Weekend in Bremen

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!...

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

Last weekend

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

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

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