They rented a professor's house by Stanford campus for the summer. The place to watch soccer tonight and throw a party tomorrow !
If you want to see them afterwards, just drop me a line and I can email them.
This is the last entry I wrote in Vancouver. Just to give you an impression of my mental state when arriving in CA ...
I am sitting in the plane.
The plane that will take me down to the states again.
But this time is different.
I am leaving Canada. And I will only come back for a week on the final way back
to my own country in September.
I am sad. I am leaving a great country, a great city, great people, great
friends.
This is the time to say "Thank you". Thank you to everyone who made
these ten months become the unique experience they were. I will not forget you.
Sorry that I can't find the right happy words now - you would deserve them !
Saying goodbye was hard.
Goodbye everone. Bye house. Bye Humphrey. Bye Canada.
Busy days. I am sharing an apartment with one of the other students in the summer student research program. She's named Anna, lives here semi-permanently and that's pretty much all I know. She is in Santa Barbara for a couple of days, so I haven't even seen her so far !
I've been driving around all day (rental car), getting used to the vicinity, and buying stuff for my room. Amongst others a "bed" - ok, it's just a mattress with sheets, but it's nice. Didn't really want to sleep on the floor for two weeks or so (hello Dave :)
The weird and hard part is that I don't know anyone here. I know that I need
friends around me.
I miss the guys in Canada. And I miss Mel. Talked to her on the phone. Helped
a bit.
For those who are as slow as I am at times: I'm lonely! Send me emails, cheer
me up! Come and visit me !
OK, ok, I also know that I'm not the type who stays lonely for long. Once I
have some time I'll look for a community center. Wanna play vball if possible.
Let's see.
Tomorrow I start working and will meet all the people doing the internship.
I'm pretty sure there are quite some cool guys around :-)
Now, I'll hoist the Canadian flag on my wall. Don't have a German one. This
would fly right next to it.
Lots to tell about my first day.
The short form is: The people who work there are nice, all a bit old, though.
Haven't met too many of the SSRP students yet.
There was a partial ecclipse that we went to see! Already had a beer with the
guys (same rule as Canada - not allowed in public).
The other German SSRP student seems cool. My age :-)
Tomorrow, I HAVE to be at one of the NASA guys' place at 7:30 am before work ! We're watching soccer: Germany - Ireland from tape (they're playing at 4:30 am) Don't even know the guy. But Richard (my mentor [from New Zealand :]) is gonna be there, too. They apparently do that quite often during the world championship ;-)
It's going good. Am still quite busy settling in, both at NASA and at home.
I can't believe they pay me to spend my time figuring out the problems with
my account ... sometimes starting netscape is way too much to aim for ;-)
But it's all gonna be good. They even have some pretty cool stations where you
have two monitors just next to each other, controlled as one wide screen !
And there are beachvolleyball fields on base. I simply HAVE to play there!!! Around 30 degrees celsius, no clouds whatsoever (except today :)
Gotta get a car - that's high priority now.
But work has priority these days, too. Richard is going away for almost a month
next Friday. By then, I'd better be able to work independently !!!
Still missing you guys - repeating the offer: come and visit me whenever you
feel like :-)
Now, I'm not too busy. Just being a lazy ass. Still haven't posted my latest pictures from Vancouver and the pics from New Haven and new York.
Had a fun weekend. Germany is in the quarterfinals. Against the US? Let's see
today.
Had a look at Stanford campus today. Nice, nice ! After (for me) Yale clearly
lost against UBC, I thought there might just not be places in the US that are
as beautiful. But Stanford IS nice.
Not as green as UBC, and less spectacular views - but nice, old-stylish buildings,
like I always imagined a campus to be.
Played volleyball on the oval in front of the main building with some random
guys ! Five nets and cool, friendly people around ! Compared to the famous Freiluftturnier,
there were a couple of things missing, though. Most of all my friends.
The weather here in Silicon Valley is a big plus. About 30 degrees celsius
today. The flora in the woods close to Stanford reminded me of Greece, the smells
(of trees & co :) also !
A beautiful spot !!
Good week. Germany won against the US. And I played volleyball today :-)
OK, there is lots of stuff I haven't written about yet. Too much. Abstract form:
Quick update - need to go to bed soon. Am really tired.
After all, I managed to get a cell phone contract ! Only took me 4 visits of
the shop selling the cell phones and 3 visits of the shop selling the contract.
Anyways, my number is +1-408-835-7842. I haven't
looked up cheap rates from Germany yet, but I suppose 01024 should is a good
provider (just dial 01024-001-408-835-7842). For Canada, it was 8.8 Pf/minute,
so I guess it should now be around 4.5 Euro cents per minute (do you guys say
"Euro cents" ? And do you use the term "Euro dollar" at
all ?). I have a contract where it's pretty much free if I am called at the
weekend or weekdays before 7 a.m. or after 9 p.m.
That's 9 hours later than in Germany - when it's noon there, it is 3 a.m. here.
I can also call Germany and Canada for quite cheap with calling cards.
Found some more Vancouver panoramas on Andy's homepage. The second one is a
bit blurry - he blames it on the camera but I wouldn't be so sure :-)
It's on Jericho Beach, though, and he didn't really drink down there ...
More pictures from California, too:
House warming party at Max's, Dan's, Flavio's and Ellen's house (Guess I'll
refer to it as the Stanford house).
Max also knew the hairdryer trick:
So, who's the only one with a beer in his hand ? (but that just looks like - I was NOT the only one drinking :)
Today, Max and me went to San Francisco. My first time there !
A demonstration for Israel - and the policeman with his Harley Davidson :-)
There is red-light district in San Fran. Quite obvious ;-)
Impressing was the city hall. Didn't quite match our associations with a "Rathaus" !
And San Fran is hilly. Oh boy.
Alcatraz in the background. And fog :-) Foggy it is. And windy.
Also featuring the "world's crookedest street":
Conclusion: A fascinating city. Big differences between rich and poor. Many bums. Cool place to be, though. And subject to further exploration :-)
Okok, I'm getting more and more lazy with updates again. Might not be independent from me starting to have more fun :-)
The weekend was a burst !!!
Actually it already started Thursday with the LimeLight, a club in downtown
Mountain View (That's the city by which NASA Ames is located, right in the middle
of where I live (Santa Clara) and the Stanford house (on Stanford campus by
Palo Alto). Met some people from the USRP (undergrad student research program)
there - fun guys to hang out with, but mostly typical American and undergrad.
Kids being 21 here in America really compare to kids at home being 18 ... (another
thing on which Max and me completely agree - must be a German thing :)
The first time I've seen separate lines for over/under 21. Over 21, you get
in immediately and pay 5 bucks, under 21 you wait forever and pay 15 bucks :-)
Went home at 3 a.m. - FUN club :-)
Went to dinner and a party on Friday with Max. Then back to base where the
USRP students live. Home at 5 a.m. All part of the master plan to be able to
stay up for the soccer finals Saturday night - 4 a.m. to 6 a.m.
Went to an Irish pub in Mountain View - stuffed with 100 Brazils and maybe 5
Germans. But it was all good.
We cheered to exhaustion - and we did pretty good. Being louder than the Brazils at times. But in the end it wasn't meant to be. I was really sad. But seeing the Brazils dancing in the street I couldn't feel bad anymore. They deserved it and like whole Germany I'm incredibly happy about the second place !
Well, this really didn't look like the conservative United states. Didn't last
for long, thus.
The Mountain View police department demonstrated great American instincts and
came with six police cars to keep the dangerous Brazils down. They could break
a law by dancing on the street ... seems like the police doesn't have anything
better to do ...
Believe it or not - same guys at Starbucks half an hour later. Like in a bad
movie - didn't see if they got a donut, though:
Two extremes: cool Brazils partying and non-understanding police keeping them down.
Another exterme this day (meanwhile Sunday) : Pride (Gay and Lesbian) parade
in San Francisco.
The biggest party I've seen in my whole time on the continent, Canada included.
Alcohol in public was allowed for the day and everything reminded me so much
of my incredibly missed German festivals with dear friends. Well - maybe except
so many Gay people :-)
But one thing is for sure. Gay people can party :-) Haven't been at the Love Parade so far, but I guess it's like that.
And there are lots more pictures of the Pride Parade. Big day. I was soo happy to see smth. like that in the states :-)
I've been talking to quite a lot of you these days and here are the most commonly asked questions / comments and answers:
And a comment of mine: Prepare everything for a great time when I come back.
After more than a year abroad I would love to conclude that Germany is the best
place to be :-))
To be continued ... Max and me are going down to L.A. today for the long weekend. Gonna visit Mirela from UBC there - cool :-)
L.A. was FUN !!!
Thursday was Independence Day, Friday taken off and only 400 miles to go for
a long weekend in and around locations like Los Angeles, Hollywood, Beverly
Hills, Malibu, Santa Monica, Venice & Long Beach and Pasadena.
Fortunately, Mirela from UBC does summer studies in CalTech, Pasadena, just
by L.A. - which brought us Romanian friendlyness and free lodging :-)
The money saved thus immediately had to be invested into goods sealing the German
- Romanian friendship. Like beer ;-)
A girl who is into beer. And Manowar. Max was fascinated :-))
Hollywood & co.: probably the biggest gap between myth and reality you
can imagine. Didn't see even one celebrity. And Malibu - just a beach. Not the
most beautiful I've seen so far. No muscle-packed or barely-dressed lifeguards.
Anyways, you guys know I'm not into stars and starlets. So, I didn't really
care :-)
There are still lots of beautiful spots :-) And the feeling of freedom and surf - great! Palms trees everywhere. Around 35 degrees. Pedestrian zones with street performers. Surfers. Beachvolleyball. Pubs waiting to be hit! FUN !
Great weekend. Definitely worth the total 1002 miles :-)
Pictures to come (some of them - was too lazy :)
Hope you're doing great !
Got the pictures of L.A. ! A few samples follow :-)
The weekend was really cool again! Biked around in Berkeley - a NICE area !
And had a "barbecue" at some Brazilian guys' place.
Would rather call it party, though :-)) Brazilian people are fun !!
No new pictures, no update ... just being a lazy ass :-)
Since Friday, I'm back in Canada. This time in Edmonton (Alberta), though -
not comparable to Vancouver !
Anyways, AAAI 2002 is worth it. The world's largest conference on AI, with over
1000 attendants. And UAI thereafter - smaller, but equally interesting ;-)
Don't have regular access to the internet - updates might be rare ...
Back to California and ready for some update. The conference was really cool, I learned a lot and got to know even more people :-)
Most of the real work happens apart from presentations and talks - you go for beers with guys, talk about research, get to know people doing similar stuff and make contacts. Sounds like fun - and IT IS. But VERY exhausting, too. After five days of conference I was in a state we referred to as "cognitive overflow". Toooo much input !
I needed a break - time to skip the first two days of the second conference.
GOOD decision !!
The Rocky Mountains are much more of an experience than the sixth conference
day in a row !! And guess whom I went with again: Germans !
We are everywhere :-)
Two PhD students from Aachen, one German just-finished PhD student from Texas.
Well, and two token - Americans ;-)
Lots of pictures, here is an abstract of the day - river rafting, up on one
of the mountains, waterfall, hotsprings! Great day !.
And here is the crew. Featuring (left to right): Frank & Sascha (both Aachen),
Alexander & Patrick (German and American Texas guys ), Mat (where are u
from anyways ? was that MIT ? ) and some random guy with no real affiliation
(Darmstadt, UBC, NASA Ames or what ?)
The day after that it the time came to check out West Edmonton Mall, the world's
largest shopping mall, hosting the world's largest wave park, indoor bungee
jumping, the world's largest indoor amusement park with 23 rollercoasters, and
and and.
But when you're in there it's actually just a BIG shopping mall.
All in all: fun time in Edmonton - but I still wouldn't wanna live there. 7
degrees celsius in August don't feel right. Not even if it was 30 degrees three
days earlier, before the thunderstorm.
Still haven't written here that I moved into the Stanford house. Flavio and Dan already left, so there is plenty of room now.
Many people send me pictures quite recently (ok, some of them not quite recently:) First of all Conny send me pictures from my going-away-dinner in Vancouver: Here's a nice one with her, Eddy and Dave.
Even earlier was this picture taken. Ryan send it to me to keep up good memory of Friday night dinners in Fairview, our dorm in Vancouver.
And then, there is a bunch of pictures from here. The official SSRP picture, and a couple of inoffical ones.
Not too many news to tell. Max won't let me. But one thing there is: I've booked my flight to Vancouver for the 3rd of September. So guys in good ol' BC, get ready to paaaaddddddy.
The summer is about to end :(
Signs are getting more and more apparent, be it one of the numerous good-bye parties or just the empty house. Or everybody trying to sell their cars. Mine is on ebay, hopefully I'll get a good price. Just realizing that I never wrote about it here. Well, you just need one. California doesn't work w/o. You can actually have a look at my car:
Max kind of sold his one on ebay, to be handed over tomorrow. And last Friday
the always_feared_breakdown happened.
But it only ran out of coolant. Probably.
People start to imitate my journal. After I got this habit from Andy in Vancouver, Ellen started her journal last month and some German country boy (Dorf-Erbacher) also started writing (in German, though). Will be helpful to stay in touch ! And Ellen, when you read this, Max is not the only one offering crash space in Germany :-)
And some pics from good ol' Germany - from a part still sometimes referred to as Western Poland. Stuff like wading in a public fountain at 1:00 am wouldn't happen here w/o the cops showing up after 5 minutes. And it wouldn't be a friendly "C'mon guys, get out'a there" ...
Things making me happy about my soon return ;-)
Due to things like selling my car, packing my stuff, getting around after the car was gone and wraping up work at Ames I did not get the chance to post any more entries in California.
But here are a couple of things I always wanted to write down since:
I never even mentioned that in my journal. Probably b/c we had such a great and busy time together that I didn't find a minute to post an update :-)
Carsten had a conference in Berkely in the end of August. Most of the time he spend in California I was in Edmonton, though ;-) Conferences myself - AAAI & co., I wrote about that. But he came over two days before I left for Edmonton. So, at least we had the time to spend one day on a tour down to Santa Cruz, up on Highway (?) No.1, oh well, a beautiful road on the coast anyways.
I also introduced him to the guys in the Stanford house, and we went for some biking - Ellen was do kind to lend me her bike.
Oh, we didn't manage to take a picture of how SMALL my room was with even two people living in there !! Both of us were happy for me leaving to the conference ;-)
Wow, I made it. Honestly, ten minutes before I boarded the plane I was still on my bike to the airport (in San Jose, a 25 minute bike ride from my home in Santa Clara - I made it in 15 :)
Great thing, both Carsten and me forgetting the time, going through how I'm gonna get my key back from him and stuff I suggested doing (for he stayed at my place for the following weekend). So, there's about another hour, we gotta get to the airport and Carsten can't drive the car back, cause it's not insured with him driving, he doesn't have a driving license, never drove in the US before and on top of that still had problems from his ACL (A? cruciate ligament, Kreuzbandriss).
So, we ended up driving to the airport together, I checked in with him waiting in the car outside in the clearway, just preventing the officer to give me a ticket. I dropped Carsten off with my backpack and stuff, drove home and got back by bike. He could ride that one back - oh boy, this was stressful ...
The conference was great. There's no doubt about that. Still, there is this feeling of being burnt out a bit.
The feeling of just jetting from place to place and not being home anywhere anymore. I was thinking thinking the following lines. And I wanted to post them reaslly badly:
Weird feeling. I'm in Canada and I'm flying home.
Home to California. In a month I'll fly home again - this time to Vancouver.
And another month later I'll fly home home - to Germany.
Well, it turned out a bit more difficult... Two days after arriving "home" in Santa Clara, I moved my home to the Stanford house (at this point again the greatest thanks to the other occupants !). About three weeks later, I flew off to Vancouver. I stayed there for a week and went to a conference in Ithaca, NY. Flew back to Vancouver after a week and a week later flew home to Germany.
Since I left Vancouver, I did not have the chance to really feel home somewhere. For about four months in a whole. I did not expect this, but this does NOT work for me. Travelling a lot is not the problem - but there must be some place I really belong to and I have to like being there (unlike my place in Santa Clara).
I'm happy to have a nice place in Darmstadt by now. Lots of work, but by now it's really quite homy, and I do have the feeling to belong here. At least for the moment. Eventually, I wanna travel more, and find myself a place I wanna stay at for 3-5 years, doing my PhD. This might be Vancouver ...
This is it. No more stories about California. Not this year. Next? Hopefully. Depending on a couple of things, amongst others whether NASA wants me and Bush's little private war games. Markus send me a great quote (emphasis added):
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce THE LEADER in the global
war on terrorism, our commander in chief, President George W. Bush. (Secretary
Rumsfeld's opening remarks at President George W. Bush's signing of the National
Defense Authorization Bill, Dec. 2nd 2002)
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2002/t12022002_t1202sdpres.html