Day 23 - Embracing a city of scientists.

"City of young researchers Würzburg"

Everyday as I walk in and out of the Mensa (our cafeteria), I see this inconspicuous wall print on the side of the building. Usually it's just some person's graffiti or something not-important like that, but something just drew me to this. Maybe it was the picture of the child reaching up for some books. Doing some research, the phrase "stadt der jungen forscher würzburg" translates to something along the lines of "City of young researchers Würzburg". It apparently is a science conference for Germany where people come from all around to have a symposium type thing to share with others their own science. I find it fitting that I find a small pull towards something like this. Even when the sign is in a different language, I can feel a connection to it as a young scientist researching for the future.

Day 22 - Never go full Pepe.

"D: :D D:"

So I'm in Germany. My department is full of people who are from Germany. The World Cup is on right now, and Germany is playing. It's time for the whole astronomy department to get together for a fun barbecue before watching the game together in our seminar room. Apparently this was common among the different departments in the university, as my friends on the physics side of things also had similar experiences watching the game together. Shown in the picture are the backs of the football-interested astronomers watching intently at the game as Germany was demolishing Portugal. Well, it didn't really help Portugal that Pepe, one of their better players got red-carded in the first half for a headbutt onto Germany. Never go full Pepe. It loses you games. If you're curious about the caption, the blond person featured in this picture is Miquela and Robby's mentor person. His facial expressions were honestly more interesting than the game itself. I could tell the flow of the game simply by watching his face.

Day 21 - Exhaustion.

"Sleeping..."

So after yesterday's adventure Nürnberg, my body was literally telling me not to move. We walked maybe five or six miles in the span of a few hours, and I wasn't wearing the proper shoes for such an adventure. Completely my fault, but I like my Converse. Anyways, today was a day spent to me chilling in my dorm by myself, which honestly hasn't happened very often since coming here to Germany. I actually think it's taken three weeks for me to spend a day by myself here. That's exciting. Anyways, the picture for today may not seem all too interesting, but you are mistaken! It's only slightly uninteresting!

The water here in Germany isn't free. Water from the taps is weird to drink. Everything in Germany from the water to the apple juice to the sports drinks are carbonated. If that wasn't a culture shock for me, I don't know what was since coming here. If someone wanted to get non-carbonated water, one would have to specifically buy still-water. So after three weeks of carbonation, I have actually grown a taste for carbonated drinks after specifically vowing myself off them in the states since new years. Yeah, it was weird. Shown above is the classic mineral water, full of carbonation and added elements, and something we're more familiar with, uncarbonated water. Yeah, I don't blame you if you don't think today was interesting. It wasn't meant to be.

Day 20 - Nürnberg.

"the effect was both solemn and beautiful, like being in a cathedral of ice"

There's not much I can joke about in the adventure had in Nürnberg, a city maybe an hour by train from Wurzburg. For those who don't know, Nürnberg is one of Nazi Germany's central locations to hold rallies and to perform other major acts of Nazi propaganda. This is the door of the Zeppelinfeld part of the Nazi Party Rally Grounds. I seriously cannot do the history justice by talking about it in this little blurb of a blog I do. Look up the Cathedral of Light on Wikipedia or something. 130 searchlights surrounded a Christian style altar and created a giant holy ground for the Nazi leader to take advantage of. This is the door that led to the Zeppelinfeld's main tribune, much weathered in the way of time. It's amazing how a building like this stands even today, but even more for graffiti to show history's progression as well. It's extremely hard not to be respectful of such a place, not because I sympathize for the Nazi party, but because this is a place of history. As bad as everything was, it happened and should be a sign for any future human to learn from.

Day 19 - Chillin' on the Beach.

"MUFFINS!"

So I've been doing a lot of thinking the past few days. A lot of personal reflection of the people I'm around, the way I treat people, the way other people treat me, and I've come to a few personal conclusions that I'll spare the fairly uninteresting details about. Tonight was a night where quite a bit was put out on the table, and I'm glad I was able to spend some of this time here. I briefly mentioned it in my last post, but Wurzburg has its own beach! It's a neat little man-made beach running along the edge of the river that runs through the city. It's full of places to sit, things to drink, things to eat, among other common beach-like activities. It became quite cool tonight compared to the horrendous heat wave that struck in the past few days. Sitting by the river, my feet in the sand, the breeze blowing in my face with the audible sound of incomprehensible German around me... It was a fun time to think about the world. 

By the way, if you're wondering about my caption for today, these three young German girls (all looking no older than ten) came up to us and offered balls of wet sand. Apparently they were making muffins. I humored them and accepted their peace offering of cold, sandy foods... even if I didn't know what it was at first.

Days 12- 18: So I've missed a few days. Have a megapost.

First off, I would like to apologize to any daily readers of my APODs. I know there's a few of y'all out there that happily get up every morning to check my posts, and low and behold, they weren't there. There's a bunch that's come up in this past week, and to be completely honest, the blog wasn't that high of a priority on my list. But I'm back now with plenty of pictures and back on a (hopefully) regular schedule!

Day 12:

"I love going home and watching the sunset everyday." 

So this is my walk home. It's a beautiful walk home. On the left you can see a few white buildings. That's where I'm currently living. Because there is an illusion of scale, it looks like it's really far away, but in reality, it's only a minute from where I took this picture. But the sunset is absolutely beautiful as the sun goes down one of Germany's many hills and paints the scenery a bright orange. It doesn't matter where you are in the world: Sunrises and sunsets are two of the most beautiful things ever.

Day 13:

"It's like they care about their food here!"

We found a pizza place right next to the cheapest grocery store in town! It seems to be owned by a married couple, and they spoke in English when serving us. In fact, they even started a conversation and got to know us a little. I came in a few days later to grab lunch, and the owners recognized me and even remembered some things about us. Definitely awesome people. Also, European pizza is good. Definitely try the pizza if you're in Europe. Like Melody said "It's like they care about their food here!" 

Day 14:

"So long and thanks for all the fish"

We had another dinner night, but this time at Melody's place. We decided to bundle up together and watch Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (which surprisingly for a group of physicists, very few people have seen). I remember someone commenting that their parents thought we would all eventually drift away and do our own thing here in Germany and have little to no contact at all with the people we came with. So far, that hasn't really been the case. We've all made connections to people outside our UT circle, be it colleagues in lab or other international students, but I still find it awesome how close us squirrels have got together in these past few weeks. Looking at my day count, this was the second week, and I feel like I already know more about some of these people than I ever would if I just knew them over in Austin. 

 Day 15:

"DO YOU KNOW WHY NO ONE NOTICED THAT JULIUS WAS BEING STRANGLED TO DEATH?"

Please do not be disturbed by the quote. Julius is fine; he just got a little run in with the mafia.

Day 16:

"Are you glad you came?"

Miquela and I's dancing instructor had put us in contact with the Wurzburg Lindy-hop group. To be completely honest, I wasn't really feeling up for dancing, but I went anyways. The dancing scene was on the beach (a man-made beach!) on a small section of the wooden walkway. It was a small place, but out in the open with all the drinking and hookah smoking public to see. And the people there were impressed at our dancing. Miquela and I decided to dance to a song that popped up, and I could just see the faces of the people around us. I could literally feel the stares that they weren't expecting two random people to start dancing, much less dance Lindy-hop fairly respectably. Someone was audibly making a note of the moves I was doing, as if they were making a checklist to see if we could dance properly. The instructor in charge of the group immediately came up to us afterwards and wanted to know where we learned how to dance, obviously impressed. It was a really interesting to dance in a foreign country and actually look impressive doing it. It looked like from what the instructor was telling us that the group was mainly comprised of beginners, so at least I felt right in place. 

And on a side note for the previous day, we were all having a picnic together and played a game called mafia where people unfortunately die in the story. 

Day 17:

"Do you know how to take an integral?"

I actually have somewhat of a project! I can't exactly explain everything right now, but it basically deals with thermonuclear physics and the deflagration of elements inside the core of a star. In layman terms, I'm dealing with theoretical fires. Awesome. The past few days have just been spent reading papers, so actually having something resembling a project is great. Though, having this thing that resembles a project requires more paper reading to properly understand, so there's that caveat. The person helping me out wasn't sure how far along I was with the theory and the physics, so he wanted to at least make sure I knew how to take an integral. I responded that I had Mathematica. 

Day 18:

"So people used to be hanged here..."

Started the week's APOD with me on the walk home, ended it with the actual arrival at my dorm. It's been a long week and many things have happened. Doing these APODs really helped me actually think about the things I've done each day. To be completely honest, that's a scary thought coming from a guy who would be content to sit around all day on a laptop playing some games or killing time on Reddit. Actually doing things is a weird and exciting experience, and I'm glad to be sharing it with whoever is reading. It's been a long week of ups and downs, and I'm glad to be back on a happy note. I won't promise that this won't happen again, but I can promise that I will get something out of each day to share with all of you. 

Thank you, and I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Day 11 - Lights! Camera! Actions!

"On a lighter note: Helium."

So today was the Campuslichter! It was basically a fun festival of lights full of food, drinks, and of course, lights! I had wanted to get a good group shot of us in front of a few of these spotlights illuminating the trees, as having a source of back-light seemed like an awesome idea for my non-photographer brain. I had just told everyone to act natural and they did awesome. Posed shots look nice, but are so boring and lacking in emotion. Something like this just captures the fun everyone was having, and I really do hope it shows.

Day 10 - I should have taken a picture of the cheese burger.

"You sure you don't want to take a picture of the cheese burger? It seems like exactly the type of thing you'd do."

So I've come to the realization that it's a lot harder to take meaningful pictures everyday when everyday is filled with a lot of the same going to lab, going to the Mensa to eat, going back to the lab, and going back home. I really need to start capitalizing on interesting situations and take pictures like the Asian tourist I am.

Like, today the astronomy department had a barbecue! An amazing, and delicious barbecue! And I didn't take any pictures! There was literally a cheese burger. That's right, a cheese burger. Not a cheeseburger, but a cheese burger. It was a vegetarian burger made of cheese. I ate that right up when I heard what it was! Okay, I only took a bite, but the point still stands that I really enjoyed the pun! So instead, I took a picture of my workstation in my office I share with a post-doc (?). If you're wondering, that green bottle over there isn't anything bad. It's mineral water. The water over here is kind of full of limestone and other metallic things, so people over here tend to buy large cases of water to drink. So overall, it's a simple desk, but it's my desk!

Day 9 - Language is Hard.

"I know just enough German to just get frustrated by everything!"

Something I've noticed these past few days is that people are willing to switch languages whenever the confused American is around. That's a good thing! The bad thing is that it feels like people are forced to switch languages whenever the confused American is around. I've had this happen quite a bit in both the astronomy department and in a few other places I've been around. People will have small talk in English whenever I'm there, but they all look uncomfortable doing so, even when it doesn't concern me. The same group would be having the same conversation in German, but would be much more comfortable around each other. Maybe it's just because I'm the new guy, but it's kind of frustrating to know that so many people have been accommodating for me, but I can't really do much to meet them half way.

I found this poster walking through the physic's building here on campus and thought it a cute example of language barriers. It describes most people's experience with English here very well. Some speak is perfectly and have no worries speaking it to foreigners while others... Well it's more like the pink box above. But they're offering a way to communicate with me, so however they speak it, I'm completely grateful for it.

Day 8 - I almost did not have a picture for today, but I didn't want to leave y'all hanging.

"I'm going to leave you with some nightmares. So Wurzburg was an American Army base, right? They used to hang people in Galgenberg."

I'm not going to lie to you, I only took two photos today. I just started work today in the astronomy department here, and the day has been full of meeting new people, learning new things, and finding a new pair of pants. I really wasn't sure what I was going to post, but one of the graduate students happened to be on the same bus as Robby, Thomas, and I. This graduate student was the one that I shared my office with (that's right. I get an office. Be jealous.) and was helping me transition to German culture all day. He even taught me the word Servus which is a common greeting here in Baravia. It literally means slave, but it translates to something along the lines of "I'm at your service". Really awesome guy!

Anyways, back to the story. So he gets onto the bus with us, and stirs up a conversation about the department and about Mexico and about the states and Germany, but my stop soon approached. He wanted to leave me with some nightmares for the night by sharing a bit of Wurzburg's history with us. Apparently, Wurzburg was an American army base until a few years ago until the building got remodeled to the school I'm attending now. The dorm I'm staying at, Galgenberg, was apparently used to hang people back in the day. That's lovely. I didn't think too much about it until walking home and seeing this sign on the main building. I'm not exactly sure what Galgenfete is, but it sure reminds me of some hangings that used to go on here. This was literally a sign that I had to use this story for today.

Day 7 - Much to contrary belief, I won't be talking about my hat this post.

"It's like I'm in Alice in Wonderland!" 

I will spare y'all the much more interesting story about our group's trip to the Wurzburg Cathedral, and instead talk about the Wurzburg Residence! Curious why? Spoilers for Monday, that's why.

But when if you come to Wurzburg, one of the places you can't miss is the Wurzburg Residence. It's just so huge and noticeable, that you can't help but to be in awe when looking at it. Today we just explored the royal garden, and that was an adventure in itself. As both Thomas and Numa put it, the garden was highly reminiscent of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. We first entered and the trees were perfect cones, the bushes were squares and the fountain was running in the middle. It was almost surreal, almost like a scene from a movie or a video game. Some of the girls thought this to be the perfect place to be proposed in. Some of the guys thought of this as the stage for the last boss of a video game where the big boss would pop out from the hill where this photo was taken. In either case, this place screamed magical.

Day 6 - My picture of the day is not me in a hat, but I found a hat!

"They had to build their fortress on the biggest hill they could! After the second hill, they'd be like 'NOPE you can have it!'"

So first things first, I found a hat! It's a very nice black hat I got for only 8 euros. That's quite a steal when the hats I was looking at yesterday were in the range of 30-60 euros. That costs more than the phone I bought here! That's insane! This was a huge accomplishment for me, as I had been searching everywhere for a hat like this. I had even dragged everyone along that was with me in my quest to find a hat. To think, the store we could find over in America, but conveniently had a shop in town had the best priced hats. Funny how things work out.

Oh, so more on the topic of my actual picture of the day, we climbed a hill. Not any hill, but most likely the largest hill in Wurzburg, home to the Marienberg Fortress. And my god, this place was beautiful. From the very top we could see the entire city, the churches, the sky, the river and even a couple getting married at a church across the land. I could easily see why this is one of the most recommended places to visit if you come to Germany. A quick thing to note though is that there are billions upon billions of stairs and steep inclinations here. The walk up was quite... sterrible. *insert groan here*

Day 5 - I wanted to find a hat, but all I got were pretty pictures.

"My picture of the day was either going to be these locks, or me in a hat." 

So today I was set on finding a hat. Yesterday was a terrible, cloudy and slightly drizzling day. An annoying drizzle where one doesn't really need an umbrella or anything of that sort, but not annoying enough where one could not simply get around by just walking in this drizzle. From what I've experienced so far, this is a fairly common occurrence that happens here (today marks the first day I've seen the sun at all in Germany...). So instead of lugging around a heavy umbrella everywhere, I wanted to find a hat. A nice Gatsby hat, or a flat hat. Something good looking that would keep my head out of the rain.

On our quest to find a hat (I had met up with Numa and Thomas after doing some various chores that needed to be done), we found plenty of places around the city. We found the city's nerd shop (<3), the gummy bear store, and a place to find a pot for Thomas. Oh, we also found the bridge. Doing some research, it's the Main Bridge, and it was absolutely beautiful. We had a great view of the Old Bridge and the Fortress and the cathedral right behind us. But that isn't my picture of the day. More interestingly, we found locks. A bunch of locks. A bunch of them locked to the bridge with initials of romance and love and I'm guessing promises to never be apart. I found dates going back tens of years, and honestly, that's pretty awesome. I still find it a shame I couldn't find a hat though.

Day 4 - Our first German holiday.

"Let's drink Robby's Bubbles!" 

So this is Robby. And in his hands, we found Robby Bubbles, a non-alcoholic sparkling drink according to Wikipediea (on a side note, Wikipedia has literally everything). Today was a holiday here in Germany thanks to Jesus ascending to Heaven and do y'all know what holidays mean in Germany? Everything is closed. Like, almost everything. We, as a group, decided it would be an amazing idea to get together and have a small food-making party-thing to hang out and enjoy the company of each other. It was a shame it was raining all day, and that the buses ran on the hour instead of every ten minutes, and that Robby's apartment is so far away that it feels like I'm Frodo taking a journey to Mordor, but other than that it was great! Bruschetta is delicious by the way. Heck, all the food I've had here in Germany has been delicious thus far. Okay, I'll take that one back. Habaneros was okay.

Day 3 - Found our home away from home... maybe.

"We didn't come all the way to Germany to eat Tex-Mex!"

So our first meal together as a group in Germany was at a Tex-Mex place. Yes, Texas-Mexican cuisine (in the loosest definition of the phrase). For laughs, we decided to try out this place: Habaneros. A place where the salsa was sweet and slightly spicy (okay, I didn't find it spicy but others did) and was heavily plopped onto their "Mexican Rice." Honestly, it reminded me of a weird style of Taco Bell. But this is Germany, and Wurzburg nonetheless. As a group, we could not resist the temptation of seeing what Germans thought of our food. The gelato we got after this was much better though. Much better. Make sure to get the gelato if you're in Europe.

Day 2 - Beyond all belief, we made it!

"I barely slept on the plane" 

Here's a handy tip for all of y'all who aren't familiar with international traveling (or are familiar with international traveling and choose not to do the following). Sleep is good. Sleep on the long seven hour flight. You arrive in a brand new country in basically the earliest of mornings after a somewhat long and disgruntling flight. Granted, the flight did have an amazing selection of movies and music which kept most people awake for the full seven hours.

So here we are, an awkward bunch of seven American students (Melody and Miquela posing beautifully in picture) riding on a foreign train with several hundred pounds of awkward to carry luggage on our way to a foreign city. Beautiful, beautiful landscape. Sleep was a little more welcoming though.

Day 1 - So begins our journey.

"I don't know which camera to look at!"

So this begins my picture a day post, and what a fitting image to use. Here are seven of us you may recognize on the side of the blog about to depart on an adventure of which none of us have ever experienced before. I'll be posting random tidbits of our journey over the course of our welcoming stay and be posting a more lengthy blog-style post on Mondays. I have chosen the name APOD to name this adventure I have willingly taken. If you haven't been able to guess, no this acronym does not stand for "Astronomy Picture of the Day". That title belongs to the awe-inspiring pictures belonging to NASA. What my APOD stands for is "Alex Picture of the Day". Completely original. Really. Really. Original. In any case, feel free to use the APOD tag to find all my APOD posts!