Aventurando Alemania

Ciao Bello!

2009-08-22T17:53:00.004+02:00

I am sitting on a couch once again... but this time in Cedar Springs, MI. Not on my couch back in Ingelheim, Germnay.

I have been back for a week, and I haven't settled down yet. I have been hanging out with friends, I have had three sleep overs and I have gone to the beahc and biked 46 MI! I love my friends here in GR and I am glad I am back in MI!

I wanted to show you a few pictures from Italy. We arrived to Bergamo on Friday night, my friend Casta picked us up, then we stayed the night in Bresia. Venice came right after that, Florence, Rome, Pisa and Cinque Terre followed.

There are way too many stories to tell you all of them. All I can say is that we had a ton of fun, we laughed so hard that my ribs would hurt from laughing the next day. We encountered a lot of creepy guys, we ran to catch trains, we were homeless for two nights! and slept out there in the street.

I loved all the places we went, Cinque Terre was probably my favorite. Rome had a lot of history behind it and the Colloseum was also one of my favorite places, I had been waiting to go to this place since I was in middle school. Florence was a beautiful place, overall Italy was an awesome country that I will definately come back and visit again.

Last day of work!

2009-08-07T12:40:00.005+02:00

Time flew by, I am now on my last day of work, anxiously waiting for 4:56pm... because that means that it will be 4:56 on the 07.08.09 (They write the day first here in Germany!)So yeah it will be 456789!!!!! hahaha... ok I am done..

Anyways, today is a sad day because I do not think I am done here. I will truly miss this place, I will miss the mountains, the Rhine river, black hill 782, my apartment, Rewe (The store), people at work, my hood, the weekend trips, german lesson (and the awesome teacher Oliver), the best sunsets ever from the window in my apartment, the random friends I made on my trips, the real European soccer games, the smell of my project!! I will miss too much of this place, I got too attached to this way of living that now, I do not want to leave.

Germany is a wonderful country, I had a great summer and I could not have asked for more. I went to two banks this morning to close the accounts, then I returned my bike, then the apartment keys... I went to like 4 different places to do all of this, and I spoke German in all of them! (Oliver you should be proud of me!)

My boss picked up my luggage from my apartment this morning. He is letting me store it at his place for a week, since I leave for Italy today and will be back in week.

I am indeed really sad and it will break my heart to say goodbye to all these people at work, after I closed the apartment door I felt like I was closing another door of a place that once I called home. I know I was here for only 2.5 months but I loved every single minute of it, this place had become home.

On the other hand, excitement has not hit me yet. I leave for Italy today and I get to see three friends. (Katrina, Andre and Casta)Casta is a friend from Highschool from back home!!!!!! I am really excited to meet with her at the airport in Bergamo tonight.

I will prolly update this blog in Italy but nothing is for sure, since I do not know how the internet situation will be.

Thank you for following my adventures!!!
Hasta pronto!

Why would I not miss this place?

Last weekend

2009-08-07T11:00:00.003+02:00

I left work on Wednesday and off to Munich. I had been waiting for this soccer game all summer long, FC Bayern Munich-AC Milan and Manchester United-Boca Juniors. Got to Munich, quickly found the hostel and started walking to the tram station to go to the stadium. I was all by myself in this big city so I decided to be friendly and make friends.

I made friends on my way to the soccer game, I don’t remember their names but they were from US and had internships in Berlin, all engineering, chemistry related so we had a great time. We got to the stadium, sat on the stairs because there were no more empty chairs. I soon left and sneaked into the 60€ section. I started painting my face with the FC Bayern colors. I was sitting right behind the players. I decided to call my dad and tell him to look for me on TV because I was for sure gonna get on no matter what! Well sure enough, some players were about to go in the game, as I was talking to my dad, he says: “THERE YOU ARE!! WAVE!!!” I didn’t know where the camera was, since there were many in front of me. Well I started waiving everywhere and got my parents excited, since they haven’t seen me for a while… Well they got to see me on TV! The game was a blast, I got Van Gaal’s autograph (The FC Bayern trainer) and I got to be on TV not once but many times, they even took pictures of myself! (This had happened before 3 years ago when I went to the Barcelona game in CA)

I was exhausted after the game, it took forever to get out the stadium, there were too many people and we were all over each other in the tram… I made it back to the hostel and had a great night, my roommates were a mom and her two kids so it was nice.

Off to Salzburg in Austria the next morning, it was only 7:00am and I was already at the train station. Salzburg is a nice little place, famous because Mozart was born there and he spent a lot of his years in that town. I walked around the entire city, went up to the fortress in a hill. I could hear music everywhere, there was someone playing a guitar, a violin, a harmonica, and many other instruments in every corner. I was tired by the end and decided to go to Berchtesgaden, my destination for the night and the next day.

Berchtesgaden is located at the very south of Germany, it is right by the Alps and you could see all the mountains when going in the train to this town. It was a 30 min walk to the hostel, this being uphill! I checked in, left my stuff at the hostel and decided to go for a walk around the town. I was once again walking around a town by myself, I wanted a picture by the mountains so I asked this couple who seemed nice, and I ended up making friends with them. Phil and I don’t remember her name, they were from the States, (California, and Chicago)! haha. My plan was to go to eagle’s nest the next morning, come back and go back to Ingelheim. Well that was not quite what happened. I did get up at 6:30am to go to Eagle’s nest, the couple I had met the night before were going to take the same bus up the hill with me at 9:00am so we met at the train station.

Eagle’s nest was Hitler’s holyday house, he got it n his 50th birthday and there is an elevator that takes you up into the house, and there is also a path that you could take to go up the house. This is the path the American soldiers took when they found this place. I walked up the path on the way there because the elevator was not working, and took the elevator on the way down when I was working.

It was sooo disappointed being up on the eagle’s nest and not being able to see ANYTHING!!! Not even 10 ft away from me. It was soo foggy and cloudy, I wanted to cry. I love the mountains, that is one of my favorite things in the entire world and wanted to see the Alps from the prettiest view you could get of the Alps from Germany and not being able to I just wanted to scream and cry. Everyone has to pay 15€ to go up there, cause the bus is owned by a private company, so I basically wanted to throw myself down the hill where all I could see was pitch white! I was so high up there in the Alps and I wasn’t getting what I wanted to. Disappointed of the situation, went down to Berchtesgaden, I was at the train station wondering if anyone knew what the weather was going to be like for the next day.

I found an information point across the street and went there, they said the next day was supposed to be a beautiful 82F degree sunny day. At this point, turned around, and walked in the opposite direction of the train station, I was walking to back to the hostel I had stayed at the night before! Call me crazy or something, but I was melting to see this view from the Eagle’s nest. They did have a bed for the night (The same bed I used the night before) , so I booked another night and made friends with two other girls staying there.

I walked to the koningsee lake that day, and this added 10km to my shoes! I was dead tired after doing this, my legs were giving up and all I needed was sleep. This lady was snoring at night and it took me 2 hours to fall sleep! Not even my ipod could block her snores! It was crazy, I wanted to throw a tomato I had gotten as part of breakfast for the next day! I was soo upset at this lady that I really wanted to throw something at her! Haha but I was nice and I didn’t.

Another night at the hostel, another early morning, another bus ride and NO! I didn’t pay 15€ again, I cheated the system. I was planning on walking for 2 hours, because I did not wanted to pay again, I pretended like I stood in line to buy the ticket, pulled out my ticket from the day before (I am sure God loves me soo much, since they actually hadn’t ripped my ticket at the entrance of the bus the day before, like they normally do).. I got in the bus, and they ripped it, I totally got in like if nothing had happened. They driver had seen me “buying” the ticket, so why was he going to check on the date right?

Eagle nest’s view was the most amazing view I have ever seen in my life, I saw the Watzmann mountain, I saw Salzburg from far away, I saw everything I could see! The sun was shining, it was a hot day, it was a wonderful day. I was once again in the Eagle’s nest. I sat on this bench for about 30 min, staring at the Alps, thinking about everything I had gone through to get to this place. My friends from the hostel were going to meet me there later one, so they did, we had a great time. I told myself I would come back and hike up the Watzmann someday. It is only 8 hours to get there, so why not do it right?

My determination to reach what I want had once again won the battle, I got on TV with a painted face, I got Van Gaal’s autograph, I went to the Eagle’s nest twice! I had gotten what I wanted.

Last week I got asked about what the best place I had gone this summer was and I couldn’t answer, cause I thought all the places were great! But now If I had to answer that question again, no doubt, it would definitely be this one, the Alps.

TWO HOURS AND A HALF BEFORE THE PROPOSAL

2009-08-06T11:33:00.002+02:00

I am posting this longer than a month after it happened, because I wanted Michelle and Mike to tell the story first!

Read under your own risk! I almost had a heart attack.

12:17 Mike is supposed to arrive in Mainz on platform 3 a/b (His train was delayed 25 minutes)

12:30 Michelle and Diane get to the train station and start looking for a train to Bingen.

12:30 Mike was suppose to be taking a train to Bingen on platform 11.

12:35 Michelle and Diane stand on platform 3 a/b (Diane tries to convince Michelle to get out of there, she thinks Mike’s train could be delayed  which it was!)

12:36 Michelle and Diane step out of the train station and look for a train on the internet.

12:42 Mike gets to Mainz, he arrived on platform 3 a/b

12:48 Michelle and Diane go back to platform 3 a/b to look for the train schedule

12:50 Michelle and Diane got on the train to Bingen, platform 11.

12:51 Mike takes a picture of the front of the hbf (train station, Michelle and Diane had left 11 minutes ago! They almost made it into the pic taken by Mike!!)

12:54 Diane is sitting by the window because she thinks that Mike’s train was delayed and it might be possible that he will get on the same train.

13:04 Mike was supposed to arrive in Bingen, but he has missed the train cause his other one was delayed!

13:17 Diane sees Mike walking towards the train and she panics.

13:17-13:18.5 Diane pulls out the worst story she has ever come up with. Her voice is breaking and she is literally shaking. She tells Michelle to come by the other side of the window and to look at a “gray wall” and says: if you go that way you will find this huge mall, they sell everything”… it is hard to convince Michelle to stand up after walking 3 hours with the huge backpacks! She does not want to get up (she obviously can see everything from where she is sitting so why would she get up!!!!  I couldn’t come with ANYTHING else! I was about to have a heart attack), so Diane raises her voice! Michelle finally stands up and goes to look at the “gray wall”. Diane is actually pointing at the “gray wall” but she is actually looking at Mike through the reflection on the glass!!! And thinks Michelle will see Mike through the glass too!) Mike is right behind them! Mike is asking a question to a guy outside the train.

13:19 Mike gets in the train one door farther up from where Michelle and Diane are sitting, Diane thanks God he doesn’t get in through the door right next to them.

13:19 Diane says: “Michelle I am going to the bathroom and looks for Mike. Diane finds Mike and pokes him from the back. He turns around, his face is priceless, he looks nervous, he is sweating, he says he just changed in a McDonnalds (Diane and Michelle had walked by the same McDonnald’s 20 min ago). Diane explains that they are in the same train and that he should seat farther up. Diane’s voice is still breaking… She tells Mike that in Bingen, Diane and Michelle would get off the train first, they would walk towards the city and he should walk towards the river. Diane goes back to where Michelle is sitting, she never made it to the bathroom!

13:30 the train leaves Mainz and Michelle, Mike and Diane are in the same train (This was not supposed to happen!!! Mike was supposed to be in Bingen already).

13:54 Michelle takes a picture of the backpacks on the seat

13:58 Diane takes a picture of Michelle being clueless of what it’s about to happen.

14:00 it starts pouring outside! Diane prays the whole way so that God would stop the rain.

14:08 The three musketeers get to Bingen. Diane hopes Mike realizes that HE needs to get off first because the steps to cross to the city and to the river are closer to his exit in the train. Mike is brilliant and smart, he gets off as soon as the train’s door opens, runs downstairs and stands by a wall peaking out to check on her, about to be, fiancé (they haven’t seen each other for approximately one day!)

14:09 Michelle and Diane walk really slow towards the steps, they go downstairs, Diane sees Mike and points towards the river. Michelle and Diane walk towards the city. It is pouring outside!

14:19 Michelle and Diane are up in the Burg Klopp in Bingen, Diane makes a few videos of Michelle and she loves the fact that Michelle has not idea about anything! It stops raining so Diane says they should leave and walk to the river, and emphasizes the fact that they could come up here again later. Michelle wonders: “why would we come up here later?, it is quite the walk, it is uphill, it is kind of raining and we have huge backpacks!-->Diane is crazy!”

14:24 Diane tapes a video of Michelle walking under the rain saying a few words to Mike. Diane tells her that she will show it to Mike when she sees him (Michelle has no idea how soon this would be, but Diane knows that it would be in about 10 min!)

14:24-14:30 Diane makes Michelle walk fast: “work those legs up!” they are heading towards the Rhine river now! It has stopped raining. Mike has been sitting on a bench, under the rain, reading a newspaper waiting for his loved one. He is praying so that God would stop the rain, and that some people who have just stopped to see some flowers about 10 feet away from him would leave!

14:33 a minute until Michelle and Diane get to the Rhine, people looking at flowers by Mike leave, the rain stops!!! GOD IS AWESOME.

14:34 Diane and Michelle are standing in front of Mike’s bench. Diane says: “Michelle wait for me here” I am going to ask someone if we can cross the river in the ferry”. Diane has seen Mike on the bench with the newspaper, she points to Mike and waves as she is thinking: “I am done with the plan, it is your turn to take over and steal Michelle, I am about to collapse from excitement and anxiousness”

14:35-14:55 Mike comes from the back and says “Michelle”…… Diane tapes a video from where she is “asking the guy how to cross the river”
………….. 20 min go by…….. I can’t tell you what is going on, because I am sitting on another bench farther from where they are, looking at a castle. I meditate and thank God of how he has stopped the rain, the sun is shining now, and he has worked everything out in such a perfect way. He is just AWESOME! And as I sit on the bench, I think of how I should make this my last prank ever… Why not ending with this master piece, right? I sit on the bench for a while, I have a mix of feelings, I feel relieved that everything has worked out. I think of how much little sleep I had gotten all the past week from being too excited about this moment.

14:59 Mike and Michelle come find me, Michelle has WHAT!?? SHE’S GOT A RING ON HER LEFT HAND!!!

15:00 they all take pictures, they laugh, they tell the stories, the just engaged couple look like the happiest people I have ever seen in my entire laugh, they look like they have just won the lottery (I think they have won something more rewarding than just the lottery). I almost want to cry from excitement! I congrats the happy engaged couple and we walk along the Rhine river, across from the Germania statue and the Ruine Ehrenfels.

You might wonder how I put this together with the exact times. Well Mike was taking pictures, Michelle was taking pictures and I was taking pictures. All the cameras tell you the exact time the pics were taken so I have three folders open, Mike Michelle and my pictures are on my computer and I went back and checked on the time the pics were taken! I made sure the times on the cameras was the same, Michelle’s was an hour and 14 min behind Mike’s and my camera.
I hope you enjoyed the awesome story of Mike’s perfect brilliant proposing plan.
Congrats to you Mike and Michelle! I wish you the best in your lives.

Mike proposed!!!!! the story!

2009-08-06T11:30:00.002+02:00

Saturday, June 27th Train ride from Koln to Berlin.

When sitting on train ICE 655… going to Berlin
AHHHHHHH what an exciting day, best day I have had in uhmmm… A LONG TIME!
I have pulled the best prank I have ever pulled, I did not come up with it, but I want to thank Mike for letting me be part of this master piece.… I really do not think a prank will ever get better than this!
I am sitting behind Mike Slager and Michelle deMaagd who will soon become Michelle Slager now!

How did everything start? Yeah that is exactly the question that goes through my mind right now…
Monday (Not even a week ago), I go to work, there is this email on my inbox saying: I need your help!!! From Mike!... I figured it had to do something with Michelle since she was coming for a visit! Then I figured he was coming to propose!!!!!! I ALMOST FELL OUT MY CHAIR AT WORK! I have not been able to get a good night of sleep all week! Why!? I was way too excited!!!! Way too excited for Michelle and Mike! And everything!....

Mike planned everything, I helped. He came up with ideas, he thought of places and I took trains to go check them out and took pictures! Bingen was the place… Beautiful city, by the Rhine, with a castle and just everything. We scheduled rides (the plans I had with Michelle got a bit pushed back so that we would meet Mike in Bingen on Saturday morning and not leave for Berlin early Saturday morning as I had planned earlier).
Michelle was a bit confused when I said we were not getting up early to go to Berlin but instead we would sleep in, then go to Mainz then Bingen…

Michelle arrived in Mainz on Friday, June 26th at 20:55, I could not wait for her to get all the way to Ingelheim so I went to Mainz to meet her there. Mike was arriving on Saturday and meeting us in Bingen. We were just hoping trains wouldn’t be delayed or something like that.

Mike was supposed to stop in Mainz and take a train to Bingen. I got nervous and started thinking we were going to see Mike in Mainz so I went outside the train station and I tried to play the: “Michelle let’s go out and check what the train schedule says online..” There was supposed to be a train leaving from platform 3a/b but I did not want to take that one, because according to the plan, Mike was gonna get off on that platform! … Michelle REALLY wanted to stand on 3 a/b and wait for that train! I didn’t know what to do.
Well we ended up on gate 11, we got on the train with Michelle we were now going from Mainz to Bingen. The whole time I was hoping Mike would be in Bingen already waiting for us, I sat by the window and started looking around in case I would see Mike walking towards the train!
Guess what!? I see Mike walking towards the train!!!!! I had a panic attack! Michelle was about to see him too! So I stood up and said: Michelle come here hurry up! LOOK! And I was pointing the opposite direction from where Mike was; I didn’t even know what to point at! I said Yeah there is this cool mall that way and ahhh! I was shaking! My face was for sure going from purple to blue to green (I thought: Michelle will think I am soo stupid after pointing at this building and not being able to see anything).
I could see Mike on the glass reflection while I was pointing to the buildings; I thought Michelle was for sure going to see him! (Michelle adds: Diane was pointing at a GRAY WALL. There was absolutely nothing there for me to see!)
Fortunately Mike got in the train one door farther down from where we were. We sat down again and I let Michelle take the window seat. I said: “I have to go to the bathroom”. I went and poked Mike from behind the seat! Here we were sitting, on the same train going to Bingen!!!! Mike on one end, Michelle and I on the other end of the train! I was literally shaking!

Got off the train and I saw Mike heading towards the river as we had agreed. He was quick at thinking about this one, he got off the train as fast as he could and I walked slowly with Michelle so that she would not see him. We headed towards the city with Michelle. About 30 minutes later we started walking towards the river with Michelle. (Another Michelle note: Diane told me to “work my legs” and walk faster so that we can take pictures of the river without rain. Now, we had just gotten done taking pictures from the great view with it raining, so I was a bit confused.) Mike was sitting on a bench with a Newspaper I saw him from far away and we stood right in front of him cause Michelle wanted to get a picture of the nice view. I told Michelle: “Wait for me here, let me go ask someone when we can cross in the ferry” I left Michelle there, by the Rhine river taking the picture!
It was time for Mike to take over the plan!

I sat on a bench by the river thinking: How did we do this in 4 days!? How!? Mike told me on Monday, by Wednesday I had booked hostels in Berlin and Munich. I had printed out train rides, maps and flights from Mike and Michelle. There was no way this could have worked out better than it did! NO WAY!
--riding the same train, making sure Michelle wouldn’t see Mike, working out schedules and everything--
I stayed up really late every night during the week, thinking about Friday (Michelle arriving) and Saturday (Mike proposing). I was soooo EXCITED all week long! I had promised Mike not to tell anyone about this so I didn’t but at work people could just see it on my face, hear it on my voice. I am sure people on the street thought I was under drugs… I just couldn’t contain myself from thinking I was about to help out in the biggest most perfect plan I have ever heard.

I wait for Mike and Michelle at the bench by the river, this is when Mike is proposing…

Mike and Michelle come back and Mike tells me: “Guess what Michelle said 5 min ago?” She said: “we have to go find Diane, she was going to go ask a question to this guy…”
We walked along the river for a while, we laughed, told our stories and the major planning we did in less than one week. Michelle had no idea about any of this!
Mike had gotten up at 1:45am on Wednesday so that we could talk! He was just soo awesome about planning all of this.
I must say that I do not think I could pull this off with another person but Mike. I give him all the credit, cause he thought of this crazy idea and was always really quick at thinking when it was needed.
Planning an international prank I guess I could call, is hard! And working everything out can get stressful and nerve-racking, but I loved EVERY SINGLE SECOND OF IT! –except for when I saw Mike coming towards the train and I pulled that crazy story making a fool of myself; I knew Michelle would understand that I am not going crazy after all.

This past week (22nd-27th of June) added 10 years to life, all the planning, not sleeping well, not being able to concentrate on things, waking up every night thinking that I am late because I have to go pick up Michelle at the train station when it is only 4:00am is when you realize you are way too excited about someone, coming up with stories out of nowhere, convincing Michelle about not wanting to stand on gate 3 a/b! Way too crazy of a week.
Nothing could have worked better, NOTHING. We literally prayed to God to stop the rain, I was praying all the way from Mainz to Bingen. Mike was paying as he was sitting on the bench in the park by the river while holding a soaking wet newspaper while this guy was laughing at him.
God stopped the rain, we had a wonderful day, and we laughed sooo hard all the way to Berlin, Munich and back to Ingelheim.

Luxembourg, Brussels, Rotterdam and Delft

2009-08-05T12:28:00.006+02:00

I have been wanting to stop by Luxembourg and Bruxelles. My cousin lives in Delft, The Netherlands, my cousin Liliana, his sister, is visiting him this month so I decided to go over the weekend and say hi.

I took Friday off from work because I urgently needed to see Luxembourg and Bruxelles, so I did. Friday was a very exhausting day, I walked for about 12 hours. I saw the places I wanted to see in Luxembourg, I even had time to go into the case mates and they were awesome, I made it out of them without getting lost! The casemates are underground tunnels that that run for about 17 km. Of course I didn’t walk for 17 km… I stopped by a shop to buy a postcard and send it to my family, and I ended up making friends with the girl from the shop, she was really nice, she asked if I was traveling alone. This question shocked me for some reason, I realized that most of the trips I have done, I have been with someone, but not this time. I was in Luxembourg, going to Burxelles and then to Delft, all by myself.

I enjoy train rides, and I have counted how many hours I have spent on trains, it adds up to 99 hours now! That is soo crazy! My train ride to Brussels was not enjoyable at all. I was sitting on the train, people were still boarding, there were many seat still available. This guy came and sat right in front of me, I almost wanted to leave because I don’t like sitting in front of people. Well I decided to be polite and stayed on my seat. He asked where I was from, I said El Salvador, so he started speaking Spanish, he was getting on my nerves with all of his questions. I was just annoyed and wanted to leave, he told me all the possible phrases that a typical Mexican (sorry if there are any Mexicans reading this) would say to a girl, I hated it. I was soo tired from walking in Luxembourg and all I wanted to do was sleep, but I couldn’t cause this creepy guy was probably going to take a picture of myself. I tried sooo hard to keep my eyes open, and failed once for about 5 seconds. I woke up and there he was staring at me, it was disturbing! I was counting every single second for the train ride to be over, and he was counting but in sadness, he would say! He asked for a picture but I refused and said I don’t like giving pictures to strangers… The train ride was finally over so I quickly got out the train and left, worst train ride ever, it is not fun to hear the most stupid “piropos” ever, I just wanted to punch him, I was really upset.

Well I tried to forget all about the train ride and enjoy my time in Brussels, the capital of the European union, I saw the main places, but I literally had to run to get to places. I saw the maneken peeing, the main palace, the town square, and the Atonium. I was really disappointed when I went into a souvenirs shop to look for a map and asked: Where is the atonium? He said, ohh that is far from here, 20 min in tram! He advised me not to go it, since I only had 4 hours in town. I am a disobedient person sometimes, and being a chemical engineering major, of course I went and saw the giant Fe atom! It is in the same family of my favorite element, Copper! So why not a quick visit to the cousin right!? Haha…

Brussels was a busy city, not very clean but ok to see. Luxembourg was really clean, calm and quiet. I spent the rest of my time in Delft, Friday and Saturday night. We went to Rotterdam with my cousins because there was a big festival , we had a lot of fun. We all decided to take a nap by the harbor in Rotterdam in some benches, and as I was sleeping this guy came and started playing the guitar, right next to me. I jumped, I was not expecting a “serenata” haha…

That was the weekend in Luxembourg, Brussels, Rotterdam and Delft. I had a great time!

One week left of work!

2009-08-03T16:21:00.001+02:00

I have been working on a new project at work. A project that no one in the lab has ever done before, last time this process was made was nine years ago, and it was made by another department at Boehringer Ingelheim. I started this project on Monday and it has been a lot of fun, enjoyment and excitement, except for one little thing, the smell. We never know what is going to happen when we add something else, we don’t know how reactive the substance is going to be.

I was adding E-Wasser once, and the temperature rose from 45C to 90C in about 5 seconds, it started boiling and the temperature was still going up, I called Mrs. Kröber and she quickly ran to get ice. I have been mixing, stirring, distilling, heating, crystallizing, vacuuming, rinsing and drying my substance. It all started with 1-Napthyalmine and this is a really smelly substance, I have actually gained the “Stinky Diane” title at work. Yikes! Haha

This project consists on an impurity, so basically I am making an impurity for analyzing, updating methods. I enjoy it a lot though, it has been like putting all of my Organic Chemistry abilities in practice, and it has been great.

When I was in Giethoorn!

2009-08-03T15:55:00.001+02:00

Weekend in Bremen

2009-07-28T16:35:00.003+02:00

I wrote this a week ago...

This past weekend I visited the other two interns from Calvin and the guys who are doing the Engr. 202 summer program up in Bremen.

I had a great time, Katrina met me at the train station then we proceeded to go to the teerhof where the 202 summer program guys are staying. We finally got into the building, after Katrina’s attempts of trying to hit the windows with small rocks.

We visited the place where Eric and Chris (The other two interns from Calvin in Germany) are living this summer. For dinner, we went out to get a dönner, while sitting we decided we wanted to go up to the North Sea go to the dunes and the mudflats and walk to the island. Well we thought the last train was leaving at 11:00pm, it was 10:00pm already. We hurried up, walked back to the teerhof, got everything packed up for an all nighter and a beautiful sunset at the beach. These sweet plans got destroyed once we realized that the last train had left at 9:30om and not 11:30pm as we thought. It was a really sad moment for a lot of people, since we were all ready to go.

The summer program guys were sweet and let us use a mattress they had, there was a couch downstairs in the lobby so Katrina and I slept in the lobby of the place. We woke up at 6:00am to go up to the North sea, Eric and Chris met us at the train station and here we were all ready to go, this time we were for reals going.

We all had a great time at the beach, we walked on the mudflats, found a lot of crabs and took pictures. Then it was time to leave and head back to Ingelheim. After a 6.5 hour train ride I was back in my apartment. I had been craving gummies, because I had finished a 1Kg on Thursday, it turns out that Carsten who actually stayed in my apartment until Sunday (I was gone all weekend) had left two bags of gummies on the counter for me as a present for letting him stay at my place. It was a great feeling.

From two weeks ago!...

2009-07-27T15:48:00.004+02:00

This week I had a visitor! I enjoy having people over because that way I don’t have to talk to myself!

Last semester when taking Organic Chemistry, Carsten Hamann (my lab partner) told me that he was going to be working in Sweeden during the summer. Well I did not know exactly when he was coming but he sent me an email on Monday saying he was coming on Tuesday. Well I got off work and biked to the train station, there he was waiting. We wanted to go to castles but when we got to Bingen I showed him the Germania statue across the river and the gondolas that take you up there and I asked if he wanted to go there to the castles? He said that either one was fine with him. We decided to get off the train and go to Rudesheim (Across the Rhine rive, from Bingen). We took the ferry, crossed the river, walked around Rudesheim and went up to the Germania statue in the gondolas. It was a really nice view from there. We walked through the vineyards on the way back, we ate a ton of berries on the way down to Rudesheim. We crossed in the ferry again and came back to Ingelheim.

Wednesday, we had agreed that he would go to Koblenz and that I would meet him there after work. I took the train at 4:00pm and got there at 5:00pm. Carsten had mentioned about getting a haircut, but I did not think he would get it somewhere around here nor he would shaved his head!!! Haha. So I got to the train station, he was waiting downstairs. I could hardly recognize him, he looked very different with no hair! Haha. He tried to get me to shaved my head too, I refused the whole time, no way I would ever ever do that I think. Well we walked to where the Mosel and the Rhine meet, it is a pretty cool place. Then we saw the castle on the other side of the river and decided to cross. This took forever cause we had to walk back towards the train station (30 min) then cross the bridge (15 min) then to the castle (30 min) we did not know how to get there. So we had to climb walls, cross the train tracks and just climb more! We also trespassed to go into a fortress.

On our way there we saw this tunnel (like a water drain) it was really small but we knew we would fit there so we went in, we crawled til we got to the end. We took our cameras inside because it was so dark that we couldn’t see anything. The camera flashes helped a lot. While being in there, I heard people talking outside, we had left our bags out there but I didn’t think someone would take them, plus I yelled: HELLO! When I heard them talking. Well I decided to go back out just in case. I making my way out by crawling really fast, I was almost out when I hit my head against the bricks and it hurt a lot, I bounced back and sat there while having feeling a bit disoriented. Well, I soon recovered and kept crawling cause all I could think was: my bag, my passport, my rail pass, my money, my wallet, Carsten’s bag, his apple laptop, his passport and everything. So I made it out of the tunnel and the bags were not there. My north face jacket was there but nothing else. I looked around, this place was right next to the river and there is only one path that takes you there so there was no way someone could run that fast and disappear with the bags. I saw them right away, they were walking away with our bags, I RAN and got said: excuse me!!! Then they said: oh yeah we grabbed them because it is not normal to see bags by themselves. They said they were going to take them somewhere (this was all in german, so I didn’t understand where they were planning on taking them) but I will assume that the jacket did not fit here and that the bags were cool so they were going to end up in their house!

That was sooo close! AGH! Well it was fun, after that experience we walked towards the castle and we had to climb a wall, then cross a lot of train tracks and just a lot of things. We finally made it up to the Festung Ehrenbreitstein (the castle), there is a nice restaurant with an awesome view. We, well Carsten, got food there and I tried the Riesling wine. The most famous wine in by the Rhine, I live in Ingelheim which is by the Rhine and I was not going to live this enchanting place without trying the wine from this region. It was pretty good, it was a bit sweet, so it was not trocken (dried) which was good.

I had a ton of fun, since I haven’t gone exploring and trespassing and climbing since I got to Europe because I hadn’t have the chance but now I sit here with a big bump on my head. Every time I make a face expression I can feel it and it hurts. My legs have given up so I stayed at the apartment today (Thursday, July 16th).

In the Netherlands

2009-07-23T23:30:00.001+02:00

Last weekend

2009-07-16T14:38:00.000+02:00

Where am I going? Calvin College? – That is exactly what I thought when I got in a train from Swolle to Steenwijk in the Netherlands. Everyone looked so much like Calvin people!

I went to Steenwijk to visit Margaliet, a friend I met three years ago in California when working at a summer camp. Margaliet and her family are Dutch and they are one of the cutest families I have ever met. I got to experience the real Dutch way of living and I loved it.

Margaliet’s dad had asked me to prepare some real Salvadorean food. I have to confess that I don’t cook unless I really have to! Haha so here I was thinking I needed to make pupusas in The Netherlands. Well we went and found flour (not corn flour!) we found cheese (not exactly the cheese you would normally use) and we bought tomatoes for the salsa. Well to make the story short, we made Dutch-Salvadorean pupusas and it was great! They liked them a lot, we all ate two and Michael ate three.

I also have to confess that I do not bake! And I was taught to bake this really typical Dutch dessert. The dessert turned out great, it was delicious.

As soon as went upstairs, Michael room’s door was open, I saw this black light bike. I soon realized he was into biking. He told me that was his winter bike, and that he had another race bike, so he showed it to me and he said: “try it” AH! I was so excited about trying it. Well that is not the best part, we have the same shoe size so he let me use his cleat bike shoes. This was a carbon fiber bike and I have never wore cycling shoes before (I have always wanted to) so I was nervous about not being able to unclip the shoes on time. I did great though, I got the hang of it right away, well Michael grabbed his mountain bike and said: “wanna go on a 5 min bike ride?” well it turned out that we ended up biking 20km. He showed me the road he usually bikes when he trains. He told me his cycling story and how he is in this team and he is the youngest one (he is only 16) but how he loves cycling with them. I told him, my bike’s name and he laughed he said: “yeah, we, cyclists are weird”. Michael gave me a huge amazing cycling catalog/magazine he had (I have looked at it almost 3 times now, this in one day)–This bike ride has made want to save my money so I can buy the shoes in MI as soon as I get there. The pedals, I will buy here because they are cheaper.

Margaliet took me to Geithoorn, a small ancient village in the Netherlands. Here no cars are allowed, you travel by boat and there are many little shops around the village. We rented a boat and I got to steer it, it was a ton of fun, it was such a nice cute little place. Later on Saturday, we all went to the movie theater and watched the new Ice Age movie on 3D!!!!!!!!

Sunday, we got up early to go to Church and I loved it, we sang in Dutch and in English. I did not understand the sermon at all, because it was in Dutch but it was still good to be there. It was raining and we rode bikes on the way bike, so I rode on the back of Thirza’s bike, this while wearing a dress! haha

It was Thirza’s birthday (Margaliet’s sister), we had a typical Denmark meal. Then the exchange of presents came, this part was interesting and really cool too. Her parents gave her a card saying she gets to go climbing a mountain! Then Margaliet offered an adventurous weekend. I think it is really cool that they offered adventures that will bring memories and that will probably never be forgotten.

It was really sad to leave, I enjoyed my time so much. The Dijkstra family are just so cute and great and I loved spending a weekend with them. On the train, I opened my bag and I found a bag full of Dutch candies!!!! It made my ride together with the cycling magazine which has 919 pages and not 500 as I had told some of you.

Ps. Margaliet is getting married on October 30th in California to Mateo, one of my good friends from California! I was the first one (outside the family) who got to see the beautiful dress!!!!

Here and there

2009-07-15T08:15:00.003+02:00

This past week was a strange week, Monday came flying like it always does. I got to work and I was sent to the analytic department. We had talked about this earlier when I came but I wasn’t sure if it was actually going to happen or not. Well I spent Monday and Tuesday analyzing my the substances I had been working on the week before. I really enjoyed being there, I met new people and Joel who know a bit of English taught me what they do there. I basically prepared solutions for the HPLC’s and I made some standards and samples for “Reinheit” (impurities) check. I loved how they had about 8 different color-tapes! Haha I used al of them so my samples look crazy, I wonder what Joel thought about me wanting to use all the colors haha.

After learning a lot in the analytic department which is in the building next to where I usually work, I came back to the lab and fixed all of my reports. Yeah I fixed 20 reports! Well the problem is that they never told me I needed to add some specific details. I also needed to attach the analytic data to the reports. Well I sat in for of my computer for a long time until I finished.

Work is going well overall, Mrs. Kroybe and Dirk (two of my lab partners) have been working in the pilot plant and things are not going so well for them. Mrs. Kroybe started her reaction last week and they used the wrong reactor in the plant so white smoke started coming out and people had to evacuate the place. On the other hand, Dirk working on another plant had some drainage issue, on Thursday our boss was in the lab talking to Dirk and they were all scratching their heads! I was wondering what was going on, I was able to pick up a few things they were saying. Then Dirk confirmed what had happened. Well when “absaugen” (vacuuming) the crystals, they used the wrong filter and 10kg went through it into the Mother liquid. This was the API material which means it is the final step in a drug campaign. This 10Kg are worth 100,000€!!!!! So that is why they were scratching their heads.

I have started a new set of batches at work, I have also started to fall in love with work, the people and Germany in general. I have been thinking a lot about living here after school, a masters maybe? I am going to Mainz next week to check on a materials science school. Education is free is Germany so it sounds like a great idea to come here for another 2 years, learn German and see what comes up.

Hope all of you are having a great summer, can’t wait to see you all.

Weekend in Switzerland with Michelle

2009-07-09T14:38:00.000+02:00

Sometimes I forget why I am here! I think I missed the part in the contract where it says: “Mondays are weekdays and not part of weekends”. I say this because every Monday I feel like I should go back to bed. I have been traveling every weekend since the day I activated my eurorail pass. Sundays are always the same, I get back at around 11:30pm, and Monday I wake up at 6:30am to go to work.

Last Friday, my lab partners and I went and visited a pilot plant, one out of like 20, here in the company. I saw about 20 reactors in there, and that was only a small plant the guide said. They had raw materials, APIs (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient) among other things. I got to see some 10,000€ distillation columns, and reactors made out of different materials. Unfortunately the tour was in German so I got a summary version of it which was translated by Barbara, one of my lab partners.

Saturday I went to visit Michelle in Switzerland and we had a ton of fun. We walked around lake Zurich and the city itself. On Saturday I saw these two kids jumping into the lake from a bridge (I actually don’t think this is allowed), I thought it was sooo cool and wanted to do it right away. I was wearing dressy shorts and a tank top and I was sooo temped to just jump into the lake with all of my clothes. Michelle decided she wanted to do it as well, so we concluded to go back there on Sunday morning.

On Sunday the water was warmer than on Saturday so it was perfect. Michelle decided she wanted to go first, I am glad she did, because I was nervous and she wasn’t! so I let her go first, she jumped and I laughed really hard! Then it was my turn, I stood right at the edge and while looking down I was tempted to say: “I don’t want to do it anymore” haha. It was approximately 12 feet jump which is not that high at all but I get scared when doing things like this.

After jumping into the lake, Michelle and I went back to the hotel to take a shower and change. On the way to Switzerland I saw the Rhine waterfalls, which are actually the biggest waterfalls in Europe. I told Michelle I wanted to go there, so we did. We took the train to Shaffhousen, then to Neuhausen and walked for 25 min in a trail by the Rhine. It was beautiful, it was just amazing! We took a ton of pictures and we had a lot of fun.

It wasn’t much fun to leave Michelle though, I had seen her two weekends in a row, in different countries and it was just hard to say bye. I miss her a LOT.
Switzerland is a beautiful and expensive place, I want to come back and tour Switzerland someday.

Pic from Munich

2009-07-09T14:33:00.002+02:00

Berlin Pics III

2009-07-06T17:03:00.003+02:00

Berlin Pics

2009-07-06T16:43:00.003+02:00

I got a checkpoint charlie stamp on my passport and on my arm too, I realized I had it on my arm after I started walking away from the place... haha

Switzerland! Lake Zurich, here I go!...

2009-07-05T10:57:00.001+02:00

The weekend with the engaged couple, pics from Berlin

2009-07-04T22:01:00.007+02:00

I will not be mentioning anything related to the story behind the engagement yet, because I want everyone to hear this story from Mike and Michelle first. Michelle will be back on Monday and Mike is already back so give him a call or wait for Michelle to get back so that you hear the crazy, awesome story about their engagement, here in Germany by the Rhine river. I have all the story written down, but I will post it in about 2-3 weeks so be ready to read about it.
The following describes the weekend with Michelle and Mike, after we had stopped in Bingen (So after the proposal)

The weekend was full of adventures, we walked around Bingen took a train to Berlin, spent the night in Berlin. Sunday, we went on a tour around Berlin, then took a train to Munich, spent the night in Munich, Monday we went on a tour around Munich then on our way back to Ingelheim, we stopped in Mainz, and spent the night in my apartment.

A lot of things happened during the weekend, but one more thing I really need to mention is about our train from Köln to Berlin. Our Köln train was delayed and we had about 30 seconds to get to the other train at the station in Koln. While Mike was looking through one of the windows I was looking through the other one. Michelle was keeping track of the time.
Mike: “I see the station”, Diane: “I don’t see anything yet, Michelle how much time we got?” The only reason of why I was so nervous was because this was the last train of the day from Koln going to Berlin. Having a hostel booked in Berlin, was making us all nervous about being in this delayed train. The train stopped, we had just a few seconds to run from platform 3 to platform 2, fortunately right next to each other!
I tried to open the door but I didn’t get it far enough, so I had to finagle my way out of the train. Then I bolted across the platform, a mere 10 feet, while Michelle and Mike followed. It turns out the train was ridiculously close and as we burst into the new train a 50 year old men was laughing at us. We proceeded to then sit on first class and get kicked out.

We got to see pretty much everything in Berlin, the Brandenburger gate, Checkpoint Charlie, TV tower, Hitler’s bunker, Jewish memorial and a lot more than that. Katrina came to Berlin and she brought along, of course, the Rick Steve book and read to me some of the history about the TV tower and others! The guy on the tour said the exact same joke about the tv tower so we concluded that he also
has Rick’s book. It was nice to see this friend once again (three weekends in a row! Is quite impressive)

The night in Berlin was nice, the hostel room (Wombats hostel) was really nice. The room had 6 beds but only one was taken when we got there. Jenni (our roommate) came in the room at midnight, she was from Germany and was spending 4 nights in Berlin. Her accent was funny, she said she would come back at around 4:00am but that she would be really quite and make tiny little steps so that we wouldn’t wake up. She never came back!.. Ohhh Jenni! Haha….

Sunday night, we made it to Munich and of couse the Hofbrauhause was in the schedule for that night. We asked people how to get there, we got there 45 minutes before closing time (11:15pm) I will let this night to your imagination! JK!I need to tell you what happened in this place! Well Mike ordered his beer, they sell litters of beer! So Mike ordered one. Michelle and I hate beer but we were sitting on the world’s most famous beer hall, so we ordered one litter and shared it, we also ordered dessert because we had not eaten much during the day. The dessert saved our lives, the smell of beer was making me sick, but we needed to drink that litter in 30 min! well we started this long journey, Mike finished that thing quick, and he was mocking us.
Zip, a bite of dessert, zip, a bite of dessert… until we had about 1/5 of it left… here I took another zip and quickly covered my mouth with my hands, why?! Everything was about to come back out from my mouth! I held it and took another bite of the dessert! Same thing happened twice! Michelle’s story was the same! We did not want to drink it anymore but we only had about 1/10 of it left by now! And Mike said: “so you want me to finish your beer, when you have that much?” Michelle and I looked at each other, we were so tempted to say “yes” but instead we said “no”! We proceeded to finish it! The waitress was hurrying us up because she needed to clean the plates and the table. WE FINALLY FINISHED THE ONE LITTER!!! WE LICKED THE DESSERTS PLATES!! Oh man, I promise no more beer ever again in my life, I really do not understand how people can drink beer!! ………I only drank that one because I was with Michelle and Mike. I was ok after it, we walked back to the S-bahn station and looked for the hostel, we found it and went to bed after g-chatting with Amanda and Lerae (2:45am)

There were 10 people in this hostel room (Munich 4 you), bunked beds and two beds in the middle, these two beds were just perfect for Michelle and I, right next to each other and right in the middle of the room. Mike slept on a noisy bunk bed! Haha.
We saw Munich, took pictures, went on a tour, and decided we were super tired and needed to go back to Ingelheim, took a train and left. Stopped in Mainz walked around a bit, then made our way to my apartment. We were exhausted, I wanted to cry from walking, Michelle had 7 blisters on her feet! Walking back at 11:30pm and thinking I had to get up early for work on Tuesday (I had taken Monday off) was not sounding good at all.

Mike left on Tuesday morning, Michelle and I went to Bacharach on Tuesday afternoon after work and we had a ton of fun. We went up to a castle and took pictures and ate a döner by the Rhine, so good.
Woke up at 4:15am on Wednesday to help Michelle out with the packing, since she was leaving at 5:06am from the train station. She took black hill 782 (my bike) to the train station and then I walked to work, it was a super hot, humid morning. I got to work and all I wanted to do was sleep, I vacuumed the acidic and non acidic crystals and put them in the oven. Then started writing reports since for some reason I was behind!

I am sitting on the couch missing Michelle and Mike and wishing they were here! But I am looking forward for the weekend, Switzerland will be it. I get to see Michelle once again in a different country, I get to laugh and joke around with her once again! Oh and see her beautiful, awesome ring one more time!

This pics are from Berlin

Friends

2009-07-02T12:38:00.010+02:00

I came back from work yesterday. Opened the mailbox like I always do, but this time it was not empty or full with store adds. This white envelope was sitting there, I saw it and got REALLY excited! There were many letters/notes in there, all of them in different colors. I sat on the couch and read them all at once, I was laughing sooo hard while reading them.
Those letters made my day, it made me miss MI and it made me think how much I miss my friends! I have been thinking a lot about moving here to Germany but these letters got me thinking that I do not know if I could handle being far away from them for too long.

Friends, all of you! let me tell you that I miss you a ton! and I think of all of you every day, there are pictures of you on my walls and now your letters are up there too.

Lorena: N & F... I am glad you like the biking videos!
Sarah: nada nada limonada! Thanks for the CD! I still have to see it! I forgot to bring it to work today! "When I first got married"...
Michelle: You got here before the letters did! thanks for coming to visit!
Antonieta: way to go on the job offer!!! Congrats!
Little piece of my heart: Israel needs Scott bear!, I am happy that you got the job at HS nice work stud! Will buttons have a partner then!? haha...
Juli: Juliana que mala eres! JK! "Me leavanto en la manana para verte pasar"...
Hoff: I miss Marving and Eugene! "Wanna go to the beach in my car!?"
Sexy Glass: Hello friend! I hope you haven't had any bike accidents this summer, have you pulled any Sarah's run lately?! haha
Lerae: como estas Chapina!?! que ondas? Te gusto El Salvador?

I know there wasn't a color note in the package from you amiga Lerae porque ella esta en Guate entonces seria muy dificil para que hubiera una color note in there de parte de alla!! but I love you mucho!!! ademas tu me mandaste una carta a MI right before I left! and I still have to send you one back!!!

There are way too many people I am not including in this post! like my roomates and yeah, just a ton of people! but I love you all keep that in mind!

I decided to make you a video so that you could see where I live, I know it is more fun to watch videos than to read. I appreciate every single one of you, thanks for letting me be part of your group, since I was the "new" freshman hanging out with you my first year at Calvin. We have shared MANY adventures and crazy stories, I keep them all in my head.
I love you all MUCHOOOO!!

Thank you all for the letters, I have read all of them more than once now, I loved how they look on the wall too! thank you friends! SEE YOU SOON!!!
HASTA!!!!

DEAR FRIENDS GO HERE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMAqVcmwbPo

or watch it here:

Biking second part!

2009-07-02T12:27:00.001+02:00

Biking with Michelle!

Biking again!

2009-07-02T12:12:00.003+02:00

I think I like biking too much and that is why Michelle and I decided to make a video while biking! (Do not try this at home! haha)

Michelle and I decided to go to Bacharach on Tuesda, after I was done with work! Bacharach is a super nice little town along the Rhine river, there is a castle which is a youth hostel now. We went up there and the view was just beautiful! We had a great time, walking back to Ingelheim though was rough. We had walked all weekend long and our legs were just not working properly anymore! Michelle had 7 blisters on her feet, and my legs were just giving up.

I thought it would be nice to ride the bike together! so Michelle sat between the basket and the seat and I sat on the other half of the seat.
Check it out!!!
It was late at night, so it is dark, sorry!...

Random Pics...

2009-06-26T20:36:00.004+02:00

Today is one of the most exciting days of the summer!
Michelle is getting here in 15 min! and I can't wait! I am actiging like I have ADD! and I woke up like three times this week thinking: AH I am late! I have to go get Michelle at the train station!!!
So I am sitting by the train station in Mainz! waiting for Michelle, because I could not wait for her in Ingelheim, I am way too excited at this moment!
Hoping the weather is great this weekend! since we are doing a lot of traveling!
Have a great time in MI, El Salvador, Guate, Germany, and I am sure I am forgetting others!
Miss you all!

Para ti papi!

2009-06-26T20:22:00.003+02:00

Hey pa, te hice este video el dia del padre! pero no lo habia podido poner aqui. Te quiero.
ps. Jocelyn ensenale este video a mi pa!! te quiero Manhatitan! hahaha

Sports fest 2009, Boehringer Ingelheim...

2009-06-26T10:04:00.002+02:00

Ah, ok here is where everything starts.
A month ago, I decided to sign up for this sports fest everyone was talking about. I haven't run since last year I think. I am more into the cycling thing than running I guess, but I do play soccer, so I said: why not sign up for 100 meters and long jump? After all these were my two major competitions when I was on 5h grade back in El Salvador.
I have had this memory stuck in my head since I was on 5th grade of me running 100 meters with my new Britania shoes! hahaha, I don't think I will ever forget that.

Well so here I was, at the Blummengarden here in Ingelheim, ready to jump. 4.05 meters was the longest I could do, but I was sooo nervous and this stopped me from flying!

The 100 meters race was right after the long jump, so I ran to the other place after jumping and got there right when they were calling my name. Some of these girls were wearing the special shoes with the cleats and everything! I though: I am soo screwed! I am wearing my old pumas (that now have a whole!, so I will replace them after I make some mula). Well, I hear the shot and ran! I was running fast so I couldn't see anyone near me, I slowed down a bit cause I got scared I had done something wrong but I could hear people cheering! so I kept running. Got first to the end point! I was soooo HAPPY!!!! I wanted to go hug my brother but unfortunately he was not there this time :(

My brother is the funniest person ever, he goes to every single sport related thing I do. He shows up out of nowhere, (biking 50 miles, canoe contest, basseball with ViChem two summers ago!--> he got me a baseball glove!!) so I thought he would show up at some point to take pictures but oh well I am in Germany way far from Grand Rapids right!? and he doesn't have a teletransporter machine so I don't blame him.

Well I found another guy who looked like my brother to take pictures of me running and jumping!...

I had an amazing time, I can't complain about getting first place out of about 15 people on the 100 meters... and second place on the long jump! not too bad for not practicing I guess.

My back hurst a lot today and I am really tired! I stayed up until 1:30am watching CNN and listening to Michael Jackson songs. I was also too excited about Michelle coming today that I couldn't get myself to go to bed early!
I am just glad I don't have to do any destillations today! because that would kill me!

Have a great day.

I won first place!!!!!!!

2009-06-25T22:33:00.002+02:00

Pics

2009-06-25T22:12:00.002+02:00

I WON FIRST PLACE ON THE 100 METERS!!!!!! I got second place on long jump!!! because this girl taller than me beat me by 3cm!!!agh! can you believe that!? only 3cm!!! agh!!

From two weekends ago...

2009-06-24T22:49:00.002+02:00

I forgot to post this pic with the Amsterdam ones.

More of Dresden!

2009-06-24T22:32:00.001+02:00

Dresden

2009-06-24T22:13:00.003+02:00

Katrina giving us a tour of the swinge!...
best part of the trip --> Rick steves came with us!

Magdeburd and Dresden

2009-06-24T21:54:00.002+02:00

Magdeburg

2009-06-23T19:50:00.002+02:00

I have been working for a month!

2009-06-22T10:44:00.003+02:00

AH! this is crazy! but a month has gone by and now I really do not want to leave this place. Even if I am becoming a loner and spend my afternoons watching CNN and wishing I was with my fam or friend in MI, I do not want to leave Germany. Why? well only reason: I am liking work, and the weekends. Life started after activating my railpass. I spent this past weekend in Magdeburg where Katrina lives, then we left on sunday morning to go to Dresden.
I had a lot of fun with Katrina and her friend (I don't remember her name!!) in Dresden. Good weekend, and more good weekends to come.
I will put pictures up when I get to the bench which won't be today because I am planing on going to Mainz where a big festival is taking place. Fireworks start at 10:30pm so I will probably stay for that.

The rocks! and the roomates!

2009-06-19T15:34:00.002+02:00

This rocks I had to pick up for a friend who will soon put back in the same spot! The other picture is with the roomates we had at the hostel where we stayed, they are from Australia.

And more...

2009-06-19T09:07:00.002+02:00

Oceans twelve coffee shop!

2009-06-19T09:02:00.004+02:00

Pictures from Amsterdam

2009-06-19T09:00:00.001+02:00

Amsterdam

2009-06-15T09:55:00.002+02:00

Got up early on friday (5:30am), I had all of my stuff ready to go. Biked to the train station, saw the train and ran to it! (didn't have time to lock my bike)... Got to Mainz, then Bingen and Düsseldorf, Venlo, Eindhoven and Amsterdam!!!!!!
Amsterdam! I had been there about a year and a half ago! and the place looked familiar, I remembered a lot of the streets.

Well that is not where I want to start though, I wandered around the train station looking for my friend Katrina. Our cellphones weren't working so I had a minute of panic when I discovered that the cellphone wasn't working! Amsterdam's central station is huge! therefore I thought I would take me a LONGGG time to find her! I decided to walk around and try to find her. I saw this person with a priceless face looking down (I don't even know the right words to describe this moment)... I ran up to her: "KATRINA!!!!!!!!!!!" I am pretty sure this was a glorious moment........

We walked around the city making our way to the hostel, got to the hostel and my friend had made a reservation under Katrina Denz, instead of Denny! cause the keyboards here are messed up!!!!... we were sent to another hostel because something about being the last ones registering... they gave us money to take the tram to go to the other hostel, we took the money but walked instead of taking the tram. We ended up in OREO hostel! oh wait: ORFEO hostel!!! hahaha... went up to the room left our bags and walked around the city.

Saturday, walked more, went on a tour with John. John was really funny, I don't think I have heard a person swear that much in 4.5 hours. I have a video that I will upload on facebook at some point. Walked by the coffee shop where one scene of Ocean's twelve was shot, and then we ended up sitting on the bench where Johnny Depp his father and mother sat!!!!!!!...

The red light district, stats for this place are crazy. Katrina and I did not know how exactly this bussiness worked. John explained it on the tour and this is how it is done: They rent the windows for 8 hours for 150 euro, you might think that this is a bit expensive until you find out that they could make 100,000 euro as tax income for one year!!!

In two years the government will close down all the coffee shops and the red light district, SO hurry up and get over here before this happens and you regret the fact that you never saw what the real Amsterdam was all about.

Saturday night, we saw a ladder going up to the roof of the hostel and decided to go up there and eat the groceries we had bought. A couple of Pb and jelly sandwiches, the sunset and a loud city was all we needed to have a great time. We decided to go to bed relatively early that night because we needed to get up ealy and go to the "I amsterdam" letters in the morning that way we could beat all the people posing by the letters. We climbed the letters, took pictures, picked up a few rocks for a friend (Hoffmeyer) that she will soon put back in the exact same spot!!!

Saturday was a great sunny day, I sat by the one of the canals for a about an hour while Katrina went into Anne Frank house (one of the greatest museums in Amsterdam I should say). While sitting by the canal and watching people go by on the boats I heard this "boom"... like if someone had fallen down somewhere near me. I turned around and there she was, this girl's head was about a feet away from me, just laying there, her eyes were openned but she wasn't saying anything, she looked at me and I got scared. The guy who was with her was trying to pick her up and asking her if she was ok, but she just wasn't saying anything... I don't really know if she just fainted or she had had a bit too much at a coffee shop --> perhaps she was starting to see green bugs flying around.....

Sunday was a rainy day but still a good day. I was a bit dissapointed that we could not find the big wooden shoe but I think they might have taken it inside the shop since it was raining. We got to the train station said bye to Katrina and waited for my train for about 45 min. I was exhausted, I thought my legs were going to fall out from my body after walking that much every day.

It was an awesome weekend. Tons of memories, laughed so hard that I almost peed my pants a couple of times but decided not to because I wasn't on the skinny bridge. The Bathrooms are not free in Amsterdam and I did not want to pay for them. A protest against not having public bathrooms for women took over in year 1577, about 2000 women walked to the skinny bridge pulled down their pants and peed on the bridge.

I got a few pics showing who came with me in this trip, they will be posted as soon as I get to the bench.

To finish up the weekend, got back at around 8:30 to the apartment; just on time to watch the New Zeeland-Spain game. Put on the spanish team t-shirt screamed the first three goals by "El nino, Torres". Then watched the videos and pics I had taken in Amsterdam laughed a lot and went to bed.

Work is rough after a long weekend....

AMSTERDAM!!!!!!

2009-06-14T01:23:00.000+02:00

Going to Amsterdam 2

2009-06-14T01:17:00.001+02:00

Going to Amsterdam

2009-06-14T01:09:00.003+02:00

A "normal" day..--> before a long weekend

2009-06-14T01:00:00.000+02:00

One chocolate left? oh no!...

2009-06-09T21:45:00.000+02:00

Rauber! and Tim...

2009-06-09T21:16:00.000+02:00

Life goes on

2009-06-09T21:14:00.000+02:00

228 died in the Atlantic, twitter and facebook blocked in China, a fire kills children in MX, 20 years since communist Poland, journalists captured in North Korea and many more dying everywhere. It seems like as the days go by more and more tragedies are just around the corner waiting for the clock the mark the designated time.

Three weeks have gone by and as much as I would like to stop the time, I cannot. There are certain things I cannot control and I wish I could. Great friends to see in MI, super bonita familia waiting for the big day: September 20th . My brother’s wedding is getting closer, I am getting pumped about this, and I am really excited for him, Melissa and my parents, aunts and cousins to fly to Michigan. I am excited to hang out with my friends, go on bike rides (blue lightning I miss you!!! = my bike), and see Gabe since I haven’t really spent more than 2 hours with him since December 18th that puts us to 175 days.

Now, I don’t really know if I want time to slow down or fly by! I will let God decide this for me. I bike slower now, I enjoy seeing everything, and I am not scared of Germans anymore. I am just enjoying this great time God has let me spend in Deutschland. I still refuse to spend one cent in beverages containing some sort of OH substances! –haha. I get enough of those OH’s at work, you know Methanol, THF, tert-butoxyde, methyl-ethylketone, Ethanol and all of those guys.

Every day brings something new, if I don’t take a shower twice by getting soaked out there because of rain, I see protests by young people dressed in black or I simply see and stare at the stars and the full moon sometimes. Every day has its own thing.

I simply can’t ask for more, I am thankful for everything. I think I have accomplished almost all the things I have wanted to in my life, if not all of them. I have made it far, but I know I will make it farther than this, all with God’s help and your help (Friends and family).
Have a great rest of the day.

My brother and my sister came! haha

2009-06-08T17:10:00.001+02:00

I call my sister Manhattan! and my brother "likes" mac plus he taught me the "ergo sum" phrase!! Then I found this spanish book written by Laura Esquivel! yay for the Esquiveles!!!
---Watch out! wou might be selected on my next trip! haha...

Mainz

2009-06-08T16:59:00.000+02:00

On the way to the Rhein

2009-06-06T17:20:00.000+02:00

on the way back to the apartment...

2009-06-06T17:03:00.000+02:00

I take this road to go to work!...

Biking to the Rhein (5 km)

2009-06-06T00:17:00.000+02:00

In Ingelheim

2009-06-06T00:06:00.000+02:00

The bench/ La banca!

2009-06-05T23:52:00.000+02:00

IT is a Friday night and I could be sleeping cause it is 11:45pm, but instead I decided to come to “the bench” as I have named it. It is a cold night, full moon and a skype night. I am able to get one bar signal on the wireless in this bench , in front of the train station/some restaurants. I am here cause I wanted to talk to my family, I talk to them once a week now and I miss them a lot.
The other night I had the weirdest dream ever, I dreamed I was eating pupusas and café con pan dulce at home! I could smell the food! I did not go to bed hungry at all! But for some reason pupusas sounded awesome before I went to bed and then I had that dream! I miss El Salvador more than ever, I miss my “room”, the one my sister has taken over. I miss my parents and high school friends.
Life is good here in Germany, two weeks have gone faster than I expected and work is going well. Pure Ochem every day, my clothes smelling like drugs… and having cool goggles! Haha. For some reason it has cooled down since I got here, every morning I wear a jacket and now I am wearing my Calvin College sweater and the jacket over it, I am still cold.
People walk by and look at this Salvadorean talking to her computer! Haha I get the weirdest looks ever! But I don’t care, talking to my mom, sister and gramma and Sarah is way awesome then getting strange looks! Hahahaha
I do not know exactly what I am doing this weekend, Mainz would prolly be it again, it is museum night so I think it will be ok to go again and check out all of those museums! Guttemberg’s museum is here in Mainz and now I will actually have the chance to go in.
I do not want to make this post longer so I will let you all go, but have a great weekend.

And!... the week went fast!

2009-06-04T10:54:00.000+02:00

I am at work, waiting for my 'suspension' to cool down! I hope my yield is higher than last time!

Yesterday, I went out to a stable with Barbara! it was really nice, I rode a pony and fell out of it! hahahahha!!! it was actually funnier than it sounds! I laughed a lot! Then we went out for a ride in the wagon which was being pulled by Räuber--Barbara's black pony. The ride was nice we were gone for about 2 hours, she does this about 4 times a week. She also takes care of Tim, another horse at the stable that has skin problems, it made me sooo sad to see this horse scratching himself against everything he could find around.-- I love horses for those ones who did not know this!....

Barbara let me took over the control of the wagon too! it was fun! we rode along the Seltz, a small river that joins the Rheins here in Ingelheim.

This morning, I got here at 6:50am cause I needed to finish some stuff before german class at 3:00pm and since everything takes time I needed to get here earlier than normal. Other than that everything is normal (except for the missing 10mL calibrated cylinder that I broke this morning-- I blame it on Gabe!) he was on Gchat and I wanted to talk to him... Well only one guy know that I broke it! cause he was the only one in here at 7:30am!

So far, I work with Barbara, Dirk and Frau Kroeber. They are all really nice and sometime I joke around with them. I go to the caferia for lunch with one of them every day. Sometimes I go with Dirk, Thomas (Who works in the next door lab) and these two are quite funny guys, after eating they usually go upstairs in the cafeteria and talk about the people sitting down there! (se seguro se comen a todos los que trabajan aqui jajaja).
Well time to get back to work.

A bit more.

2009-06-02T17:01:00.000+02:00

Ya ha pasado una semana!

2009-06-02T16:59:00.000+02:00

I am sitting by the Rhein! In Mainz. Die sonne sheint, and it feels good, it is windy but warm at the same time. I have been walking since 11:00am and it is 5:00pm I sat for 20 min to get something to eat then kept walking. I am exhausted and after this I am walking back to the train station and going back to Ingelheim. Mainz was a good place to spend the day, it is a big city and there are tons of tourists. There are tons of shops, restaurants, cars, bikes and everything! It is a big city. I will definitely come back here soon.
I realize that I haven’t told you why I’m working at BI and what exactly I’m doing here. Well I consider myself quite the traveler of the family. I grew up in El Salvador, I have the best geschwister someone could ever have! Yeah I’m talking about my brother and my sister. Maine Eltern are awesome too since they’ve always been helping me out in all the crazy decisions I have made in my life. I started adventuring the world since I was 2.5 years old, I decided to explore the roof of my house by myself while not telling anyone! Haha got the neighborhood and my family looking for me for a while. I always look for new things, adventures are my favorite things to do and I push myself until I do it, most of the time.
Long ago, when I first heard about this place Calvin College, I had dreams about going there. Year 2003 (wow 6 years ago, I’m getting old) I was in 9th grade and I remember saying to my highschool friends: “yeah in 2005 I’m leaving SAL and I’m going to US to this place called Calvin College” well everything was almost just a dream at that point. Now I’m a senior (WOW that is really really weird to say) but yes I am a senior now.
At the beginning of my junior year, I went to Prof. Nielsen’s office, knocked on the door and waited for him to turn around and stop playing solitary. Well I walked into the office and said: “I am interested in an international internship for next summer”. He explained what the situation was, and to my surprise he had two possible places where I could apply this was on a friday. I walked out the office, but had promised to come back on Monday with a decision about the place where I wanted to apply. I chose Germany over the Netherlands just because it was more of a chemical job than mechanical as in the Netherlands. He said: “I will send your resume today”. A week after that, I got an email saying: “stop by my office”. Went back to Prof Nielsen’s office and he said: “they want to offer you the job” I was sooooo excited!!!! Walked out the engr. Building and first thing I did was called my brother and said: “I’m leaving! I’m going to Germany next summer!!!!!” then walked back to the apartment but on the way there I texted my dad and said “Me voy para Alemania el otro verano, es de verdad”. He texted back (First time he had ever texted me back to my cellphone in US and said: “Que? Como? Explicame?” well so I called my family that night.
Now I am here in Germany working for Boehringer Ingelheim, I’m doing research for them. Our lab (4 of us) one of many labs at BI, works on the research for a drug that can cure Hepatitis C. This drug will be out on the market next year. So people next time you see a pill think about how much work there is behind that! About 200 recrystallization processes, about 10 reactions and years of work. I am happy to be here, I am happy to be where I am and most important I am happy to know the people I know, to have the friends I have and the family I have. I owe them all much more than I can ever offer them. Now I’m in Europe but this was a dream I had last year in January of 2008 when I came to Europe with the Engineering department interim. A year and a half ago I visited BI, and thought: “This is a way to big place for me to be” I thought I was never going to be able to make it into this company, but I decided to send my resume, and now I am here.
Year 2003 seems long ago, but at that moment I never thought how many doors were to be opened. I always think that everything is possible if you want it to be possible, you can make things work around you sometimes, you just have to move the right pieces and think ahead. I am thankful for all of what God has done in my life and for all the blessings to come.
“Solo una cosa vuelve un sueno imposible: el miedo a fracasar”
Hope you all are having a great summer, I’m about to start the real traveling in a couple of weeks, I think Munic or Berlin trips are coming up. Amsterdam and Bremen, Brussels and MAYBE Barcelona have to fit somewhere in there too. Well talk to you all later.

Hello there!

2009-05-30T18:17:00.000+02:00

I would like to explain the first picture shown in this blog. That is at my brothers house, I was trying to pack. The story behind dit: I went to the garage, came back and I was talking to my brother but then realized that he wasn’t in the kitchen as I was expecting. He was actually laying there on the floor, and it was funny cause it took me a while to notice him.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You got to help me out!... it’s all a blur last night!.... viva la vida, all sorts of songs, from Cold play and Jason Mraz to Juanes! Yeah Juanes! I listen to all of this at work! Well there is this cd player at work and we listen to the radio all day long, it makes the day go faster.
I have made it through the week, five days of only recrystallization at work have gone fast. I like work I really do, I try to speak german, and learn new words every day. I actually have homework to do for next week, for my german class.
Well tomorrow is Saturday and I am taking off to go to Mainz! Mainz is a larger city than Ingelheim which is where I live. Tons of vineyards in Engelheim, today after work I wondered around the city like I always do, found a disco place, and a complejo deportivo! YAY! That means I can go swimming! They have a pool, soccer field, and other things! I didn’t go in so I’m not exactly sure. Well the other day I wondered around and I found a store that since I saw it I knew I was going to be ok this summer, it was a outdoors store!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The greatest thing ever, I wasn’t there for too long cause I had forgotten to sign out at work so I biked back really fast! Agh! Hahaha….
Anyways, today after I found the complejo deportivo, I came back to el whonung “flat”—apartamento, and I decided to go out and go on this bike path I had seen the other day. Well to my surprise I went on this path that was on this hill and it went through vineyards. I ended up at the Rhein!!! Yes! At the Rhein! I thought the river was father than that! I guess I did bike for about 35 min, most of it was downhill. It was amazing!!!! I sat by the river on this bench and watched the sunset, it was quite late! Like 9:00pm or 9:30 by this time. There is this path that goes along the river for 51000km! yes! That long! And I biked for 2 km!!! then I decided to go back cause it was getting darker and I still needed to bike back. Well it took me a longgggg time to get back since now it was uphill and I have a fixed heavy bike! So it was forever until I got back. It was amazing though, prolly my third favorite place on my list. I felt free as I went on the 2km ride along the river. It was just the greatest feeling ever. There are some vendors along the river and of course they sell beer, wine, and brockwunst! So I will go back there on Sunday for sure. That place is awesome.
Mainz should be a good place, I’m excited to go to the Open Ohr. It is a music festival that is going through Mainz this weekend. Kind of a bummer that I get to do all of this by myself, but that is why I have a blog cause it makes me feel like I’m not alone.
Have a great day.

more pics

2009-05-28T18:02:00.001+02:00

more pics.

Otro dia!

2009-05-28T17:50:00.001+02:00

Hey there!
Como estan? How are you? Wie gets es ihnen? Ha! Funny how I used all three languages in the same day. Woke up this morning, got to work and realized I had left my breakfast on the counter back at the apartment. I always get 15 min for breakfast in the morning at work, so I usually bring cereal, not today! While sitting in the break room and trying to communicate in german, they asked where I come from, I said: “Ich komme aus El Salvador” the lady sitting next to me said: “oh tu hablas espanol entonces”! with a spanish (from spain) accent (loving the accent by the way). So she translated things back and forth with other people sitting there. Last night at the bar, I talked to the lady at the bar in german, she did not know any English. Ok ok ok, yes I was at a bar, but I did not have any alcohol, I odered appel juice combined with lemonade, it tasted good. I watched the entire game there. Biked back home, then Timmerman called me as I was biking back home and it made me want to answer it! But I didn’t, now I have a voicemail waiting for me to hear, which makes me happy cause I can’t wait to listen to it! Haha…
Well yesterday was a late night for me, I got in bed by 11:00pm! I was in bed by 9:30pm the night before, but my brother called me at 9:45pm.
Work is going well, crystallization processes every day. I have my own hood with really expensive equipment, so my hood is worth about $10,000, I better not break anything there. I have my own lab coat, it is white and not blue like at Vi-Chem two summers ago. I like it here, I miss my friends A LOT though, cause I wish I could talk to them and hang out with them. I miss you all a lot.
Have a good day.

ps. I still don't have internet in my apartment so I can't reply to emails yet! but thanks for the great emails... I will get to them soon, I'm sitting out on the street to get free wireless and it's about to rain!... :(

NEW LIFE!

2009-05-27T21:11:00.000+02:00

First day.

It is 7:00pm and I’m feeling tired. Watched two movies in the plane, slept for a while, ate, got off the plane made my way to pick up the luggage, found my driver (who was actually a driver for the company). Never thought that I would get picked up at a place in a MERCEDES and that someone would open the car door and put my luggage in the car! It was exciting! Haha well it was exciting cause it was this nice gray Mercedes benz, one of the newest models. We talked and one of the questions he asked was: do you like to go fast, or slow? He was already going 120 km/h! well I said fast! I don’t know why! Hahaha so he moved to the farthest left lane and sped up. We were going 220Km/h!!!! I thought I was going to die! We were going sooo fast. Well piked up the keys at the company’s gate, proceeded to my “flat” where the driver dropped me off. Went upstairs, since I leave on the second floor in this really nice apartment, which has a TV, two couches, a dining table, a HUGE bed, kitchen, bathroom and yeah pretty much everything, including a balcony that faces the neighborhood. I also have a window that faces some houses with mountains (vineyards) on the background, it’s quite the view.
My boss picked me up at 1:00pm went to his house talked for about 5 hours! (don’t ask me how we talked for that long…) we ate cake, drank coffee (I don’t usually drink coffee) but I did cause I don’t like being impolite and saying no to everything offered. Well then headed back to the apartment where I am sitting on the couch. The weather is 35C so not too hot it’s a good day, they said today was an unusual hot day… I hear kids playing out on the street, and dogs barking. My fridge has butter, cheese and jelly. They don’t open any stores on Sundays here, so I have to wait until tomorrow to go get food.
Well friends/family hope you enjoyed my first post. More to come.
Ps. It’s my dad’s birthday so I wanted to add: HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD, LOVE YOUWITH ALL OF MY HEART!

Second day and third day:

Getting to work early was not as hard as I thought. Thinking that I was going to get up at 6:45am which would be 12:45am (Michigan time) was a great feeling. Work has been good, I haven’t done much, well I did a recrystallization process today, it was fine. Everything I do is kind of nerve-racking since I don’t know the exact way they want me to do things. I will be doing things I did in Ochem lab during the school year, so I’m glad that I did like Ochem lab at school.
I have been going to bed early every day, before 10:30 every night. I had been waiting for this for A LONG TIME! Since the past 5 weeks at school was more like: “YAY I get to sleep for an hour today”… No more of that here. CNN is the only thing I can watch on TV, well it’s the only English channel so I am well informed of what goes on out there now (something I don’t do in US). BI (Boehringer Ingelheim) is a great place, people are nice, food is awesome at the cafeteria and it is not that expensive there.
On the other hand, I went to the store today cause I needed food, and I found a cup of noodles for 1.29Euro!!! can you believe that? So no way I’m buying that here.
Well hope you all are having a great time in US, I’m having a good time here in Germany, I’ve seen almost all of Engelheim, since I walked for another two hours yesterday. Well now I have a bike so I’m able to get to work faster.