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.