...is back in Bavaria

I was invited to dinner in celebration of a friend's birthday last night. Out of the eight of us, there were two Russians, one Kazakhstanian, one Slovakian, one Czech, one German and one Canadian (I didn't catch where one person was from). The lingua franca was German and I found myself able to understand more than I expected to. An interesting cultural note is that the birthday girl paid for everyone's dinner (including drinks) and supplied cakes.

Back in the lab, I get a few days rest while we wait for parts. Thursday we'll open the chamber again and hopefully next week I'll get to start with the experiments whose results I am to discuss at the annual DPG (Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft -- Germany's CAP) meeting in March. Nothing like a little fire under your butt to make time fly. Of course, I say a few days rest but what I really mean is that instead of sitting in front of a microscope, I'm trying to help some of the other projects going on here.

Finally, I've been doing some jogging since I got back. Thanks to my father, I'm prepared for mild-winter jogging conditions like we have here. I'm going to say (unscientifically) that exercise does help getting over jet lag. It also helped me realize how bad my cardio is these day.