...is resting this weekend.

The DPG (I'm referring to the week-long conference of the German Physicist's Society) is over. It was rather intense. This wasn't even the entire DPG represented -- only the Condensed Matter (e.g. lasers, surfaces, magnetism, etc.) section -- but the DPG is evidently the world's largest (and longest) Physicist's society, and so maybe it was no surprise that some of the biggest labs in our field were represented. I know I alluded to it last post but it was something else to get to talk with the people who actually perform some of these cutting-edge experiments.

I gave two presentations and one lab tour that I'll mention: one presentation was on my work and one on another fellow's work. My presentation could best be described as making lemonade out of lemons. I think it went well, given that what I really wanted was more data. The other presentation was okay but it's a bit strange to give a presentation you haven't prepared. Things aren't organized as you would have. The lab tour was to the Bennewitz group and that was very helpful. I met Roland when he was a prof in Canada at McGill and it was nice to get a third-party opinion about some of the problems that might be plaguing my current experiment. (It remains to be seen if I can implement these solutions.)

And implement them in a little under four working days. Thanks, Easter! Almost everyone is taking some holidays around this time because we get both the Friday and the Monday off. I'm already looking forward to it but I'll try to be a good postdoc and keep working hard for these four last days...

...needs a pair.

Seriously, that was my second bierfest (second? I think...) and there I was, in jeans. Not cool for someone in Bayern. Even four of the girls at our table were wearing lederhosen! Soon after sitting down, one of them leaned over and warned me that the beer is quite strong. (I told her not to worry -- that I'm Canadian, and thus can hold my drink.) For the beer aficionatos, my wikipedia research has lead me to conclude that starkbier is the same as bockbier. From personal inquiries, bockbier is a type of starkbier. Regardless, go lent go!

This last week was another frustrating one at work. It involved some things at the end of their duty cycle breaking and then some confusing things that inhibited us from cleaning our sample. In theory, the experiment I want to do is quite simple. This just added to the overall frustration. In fact, there's only one thing saving my sanity. For over a year I watched one of my friends, who is a better experimental scientist than I am, wrestle over a similar problem. He ended up solving it and wrote a beautiful thesis. Clearly intelligent people sometimes get screwed over by vacuum systems. But I'll have something ready for this conference. On a brighter note, I'm really looking forward to the conference. Bennewitz et al. will be there, and Leonard Grill is giving an invited talk. :) Good timing too. I need to be reminded why I love it here.

And, in case the picture wasn't telling enough, I took this beautiful day off life to clean my place. While I like my place, I love it when it's clean. And I think I'm going to try to enjoy the last hours of daylight in beautiful Regensburg, walking around the old part of the city. Servus!

...knew the weekend was going to be good Friday evening.

Dinner on Friday night was in a tavern in a small town. I was with Matthias and Tom, who had headed out of Regenburg to visit their hometowns. When we dropped Tom off, his father suggested we grab dinner near their place. There was a group of guys playing cards at the large central table and the waitress, dressed in a typical Bavarian outfit, had come over to get our drink order. Everyone else ordered and I was furiously scanning the beer list, trying to decide which would be best when she piped up, "Bock bier?" Bock beer wasn't on the menu. But with happy eyes I turned to her, "ja, bitte!" She said something that my friends later translated as, "yah, you looked like you wanted the bock." The rest of the weekend followed suit.

I can't really recap the whole weekend. I visited another Bauerndisco (perhaps the most similar English translation would be redneck bar), enjoyed a (n almost) traditional Weisswurst breakfast, saw Salzburg, went skiing in the Austrian alps, drove on an autobahn, and ate wiener schnitzel.

The Alps were definitely the coolest part. I have to admit that I had more adrenaline in my body that day than I have had in months. I have never skiied in anything like them (i.e. Blue Mountain in Ontario is nothing like Saalbach).

And I really have to thank the Emmrich's for their hospitality. Not only was the house really nice, the home cooked food was delicious and the red wine didn't stop.

...has had too much to write about.

And instead of operating like water, in which an increase in pressure differential would cause an increase in velocity through a pipe of a fixed diameter, I have operated more like waste at the bottom of a kitchen sink (clogging and not writing anything).

Last Friday I held another party (A). This one was much more low-key but I still had fun. When it was done (super early -- 1am), one of my friends and I decided to head out to a club -- Suite 15 (B). This place I think I've written about before but in short, it's cool because it's in the basement of what used to be a monastery. From there we met a guy who told us he could take us to an afterparty... which ended up being a bar that was closed (C). :P Okay, not to worry, he took us to another place... which ended up being the shittiest bar in Regensburg (D). Awesome. And I now have a membership there!

This week has been a full week of putting together presentations, volleyball, some climbing, and a fun dinner party on Wednesday. Oh, and I almost forgot my sweetest purchase of the week -- a new washing machine! Not only is this going to revolutionize my lifestyle (no more laundromat), I think it'll have positive benefits on my hygene. Who would have thought I'd be so hyped by a waschmachine, but there you have it. I have to thank Matthias for driving me around AND hauling it up the four flights of stairs (with Toby) to my flat. I don't know how I managed to escape that.