Last summer, before our time in Woods Hole, where my boss Jitu and me gave a workshop about in vitro systems at the Physiology course of the Marine Biology Lab (MBL) summer programs, I discussed with Jitu a crazy idea: Why not organizing a workshop about ways to mechanically manipulate cells and tissues including a lot of "hands-on" time, so that the participants learn how to set up the systems. Fortunately, Jitu was very supportive and liked the idea. In addition, every other scientist I was talking to about this project, became excited so that it was clear in October that I we will do it. After some discussion with other faculties at NCBS, we decided to combine the workshop with a conference to have reason to invite many speakers. Thanks to the support of Jitu, John and Madan at NCBS, and Shivashankar at MBI in Singapore, we could win many internationally renowned scientists form the US, the EU, Israel, Singapore and India for the program and to win fundamental financial support of the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS).
It was a lot of work and super interesting, to coordinate the different work-groups, the program, the catering, the visas, the stay for the invited speakers, and so on and so on. Fortunately, NCBS has an experienced conference office which gave support in many of the procedures. But still was my activities in the last two weeks before the start of the program governed by making things running!
The result of this, were two amazing weeks, which pushed me to the limit of my capacities. But the joy and excitement of the participants and the speakers, and the amount of good feed back that we received, were more than enough as compensation.
Here are some impressions about the event
And here is the official website
A few more detailed descriptions might follow in the next days.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
After a long break, I find some time to write about some experiences which lie a couple of months back
Let's start with the time around new year's eve. I went to Mumbai (former Bombay) together with some colleagues to be present at Anup and Anupama's reception (they married after Christmas in Kallikut) and to celebrate the new year. Until now, Mumbai is for me the only real city that I have seen in India. The old center is beautiful with its Victorian streets, the archway s to walk protected from sun or rain. The variety of shops is stunning and even though, it is a huge city, its residents are very friendly.
to see the whole photo album, please click here
During the two and a half days, we managed to see some iconic buildings like Shah run Khan's house (ahem) , Haji Ali Dargah, some parks, the national gallery of modern arts.
I loved to just wander through the streets and take in the spirit of this buzzing city, the dense crowds at the train stations (and in the trains, I took also a ride!), the food shops with so delicious snacks like pav bahji (anyhow, I had the impression that everything is eaten together with pav - a small bread roll- in Mumbai), the red double deck buses, and as the cherry on the cake, the city is directly at the sea!
At New year's eve, we first went out for a small gathering, where people were protesting for the rights of gay couples. It was announced as a protest dance event, but turned out to be a very tiny sit in with some guitar music and candle light. Well, I thought there would be more support for this cause in such a big city...
After this, we headed to Marine drive to be there at midnight. we had to split up in two cabs, and the one with me, did unfortunately a kind of race driving and sped away, so that we lost track of the others. Anyhow, it was very nice to see people of all age out on the streets celebrating the (western) new year, which is not the new year for Hindus actually. as soon, as people saw a TV camera, they started screaming like crazy, holding kids into the camera and doing all kind of funny things. Others lit up small lantern like hot-air balloons and let them rise into the sky-this created a beautiful small fleet of lighting colors into the night sky. Firework was quite little and even though, cafe's and bars were open until 4 am, I was too tired to stay up and went home early. I wanted to explore the city on my own the next day.
During the two and a half days, we managed to see some iconic buildings like Shah run Khan's house (ahem) , Haji Ali Dargah, some parks, the national gallery of modern arts.
I loved to just wander through the streets and take in the spirit of this buzzing city, the dense crowds at the train stations (and in the trains, I took also a ride!), the food shops with so delicious snacks like pav bahji (anyhow, I had the impression that everything is eaten together with pav - a small bread roll- in Mumbai), the red double deck buses, and as the cherry on the cake, the city is directly at the sea!
At New year's eve, we first went out for a small gathering, where people were protesting for the rights of gay couples. It was announced as a protest dance event, but turned out to be a very tiny sit in with some guitar music and candle light. Well, I thought there would be more support for this cause in such a big city...
After this, we headed to Marine drive to be there at midnight. we had to split up in two cabs, and the one with me, did unfortunately a kind of race driving and sped away, so that we lost track of the others. Anyhow, it was very nice to see people of all age out on the streets celebrating the (western) new year, which is not the new year for Hindus actually. as soon, as people saw a TV camera, they started screaming like crazy, holding kids into the camera and doing all kind of funny things. Others lit up small lantern like hot-air balloons and let them rise into the sky-this created a beautiful small fleet of lighting colors into the night sky. Firework was quite little and even though, cafe's and bars were open until 4 am, I was too tired to stay up and went home early. I wanted to explore the city on my own the next day.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Happy Christmas in South India
Christmas this year was very different to my previous celebrations. Instead being in Berlin, Kabir and me were on the streets of Kerala, God's own country, to go to the wedding of two colleagues and friends. And after a super short stop over in Bangalore, I went to Mumbai for the new year's eve party and the reception of the fresh married couple. But one after the other...
The wedding was scheduled for the 27th December 2012 from 12h02-12h47 at Kochin. As I was told, the date was astrologically optimal for the wedding, and the place is the home of the bride. Kochi is a coastal city in Kerala, south west India, which stretches over a few islands and the mainland, and happened to host the first biennale (art festival) in India. In fact, the main land city is called Ernakulam and the island part is Kochi.
The state Kerala is also known as 'god's own country' based on a myth that Vishnu (in orm of Parasurama) ordered the sea to depart from this land, which might be the reason for its beautiful nature, richness in spices and coffee and for the wealth and education of its people.
With this as back ground, I agreed instantly to Kabir's idea to head off from Bangalore on the 24th December with a night bus to Kozhikode (spoken 'Calicut') and to cycle from there along the coast to Kochi. It was the first time for me to do a real bicycle tour, and we planned 2 and a half days for the distance of about 200km, but managed it finally in one and a half days.
We arrived in Kozhikode at 7.30 in the morning and started to cycle calm through the city looking out for a breakfast and found the perfect place: a restaurant called "Disney World"!!! there, we had our first encounter with the praised Mallu food and savoured chicken roast (including heart, liver, and Appams. Freshly energized, the fun started and we took the NH17 (national highway) towards south. Th equality of the road was fantastic and even though we were warned for crazy bus drivers, the traffic was quite calm and easy to handle. The first 40 km went through a slightly hilly region, not directly at the coast and paid us back the efforts with views over beautiful palm tree forests, vast green fields, rivers, small villages... and everything was so clean, no waste on the roads, most of the houses were in a good shape, as well as the people living in. At some point, we left the national highway and took smaller roads offering us a better insight into the countryside. After about 70 km, at about 14h00, we arrived for a late lunch in Ponnani, where we thought to stay for the night. But after a closer look, we realized that the city was not so interesting and had a very limited number of hotels (we found only one, which was full), so that we continued for another 30 km to Guruvayoor. This place is known for its Vishnu temple which is an important place for pilgrimage which made it very easy to find a hotel. It was great to experience the buzz of hundreds or thousands of pilgrims around the holy buildings. The waiting queue was super long both in the night (about 22h00) as well as in the early morning (6h00), and all around stalls with spices, flowers, souvenirs and devotional objects.
The route on the next day was much easier, riding the straight and flat NH17 along the coast with no heavy traffic, no trucks, no noise due to Christmas day, which is holiday in India and well respected in Kerala which has a large Christian community. It was another beautiful day on the roads and we easily reached Kochin in the afternoon, just before tea time ;-) instead of tea, we had an ice cream at Marine drives where many people were enjoying the free day. And in contrast to previous holidays, where most of the shops are open, Kochin surprised me. Only one of seven shops was open. In the evening, we went to the hotel, where also the other guests for the wedding were supposed to reach and finished the day drinking a beer and watching Rocky IV.
Dec 26 was Kabir's birthday and was devoted to art at the Kochin biennale. First, Shree (another NCBS colleague), Kabir and me went to the bus station to pick up Neeraj, who arrived from Bangalore. The biennale happened in the Fort district(but there is no ort anymore) and could be reached via a ferry boat. On the way from the bus station to the ferry we crossed a house of the Indian Coffee company-this made our day. We had perfect coffee -a pot of black coffee with a separate little can of milk (not common in India)-there is nothing more to say...and then we reached the biennale. It was the first of its kind in India, and I have to admit that we were really astonished by the quality curation and how well the space and the beautiful old buildings were used improve the impression of the art objects.
We stayed until the evening at the art festival, took back the ferry and met some other friends who had important luggage for me: the clothes for the wedding (which I could not take on the bike ride), and then we went back home, watched some films and had a good rest.
Dec. 27, the big day of the wedding of our friends! Some more friends and colleagues arrived in the morning and all of us were excited and prepared for the event. The wedding was scheduled from 12.02-12.47pm (some astrologically good time) so we reached the place quite in advance. It was an impressive big hall with a nicely decorated stage. We could see and talk to the groom, but had no sight of the bride.
The ceremony was a mallu wedding (i.e. Kerala people), which is supposed to be one of the fastest Indian weddings. Other ceremonies can take up to three days and not only 30 min...it's hard to explain all the single steps of the procedure, because most of the stuff happened in a private manner without any explanation or even presentation to the guests. Only the closest family surrounded the couple on the stage, and the MC (master of ceremony) explained every step.
It was a very harmonic event with nice music, at the beginning, a line of women (family and close friends), each holding a plate with flowers and a candle, went from the stage out the hall to first get the groom. After he sat happily at his place, the ladies departed again and brought the bride, shining beautifully with all her rings, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, but all was over-glowed by her smile!
One of the nicest moments was when the couple put a necklace of white flowers on each other, and when Anup's friends suddenly lifted him up, so that Anupama had a hard time to accomplish her task, but finally did it being lifted up by her friends!
After about 30 min, the main part was over and we could step up the stage to congratulate the freshly married couple, followed by a very tasteful south Indian lunch. In the evening, we saw our friends again for the reception in a nice hotel and had a great evening together.
For my final day in Kerala, I said good by to Kabir who continued his cycle tour to Coimbatore and went with Mugdha and Aditya again to Fort Kochi to show them the art festival, but also to explore the other parts of this area. It was again a very nice day, and I was surprised to see a synagogue of Indian Jews, the dutch palace or other unexpected places where art was exposed.
Because we returned quite late and got a bit delayed during dinner at the Indian Coffee House, we had to hurry back to the hotel to catch our luggage and to get to the bus station on time. I will not forget this part of the travel: I followed the autoriksha with Mugdha and Aditya (and our lugage), which rode quite swift (including high way and fly overs) the fastest way to the bus station-a nice 7 km ride before sitting over night in a bus!
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| Aus Kerala-2012 |
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| Aus Kerala-2012 |
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| Aus wedding-Anupama&Anup-2012 |
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| Aus wedding-Anupama&Anup-2012 |
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| Aus Kerala-2012 |
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| Aus Kerala-2012 |
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Rameshwaram - crazy temple place
End of October, I decided together with a friend to make a short trip to Rameshwaram, a place in the south, Tamil Nadu, with an important temple and the closest point to Sri Lanka. It was an great trip with many bizarre experiences and quite different from my previous trips to larger cities, especially concerning the traveling part. Let me describe it more detailed...
We started from Bangalore with a night train to Thoothukudi and wanted to continue the trip with a bus. But after Madurai, the night train became a "slow/passenger" train, which means that it halts in every little station and waits for the "express" trains so that they can pass by. Due to this we left the train somewhere around Madurai, I think Tirupparankundram, and hopped on one of the local buses back to a bus stand close to Madurai.
After a delicious breakfast with "muttai(egg) dosa", we took another Bus to Rameshwaram (170 km distance), and this ride was really fun. We drove through many small villages and great green rice paddies. At one point, the driver took a wrong road and we found our bus on a narrow path with no space left for any other car or even bike.
Rameshwaram lies on an island connected to the main land by the Pamban bridge, and the sight while crossing it was wonderful with the fisher boats in the bay and the palm trees all over the place. we were set into the right mood for a few nice relaxing days.
From Rameshwaram bus stand, there were a couple of city buses to the different important parts of the island. The place is also a pilgrimage destination, which had the nice consequence that you could easily get information where to find the temple and a hotel. We found a nice place to stay at the Tamil Nadu hotel, which was close to the sea, which we could see from our terrace at the top (3rd) floor. It was already late afternoon, but soon enough to visit the Ramanathaswamy Temple. It is one of 12 Jyotirlinga shrines, where Shiva is worshiped in the form of a "pillar of light" (see Wikipedia). The temple was built during the 12th century and is famous for its 24 Teerthams (holy water tanks) and its corridor of 1000 pillars.
For about 2 hours, we wandered through this enormous temple complex and it was great to discover all the parts of different age, to see some very old carvings of gods besides freshly painted ones. Some god statues have become pitch black from the oil with which they have been embalmed for many years. Impressive was also one room where the walls were covered with piled up stone statues of vishnu protected by Shesha in form of a multi-headed cobra. And while we were lonely roaming through a dark part of the corridors, we suddenly stood in front of an elephant who was so kind to give us a blessing! On the way out, I got a bunch of Laddoos (a sweet in form of a ball) for my lab and we have met one of the guys who pull up water from a wholly well to pour it over pilgrims. He was curious from where we were and showed us a place to get good coffee. He earned part of its money as a tourist guide so there was no wonder that we crossed him another three times in the evening, but we had no need of him.
For dinner, we found a non veg restaurant and had very tasty sea food (prawns & fish) and chatted with another tourist guide who claimed to have a sister in Germany. This guide gave us a good advice for our trip the next morning to take a public bus to the beach instead of a private jeep. Happy and well fed, we headed back to the hotel, enjoyed some time sitting on the terrace and listening to the sea, and went to bed.
The next morning, we woke up very early (5.30 am) to have enough time to get to Adam's bridge, the closest point of India to Sri Lanka. It was great to step out on the streets and to see, how active the city already was. For small villages, it is typical that the people are up early to get tings done before the rising sun heats up the air. Our plan to take a bus was not working out, because outside Rameshwaram the road was blocked due to some riots. But we found a Rickshaw who took us to the furthermost village towards Adams bridge. From there, we had to walk along the beach. We were lucky that the sky was cloudy, otherwise the sun would have burned us during the >2 hours walk (about 5km).
On the way was the former village Dhanushkodi, where only some remains of buildings can be seen after a cyclone devastated the flourishing village in 1964. Times on time, we passed some locals who were looking for crab seashells, often accompanied by a dog.
The panorama at the tip of this stretch of land was impressive, the sea from the bay of Bengal and Laccadive Sea join and have different colors. In addition, one can walk on Adam's bridge (a large kind of sand bank) far into the sea without getting deep into water. We shared this morning at the sea with three small groups each with a Hindu priest to conduct poojas (as I heard, most probably to give the ashes of a passed by relative to the sea). This was our luck, because we could drive back in one of the jeeps together with a priest, which first, saved us another long walk back to the city, and second allowed us to experience of driving with a tough 4x4 Mahindra Jeep through sand dunes!
Back in town, we had lunch, listened some nice percussion music at the temple and rented bicycles to ride to the Pamban bridge. On the way back, we wanted to book a bus back to Bangalore, and were told that there would be no bus service due to some riots. Also some private car companies were not willing to drive us, because they feared to get into trouble when reaching the blocked road.
we headed back to the hotel, wondering what to do, because we did not know how to spend another day on this island...we finally decided to take a passenger train to Madurai and to continue from there with a bus to Bangalore.
for information: passenger train means, that there are no reservations and that the train has many stops -> these are the trains which tend to get very crowded (which became true). thus, I had a real Indian travel experience! Another great feature of our decision was that we rode on the train part of the Pamban bridge, which consists of a rails on pillars, nothing left and right! It was an amazing ride while the sun was setting down.
In Madurai, there were also no state buses due to the riots (had to be something really serious, a police officer was killed...), but we got a private bus and had a surprisingly comfortable trip back to Bangalore, where we were welcomed by rain in the morning.
This was a quite short trip with a big amount of travel time, but very exciting and full of new experiences! I will have more of this in the close future...
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| Aus Rameshwaram-2012 |
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| Aus Rameshwaram-2012 |
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| Aus Rameshwaram-2012 |
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| Aus Rameshwaram-2012 |
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| Aus Rameshwaram-2012 |
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| Aus Rameshwaram-2012 |
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| Aus Rameshwaram-2012 |
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| Aus Rameshwaram-2012 |
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| Aus Rameshwaram-2012 |
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| Aus Rameshwaram-2012 |
Monday, October 15, 2012
Slowly from SF over Europe to Bangalore...
After my return from the east coast to San Francisco, I had about three weeks left, and these were filled with a lot of experiences, science related and not. There was e.g. a street food festival, which went along Valencia for about 15 blocks and was packed with mouthwatering specialties from all over the world. The music was great and the weather good. An exposition of JP Gaultier's creations was at the deYoung museum, which was beautiful.
On my last sunday, a friend and me rented a car, and we drove to Tahoe lake, a huge lake in the mountains not too far from Yosemite park. The landscape was beautiful and we hiked to one smaller lake which had such a clean water that we could taste from it, it was delicious.
Then came the day of good bye from the lab, and I was very much moved at the 'pot' after my summary presentation. We had a lovely chat and shared a really good moment. I am wondering whether and when I will see those lovely folks again. Sigh...
The flight back to Berlin was ok, but unfortunately with United Airlines (i.e. extra luggage was more expensive, and one had to pay for alcoholic beverages...buh!). Arriving in Berlin, I was so happy to see my parents again, but I did not have a lot of time. The following day, I was already in a train to the north of Germany (Plön, close to Kiel) to join the wedding celebrations of a very good friend. And it was worth it, I passed an awesome weekend which did not give me any chance to think about the jet lag that one should normally have coming from the US to Europe.
Anyhow, on Sunday evening, I took a regional train to arrive in Hamburg, where I visited a friend from high school and a Chinese riend who worked also at NCBS before. Besides seeing mz friends, I had some time to enjoy German's port to the world, a nice place.
In the following days, I could finally enjoy to be for a few days together with my parents. And even so, I did not plan it in advance, I managed t see a good amount of friends. I went for one day to Leipzig,
Traveling continued with a trip to Paris fr four days. Many of my friends where about to finish their PhD, so that I used a long weekend to visit all of them before they spread out to work in different places all over the world. As expected, Paris did not change over the last years, but nevertheless, it was great to walk around and refresh my memories . And not everything was unchanged, a large amount of Metro stations were renovated and were not anymore filthy and stinky. My first day in Paris was a friday, and after visiting Curie Institute, I went over to the Pasteur institute, to enjoy their beer hour which we continued in a close by bar. As a nice end for that day, I went to a birthday party of another friend. At the end of the day, I was happy about all the positive feelings of the day.
The next station of my trip was Göttingen, where I was supposed to visit the laboratory of Prof. C. Schmidt. I got there with the night train from Paris. On this train, it happened that I shared the sleeping cabinet with another German physicist, and he was also on a "home trip" combined with a visit of conferences, because he as a permanent position in an institute in Brazil! What a coincidence! We had a great discussion about the "pro an con" of choosing to leave the first world and to continue with its research career in a BRIC state. The train arrived very early in Göttingen, which gave me the opportunity to explore the city while it was waking up. The visit of the lab was great, and I could also meet a very good friend who did his PhD in Göttingen.
The next morning I took the train to Regensburg, where I attended a research conference for three days. Fortunately, the schedule gave the opportunity to make some walks to explore the city center of this cute medieval town. Another nice surprise was, that I met many known faces at the conference, ad that we had a great closing evening with a dancing crowd until 3 AM! As a result of that, I missed my reserved train in the early morning back to Berlin, but it was fortunately no problem transfer the tickets to a later train, so that I had a very relaxed train trip back. After my arrival in Berlin, I had another two days to get ready for India, and they were two very nice and intense days with my parents. The time passed by much too fast, and hops, I sad suddenly in a plane heading for Bangalore, my new and not so new hometown...to be continued
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| JP-Gaultier @DeYoung Museum, San Francisco |
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| Ploen und Hamburg- 2012 |
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| Paris-September 2012 |
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| Goettingen and Regensburg - September 2012 |
Friday, August 3, 2012
East Coast Trip
For a change from the laid back San Francisco live, I flew end of June to the US east coast, more precisely to Boston. Before I could start a week-long trip from Boston over New York to Washington DC, I have spent 18 days at a little village called Woods Hole to work as a teaching assistant for my professor S. Mayor in the Physiology course at the Marine Biology Laboratory (MBL). The work was a great experience on a personal as well as a scientific level. It was the first time to fully advised a group of experienced researchers doing experiments, and met also a bunch of amazing and inspiring people. The physiology course has a great history, exists since 120 years, and is internationally renown. You can find an interesting article about the course here
The little free time we had was used as much as possible to explore the place and to swim in the sea (something impossible at San Francisco). The tiny village was dominated by the MBL buildings, but had also two nice cafes (Pie in the Sky and Coffee Obsession), which were our refuge and essential for our survival (the only places with real espresso!). Besides that, there place was full of nice little houses and beautiful nature! Many times, I used the bike path towards Falmoth to have a run or walk along the coastline. One day, two friends and me took the ferry to the island Martha's Vineyard and did a bike tour there.
A pretty warm place for some relaxed summer holidays, but I felt pity for the "students", who have to stay seven weeks at this place.
After very exhaustive, sleepless, but very productive and festive two weeks, I was sad to leave the place, but was also happy to start my east coast trip! First stop was Boston and Cambridge, two little, but old nice and important places. Boston was one of the central places of the US revolution against the British Kingdom. It was easy to see most of those site wandering along the Freedom trail.
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/GUuo8CK_xQvfz9VlhDr-GUfaOrC8gA25HgcdfisvuiQ?feat=directlink
In the evening, I crossed the river to get to Cambridge, where I have met a friend from the Institut Curie who works now at the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). I liked the Harvard square with many bars and cafes, but also the garden of the MIT and University Cambridge are beautiful in their English style and artwork.
My next stop was a 4 hours bus trip away and was a calm and quiet city called...New York City. Ok, forget this about calm and quiet- I was happy to be in a really busy place again after the previous weeks! This time, I stayed the first two days close to the Rockefeller University, then I moved to the east village close to the New York University (it is great to have friends!!!). The two neighborhoods are quite different and I used the four days to walk around a lot to get a better feeling of the city and it's dynamics. Especially the hipster Grenwich and the High Line were interesting. The latter is a former metro rail track which was recently transformed into a green path above the streets (like the art viaduct in Paris next to the Bastille). Also the transformed Chelsea station was a nice passage with fancy alternative food places.
Unfortunately, my plan to explore Brooklyn with a bicycle had to be canceled due to a whole day of rain :-(. But my other planned and unplanned activities were all great, I visited the MoMA, and the modern museum, and I listened to some beautiful Jazz on two evenings. One night, I was with my friend from Paris, Georgia, on a rooftop cocktail bar, followed by a late night Jazz concert at the Jazz at Lincoln Centre, which is at the 5th floor, gives a nice view over Central Park, and has some very good cocktails on the menu (like the New Orleans Sazerac)!
Another night, I was with my friend from Bangalore, Varuni, in a little bar in Brooklyn called Barbes (like the Metro station in Paris) with a French touch.
After the concert, we planned to go to an art performance called "The Clock" which was running for 24 hours over the weekend, but the line at 11pm and 1am was too long. I finally went the next morning at 6am and could enter without waiting ;-)
And before leaving New York, just a mention about style...I get depressed in the US, it is sooo hard to find nice, colorful clothes for men apart from front-printed T-Shirts! I lost totally my believe to find something when I entered in a Dona Karan shop at Madison Ave., and found in the men's part not more than lumberjack shirts! It seems that these shirts have become a new uniform for American men, when not wearing a suit for work. that's so sad. Anyhow, I also had a nice surprise, while walking through the busy streets of Manhattan, I crossed a young lady who had exactly the same funky jacket from a Berlin artist/designer than me! That saved my day...
After these amazing days in New York, I could rest a bit during my bus trip to the last destination of my east coast trip: Washington DC. Without any planning, it happened that another German friend, who is currently doing his PhD in the same group at Institut Curie as I did, was also visiting our host Gil at the US capital. Matthias picked me up at the bus station and we went together checking out the city.
The center of Washington is dominated by a great variety of museums whose majority offers its expositions to the public for free (the Smithsonian and National museums)! But most of the museums close at 5pm, so that the only open place we could find after my arrival, was the aerospace and flight museum. This is an astonishing place starting with the brother's Wright flight machine up to actual aerospace vehicles.
In the evening, we discovered the close by China town, where I tasted some see snails in a Chinese restaurant- the waitress even asked me again: "You are sure? It is single snails!", it was very tasty, but peeling out all the snails took a loooong time.
The next day was a Sunday, and we managed to start the town tour with a Sunday farmer's market close to Georgetown. Georgetown itself is a laid back part of the city with many nice houses which are about 100 years old. Alongside the Potomac River, we walked towards the Washington Mall, where you find the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington monument, the Capitol and all the museums. We visited the sculpture museum and the Museum of the American Indian.
To get a bit fresh air, we then took the subway to Alexandria, a little town at the border of Washington. There we found a masonic memorial for George Washington!
The town was pretty with its brick stone buildings and many cafes and restaurants. Before going back home, I decided to go to the Mall again, to see the main buildings at night. I also enjoyed it because the evenings were still warm (and not cold as in San Francisco)...I passed by illuminated monuments, statues, a square with Tango dancing people (!), and then I reached the White House! It is not very large, but looks elegant with its water fountain, and the Washington monument in direct sight. Happy and tired, I reached Gil's place at 11pm.
The last day, I only had the morning for some explorations, and I decided to visit the Arlington Cemetery. It was very moving to see the graves of so many people who died in the many wars that the US had fought. Here rest soldiers starting from the revolutionary wars until now (I saw graves of some who just have died a month ago in Afghanistan!). The memorial of J.F. Kennedy was touching with some of his big statements and an eternal flame...and as a perfect finish of my cemetery, I even saw a military salute ceremony at the tomb of the unknown soldier.
Before leaving Washington, I met my friend again for lunch, nad we visited together an exhibition about the history of video games, how cool! This was a good finisher for an amazing time at the east coast. I am now back in San Francisco, a region with much cooler temperatures (especially at night) and too many clouds. But the people and the way to live here is much nicer than at the east coast...to be continued
The little free time we had was used as much as possible to explore the place and to swim in the sea (something impossible at San Francisco). The tiny village was dominated by the MBL buildings, but had also two nice cafes (Pie in the Sky and Coffee Obsession), which were our refuge and essential for our survival (the only places with real espresso!). Besides that, there place was full of nice little houses and beautiful nature! Many times, I used the bike path towards Falmoth to have a run or walk along the coastline. One day, two friends and me took the ferry to the island Martha's Vineyard and did a bike tour there.
A pretty warm place for some relaxed summer holidays, but I felt pity for the "students", who have to stay seven weeks at this place.
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| Aus Woods Hole 2012 |
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| Aus US East Coast Trip - 2012 |
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| Aus US East Coast Trip - 2012 |
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| Aus US East Coast Trip - 2012 |
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| Aus US East Coast Trip - 2012 |
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| Aus US East Coast Trip - 2012 |
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| Aus US East Coast Trip - 2012 |
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| Aus US East Coast Trip - 2012 |
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| Aus US East Coast Trip - 2012 |
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| Aus US East Coast Trip - 2012 |
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| Aus US East Coast Trip - 2012 |
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| Aus US East Coast Trip - 2012 |
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| Aus US East Coast Trip - 2012 |
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| Aus US East Coast Trip - 2012 |
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Summer in San Francisco
June in San Francisco...first of all, there are many other places which provide better summer weather! Especially you have to get used to the cool foggy nights, but sometimes it can be very nice to have a cool night (13-18C), e.g. to sleep well...hm...if you have to sleep in this city ;-)
Work became more serious in June, so that I did not find the time and motivation for longer trips outside SF, but I had some fun time.
One weekend was governed by the Pride 2012 in San Francisco, a festival to honor the city's homo-, bi- and trans-sexual community. The streets around the city hall were filled with people checking out the information booths, shops and music stages. The biggest event of the festival was the parade along the Market Street starting from the piers and going up to the city hall. It was quite fun, to watch the parade, but the quality and size of the marching groups was not as high (colorful, creativity, music) as I experienced during the parades in Paris and Berlin.
Another big event in June was the European Soccer championship, which was due to the time shift with Europe a very pleasant noon-distraction. I had the pleasure to see the game of Germany against Portugal at the place of a Portuguese colleague, who had invited about 20+ people. The atmosphere was great, and during and after the game we had nice conversations, good food and cold beer!
After a short break, social live continued at the beer fest of the UCSF brewers guild topped by some nice music tunes to which you could dance to.
My friend Kripa from Davis came over for a couple of weekends, which was a good occasion to cook and to go to some Jazz or Blues concert. One very nice one was in a club called Yoshi's and featured a jazz combo of drummer, bassist, piano player together with three blow instruments: alt-, tenor sax and trumpet. They played a great set of jazz classics decorated with elaborated solo parts.
At work, I discovered Zumba as a new dance activity which helps me to stay in shape and to relax from the day to day work. This is basically a blend of South-American dance moves ranging from Rumba over Salsa to Raga-ton taught in small sets of three to for steps per song- a great way to get rid of additional energy! Another nice routine became the indoor soccer games Tuesdays and Thursdays at lunchtime.
The next blog will come from the East coast, where I will be at Woods Hole as a teaching assitant at the Marine Biological Laboratory...
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| Aus San Francisco - 2012 |
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| Aus San Francisco - 2012 |
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| Aus San Francisco - 2012 |
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