July 07, 2014
# 22) Physics majors tend to be… different. But, it’s cool; we can be different together.
# 23) Castles are cool.
# 24) When in Germany, assume your drink will be carbonated.
While in
Hannover for my internship, I am sharing the apartment with two other students
from the States who are in the same program as me. Occasionally, something happens that reminds
me of this. Two specific examples of
this come to mind:
During our
first weekend here, we went to the zoo.
At this particular zoo, you can go below the sidewalk to look into the
side of the polar bear cage, looking underwater. While everyone else in this area was trying
to follow the two polar bears, the three of us physics majors stood off to the
side. You see, the water surface was
just above eye level and we were discussing the surface tension and the
wave-movement of the water. The polar
bears were elsewhere.
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| Vaishali and Germ |
The other
example comes from this past week. I
attended Lecture Week (a week of lectures geared towards Ph.D. students in
gravitational-wave physics.) with some of the Ph.D. students from the AEI
(Albert Einstein Institute), where I am working this summer. During one of evenings, a bunch of us were at
the beach, and two of the students decided to make a sand castle. Well, it started out as a sand castle; it
ended up being a model of two black-body systems radiating gravitational waves
that were detected by a version of the e-LISA mission (this detector had three
arms and star-shaped spacecraft.). Perhaps a bit… odd; but, cool, right? We all think so!
A few other
examples include:
a discussion
while standing in the blazing heat to watch the Schützenfest parade in Hannover about how light travels (apparently, it really freaks
one of my flat mates out that everything we see came from the sun roughly 8
minutes ago)
a remark,
while in a castle, about glass actually being a liquid… then, proceeding to observe
several old glass windows to see and discuss their properties
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| This is Neuschwanstein castle. |
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| Hohenschwangau castle |
Two
weekends ago, I traveled to Füssen to see the nearby castles
Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau.
Neuschwanstein is one of the most famous castles in the world. It was built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria,
and most-likely used by Disney as a model for his castles. The castle remains unfinished, however,
because King Ludwig II died under mysterious circumstances before it was
completed. Hohenschwangau, located near
Neuschwanstein, is the less-famous and less-visited of the two. However, this was the castle where Ludwig
actually lived while growing up and while his castle was being built.
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| Here I am with my alcoholic ice cream/ |
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| This ice cream is shaped like spaghetti. Neat! |
It was
roughly a 7-hour train ride in total to get to the near-southern border of
Germany. But, it was well worth the
trip. The castles were amazing, and the
town of Füssen itself was nice and quaint. I really enjoyed the stay. If you ever go to Bavaria, or Germany in
general, I recommend these castles. But,
keep in mind that Neuschwanstein is one of the most heavily-visited castles in
Europe. To avoid the crowds, get there
in the morning (even on a Saturday in the summer, it really wasn’t that bad
because I got to the ticket booth at roughly 9:30). The tours run 30-min long for each castle
(and there will be many, many tours throughout the day with hundreds of people
in total on a typical day).
Hohenschwangau is the less-crowded castles because it is not as iconic. But, it is just as nice to see.
The nearby town of Füssen is pretty nice, too. There is an old town with pedestrian streets, restaurants, and shops. It even has an old palace of its own. I with that I had more time to explore Fü
This past
week, I attended something called lecture week.
It’s a requirement for first-year Ph.D. students at the AEI, and since
almost everyone else was going, my advisor thought it would be a good idea for
me to go, too. This lecture week was
held outside a nearby (roughly one hour by regional train) town, at a hotel in
the woods (There are three lecture weeks each year, and each of the three are
held somewhere differently.). The week
consisted of three 1.5 hour lectures every day, meals, and general hanging out
with the other students, lecturers, and attendees. The week was a lot of fun overall, but it led
me to discover two things: banana juice is a thing; and, be wary – anything can be carbonated, here.
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| I haven't tried it yet, but I brought these home so I can try it! |
Banana juice
is not a thing in the States; granted, neither is cherry juice, but I have at
least heard of that before. But, here,
in Germany, a concoction of cherry juice and banana juice is common. It’s apparently often given to children who
grow up to crave the stuff. While I’m
sure it can be bought pre-mixed, you can buy it separate and then mix it
yourself. Yes, ladies and gentleman, you
can buy a bottle of banana juice. When I
think about it, I suppose it isn’t too strange – after all, there is juice for
nearly every other fruit (including tomatoes).
You know what I would be keen with drinking? Kiwi juice.
I need to find some of that.
Besides the
strange juices, keep in mind that your drink might be, and probably is
carbonated. While at this lecture week,
I chose to drink some nice orange juice for breakfast. Well, when I opened the bottle, I heard the
fizzing, and my heart sank. There would
be no nice orange juice for me! (The
next morning, I did successfully located un-carbonated orange juice.)
Also, it does no good to simply let the carbon exit the
drink. For one, this can take a very
long time (I waited for hours at a conference for my carbonated water to
release its toxin (alright, so they aren’t really toxins). For another, the drink will still taste funny. So, if you don’t like carbonated water, do
yourself a favor and carry your own in a bottle. The tap water is safe to drink in Germany.
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