be visiting them, so we'd decided upon next weekend. But then Friday morning I got an email from Jenny, saying that their friends weren't able to make it at the last minute, so I could come if I didn't already have plans.

I thought about it, and I checked out the website for Deutsche Bahn, the German national railroad, to check out what the prices looked like. Generally, it's cheaper if you book in advance. There are exception to this I think, with some special deals, but to be honest I haven't figured out the Bahn's website or pricing scheme entirely just yet. Jenny says not to worry, she's German and it still doesn't all make sense. (They do have English on their website, but only on certain pages, and not on the ones describing all their special deals.) It looked like it would be about 21 euros cheaper to go the following weekend (63 vs. 84), so I told her I'd probably come the next weekend instead. Also, these prices are with the 25% discount I get because of my BahnCard 25, which was my going-away present from the UVic/lunchtime people in Victoria. I was so happy when it arrived, I even took a picture of it:

I also wasn't sure about going because I'd heard from my mom's co-worker's friend's partner, Alex, and he and Corene (my mom's co-worker's friend) and one of their friends were heading out for Mexican food and cheap margaritas on Friday night as well. I know that it's a pretty silly string of people who know people, but Corene and I were given each other's email addresses, we're both Canadians living in Jena, and it turns out that we both like to eat and drink. It was a sure-fire recipe for fun. We've been out a few times since I got here and we've had lot of fun, but unfortunately they're moving to Vancouver in a week and a half or so. In fact, their going-away party is this coming Saturday night.

But I'm getting off-topic. Essentially, I was already excited at the prospect of margaritas for 1.90 after 9:00 pm, and I didn't want to replace that plan with three hours on the train, heading to Frankfurt.

But then Friday afternoon I was invited to a party the following weekend at the house of one of my co-workers, which many of the younger scientists in my group will be attending. This is way too good a chance of socializing with my colleagues to give up. (And not because I think it will be good for my career or anything like that, just because I think it's nice to have friends at work.)

And so I didn't know what to do - going to Frankfurt this weekend meant a more expensive ticket, really rushed last-minute packing, leaving work earlier than I'd planned, and missing out on Mexican food and drinks. Going the weekend after meant missing out on the work-related party as well as Corene and Alex's going-away party (which are unfortunately on the same night). At this point it was around 4:00 pm in Jena, so 7:00 am in Victoria, and I called Jeremi to ask his advice. Of course he said I should do it all. Buy an expensive ticket that left early Saturday morning, go out on Friday anyhow (who needs sleep?), and then stay in Jena the weekend after.

I called Jenny and worked out the details - I went out Friday night, and took the train leaving Jena at 7:36 Saturday morning. Jenny and Leo and Janka came to meet me at the station, and we then went to a big market to do groceries for a big supper that night. Jenny and Leo both really like to cook, and they're on an Indian spree at the moment. For supper Saturday night we had a feast - butter chicken, masur dal, okra with spices and yogurt, cucumber raita, rice, and naan. It was really wonderful. Here's Leo with the table full of food:
The next day we all slept in (well, mostly Leo and I, as Jenny was up feeding Janka throughout the morning), and had a huge breakfast of sausage and eggs and bread and cheese and meat and jam and yogurt etc., and we made our plans for the day.

We opted to go to the Senckenberg natural history museum, the largest of its kind in Germany, to see the exhibit about archaeropteryx, the feathered dinosaurs which were believed to be the evolutionary "missing link" between reptiles and birds. The exhibit was pretty interesting from what I could gather, which wasn't too much, as of course the signage was only in German. This was a surprise to Jenny, but not to me. She was sure that she'd seen museum signs in two languages before, and I reminded her that she did live in Canada for over three years. I tried to muddle through the signs as best I could, but to be honest I ended up feeling pretty useless, especially as the place was packed with kids and their parents, and I was watching six-year-olds read the signs aloud to their parents.

Aside from the dinosaurs they also had some pretty interesting exhibits regarding marine life. They had some really cool large (10-20 cm) models of some plankton - diatoms and coccolithophores and dinoflagellates and the like - which really look like sci-fi space stations. There were also many preserved specimens of various sea creatures, and amongst these I found the sea urchin shells. Now this is exciting because last August while camping near Port Renfrew with Jeremi and my brother and his wife I found the most interesting shell fragment that I'd ever seen. The design was incredibly intricate, like lace almost, with holes from one side to the other that took circuitous paths through the body of the shell. I took the fragment home and tried to look it up on the internet, but without luck. But I'm almost certain that I found it at this museum! It was definitely a sea urchin at least, and I'm fairly sure it was what's called a Griffel Seeigel in German, or a pencil urchin in english, or Heterocentrotus mammilatus or possibly Heterocentrotus trigonarius in latin. Here you can see a picture of what the shell looks like without the spikes or soft tissue,

and here's the sea urchin while it's still alive. Pretty crazy-looking, eh?
And while it's possible that Chris and Karen and Jeremi have completely forgotten about the mysterious shell fragment, at least I can put it out of my mind now.

After leaving the museum we walked back across town to their place, relaxed, had some leftovers for supper, and then I headed off to the train. Here's one last picture of Jenny and Janka hanging out on the couch before I left:

my weekend

This weekend the weather in Jena was just beautiful. In fact, for all of you weather nuts, principally my immediate family, you can check out the up-to-date conditions in Jena (updated every 10 minutes) at http://www.bgc-jena.mpg.de/wetter, and you can also learn some German meteorological terms. Don't worry, unlike most things here, it's entirely bilingual. There are actually two weather stations here, one at the institute itself (Wetterstation Beutenberg), and the other lower down, by the river (Saaleaue). The difference in elevation means that it's usually a few degrees colder up on the hill at the institute. And for those of you who aren't weather weenies, you can check out the webcams at the foot of the page.

Anyhow, the weather on the weekend was great, about 13 degrees, blue skies, and sunny on both Saturday and Sunday. I knew that I had to have a bike to truly enjoy this day. But first, I had to go to the Zollamt, or customs office, first thing Saturday morning to get my fiddle. It was a bit tricky to find, in the heart of an industrial park about 5 km south of town, but I eventually made it there. I did get a bit disoriented when I first got off the bus, but having the river nearby at least makes it easy to navigate. (It flows to the north, so you can always tell which bank of the river you're on at very least.) Once I found the office, I went in armed with all my documents, and a German-English phrasebook. (I do have a really good set of German-English English-German dictionaries given to us by a friend, but they're being shipped right now. I wrongly thought that a phrasebook would be enough to make it through 6 weeks or so.)

The two men working there didn't speak any English at all, but they were very friendly, and listened patiently as I tried to explain that it was my own violin, which I had owned for more than 3 years, and that my father was just sending it to me. I guess there had been some confusion because it was sent to the institute, so they thought it was some sort of expesive equipment. But they had me open it up to show them (joking that it might be a machine gun inside the case), and they let me go without paying anything. They did make photocopies of my work contract and my residence permit though. I've noticed that once people know that I work at the MPI they're much more accommodating. (Also, Dad, in future, if you're going to write any title with my name, please use Dr. instead of Ms. Germans really go for the whole title thing, and the secretary here advises me that the bureaucracy will treat me better if they think I'm well educated.)

After getting the fiddle and dropping it off at the institute, I headed downtown to find myself a bicycle. I figured out the German yellow pages, so I had a list of 8 bicycle shops in the area, along with a map and the approximate locations of each one. When I got off the bus I ran into a student who is living in the tower, who I'd met in the kitchen before. Lam is from Vietnam, and did his master's in Japan (where he learnt Japanese), and he came to Jena at the beginning of January genuinely believing that all Germans spoke English. He speaks less German than me, and is heartily confused by most of what's going on. Though I'm also clueless, he asked for my help in trying to print out his statement from the bank machine. Here there are separate machines for taking out money and printing out statements, and both he and I were advised to print out our statements monthly and keep them in case of an error. While some of the banks have a language option on the machines, his doesn't, so together we finally figured out how to make it print. Encouraged by our success and the good weather, he asked if he could come bicycle shopping with me.

The problem that we encountered is that both of us are shorter than the average German bicycle user, so that the choices in used bicycles was not so good. Lam is actually a fair bit shorter than me, and when we'd go into the stores and I'd ask in my broken German if they had used bicycles, they'd usually tell me (in a mostly polite way) that Lam was too short. I'm not fluent enough to point out that at some point in their lives all tall Germans actually pass through a short phase, and probably have bikes at this point too, so we'd just head on the the next shop.

Finally, at the 5th shop, we started to have some success. I found the perfect bike for myself, which is just short enough with the seat all the way down, with fenders, 18 speeds, a rear rack, reflectors, a bell, a pump, and front and rear lamps powered by a dynamo. And all for only 50 Euros. (Seeing as in the 12 days I've spent in Jena I've already spent half that in bus fare, I thought this was a great deal.) Throw in a lock, and it was only 67 altogether. I wanted to buy a helmet too, even though very few people here wear them, but the cheapest on they had at this store was 50 Euros (about $76). I didn't think that I should pay as much for the helmet as for my bike, so I'm going to check out other shops. I know it's really important, but I must admit that I loved the feeling of riding without a helmet on, with the wind in my hair. Still, I have a Canadian skull, which is clearly not as thick as the average German skull in terms of both surviving accidents and letting in new ideas regarding public health and safety.

Here's me with my fabulous new bike:

And finally, after spending a bit more than he'd hoped, and having the seat-post and the handlebar-post cut so they could go lower, here's Lam with his lovely new bike as well:After spending the day riding around, picking up some groceries, and doing the Globe and Mail crossword with Jeremi (via Skype), it was time to go to my first German party. The party was for the birthday of Susanna, a graduate student here in a different group from me. I met her briefly at the institute retreat last week, but I'd also gone out for beers with her last Wednesday night along with another Susanna and her husband Colin, who live next door to me in the guest apartments. The two Susannas are in the same research group. The married Susanna is Danish, and her husband Colin is from the Netherlands, they just moved here from Copenhagen, and they both speak English, Dutch, Danish, and German, which is at least 2 Germanic languages more than anyone should really know.

In preparation for the party I'd gone to the grocery store to pick out a variety of beers, 6 different kinds of pilsner to be exact. Here they are getting ready before the party. Don't they look nice?The one on the left is Köstritzer, which is a local Thüringian brand which is very popular around these parts. They're more well known for their dark Schwarzbier, but the pilsner is found on tap all around town too. The advertisements are everywhere as well, and I find their slogan really funny: "Das Haus der magischen Biere" - the house of the magic beers. I'm sure it sounds better if you speak German.

The party was fun, if a bit, well, different. The people were quite friendly, and a lot of people took the time and effort to speak to me in English. I think that everyone there except for me and the couple from next door was chain smoking the whole time, which made it even smokier than the bars and cafés here, which I didn't know could be possible. Finally it became too bad for everyone, so they just opened up all the doors and windows and put their coats on so they could continue smoking inside. I found this a bit odd. Also, when the dancing started, it was almost exclusively by guys, which isn't really seen amongst straight men in Canada. I think we were the first to leave, and we didn't get home until 4:20 or so.

Naturally, the next day I didn't get up early and take the long bike ride along the Saale river that I'd been planning. Instead I slept in quite late, and then was lazy for a few hours before joining Colin and Susanna for a nice long drive through the countryside, seeing a bunch of different towns along the way. We only stopped in one place, Schwarzburg, where there are the ruins of a castle that used to be the seat of the Counts of Schwarzburg from the 12th century onward. It's also the site where the Weiman Constitution was signed by the then president back in 1919. Here's me with the ruins in the background, enjoying the sunlight.And here are Colin and Suzanna, with the town in the background behind them. There is also a river in the valley below, the Schwarza, which is a tributary of the Saale. I know that I'm talk ing about the rivers a lot, but they're a really big part of the geography here. (I think possibly to make up for a general lack of lakes, but that might just be my Ontarian bias.)

Maple juice

After a couple of weeks in Jena I noticed that my skin was getting really dry. It's not really that it's so very cold or dry here, maybe it's just the shock of not being in very moist Victoria, where moss grows on cars in the winter. I also notice that the buildings here are heated a bit more than I'm used to - I have yet to turn on the heaters in either my office or my room, as the warm hallways seem to provide enough heat.

In any case I decided that I should pick up some cream for my dry skin. I don't really have brand preferences, I was just looking for something fairly cheap. I went to the store, and saw this:
(I actually nabbed this picture from the Garnier website, as my attempted photos were coming out worse than usual.) If you look at the label you'll see why I chose it, and no, it's not because of the amusingly awkward English titles (Body Naturals bodyrepair) followed by strictly German labelling. It's because of the maple leaf, surrounded by the words "mit kanadischem Ahornsaft", which I knew translated literally to "with Canadian maple juice". I figured that this meant maple syrup, though when I looked it up, my dictionary gave Ahornsirop for maple syrup, rather than Ahornsaft. But on the Garnier site it actually says Ahornsirop in the text.

Now having lived my whole life in Canada, I've eaten a goodly share of maple syrup, and I've visited a sugar shack or cabane à sucre on occasion, and this is really the first that I've heard about the benefits of putting maple syrup on one's skin. Or even micro-maple syrup (you might be able to read Mikro-Ahornsaft on the label, just above the maple leaf), whatever the hell that means. But the cream is marketed toward people with severely dry skin during the dry winter months, and I think with the red and white packaging, maple leaf, and maple syrup, they're trying to get across the idea that this is some sort of natural beauty secret from the wilds of Canada. (Incidentally, this product is not sold by Garnier in Canada or the United States, but it is in France, where this liquid is described as maple sap - la sève d'érable - but not micro-maple sap.)

I can't make too much fun I guess, since I fell for it...

The arduous journey of the fiddle

When leaving Victoria I had carefully packed and weighed my bags - my brand new large MEC backpack coming in at a mere 43 pounds of clothes (all that it could hold), my rolling black bag with 50.2 pounds of books, electronics, and more clothes (just below the Air Canada limit of 50.6 lbs), my backpack as carry-on (or as Europeans call it, hand luggage) with 19 pounds of laptop, books, knitting, tea, and documents, and finally, my personal item was going to be my fiddle.

Except that when we got up at 4:15 am we somehow neglected to bring along the fiddle.

Since I was going to Toronto for three days I asked Jeremi if he could try to courier it to Toronto by Tuesday morning so that I could bring it with me on the flights to Germany. He went to UPS, and was told that it would be there by 10:30 am on the Tuesday, a full hour before I had to leave for the airport. Of course it arrived about 4 hours after I left, and we were out $100. (Apparently the time quoted him by the UPS agent was not a guarantee of any sort, so we're just out the money.)

Since the fiddle was now at my parents house, my dad went down to the post office to see about sending it to Jena. I told him to send it the slowest way possible, and only if it didn't cost too much. Well my dad's a big softie, and couldn't bear the thought of me alone in Germany without a fiddle, and he spent far too much money sending it by Xpresspost. He also declared a value of $600, far more than it's actually worth, but figuring that it was better to be on the safe side in terms of insurance cost. He was tracking it (anyone who knows my dad knows he loves to track things online, be they flights or packages or weather), and knew that it had arrived in Jena. And then I received a notice saying the same thing, except it came with three forms attached, one of which had an address and lots of writing. Of course it's all in German, and I really can't read it so well. I put it into Babelfish to try to clarify the situation, and I came up with this:

Tariff interchange point

Notification about the entrance of a transmission with third country commodity

Very honoured post office customer, very honoured post office customer!

We ask you, the customs clearance lying close dispatch note tariff contents over the entrance of a transmission with cash on delivery from the foreign country belonging mail with the customs office (road and place) to request as soon as possible and to fetch the transmission there within seven days against return of the lying close dispatch note as well as collecting main of the necessary import papers (see "report if necessary lying close over the customs clearance of a mail"). Afterwards the customs office raises please the sent documents within this period with that hand written note "acceptance refused" to the German post office, tariff interchange point, back.

-Calculation and/or declared values bring along
-EBAY expression with declared value bring along

They know the missing data or documents - incl. this notification map and their plants - which o. g. convey customs office also in writing. The German post office will represent you during the customs clearance and for you the transmission will afterwards set. Please you consider that in this case a higher expenditure of time can be necessary for the post office customs.

Yours sincerely
your German post office

With the exception of "cash on delivery", all of the boldface is from the original. I'm a bit concerned about the whole "cash on delivery" bit, really, since it's already been fully paid in Canada. I'm really hoping that I just have to go pick it up and that I don't have to pay some sort of import tariff, but I'm really not sure. It's even marked "gift" on the form from Canada Post. I'll let you all know how it goes tomorrow morning. I just thought you might like to have a taste of just how confused I am about everyday life here, even with the aid of translation. I also get to have a grand adventure getting to the customs office, which isn't in Jena at all, but rather in Lobeda, this semi-suburb about 5 km to the south of here which is filled with Soviet-era apartment blocks and bureaucy from hell. (Lobeda is also where the Ausländerbehörde or Foreigner's Office is, where I was unable to get my visa in the first attempt because my head was 2 mm too small in my passport photos. I'll be heading back there again sometime soon.) Maybe I'll bring along my camera to record the sights tomorrow. I haven't yet taken public transit this far from town, so this alone will be a bit of an adventure. I might even have a look around for cheap used bicycles if the experience at the customs office doesn't ruin my day.

Poor the Cat

So last Wednesday I called the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to make an appointment to get some of Aeris' paper work done so that she can go to Germany with us. The man at the agency told me that a vet had to come from Vancouver to sign and stamp the official papers and it just so happened that he was supposed to come the next day. So, very fortunately, I got an appointment right away but I was told to give them a call in the morning to make sure that the vet was actually there because it seemed to happen very often that he could not make it. So when I called the next morning to confirm the vet was indeed there and everything was going fine. After that, to her dismay, Aeris was put in her carrier. This is much easier with two or more people since Aeris does not exactly agree with the "put you in box and carry you around" concept or even the concept of leaving the apartment. But after some forceful convincing Aeris was ready for the trip, during which she meowed most of the way but was very brave.

When I got to the CFIA, there was a woman there who was doing the same thing I was and bringing her pets to Denmark, but Aeris was the only pet there. She left and five minutes later the vet asked me how he could help me. I gave him the paperwork. He looked at it, stamped and signed it where appropriate. Another man made photocopies and asked me how I wanted to pay. At this point no one has yet even come close to the cat except for me. I was sure that during conversation the day before he had conveyed to me that I had to bring the cat. So I asked them if I had to and in view of the overwhelming evidence, realized that I probably didn't have to bring the cat at all and that he had never said that at all. He answered “No”. I thanked him and left. The Cat forgave me in no time thought, and was sitting on my lap not long after we got home.

Poor the Cat.

Romanesco

Yesterday I went shopping for some groceries in Jena, and I found a sort of farmer's market in the central square. There was the most beautiful vegetable for sale there, one that I'd never seen before. The man told me it was called Romanesco, and that it tasted like cauliflower (which is about true, though maybe a bit sweeter). For those of you who have seen it before, forgive me for remarking on a mere vegetable, I know I sound like a true provincial from the uncivilized colonies, but I really had never seen something like this before.


It is a true fractal existing in nature - in all I counted five levels of self-similar repeating patterns easily visible without a microscope. Here's a terrible out-of-focus picture I took of one of the small spears broken off, which looks exactly like a smaller version of the larger vegetable.

And finally, to make up for my terrible photography, here's a better picture of the vegetable I downloaded from the Wikipedia fractals page. I have no idea why this vegetable was never featured in my textbooks when they'd discuss mathematical concepts in nature. I think it's much showier than a spiral in sunflower seeds.
And now I'm going to make it into a gratim. Mmm....

other random sights on the streets of Toulouse

I mentioned in the previous post the language of occitan, which was spoken in this region in the southwest of France. From what I understand it's called occitan (or langue d'oc) because the word for "yes" was "óc", while the old French spoken in northern France used "oil" (there should be an umlaut or tréma on the i, but I can't get blogger to cooperate with my keyboard settings), which turned into "oui". Around the old part of Toulouse many of the street names are posted in both French and Occitan. Here are a couple of examples (note again the slabs of pink stone in this building - they're not bricks):
And here is another one, though this building is brick. Here you can see the links to Spanish and Latin as well:
And finally, this picture is really silly, but I thought it was pretty neat. On some of the busier pedestrian streets I notices that there were these posts separating the two lanes of traffic on either side of a central median with kiosks selling bread and sandwiches and tabacco. I thought it odd that the put posts between the lanes, but I thought it was just to keep people from changing lanes and killing pedestrians in the process. But then I was there around rush hour, and saw that one of the lanes was blocked off entirely by posts at either end that rose up out of the pavement. At other times of the day they were completely flush with the surface of the road, but at some appointed hour they rose up to close the lane off. They also had flashing red light at the top (shown illuminated here) to warn unwary drivers.

The Saint-Sernin Balisica in Toulouse

I arrived in Jena on Wednesday night, "worked" on Thursday and Friday (mostly getting keys, getting my laptop on the intranet, signing in, etc.), and then left on Sunday for a meeting in Toulouse. This was for the annual meeting of the project on which I'll be working while I'm here. It was a good way for me to meet some of the people I'll be working with, and figure out who's doing what. Until Friday night I thought that my supervisor would be there as well, but then he couldn't make it, so I was the only representative from my institute. Luckily people didn't ask me too many questions once I explained that I'd been working on this project less than a week. The project (GEMS: Global and regional Earth-system Monitoring using Satellite and in-situ data - a forced acronym if ever there's been one) is funded by the EU, and has 28 agencies taking part from 13 different European countries. It was very different from conferences and meetings I've been before, where there are usually lots of American, a few Canadians, and many visible minorities, usually Asians, working all over the place. From what I could tell, the only non-Europeans working on this project were me and an Australian man working in France (and of course our ancestry is still European - it was a very white meeting, with the only exception being some French scientists of North African descent). There were two other Canadians there, but one was a project reviewer and the other was observing on behalf of Environment Canada. I also had some insight into how funding and project proposals work in Europe, which is also a bit different.

But now on to pictures of the city! The meeting was supposed to start on Monday so I arrived Sunday night, but then the people working on my part mostly couldn't make it until Tuesday, so I had Monday to explore the city a bit. I didn't take too many pictures, mostly because when I took out my camera in public it seemed an open invitation for men to strike up conversations, which was really not what I was looking for, though it was nice to be able to actually understand what people were saying to me after a few days in Jena.

One of the things I did manage to get a few pictures of was the Saint Sernin Basilica. The church was built in honour of Saint Saturnin, the first bishop of Toulouse, who was martyred in the year 250 by being dragged through the streets by a sacrificial bull. One of the nearby streets is called Rue du Taur in memory of this. The church is called Saint Sernin because this is the occitan version of the name Saturnin. In this area in the southwest of France the old language of occitan is still spoken by some grandparents, but more on that later.

A smaller version of the church was built in the 5th century, but it became a really popular spot for pilgrims, and the present structure was built in the 11th century, with construction starting about 1000 years ago. The church really is huge, apparently the largest Romanesque church in the world, and so big that it's hard to get all in one picture. Here's the best I could do:
Most of the exterior of the church is built out of the pink-coloured stone that is seen all over Toulouse, making it "la ville rose". It's hard to tell here, but the dimensions are something like 115 m long and 64 meters wide. And it's quite high as well - here's a picture of the central part of the nave (there are wide hallways along the side as part of the ambulatory so that pilgrims could make their way around without disturbing the mass).
What I found really interesting was some of the older artwork in stone, which looks positively ancient. This carving claims to be "Christ in Majesty", though it's not often that you see depictions of Jesus with a little Buddha belly anymore.
There is also a crypt beneath the church, chock-full of relics. Most of these relics are housed in ornate metal boxes, many of which are built to look like little churches. Here's one of them, though not one of the more church-looking ones.

There was also a sarchophagus on display, which was built in the fourth or fifth century. It used to be by one of the entrances, and when it was examined it was found to contain the remains of several people who lived around the 10th to 12th centuries, thought to have been the counts of Toulouse from that period. Also, the lid and the base don't quite fit together and are made of slightly different stone, so they're thought to have come from different sarcophagi. On the side are carvings of little dolphins, meant to represent the passage of the soul to the other side.

My first posting from Jena

From Toronto I flew to JFK, where I was stuck for about 4 hours before my flight on to Frankfurt. Really, that airport was the only unpleasant part of my journey. I got a really cheap ticket on Singapore Airlines, which has fabulous service, and the flight from JFK to Frankfurt was underbooked. I actually had a row of three seats entirely to myself, and I was waited on by beautiful women with waists so small they looked as though they were wearing corsets wearing these lovely uniforms. I had my own screen so I could fall asleep to the film or TV show of my choice, and they even had short language courses as part of the games options. Even the food was pretty decent.

I had an uneventful trip to the institute, and I was in my room by around 4:30 pm on the 31st. I took the bus into town that night to pick up some groceries for that night and the next morning, as there is a small fridge in my room and a shared kitchen on the floor above. (For those of you who don't know, for the next couple of months at least I'll be staying in the guest apartments of the institute. They're actually in the building itself, so if I'm not careful I can go days without going outside. So far this hasn't been a problem, but I'm trying not to get too lazy or hermit-like.)

Actually, just to give some orientation, here you'll find a map of Germany with Jena indicated. It's in the state known as Thueringia in English, or Thueringer in German. By European standards it's rather isolated, since it takes 2 hours to travel to Berlin or 3 hours to travel to Frankfurt, for example. Because it was part of Eastern Germany, people here really don't speak so much English, which makes it a perfect place to learn German! (As well as making it very hard for me to know what the hell is going on most of the time...) The institute itself is not right in the town of Jena, but rather about three kilometers south. Here you'll see a map of the city with the institute indicated. The river running through the town is the Saale. And finally, here is the website of where I'm working, where you can see a picture of the institute itself. That round part to the right is part of a 4-storey tower which houses the guest apartments for both the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (where I'm working) as well as the one for Plant Ecology, which is right next door.

One of the funniest things I saw that first night were these big posters all over town for some sort of presentation about Western Canada. I actually went back to take a picture (below). This seems to be somewhat common here - I saw posters today for one coming up about New Zealand. It's funny, because it seems like this sort of thing would be sponsored by BC Tourism or something, but they're actually put on by camera companies. Anyhow, it was a strange thing to be greeted by on my first day in a new country.
I don't actually have too many more pictures of Jena yet, but I did at least get pictures of my office. I was completely amazed when I saw that I was going to get my own office. I honestly thought that I'd be one desk in a room full of desks for the next 10 years at least. I thought I had it good in Victoria because I had my own filing cabinet and shelves and an adjustable chair. Here, I'm really living the good life. They also already had my name put up on the sign by the door, which I thought was very nice of them. And if you look carefully in the reflection you can see me and my flash! (I'm really useless at taking pictures. I'm not going to pretend otherwise.)
And then here's the view from the door into the office...
Note that I have the main desk, the small table for collaborative meetings (or for reading the newspaper over a cup of tea), and also a desk with a stool by the window which actually has a view of the outdoors, and not someone else's office. There's a hill immediately behind the building, so I don't exactly have a sweeping vista, but apparently sometimes you can see birds and hares outside. Here's a better view of what I see from my desk out the window:

And finally, what I see from my desk when looking from my desk toward the door. There are bookshelves all along the left wall, and the cabinets on the right have shelves in them as well. Somehow I don't think that my 15 or so atmospheric science-related books will really look so impressive with all that shelf space. Maybe I'll have to start collecting something just to fill up the open shelves at least...

My visit to Ontario

Finally the day arrived, and it was time to leave for Germany. I didn't get any pictures of my last week at work, unfortunately. I'd like to say that it was a relaxing time when I got to take the time to say good-bye to all my co-workers individually, but really it was a mad rush of backing up data, organizing files, and playing archaeologist with the strata of papers that built up on my desk over that past two and a half years. There was a really nice going-away lunch on the Wednesday though, which was very well attended. My "official" co-workers got together and bought me a really great backpack for my travels in Germany, one of the ones with a hard backing that arches away from your own back so you don't get all sweaty. I ended up using it as my carry-on, and to carry all my groceries since I got here. Inside there was also a German-English phrasebook and a luggage tag with a Canadian flag on it. There was also a beautiful card signed by everyone, which was made by my supervisor's wife. It was really very touching. As for my "unofficial" colleagues, that is the UVic and CCCma people with whom I ate lunch every day, they all chipped in to get me a Bahncard 25, which gives me 25% off all my travels on the German railroad system for the next year. I'm sure this will come in very handy!

The Friday before I left, (January 26th), we heard from my family that my very pregnant sister-in-law Karen was going into the hospital to have her labour induced. At this point she was already a few days past due, and she had spoken to her doctor to say that she really wanted to have the baby before I left, which was really wonderful for me. And so I was hoping to arrive in Toronto to meet my first niece or nephew. I had left specific instructions with my brother to call me no matter what time, day or night, to let me know how things were going. On Saturday morning when Jeremi and I got up at 4:30 to go to the airport we still hadn't heard anything, so I was figuring that she'd already been in labour for more than 12 hours by the time I left Victoria. Naturally I was hoping that everything was going well, and I was too nervous to sleep during the flight. As soon as I landed I called my parents to see what was going on, and my dad and I had the following conversation:

my dad: Hello?
me: Hey Dad, so what's the news?
my dad: The news? Are you at the airport? Isn't Casey (my friend) there to pick you up?
me: I haven't even gotten my bags yet. I mean Karen and the baby. Is everything okay?
my dad: Oh yes, your nephew, Owen Christopher Marshall, was born this morning just after five.
me: After five? But I was still in Victoria then. WHY DIDN'T ANYONE CALL?!?
my dad: Here, let me give you to your mother.

I was incredibly angry. Apparently they decided not to call since they didn't want to wake me, knowing that I had an early flight in the morning. I have since informed my mother that I'll let her know within at least a few months when I have my first child. And now back to the story.

Here is a picture of Chris and Karen and little Owen, soon after he was born.


Just a day or two before I left I emailed my friend Casey, from Belleville, to see if maybe he was still around the area and if he wanted to come visit my parents while I was there. It turns out that he's been living in Toronto since October, so we arranged to have him and his girlfriend pick me up at the airport and then head up to Newmarket. We didn't actually mention where I should meet him, so he was outside and I was inside (looking at the cars but not knowing what he drove, and not wanting to walk around too much with my big bags). I was very impatient to get to see Owen, but we had to go back into town to pick up his girlfriend who apparently had stayed home to tidy their apartment after a party the night before. I was really anxious to go, and thinking that by now I could have taken a cab so that she could do her dishes and I could meet my nephew. I was really not in the best mood.

Finally, after a long and sleety drive, we made it to Newmarket. My mom had prepared all sorts of food for us, and by chance her cousin and her husband from Northern Ontario were there as well, as they had stopped by to say hello while on their way home. We had a great meal, and then Casey and Joanna had to head back into the city for a birthday party. It was now around 7:00 pm, and mom told me that visiting hours closed at 8:00, and I'd have to wait until tomorrow to meet Owen, since visiting it would take a while to get down to Mount Sinai, the hospital where they were staying. My mood was not getting better.

As my mom and I were sitting around that evening, me working on the teddy bear that I was knitting for Owen, we heard Elvis, my parents dog, growl quite aggressively in their kitchen. He was in there with Baba, my 87-year-old grandmother, who, as usual, was cleaning the snow off his paws after he'd come inside. My parents got Elvis from the pound, and he'd been abused by his previous owners, and hit by a car. He's much better socialized than when they first got him when he was 18 months old (eg. he wasn't properly toilet trained), but he still gets upset when someone tries to take away any of his toys. Not the usual sort of tug-of-war play-upset, but really upset. He'd bitten my brother once before, over a year ago, but there was another dog involved, and my parents' dog trainer thought he wasn't generally an agressive dog. I would still say he isn't, he's just not right. He's also had a couple of seizures, so my mom wonders if perhaps he actually has some damage to his brain. (He's damn smart though.)

Anyhow, he bit Baba, and this bite was quite bad. And Baba's on blood thinners, so there was a lot of blood. So my parents, Baba, and I all ended up driving to the Emergency at 11:30 at night in the middle of a snow storm. We were only at the hospital for an hour or so, and they got her all patched up quite well, but the wound was quite bad. They decided they had to bring him back to the pound, especially with a baby coming to the house soon. It was really an awful night. My poor grandmother felt guilty (which she shouldn't have), and no one could bear to look at the dog when we got home.

Okay, enough upsetting stories. The next day was much better. We headed down to the hospital in the morning after a lovely breakfast, and Baba and I got to meet Owen for the first time. Chris and Karen were doing really well, and they were able to go home that night. As for me, that afternoon/evening, my mom had invited a number of our relatives in the area - we had my Aunt Joan and Uncle Bernie from Kitchener-Waterloo along with my cousin Vanessa and her boyfriend Joey, my cousin Jenn and her boyfriend Tim up from Toronto, and Gloria as well. My mom and Baba had prepared a feast, with enough left over to send a few meals by Chris and Karen's place when they got home. That night after everyone left I went over to my brother's place to give Owen his teddy bear, which was now finished. Here you can see my brother drinking the Dad's root beer I sent him for Christmas with the bear on his lap, and below is Owen with the bear.
The next day, on Monday, after yet another fabulous breakfast, I drove down to the neighbourhood around the Science Centre to meet up with my friend Dave, who went to school with me at the Ontario Science Centre 10 years ago, and one of our former teachers, Paul, who is working there again while getting his PhD in Education from York. It was good to see them both, and amazing how little changes in 10 years. Though it did make me feel rather old. Paul pointed out that Dave is now 29, the same age Paul was when he started teaching us. (Of course I just turned 27, so this shouldn't make me feel so old, right?)

Then I went back up to Newmarket to see Melanie and Ruth Ann, who were visiting with their beautiful boy Ezra, who was born back in December. While they were there I seamed up a little sweater that I knit for him and sewed on the buttons. Always at the last minute, I know. You can see pictures of him wearing it on their blog here, though you have to go right down to the bottom of the page. There is probably a better way of linking to this, but I am not so blog-savvy. I was really glad to get to see them before I left, and they gave me the wonderful gifts of a toque for Jeremi (which I promptly seconded), a lovely Fleece Artist kit for thrummed socks (which I'll get to as soon as all my needles arrive with the shipped goods), and a request for Jeremi and I to act as god-people for Ezra. I couldn't be more honoured, though I did mention that I'm not quite comfortable stating publicly that I'd "raise this child in Christ". I'll certainly supply him with love and hand-knits, and Euro-cool baby toys and clothes from Germany. Here's a picture of Ruth Ann and Ezra whilst he was being changed.
Finally it was Tuesday, and I had to go the airport to head on my way to Europe. In the morning we stopped by Chris and Karen's to see them and Owen, as it might be the last time for a little while. They let me hold him almost the whole time, and it was hard to give him back. Here's a picture of the two of us, with him wearing a lovely toque that Melanie and Ruth Ann made for him. (Melanie knit it, and Ruth Ann wove in the tails. What a great team!)

Jeremi blowing out his candles

Though it arrived a little late, Jeremi was quite pleased with his birthday package from my parents. Here you can see him starting in on his birthday cookie. He's a regular fire-eater.

Fondue deliciousness

The night after Jeremi's birthday party and my going-away party Brandy held a big potluck fondue party just down the road from us. Using a very sophisticated internet party invitation system she had everyone sign up to bring something different, so that there was a wide variety of food for all. In addition to broth and cheese fondues she also had a raclette with a wide variety of meat, vegetables, and cheeses. And of course there was also a chocolate fondue for dessert, as well as a sort of rum-vanilla sauce type of fondue, which was just delicious with pieces of angel food cake. Here you can see some people digging into the dessert, with things still cooking on the raclette in the background.

Also featured at this party was a huge sausage that Brandy's mom gave her, I think for Christmas. Jeremi had the camera at this point, so there is not one, not two, but four pictures of the various stages of sausage exhibition and preparation. I've reduced it to two, but you get the idea.

A going-away/birthday party

Just a mere two weeks ago (though it feels like months now!) was both Jeremi's birthday and the date of my going-away party. With our living room full of boxes for shipping it wasn't the best time to throw a party at our house, and we didn't really want to spend our last weekend together cleaning up. So instead we opted to invite everyone to the neighbourhood pub, formerly the George and Dragon, and recently re-opened as The Fernwood Inn. Not only is it a mere stumbling distance from our place, it's actually not a bad place to hang out. I was worried they fixed it up a little too much (I worry about the gentrification of the most affordable neighbourhood in Victoria proper), but I'm sure that time will give it patina of spilt beer that will make it feel more comfortable for the likes of me.

The party was a wild success, we more than filled the 30 seats we reserved for, and we had a really good time. There was a band in the room we were in, an enjoyable bluegrassish/blues trio of double bass, guitar (and sometimes fiddle and harmonica) and drums. Add to that a set of standards à la The Commitments sung by one of the waitresses, and it was definitely a crowd-pleaser. Here's a selection of a few pictures from that night.

Oh, and in that last picture, Jeremi's shooting a mudslide (a shotglass filled with booze is nestled inside a large glass filled with whipped cream, and of course he can't use his hands - very messy with a beard).

A weekend up island in Courtenay

We were pretty insistent with my parents that they not give us anything large for Christmas that we'd either have to ship or feel badly getting rid of, so they opted for a weekend away at a bed and breakfast of our choosing sometime before I had to leave. We opted to head up island the first weekend of January to Courtenay, which we visited only briefly on the way back from Miracle Beach around Canada Day. We really liked the city, and wanted to see more of it. Our friends Brandy & Bruce had stayed at a place there that they really liked, the Hobson Place Bed and Breakfast. They also took the train up, which seemed like a good idea as well.

This VIA route, called the Malahat, is part of the Esquimalt & Nanaimo railroad, and it only runs between Victoria and Courtenay, and it only runs once a day. This much I knew. What I wasn't prepared for is that it's only one train car, which has a built-in engine. It's really like a more comfortable bus in terms of capacity. Here you can see Jeremi in front of the single train car just before it left around 8:00 am.
The train ride was spectacular, as it goes along some mountainous terrain, but also near the water. There are tressle bridges over steep valleys with salmon spawning rivers at the bottom, and it being January, well after the salmon have come and died, there were eagles to be seen feeding on the carcasses. Some of the journey was above the snow line as well, which made it all the more beautiful. It really was an old-fashioned romantic version of the train, stopping in tiny towns along the way, some of which they only stop at if someone waves them down.

We were met at the station by our friend Shelley who is living up there now, and we went out for a fabulous lunch, a bit of a grocery shopping, a stop by the liquor store, and then on to the B&B. The ride was much appreciated, especially with the pouring rain on the Friday when we arrived. The weather the rest of the weekend was much nicer, good for exploring. Here you can see the sun on the surrounding mountains, the view from our door when we awoke Saturday morning.

It really was a nice place, with a fireplace and a giant hot tub in the room. We didn't really take any pictures of the room unfortunately, but I did get this one of Jeremi lording over a delicious eggs benedict. Prepare yourself for a topless Jeremi. I know it's not the first time you've seen it, but I thought I'd put in a warning nonetheless.

Taking advantage of the wonderful weather, we borrowed a book in the room with suggested walking tours around Courtenay and Comox, and headed into town. We had a lovely walk along one of the rivers which was full of a wide variety of waterfowl we photographed poorly (I'll spare you), and then through the downtown. After making it to the end of the main downtown section we rewarded ourselves with a substantial lunch of tapas and sangria, and then headed on back on an alternate route.

One of the historic buildings mentioned in the walking tour was this one, the Native Sons of Canada Hall, which is where they hold the farmers' market now, among other community events. It's notable as being the largest building of its sort of construction - a log structure with the logs vertically aligned rather than horizontally. There are huge perpendicular beams running the width of the building, which you can see extending out to the exterior of the wall in this picture.

Oh yeah, and that's Jeremi in the foreground pretending to be a panda, chewing on the bamboo plant out front.

Suffice it to say we had a wonderful time in Courtenay. We ate huge quantities of wonderful food and got to spend a lot of time together before I had to leave, time while we weren't thinking about packing, shipping, visas, and work. And after such a wonderful train ride on the way up we were truly looking forward to the return journey, but upon arriving at the station we were greeted with the following sign:


If you can't read that, it says: "Notice! Train Hit by RockSlide. There will be a bus arriving at approx. 5 pm today, leaving for Victoria shortly thereafter!", signed by the VIA station master. Of course he wasn't actually there, he just taped signs up around the building. Everyone but us lived in Courtenay and had a car, so they all just left to come back in 2 hours (the train was supposed to leave at 3:00), but we were on foot, so we just set up shop in the old-fashioned railway station and tried to learn German for a while. It's a good thing too, because the bus came at 4:20, and didn't wait for anyone else. It turns out the sign was a bit alarmist - the train wasn't actually hit by a rockslide (or a RockSlide), there were just some large rocks on the tracks and the train had to head back to Victoria and send a bus up instead. So instead of the train we went home on the bus. And that made Jeremi pout. (Would you look at that lip of his?)