Last Post from Germany

So this is officially my last post from Germany.  It's sad that this trip had to end, but I can't wait to be home and see everybody!
I forgot to mention what happened Tuesday through Friday (today).
Tuesday, we went to research to present our powerpoints about our research to our mentor scientists.  That was really nerve wracking, but we all survived.  Afterwards, we went shopping and bought lots of chocolate! Wednesday, we had to make another presentation, but this one was about our experience in Germany.  We hadn't really worked on it so we were going to meet early in the morning at JWS so I woke up at 7 and missed Dr. Braun so I couldn't catch a ride to the school.  I got ready and waited for the bus in the rain.  The bus left at 8:15 and I got to the main station at 8:45.  I then took bus #62 to get to the school, but I had absolutely no idea which street to get off at.  I picked a random street and had to walk around for an hour and a half - walking almost a 5K and finally made it to the school dripping wet just to see that Amy and Krista hadn't informed me that they weren't coming until 11:00.  Once they did arrive though, we worked on our presentation and presented it - it went quite well.  The ceremony they had was nice and a lot of important people like the Minister of Education came to give speeches.
Thursday, we ended up going to school with the German students.  We sat through Economics- in German, Biotechnology- in German/English (actually a really interesting class where in vitro fertilization was the topic of conversation), English, and Biotechnology again.  After Biotechnology, we all went through a window and picked apples.  I went home with Alex and ate at her house and then Erika drove us to Melanie's house where we watched the Bourne Identity and Supremacy.
Today, we went to school again here for the last time and went to P.E. and Math.  P.E. was a lot of fun because we played one game where you have to throw a foam ball at people like dodgeball except there's a king that you're trying to get out.  We also played a game where you have a huge ball and you have to use any method you can to get it into your goal.  That was a lot of fun!  Math was interesting because we were split into teams (Amy and I with the Germans, and Krista with the other Germans) and they played a strategy game like Chess on the board, but to move you had to get the math problems right.  Once the Germans found out that Amy and I were good at math, we had to answer all of the questions.  Krista however didn't get to play at all because the one person who knew German wasn't even participating.  After school, we went out into the city for a little while and bought more presents.  Now I have to start packing for tomorrow.  We leave at 7:30 and our plane takes off at 11:40.  We'll be back in the states at 1:20 pm tomorrow so I should be home by 4!
TIME TO PACK!


Goodbye (in different languages):


ba bye - creole


totsiens / tot siens - Afrikaans (standard)
koebaai - Afrikaans (informal; derived from English "Good-Bye")
vaarwel - Afrikaans (formal)


elalleqa - Arabic


khodaa haafez - persian


aabar dekha hobey - Bengali


Donadagohvi - Cherokee


Hagoonea' - Navajo


Ahoj - Czech


Sayonara / さよなら (if you will not see them for a long time) - Japanese


Auf Wiedersehen - German
Bis dann - German
Tschüss - German


Viszlát! - Hungarian


Ciao - Italian
Buona sera - Italian


Adieu - French [add-ee-uh] 
Au Revoir - French (aw reh-VWAH)


Hejdå - Swedish


Aloha - Hawaiian


Le'hitraot - Hebrew
Shalom - Hebrew


Aavajo - Gujarat


Bye, 
~Kiersten

Leipzig: Day 3 + Sun & Mon

Leipzig Day 3 in a brief overview:
    - Visited the restaurant where Goethe spent most of his time writing
    - Ate at said restaurant
    -Went window shopping
    -Saw an awesome theater show including acrobatics, singing, magic, and jokes in German
    -Went to the Potato House restaurant: waited for over 2 hours for our food that wasn't even good
    -Walked around Leipzig and explored
    -bed
Sunday:
   -Drove back to Pforzheim (8 hours)
   - Watched the USA vs Japan Women's world cup Championship: one of the most intense games thus far
   -Saw Japan win the game and all the people back in Japan celebrate
Monday:
   -Worked on presentation for tomorrow at research
That's all for now and I have to finish my presentation and figure out what the plan is for tomorrow.
Ciao,
~Kiersten

Leipzig: Day 1 and 2

Sorry about the lack of posting, but we have been enjoying East Germany and hanging out with other teenagers who actually try to speak English with us.  We have been touring Leipzig, going to museums and listening to stories about how the Berlin wall was built and destroyed and how the Monday demonstrations took place in front of the church directly in front our motel which has turned out to be a lot nicer than any hotel I've ever stayed out.  It's really upscale.  We've had a great time hanging out with the other students from Pforzheim and learning more German.  Tonight, we went exploring around Leipzig and in the hotel.  I also bought a European jacket, which I think is pretty classy and not too expensive.  Tomorrow, we are going to see a play of some sort so that should be fun and then on Sunday we have to drive 8 hours back to Pforzheim and watch the USA play Japan for the title of champion in the women's world cup.
Now that you're up to date, I'm going to head to bed.
Night,
~Kiersten

Wow...it's been a while since I've posted

    It's been a while since I've posted anything so I have four days to catch you up on.
Sunday: worked on presentation for research and watched The Island along with Stardust later that night.  A good do nothing day.
Monday: Research and Stuttgart.  We went shopping, but didn't find anything and I was going to get Starbucks, but the line was too long and it was expensive so it wasn't worth it.
Tuesday: Research and chilling in Mannheim.  We went and laid in the grass in the park, but a police officer walked by and apparently you aren't aloud to lay in the grass there, but luckily he was nice about it and offered us a bench nearby instead.
Today: It started out normally with us making all of our connections, but the return home was a different story.  We left research at 4:10 and had to be back at the station to make the 4:36 train.  We briskly walked to the tram, but missed it by 30 seconds, which meant that we were going to miss our train.  We all wanted to get home early in order to see the USA vs France game on TV so we wanted to be home around 6 meaning we had to find an early train.  We looked up times and found a train that would get us there quickly, but Krista stopped to get pasta and Amy mentioned that we had 30 seconds to catch the train.  When we got the platform, the sign said that the train was delayed 15 minutes, which soon turned into 20, then 25, then 35 minutes.  Amy went to check other train times and while she was gone I followed Krista into a market to look at chocolate.  We returned to the platform to find Amy missing and we couldn't find her anywhere.  We looked on our platform twice and searched the station, but had no luck.  Our train finally arrived and we couldn't find Amy so we decided to get on, hoping she caught one of the other trains going to the station.  We arrived in Karlsruhe and still couldn't find her.  We were worried and somewhat bored and so we made a short video on my computer saying that we officially lost Amy.  When we got off of the train we headed to her bus station just in case she made it there and lo and behold she was there!  We exchanged stories and it turned out that she had gotten on a train on a different platform because she thought we had already left her, but we ended up in Karlsruhe ahead of her (faster train) and we had both ridden the same train in different compartments to Pforzheim.  It was a domino effect starting with the red light that prevented us from reaching the tram to get to the station.  Those 30 seconds cost us an hour of waiting in the train station, and two hours of worry.  It was funny though thtat we missed Amy's return to our platform in Mannheim because we were fascinated by the chocolate in the store (mostly Krista haha).
I got back to Braun's house and turned on the TV to watch the USA vs France game.  The USA won 3-1 and while watching it, the commentary went like this: something, something, something in German, Wambach, something, something, Wambach, something, Wambach, something, something, Wambach.  I think there was a theme in the coverage.  Now that I've brought you up to speed, I'm going to go pack for Leipzig this weekend.  It's an 8 hour car ride that I'm not looking forward too, but I'm excited to see East Germany.  We leave tomorrow and won't be back until Sunday so it should be fun.
Talk to you later,
~Kiersten

Heidelberg

Today started out with biking around Nussbaum, which was an interesting experience given the bike I was riding.  It was a bicycle that cost over 2,000 Euros and looked like a professional one.  It was hard to get used to how it worked and I almost got run over in the process, but luckily I learned how to stop just in time.

After biking, we headed to Heidelberg and visited a student prison where the kids were kept if they misbehaved and they wrote their stories, engraved their names, and painted pictures of themselves on the walls of the prison. I even saw an engraving of the last name Schmidt on the wall.  We also visited the Castle in Heidelberg, which is the most famous castle in Germany.  After that we went shopping for a short time and I got a cute Germany bag, a few t-shirts, and some other items.  It was a lot of fun and now we're watching the Germany vs Japan soccer game.  Japan just scored a goal in thirty minutes of overtime and it was an extremely painful game.

I was just looking up the news for today and everyone is celebrating the birth of South Sudan and they raised the new flag in Juba today.  It's now official that all of the maps of the world are now out of date and we are experiencing history.  It's weird to think that some of the events I'm reading about that are going on now like the Arab spring and all of the revolutions in Africa are going to be written in textbooks years from now.  Well, I should probably head to bed now...

Nacht,

~Kiersten

Research and Stuttgart

Yesterday at research nothing out of the ordinary occurred besides the fact that I've been having problems with getting results and one of my films turned out completely blank, which is not a good sign.  Today, I redid the latter half of the experiment and it turned out that I had used the wrong secondary antibody.  Instead of using the HRP against mouse antibody, I used the marker lysate I had made previously that week.  They both had an 'm' on the top of the lid and I had assumed they both meant mouse.  Whoops...but now I have results and I have to work on my presentation and paper all next week.

Today, we decided to go to Stuttgart after research and it has the largest mall/shopping center in all of Germany. It was extremely impressive and the overall atmosphere and architecture made the trip worth it.  We only had time to go into one store because the lines were so long and there were too many people, but I did get some shorts.  Hopefully, we will be able to go back and get more clothes.  Tomorrow we're going to Heidelberg- tourist central, and there I hope to find things to buy.  Also, I learned from Krista that South Sudan is becoming it's own country tonight at midnight, which means that tomorrow all of our maps will be wrong.  And in England, people are camping out to see the viewing of Harry Potter 7 Part 2 and they ahve recreated Hogsmeade accompanied by wand shops, etc in England.  People have come dressed up in Hogwarts robes and are excited to catch glimpses of the actors/actresses when they arrive for the viewing.  Wish I was in England right now...It's sad that we won't be able to see the movie when it comes out even though it officially premiers here on July 12th.  That's all for now.
Adios,
~Kiersten

Just Another Ordinary Day *insert sarcasm*

Sorry that I haven't posted the past two days, but all that happened was that we went to research and I went running for 30 minutes straight on Monday.  Today, however, was a different story.

Today started out normally with us getting on the train to Karlsruhe.  Amy and I have a joint ticket to ride the trains and she was carrying it around in her hand.  We didn't have any problems until we got onto the train in Karlsruhe to go to Mannheim.  Amy realized that she no longer had the ticket in her hand.  We searched through all of our bags and pockets and even looked around on the ground, but to our despair, no ticket could be found.  We went to research as per usual and called Dr. Braun to see what we would have to do.  The ticket that we had lasted for the entire month and would get us anywhere in Germany, but it cost 400 Euros.  Amy was so upset about it and she spent most of the tram ride back to the station worrying about the cost and how she always misplaces stuff.

    We got off at the station and bought some fruit and train tickets to get us back to Pforzheim.  We asked all of service counters in both Mannheim and Karlsruhe if they had obtained our ticket and we searched the platforms for it.  When we were searching for a payphone to call Dr. Braun with (my phone ran out of money and the other girls didn't have theirs with them), Amy set down her laptop case.  She left it there and out of luck she passed by one of the attendants who had picked it up.  She almost lost both the ticket and her laptop.  It was not a good day for Amy and with no luck with finding the ticket, we headed back home.  When we got off at the Karlsruhe train station, there were train attendants standing around a garbage bin with water and it turned out that there was smoke coming out if.  My guess was that someone carelessly through a cigarette into the paper compartment of the trash.  It was a crazy day and I ended up spending $30 on a train ticket just today.  Dr. Braun purchased tickets for Amy and I for this coming week so we should be good until we are supposed to go to Leipzig.

     I forgot to mention that yesterday, there was a man on the train who could only speak French and he needed help to find out where to get off.  A woman who only spoke German asked Krista if she could help the man.  The woman talked to Krista in German, Krista translated to English for Amy, and Amy spoke French to the man.  It was interesting to watch this "language train" and I sort of wish there had been some need for me to speak to Spanish, but seeing as I have taken a year off from Spanish, it probably wouldn't have been pretty.    

     Digressing, on Saturday, the plan is to go to Heidelberg to shop, sight see, and watch fireworks on top of the castle.  I really need to start preparing for my presentation of my research because we have to make one before leaving Germany.  I can't believe how fast this has gone and that it's almost over.  I'm just now getting used to the routine, my lab, the Braun family, and I'm really enjoying myself here.  We've had a lot of adventures here and I hope to have more before we leave.  I will be sad to say goodbye to Germany, but I'm also kind of excited to be going home to spend time with my family.  It's going to be a bittersweet goodbye, but that is still a ways off so I'm going to enjoy myself here while I can.

      It's late here so I should probably hit the hay.

Tchuss,

~Kiersten