Alice im Wunderland

We went to see Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland in 3D today.The problem with movies in Deutschland is that they are apparently all dubbed, so a group of us wanted to go see it auf Englisch. It also meant that we needed to get to Mannheim, on the train. 


From what Germans tell me, they have the same people doing voiceovers for just about everything. So everyone sounds the same in movies. I can't deal with seeing someone say something and their mouth not moving properly, or even not moving at all! It seems as if just about everything is dubbed here, so TV is either German or nothing. 


We had a movie and pizza night in the lab last week. Bud Spencer and Terence Hill. Until last Friday, I had no idea who they were, so it was interesting to see the style of movie. And interesting again to sit through a movie in German, dubbed, and understand next to nothing. Still, it was entertaining.  

Food!

I think it's about time I wrote about the food here in Germany. Important, really. 


Chocolate
Yes, there is a lot of chocolate. And no, it's not everywhere, but it's mostly very good. Milka parallels Cadbury back home, but Milka wins. The "Alpenmilch" thing works and it is tasty and more affordable than Cadbury. There is also Lindt here, but it's the same as it is back home. 


The "Student's Kiss" chocolate was invented (designed? made?) here in Heidelberg and is just a heart-shaped chocolate. Tasty enough. 


Breakfast cereal. There seems to be a chocolate variant of every type of breakfast cereal on offer. This includes muesli (müsli?) and so on. I can't imagine chocolate muesli, but it does exist. 


Cheese
Cheese seems to be standard, it's everywhere, and I can find whatever it is that I want at the supermarket. Something that I've not seen anywhere else is is quark. It's a bit like cream cheese, but it's not. 


Bread
The bread here is fantastic. It's always fresh and the variety is something I've not seen before. There is the sweet stuff, the savoury stuff and the normal stuff. Pretzels are big too, with different seeds on top. In the pedestrian zone, I think there is a shop selling bread of some sort at least every 20 metres. Bit hard to go hungry around there. 


Still, supermarket bread is good and comes in smaller packages. That makes more sense. There is a lot of seed bread, as in, sunflower seed, pumpkin seed and so on, available. It's quite tasty, but a lot heavier than regular bread. Good for a change. 


Water
Here in Germany, bottled water seems to be the thing. Most people drink bottled water. Most people drink carbonated bottled water. In short, it tastes a bit funny. Every so often, with food, I can take it. But not as my main source of water. And no, letting the bubbles escape doesn't make it taste any better. It just tastes funny. 


People buy bottled water in crates from the supermarket. It seems to be quite affordable and you get a refund when you bring the bottle back. Almost forced recycling. 


I guess one of the reasons for drinking bottled water is because the water is quite hard here. It seems to be especially hard here in Heidelberg and more so here, in Im Neuenheimer Feld, so I'm told. Without talking like a chemist too much, the precipitate in my kettle is quite off-putting. 


Sausage
I think everyone knows about Germany's obsession with the sausage, or Wurst. There is every possible kind imaginable. There are normal sausages, spreadable sausages, Leberwurst, canned sausages, flavoured sausages and so on. I think that the variety of sausage in supermarkets is greater than the variety of breakfast cereal. 


Coffee
Maybe I'm being picky, but Australian coffee is better. Or at least, Australian coffee from a place that cares about the coffee. Still, people seem to consume a lot of coffee here, mostly with cake. Filtered coffee seems to be the norm here, with boxes and boxes of filters everywhere. 




I'm sure there's plenty more to write, but this was just some of what stood out. More later!

Mannheim and Faschings

Mannheim
I went to Mannheim last weekend. From what I understood, Mannheim is the largest city around here, only 15 minutes on the train. And yes, there are plenty of shops. I've been told that the city was destroyed, which explains the lack of street names in the middle of the town. Each block has a letter and a number. It actually makes a lot of sense because D1 is right next to D2. Street names do not correlate with each other in any way, which makes getting around just a little harder. But if you're standing on P2, you know that P3 is the next block! 

Wasserturm in Mannheim. 

This past weekend was also the last weekend of Faschings. Or Carneval. Or Karneval. Or Carnival? I'm not sure. So in Mannheim, there were stalls (food, of course) lining the streets. Interesting mix of new shops and old things. Lots of Wurst, Crepes, more Wurst and so on.

Nutella Crepe! Doesn't look like much, but yummy when hot. 

Faschings
I'm still not quite sure what this is all about, but it seems like a lot of fun. It all officially ends tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, and so things are seemingly closed tonight. I've seen lots of people in fancy dress, big hair, weird glasses, cool shoes and the like. 


Back Altstadt Heidelberg, there are lots of old churches. One in particular was advertising a Faschings Orgelkonzert, so off I went. 

Yes, the concert did actually start at two minutes past five. 

In hindsight, I don't think I was expecting anything in particular, which was probably a good thing. First thing I see when I walk inside is a guy wearing a clown suit, big clown feet, a wig and a funny nose. Inside a church. I then see the organists wearing blue and green wigs and funny ties. Definitely not anything resembling a church service. Once inside, I was handed a program of sorts, a sheet with questions (alles auf Deutsch), a pencil, a balloon and a toothpick. We were meant to answer questions in response to snippets of music. The only questions I did manage to answer were the Disney-themed ones. Yes, kid-at heart. 

The organists at Providenzkirche.

Oh and the balloon! We had to blow them up. Not easy, because they were tiny. And then pop it at the right time. It's quite difficult to get 50 balloons to pop at the same time. All a bit of fun. 

My balloon. And my (very blank) question sheet. 

Other things
I've settled into my room and into my fume hood now. I'm hoping Lady Luck extends to Germany and my fume hood, in particular. There will be a chemistry-centric (mythbusting) post at some point in the future, which will probably make a few eyes glaze over. But in short, everything I have here, I can get at home. Chemicals still behave the same way, Schlenk lines still work the same way and solvents still have the same polarity. All good.




So here's to you, my "We want more blog posts!"-friends. I know entries have been a long time coming. They will get there eventually! Quite probably in reverse order too...

Heidelberg for real

So this is it! I'm in my new room (home!) and I finally have internet. So I think all is well. Almost. I'm living with three other people (2 Germans, 1 Italian) in a little apartment, which is new for me. I've just realised that I've never really lived with anyone else. Speaking of living with people, weekly chores have just come out and I'm in charge of one of the bathrooms this time. So yes, I have a room, in an apartment, which means I have a postal address...if anyone is interested. 

I'm only 5 minutes away from the lab, which means that I will be uber-productive once I figure out where everything is. I'm trying not to think about it now, but going home and getting used to having to travel an hour each way will be hard to get used to again. Then again, I don't have bench space or a fume hood in Sydney at the moment, so who knows where I'll end up.

Over the next few weeks (maybe months...) I will be writing more about the various places I've been and also putting up more photos. There are still so many stories and pictures. And so much snow! 

More soon.

Stockholm

We've only had two or so days in Stockholm, but it was immediately obvious that it is a well-developed city. And like Vienna, expensive. I guess it's like being in Sydney, except that it is much colder, the people speak Swedish and that the public transport is much better.

Flying in to Stockholm, it was all trees and snow. Christmas trees! There were so many of them. It was also strangely dark. That is something I'm not sure I'd ever want to get used to, sunset by 4 pm or so. I like sunlight and blue sky. The sky ends up a dusty red colour, but still "dark". Conducive to staying inside.

Accommodation here was in a jail! An old, converted jail, that is. We had a 2-bed cell and it was fantastic. I should like to think that it will be one of the only times I'll be "in jail".












More detailed update with more pictures later.

Vienna

Vienna is everything they said it would be. Pretty, fashionable, tasty. And expensive. I guess it is no more expensive than Sydney, but after visiting Prague, Krakow and Budapest, just about anything would be expensive.

Schloss Schönbrunn was amazing. This palace was the home of the ruling family of Austria, the Habsburgs, until they lost power. In particular, Franz Leopold and Elisabeth lived there. We only managed to see part of the palace, but it was obvious that the cost of things didn't really matter. Still pretty nonetheless.




We had Wiener schnitzel one evening, at a little place away from the city. The schnitzel (turkey and pork) was good, except that there was enough meat for a week on our two plates. Most people need to make use of the paper and bags to take the rest home, which is what we did.



Schloss Belvedere was a bit of an eye-opening experience. I thought it was going to be another palace, like Schönbrunn, and it was, in that it was a magnificent building. But this palace houses art. I don't know much (or anything?) about art, except that I'm not very good at it. Renoir, Monet and Manet live there, as well as Klimt. We only had time to look at a part of the palace, which was a shame.

More pictures soon!

Mini-Budapest

Some more minor things about Budapest.

It is a city that is very much different to the previous cities we've visited. It seems a lot older, yet still has young bits. I had no idea, but Buda is on the west side of the Danube and Pest is on the east side of the Danube.

The transport systems are fantastic here. The trams, metro and buses link everything together. Like everything else, it takes a little getting used to, but it works.

Everyone seems to smoke here! It's hard to eat with people smoking, but that's the way it is.

We are spoiled in Australia, when it comes to fruit. The choice and quality is better than anything I've seen here.

Those delicious twist things we found in Krakow are apparently traditional Hungarian and not Polish! Here is one with walnuts.




If something is open 24 hours a day, it is open "0 - 24" or "non-stop".

The labyrinth in Buda is a bit of a scam. They claim to have human footprints from 40 million years ago, with shoe tread marks! Really? "Homo consumeres" apparently. That and rocks with imprints of mobile phones and computers.

More pictures when I have a proper computer.