Valencia

okay, so school has been cray-cray. I'm just popping in to share that a tourney I went to in Valencia (and my team won) made the news and you can see me making a d (aka probably fouling?) about 40 seconds into the video below. It was such a pretty day at the beach. Running in the sand is exhausting. More substantial updates coming over break! {pinky promise}

Help!?!

My apartment is oven-less and aside from getting a little tired of stir fry, salad and soup I find that I'm having a hard time expressing myself without being able to make muffins/cupakes/cookies/roasted brusselsprouts... I mean rice krispie treats are okay, but get old. So, I am in need of some stovetop/ovenless recipes to add some variation to my diet (entrees and desserts).

Week Recap: A little Stressful, but super great

Last weekend, the Madrid ultimate team that I play league with took a split squad to a one day tourney in Zaragoza and our squadron went undefeated and won the tourney! Which was nice, but more importantly, we played on grass... such a luxury. Below, you can see me throw the first score of the match (and then some turns) and run really funnily. I've heard that I run strangely before, but seeing it on tape makes me never want to exercise in public again.

This school week was mostly focused on accounting. Our professor thought it would be awesome to give us a quiz on Thursday and the Final on Friday. Who does that? + the subject matter on the quiz wasn't on the test, so preparing for one, didn't really help with the other. Accounting is now over (time to burn the flashcards!) - The prof was perpetually grumpy and rude, but the final was strikingly fair and relativity easy. While getting ready for the assessments, I procrastinated proactively by playing ultimate two evenings and going to see Alela Diane in concert. Aunt Val, if you are reading, I think you'll like her. Here is a taste:

After the Exam we went on a field trip to a historical hydro power facility that also had pumped storage, which was pretty cool. I was mostly interested in the pumping part, but the host talked mostly about how the royals have visited many times and the geopolitical aspect of water (the water that wasn't stored was put into a canal that took it 300 km away). I wrote a horrible term paper once about pumped storage and now I feel like I should apologize to the professor. The pumping pipes:

I'm currently in the middle of a 6 day weekend that will end with a field trip to a concentrated solar facillity between Seville and Cordova. At a Halloween party on Saturday, I went as the solar system (yes, again, but i didn't have any time to come up with something new); however, apparently, in Europe you are actually supposed to go as something scary - the party was me, the Canadian flag and basically everyone else was a zombie. I'll have to tweak my costume for this evening.

not exactly travel related, but

from: http://shitthatsirisays.tumblr.com/post/11649413031

canadians know how to throw down on columbus day

As there are two Canadian's in my master's program, we recently celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving. It was a delicious warm up for actual Thanksgiving. Boy, my classmates can cook! Emily, our hostess with the mostess roasted some beautiful chickens {finding a whole turkey will require some effort, but is something I hope to accomplish for 'merican t-giving}.

People generally brought things from their home country. {the Mexicans made guac and refried beans, the italians made tiramisu, not pictured: there was indian food, mashed potatoes, tortillas, taziki, sweet red bean balls and loads of other deliciousness [but no beaver, as was promised])}

In order to canadianify my favorite fall staple, I made maple pumpkin pie (seen below to the left of my second plate of the evening).

I also made an all canadian playlist, which can be found here for your next canada themed partay, to start off the evening, but by dessert we were dancing to indian and latin music (there was the mayonnaise song & dance), and apparently busted out something cancanesque.

So that was delicious and fun! And we will hopefully get to do it all over again in about a month!

Switzerland with mommy

In two days I will have been in Madrid for almost a month, so now is obviously the perfect time to recount the vacay that I took with my mom between working in Germany and starting school in Madrid. Ten days, just me mom and the Alps... sounds dangerous, right? Well, we survived and hit most of the categories of Swiss sterotypes: mountains/cows, chocolate, trains and I even bought a knife (also wine, which they are trying to push as the 'next Swiss thing'). Okay, almost all of them... I guess we forgot cheese and cuckoo clocks.

Mountains

They are tall, windy and beautiful. We went up Mt. Pilatus where we explored some dragon caves. There was also this cute white church halfway down that mom wouldn't hike to, despite her trip goal of wanting to go to "a cute little church." The doors/doorhandles were particularly nice in this area.

From there we moved onto the Berner Oberland, which was even prettier. We did a bunch of hiking and got some great views of the Eiger, Jungfrau and Monch, saw some crazy paragliders (I want to try! well, I guess that isn't something you 'try,' but you know what I mean) and cheered on the poor souls running in the Jungfrau Marathon. We stayed in Grindelwald and Wengen, both of which were much nicer than Interlaken (where I had camped the last time I was in der Schweitz). There was compulsory frolicking. Another of mom's goals was to see some cows on a mountain side. This lil guy joined our picnic on one of our hikes!

Chocolate

I think that any of you who have met my mother can probably guess the sort of role chocolate played in our trip. We went into so many chocolate shops and even went to chocolate school! The lesson was on filled chocolates and then we toured the factory (and bought a bunch of chocolate). My pralines were dark chocolate with a chocolate and port ganache (mom was supposed to share them around NC, let me know if she didn't) and mom's were dark chocolate with dark chocolate ganache. The playground at the factory had huge chocolate bars to climb (or in my case lean) on.

Trains

We had SwissPasses so we rode them (a lot). The SwissPasses were really nice and allowed for flexibility. For example, on the way up to the Pilatus Base Station, we saw an advert for a Glass Blowing Museum with FREE ENTRY. So we just hopped of at that station did the tour, bought some glass accouterments (i got a hippo), then got on the next train heading our way! Also they have trains just for Chocolate tourists (we did not ride those).

Knives

I got the most adorable victorinox ever! Mom gave me some crap about buying a Swiss Army knife, given the selection we have at home from my Granddad, but I like to think of it as carrying on the tradition (plus we had leftover CHF). Guess which color I picked out!

Wine

After mountain-time we headed to the wine region in the French speaking part of the country around Lake Geneva. The lake and the vineyards are so pretty! Honestly, the wine was a little boring, but a nice grape farmer's wife gave us a bunch to try.

I think that's all for Switzerland (for now)! I'll start working on some Spain stuff, but between classes, a new ultimate community and cervesas with the classmates I've really been going pretty non-stop since I've arrived. I really like it here!!!

PS: ENE geeks don't worry. I documented the MSW and water distribution systems while I was there.

just a quick post to say that mommy and I arrived safely in Madrid. It took no less than four non-English speaking people to help us find the way from the metro to my apartment (should have been 1.2 km, but i think we walked at least 4), but we saw some of the city while we were lost and I am so freaking excited about it. There were lots of joggers and yoga-ers. There is a doenner place on the corner. they have normal brown sugar in the grocery store! More about Madrid as I discover it + catchup posts about germany, Belgium and Switzerland to come (probably).

The Office

Okay, so, I haven't really posted that much about what I'm doing at work (or at all) and that is partially because I didn't know what was company secrets and what not, but yesterday I attended a 3 hour seminar: Know-How-Schutz Schulung and I'm still not entirely sure there are a few things that I can share though:

1. This is what I look like at work
   

(sometimes {based on the wardrobe I brought/accumulated and my preferences thereof I'd say that I look like this about every two weeks}... most of the other days I wear a cardigan or a blazer that is not of the same material as my suitpaints)

2. On the surface our office is super chic. We have free bottled water and a cappuccino machine, but until recently the mugs have been mismatched randoms from people's kitchens. One of the most exciting things about getting to work every morning was picking out which mug to use. A gallery of my favorites can be found here. But on Monday a fifth of the mugs were replaced by very normal white ones. So boring! I refuse.


3. I've been really frustrated with the uncertainty and ridiculous differences between the way things work across the country with regard to my project. Then yesterday, I found this 163 page transcript of an industry-wide panel that feels the same way. It's nice to have company?


4. Every Tuesday is "Schnitzeltag," but really people come for the Pommes (french fries) the lines are twice as long as any other normal day (10xs as long as on "Vegitarian Wednesday"). You can get pommes on other days, but on Schnitzeltag the ketchup and mayonnaise are free. This is my last pommestag meal (I have to miss next Tuesday):



5. I hate calling strangers (especially for work), but i had to today and it was incredibly helpful and useful and made me look like I got a lot done... maybe I won't wait two weeks next time.


6. When you leave, you have to bring everyone cake. I've test baked chocolate chip cookies and rice krispie treats (with something like kix, though... they just have cocokrispies {and cocokrispies xxl}) and they were successful enough that I'll be making them instead of cake, because german cake is sometimes okay, but can very easily go horribly wrong. My housemates were amazed at the gooeyness of the chocolate chip cookies... german cookies are almost guaranteed to be totally dry.

6 more days at the office, then vaycay in Belgium (to the the USMNT) and Switzerland with mommy, then school starts!

Berlin

Last Thursday was Corpus Christi {or something catholic}, so of course I had a four day weekend, which I spent in Berlin with the zukunftliche Frau Doctor Kukies {jetztliche gastkusine Alina}.

The primary reason for my visit was that I needed extra passport pages so that there would be room for my Spainish student visa. This process was pretty easy (they didn't care that my form was filled out in blue instead of the required black ink), but there were two noteworthy parts:

1. As an American you are supposed to cut the security line. There aren't two separate lines, a sign that says Americans are meant to go to the front, which is super awkward when there are Germans who have been waiting for who knows how long in the drizzle.
2. As you walk from the U-bahn to the Embassy there is a McDonalds directional sign that points towards the American compound (mickeydees isn't actually inside it's a few kilometers away)

After my successful interaction with bureaucracy, I went shopping then Alina and I did some very hip Berlin things. It would be incredibly uncool of me to tell you about them, but I'm going to anyways... I mean I'm a ruhrgebeit girl now, so I have to gush about the big city.

• Went to a 'party' slash art-thing in a crumbling-mostly roofless building, which was an homeless shelter in the 1800s and a nazi flag factory afterwards. There were those acrobats that twist themselves up in what looks like bedsheets then let go and stop six inches off of the ground, poetry and a quasi decent guywithguitar,
• Fleamarketed
• Club-Mate + Dönner u-bahn dinner (mate like the tea, not your homeboy; however, it is also your friend, because it keeps you awake). All the cool kids drink this carbonated acquired taste tea so they can leave to go out at 2 AM.
• Four story super awesome thrift store
• Watched the Christopher Street Day parade - basically Berlin Pride. It was really nice and interesting. Everyone was happy and dancing to the techno and the gaga. I mean mad respect for anyone who walks {or hoops} a whole parade route... especially in those shoes.

From Drop Box Met different groups of Alina's Berlin friends for dinner, coffee, beer, waiting in lines... watched rugby, ultimate and soccer being played in a park that didn't really have sports fields The not so awesome part: stupid knee pain thwarted all efforts to go clubbing in Berlin {again}... someday in the future I won't be so old and broken. Overall, it was a nice a productive weekend. I'm in Bonn right now for the DAAD RISEpro meeting, which has been fun, but I haven't been sleeping well...more on this weekend later.

In der Arbeit...

This is really basically totally what my first few weeks at work were like. I surf the net for info on energy storage(predominately batteries). Now that I "understand" electricity transmission, generation, distribution and storage in Europe and North America, I'm moving onto more legal/political/technical/economic stuff and making lots of powerpoints. It has also gotten better socially, because I found where all the other interns sit at lunch and we can talk about things other than vegetables {well I'm sure my department has moved onto another topic by now, but I wasn't there, so I don't actually know} at a pace that I can keep up with and contribute to the conversation {most of them aren't native speakers}.

{Wikipedia has been great for this because you can just change the language of the article and get a pretty reliable translation of technical terms, which my traditional translation sources sometimes have a problem with. I also really like how Tintin's rocket is in the comic.}

The office is really nice, the building is outside of the chemical park and only 6 years old, so it's shiny and we have coffee, esspesso drinks, bottled water and fancy swipe cards, but old computers (it takes me twenty minutes from pressing the on buttion to seeing my Notes inbox).

Contrary to the title of the post, I'm not actually at work today {It's a Catholic holiday and NRW takes those seriously}. I'm in Berlin getting extra passport pages, finishing up old work, seeing friends, shopping, riding the u-bahn... but I have internet that isn't from my phone, so I thought I'd take a bit of time to blog.

Essen

Currently, it seems that I'm locked inside my house. The door won't open and the key that lets me in, won't let me out. Usually it just opens from the inside. It's okay though, my plan for the afternoon was just to watch the French Open (let's go Rafa!). I only discovered that o was locked in when I heard rain and tried to cover my bike. If it won't open in the morning, I can just climb out my window (one of them doesn't have a screen) in my suit and heels. No problem.

Yesterday, I went to Essen, which is sort of the closest city. I don't know what I was expecting, but I didn't enjoy it much. It was you basic german main street stores. I bought a preptastic sweater, but couldn't find a blazer or skirt that suited me. I went to HEMA, which you may remember from previous post about Amsterdam, and bought some blue nail polish, these super adorable mini stroopwafels and a towel. On my way into town I noticed an ice cream cafe because they had pink chairs on the side walk and their menu said a scoop was 1.50€ (a typical scoop is seventy or eighty euro cent). On my way out of town I stopped and got a scoop of their chili cherry chocolate (simply because I wanted to see if they could justify charging double). They can! It was delicious, at least twice the size of a normal scoop and came in a proper waffle cone. 

I think I didn't enjoy it because there were lots of crazy people on the streets, especially if you consider the size of the city.

I'm using the Android blogger app, so I don't know if the photos are where they are supposed to be.

twittering! first day!

I wrote a post about my journey over... then found out I don't have internet at my house and work blocks gmail and blogger, I'm working on a work around so I can post meaningful narritives from my phone, but in the meantime I
will be tweeting so follow @seesaul for snapshots of my life (+hopfully adventutes).

Quick recap of first day at work:
Checked out by doctor, signed contract, had id made, we have a coffee machine!, learn about project, open bank account, lunch (grilled turkey), wait one hour at bugerbüro (we really needed to be at finanzamt), more about project, nod off at desk, leave a little early. NAPTIME!