The days are getting longer

While this picture was not taken on winter solstice, it was taken shortly after (Dec 28)...on one of the first sunny days in Berlin since October. It was taken about about noon and, as you can see, the sun is shining on the farthest wall away from the south facing window. On solstice in Berlin, the sun rose at 8:15 AM and set at 3:54 PM (just over 7 and a half hours of daylight), and only made it 14 degrees off the horizon at its highest point. Add to that the heavy, cloudy overcast skies and, needless to say, it feels very dark here in winter. What a welcome site the sun was as well as knowing that the days are getting longer. Incidentally, on summer solstice the sun will rise at 4:43 AM and set at 9:34 PM (nearly 17 hours of daylight!).

Christmas in Oberaudorf

For the Christmas holiday we traveled south into the Bavarian Alps to a little town of Oberaudorf. The town was charming, had a Tirolian feel, and was conveniently located close to an ice skating rink (across the river in Austria) and a short (1 hour) drive from Salzburg. It rained much of the time while we were there, but that was fine, as our interests were to hang out as a family and find the simple pleasures of being together...work on a puzzle, ice skating, exploring Salzburg, and riding the cogwheel train to the top of Wendelstein (to get above the clouds and see the magnificent Alpen skyline).

More pictures of this trip can be found here.

Deutschlands Weihnachtsmarkts

A German holiday tradition is the Weihnachtsmarkt - the Christmas Market. They are open-air markets set up in open public spaces within the city. They are a mixture of arts and craft fair, holiday food and drinks, (in some cases) a carnival. People visit them as part of the holiday season to shop, socialize with friends, or be together as a family. Berlin has many of them (75 listed on a website), and we visited 5 here in our city, one in Salzburg, Austria, and the granddaddy of them all in Germany, the Nuremberg Chriskindlesmarkt.

Weihnachts Zauber Gendarmenmarkt
Our first Weinachtsmarkt was at the historic and beautiful Gendarmenmarkt. This market has a traditional feel, and given that it was our first outing of the season plus maybe and the multiple cups of Gluhwein we found it a very magical experience.



Weihnachtmarkt Alexandarplatz
Settled next to Berlin's famous Roten Rathaus (red City Hall), this markt had a very family feel - small skating rink around the beautiful Neptune Fountain, ferris wheel, and lots of kids.



Nuremberg's Christkindlesmarkt
Nuremberg is a beautiful, charming, historic city about 3.5 hours drive south of Berlin. The Altstadt is a walled medieval city with small, twisting cobblestone streets. Lily spent the week there with here German class from school - staying in the youth hostel in the castle on the hill overlooking the city. Very fun! It was another one of those very enriching and empowering experiences for Lily - visiting the city without parents, wandering the city as part of tours and alone with friends...without adults or parents looking over her shoulder. One of Nuremberg's features is Germany's most famous Weihnachtsmarkt. We drove down late Thursday night to pick her up on Friday morning early so that we could see the Christkindlesmarkt ourselves as well as continue on south to the Bavarian Alps for Christmas.



We took a tour of the tunnels/caves that have been carved out underneath the city...originally to store beer in the 1500's, and then expanded to hold townspeople during air raids in the Second World War.


And we visited the Schoener Brunnen - a beautiful and historic (built in 1396) fountain the market platz. There is a story that goes along with the brass ring in the fence around the fountain...ending with those who spin the ring will have good luck. So we all took a spin.




The youth hostel where Lily spent the week. Top of the hill overlooking the city.




More Nuremberg pictures here.

Münster & the Alexander von Humdoldt Meeting

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation holds quarterly orientation and network meetings for newly arriving fellows, soon to be departing German postdocs and recently returning German postdocs. The meeting I attend was held in Münster, home of Germany’s largest university. The photo above is the Schloss, a baroque building which houses the administration and was the venue for several of the AvH events. The meeting itself was exciting in that the those who have been selected all have done or are doing amazing and interesting science. Furthermore, these people come from all over the world. For instance, at dinner on the second evening I sat next to a science historian from Israel, across from a lawyer scholar from Greece and another from Italy, and next to a theoretical quantum physicist from Mexico. It was little bit like nerd camp for grownups and we were all interested in what each other was doing, where they had come from and why they were in Germany. Furthermore, the hospitality was amazing. I can’t wait for the annual meeting in Berlin in June. For that meeting we will get to meet the President of Germany at the equivalent of the “white house”.
Another thing that made the Münster trip fun was that my family joined me after the meeting had concluded. We got to wander this charming city that is full of bicycles (it is Germany’s bike city with over 100,000 bicycles…felt almost like Davis) and whose altestadt has retained the medieval feel even after being nearly completely rebuilt. The Allied Forces bombed Münster as retaliation for Germany’s bombing of London and Coventry, and the city was 90% destroyed. But, rather than rebuilding in slab concrete in the 40’s and 50’s, they chose to rebuild in a style and layout that was similar to its pre-war state. Another magical touch was that a very cold storm came in on Friday night and it snowed lightly. With everyhing covered in a thin blanket of snow, we wandered the city amid snow flurries. We would seek shelter by doing some clothes shopping or eating and drinking in a charming pub. And for Owen, one of the highlights was riding the ICE (intercity express) train – Germany’s high-speed train. We sailed home at 260 km/hr (at times), watching the snow-covered hills of Westphalia zip by, doing homework, blogging, and watching the light fade from the sky at 4:00 in the afternoon. Winter has arrived.

Technische Universität Berlin and the VLB

With Goethe Institute language courses behind me, I can now begin a new routine…one that will be the “main” routine of the sabbatical and that is working in the lab of Professor Doctor Frank Methner. He is the Chair of Brewing Sciences at the Institut für Biotechnologie at the Technische Universität Berlin and the associated Versuchs- und Lehranstalt für Brauerei in Berlin (VLB). The VLB is an industry-funded training and research institute for all things brewing – raw materials, brewing, fermentation, packaging, logistics. It celebrated its 125 anniversary this spring, so it definitely has roots. One of the labs I work in the Kolbach Labor…Kolbach is a famous brewing scientist and we still use the Kolbach Index in malting specifications to this day. So, it is a little like holy ground working in his former lab. My work will be on hops, their antioxidant properties as measured via electron paramagnetic spin resonance (EPR) spectroscopy, and beer flavor stability.

Goethe Institute

My sabbatical stay is funded via a fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung and part of my fellowship included 2 months of intensive German language instruction at the Goethe Institute…the Gold Standard for German language instruction worldwide. The school is located in Mitte, a very groovy, hip, trendy part of Berlin just a few blocks from Alexandar Platz and Hackescher Markt. For two month, Gina and I had 25 hours of intensive instruction per week plus homework. It was like being in graduate school all over again…fun but exhausting. Der Kurs war sehr intensiv aber es war gut. Ich denke ich kann in Deutsch sprechen…und schreiben. Sehr kühl, eh? I am finished with my language instruction and my Fellowship formally began on November 1. Gina will continue with more instruction at the Neue Schule – she wants to have her Zertifikat Deutsch before she leaves…and she’ll do it, I am sure.

German Fußball

Hertha BSC is Berlin's team and they play in the Olympic Stadium. On a slightly rainy Sunday evening in early November we got our first taste of European fußball. What an experience! Hertha had been doing fairly well in the Bundesliga, but this night they were playing the best team - Hoffenheim. We sat right next to the Ostkurve - the rowdy section of fans who spent the entire time on their feet jumping and chanting. Just a wall of glass separating our sedate family section from the wild pack next door.


Hertha won the match 1-0 and the crowd went wild


Probably the most intense part of the experience was the ride home on the S-Bahn. We were packed on the platform waiting for our train to arrive and everyone was lively but in a good mood. Well once we squeezed on the train and the doors closed the crowd went wild, jumping, chanting...the entire wagon was rocking back and forth as we headed into town.

Flughafen Tempelhof closed last night

Flughafen Tempelhof came to a close last night. It felt poignant to be sitting in our living room watching the TV – a documentary on Tempelhof was running, in German natürlich – meanwhile the final flights of a DC-3 and a Junkers-52 would periodically pass over our apartment, reminding us of our proximity to this historic place. The German on the documentary was slow and clear enough that Gina and I could understand a lot of what was being said. That airport, built by the Nazi’s, literally saved Berlin during the airlift. American pilots flying in food to former enemies…but facing a new enemy in the first major event of the Cold War. As I rode the U-Bahn up to work this morning, I could see photos and stories on the front pages of newspapers being read by other commuters. It feels satisfying to be here in Berlin as the closure of the old airport takes place, witnessing something historic, and a clear reminder that this place is continually changing.

148 different hops to smell

My host, Frank Methner, and I visited Hüll which is a half hour north of Munchen for a hop evaluation. The results from this group of ~25 hop farmers, scientists and brewers would identify the best hops from this year's harvest. What an experience! To be sitting across the table from Anton Lutz, the hop breeder for German hops, learning the various aroma attributes from single hop varieties with multiple samples from different farmes and regions - 15 samples of Hallertau, 22 samples of Hallertau Tradition, etc. And to do this all in German. I had arrived. It will be a one of highlights of my trip.