Ein Abschied

The time has come to close this blog. Travel blogs are best used when the writer is fully immersed in traveling and not just taking occasional trips here and there. This past year and a half has turned out so differently than I ever could have imagined -- and that's a good thing. It just doesn't make for particularly interesting travel writing. So when I decide it's time to go backpacking through South Africa and Namibia or finally experience the vibrant life in India and Nepal, well then you'll know where to find me. Until then, I wish you all exciting adventures and stories to share. Auf Wiedersehen!

You know you're in Germany when:

on your way home from work, you stumble upon ... the annual bread festival. Well, maybe "festival" is exaggerated, but definitely a festive market.

24th Annual Stuttgart Bread Market

This stand is selling, for example:

-the wild mushroom loaf

-the chili pepper loaf

-onion bread

-flower blossom bread (it's a trend)

-sauerkraut bread (basically sauerkraut stromboli)

-wooden oven-fired bread

I don't know what the "pirate loaf" is ... maybe a reference to the political party? Speaking of which, EU elections are coming up on May 25. Stuttgart is covered in campaign posters, and where American campaigning might be more vicious than German campaigning,* I think Germany has won for some of the most ridiculous photos and poster graphics. One candidate's picture reminds me of a character straight out of MAD Magazine. Perhaps I need to post some of those photos next.

*Given that there are at least 6 major German political parties and many other smaller regional parties, it's more difficult to launch party-vs.-party (e.g. U.S. Democrat-vs.-Republican) attacks. A multi-party system also makes for much more interesting elections and at least some diversity of opinions.

Photos from the Botnang Forest

I took a short Easter hike today through the Botnang forest, which is part of the park featured in the post below. This forest is a dedicated nature reserve and is one of the few places in Stuttgart where wildlife species outnumber humans. Today I saw dozens of blackbirds, a grey heron, a mole, and heard many more animals rustling in the leaves. I kept watching for snakes. Luckily, we did not cross paths.

It always surprises me how few people I see in the Botnang forest, regardless of the time of day. I was just thinking about this when I came upon the treehouse/hunting lookout in the second picture below. Since the forest is a nature reserve, I would assume that hunting is not allowed, but maybe I am mistaken?? Regardless of reason, I bet you'd get a great view standing on that platform.

Stuttgart forests and parks

When most people think of Stuttgart, they immediately think of the industrial presence. Daimler, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche all have their roots in the region and Stuttgart continues to be a hotbed of high-tech research and development. What's not as widely known is how green the city actually is: the city boasts 5,000 hectares of forest, which covers just under one-quarter of the city's total area. The following photos are from a park in western Stuttgart, called Wildpark, where I spent the better part of Saturday afternoon.

Rundreise: three weeks through Germany and Austria

I recently returned from a three-week trip through Germany and Austria. I spent the first week with friends in Austria's capital city, Vienna, followed by a few days in the beautiful tiny town of Vöcklabruck in Upper Austria. From Vöcklabruck, I traveled north into Germany to explore Dresden for two days and then continued further northward to Hamburg, where I stayed for ten days before returning to Stuttgart. I traveled the entire journey by train. The picture below shows the approximate route.

The three-week tour.

I started out with Austria: first in the capital city of Vienna and then in the small town of Vöcklabruck. One of the highlights of my trip to Vienna was seeing a performance of "Swan Lake Reloaded", the street dance reinterpretation of the classic ballet. It helped to know the story of "Swan Lake" ahead of time, but it wasn't entirely necessary. The street dancers captivated the audience's attention, and by the end, left many of us yearning for more.

In Vöcklabruck, time moves much more slowly than in Vienna. I spent relaxing days wandering park trails and visiting the nearby lake, "Attersee." As Germany's seventh most urban city, Stuttgart doesn't have any major lakes and so I particularly enjoyed this opportunity to spend time on the water.

View onto the Attersee

Admiring the view

The surprisingly clear water

After the Attersee, I took the train to Dresden. I expected Dresden to be covered in bombed-out buildings from World War II, the Frauenkirche being one of the most well-known. While Dresden can still be summarized as one tragically beautiful building after another, the city has come a long way since 1945.

Dresden on the Elbe River

While in Dresden, I stayed at the Weltcafe, a fair trade cafe with a few guest rooms upstairs. I don't normally advertise businesses on my blog, but I was so impressed with the hospitality shown toward me at the Weltcafe that I highly recommend you check them out if you happen to be passing through Dresden.

After Dresden, I took the train to Hamburg. For some reason, I expected Hamburg to be a lot closer to the sea than it actually is. Still, it does have one of Europe's major ports, around which has now been built "HafenCity", or "Harbor City". It also claims the title of having more canals than Venice and Amsterdam combined.

Canal in HafenCity

Houses along the canal.

Boats at HafenCity

HafenCity "boardwalk"

Hamburg's city center is marked by Alster Lake. Here you can find park trails, restaurants and cafes, street performers, and generally people enjoying being outside (when there's good weather).

Hamburg as seen from Alster Lake

Alster Lake

Birds hanging out on a log.

Forty minutes outside of Hamburg is Wedel, a town on the Unterelbe River and best known for its Schiffsbegrüssungsanlage. (Yes, that word does have 25 letters.) Broken down, this translates to the "ship-greeting facility". Whenever an international cargo ship arrives at the port, the operator inside the Schiffsbegrüssungsanlage raises the flag of the ship's country and plays its national anthem. When the ship leaves, the operator plays the anthem again and lowers the flag. I was told that the ship captains occasionally stop and have lunch with the operator, but I have yet to find another person to confirm this.

"Willkomm Höft", basically the ship's "welcome center"

The ship's national flag is raised when the
ship arrives and lowered when the ship leaves.

The rocky shore.

Sand prints.

Sun reflecting off the water.

Size comparison: ship vs. little girl.

~*~

Hamburg and Wedel were my last stops before returning to Stuttgart. It was a long, six-hour train ride back as I thought about everything I had seen and experienced over the past three weeks.

The next day, I had to return some library books at Stuttgart's city library and check a few new ones out. I was on the eighth floor when I noticed a group of senior citizens opening a special door I never noticed before and walking out onto the roof terrace. Wait. There's a roof terrace?!

Stuttgart Library

It turns out you can actually walk out onto the library roof, and being on the eighth floor, can see for miles out over the city. The picture below shows the view from the roof.

As I stood there looking out over the city, I thought about how sometimes it can be hard to return home from a long journey--and sometimes that journey opens your eyes to things you had previously overlooked. Here's to new seeing, and eventually, to more new journeys.

Looking out over Stuttgart

Dissertating in the Swiss Appenzellerland

I was just reviewing old blog posts and realized I never posted my photos from our work trip to Switzerland. (How is that possible?) Twice each year my department goes on a four-day retreat to work on colleague dissertations. Most people in our department have to write their dissertation "nebenbei", that is, in addition to normal work duties and outside of work hours. I don't know how people ever finish with such a system! 

In any case, the retreats are usually in pretty areas within reasonable driving distance from Stuttgart. Below are some of the photos from our last retreat in the Swiss mountains. A German friend of mine who now lives in Switzerland calls her new home one of the most beautiful countries on Earth. I have to agree.

All that lush greenery goes out to my friends and family battling this year's winter on the East Coast. Spring will be on its way soon!

Random Street Finds

Remember this shoe from Berlin? (Click on link and scroll to bottom.)

Well, I found the matching random teacup in Stuttgart:

I don't understand. How do you leave random items on the street like this? Or is it performance art and someone is just waiting for the reactions of the passersby? Oh, the questions!

How to thrive in a post-doc abroad: Now in 10 easy steps!

Here are a few pointers for surviving and thriving in a post-doc abroad. Some of these apply to Germany in particular, some broadly to post-docs, and some are just everyday reminders relevant to most humans.

0. Assuming you've crossed every t and dotted every i on every immigration form you can possibly imagine, and then some, this is how to proceed once you've arrived:

1. Don't take anything personally. You're in a new culture, or at the very least a different culture than the one you're used to. You're the odd one out. You're going to make mistakes. Make them, laugh at yourself, and move on.

2. Take compliments personally. There's always an exception.

3. Surround yourself with native speakers. Do your best to learn the local language, but don't chastise yourself for indulging in your native tongue from time to time. Both are essential for one's well-being.

4. Get to know your colleagues, both professionally and personally. Go to group gatherings. You never know when that personal connection may help you back in the office and vice versa.

5. Take time for yourself. An excellent way to burn out is to direct all of your energy toward everyone else and never toward yourself. Do what you need to do to recharge and stay healthy.

6. Learn about research differences between your home country and the new country. Err on the side of the differences being interesting rather than flat-out wrong. (Both are possible.) 

7. Don't rush to conclusions. Listen first, think second, speak last.

8. Always keep your goals in mind. The post-doc isn't your average research position; it is specifically designed to help you develop technical and professional skills and to smooth your transition from graduate school to the "real" world of research and academia. You have to know where you're going to know where to best invest your (and your supervisor's) energy now.

9. Create your own career path. Don't assume your supervisor has your best interests in mind (you may just represent one of many projects) nor should you assume that they don't. Keep open all channels of communication. Take charge of your own destiny (and hope the job market cooperates).

10. Enjoy the ride! The post-doc is a unique experience, as is living abroad (usually). Make all the memories you can. One day you will look back on this experience with nostalgia and think: "Those were the days ... "

Links for further reading:
@ The Chronicle

@ Scientific American

@ New Scientist

Moments in Stuttgart

Sometimes Stuttgart does not feel like Stuttgart. This sunset, which awaited me Friday evening as I left the office, reminds me of something more typical of a tropical climate -- of something I would see when I was in Rio de Janeiro or in Kampala, Uganda. The range of colors in the sky and the shape of the tree have a lot to do with that. That tree, by the way, is an apple tree. Apple trees are surprisingly common in public spaces in Stuttgart. It's as if one urban planner first had the good idea--hey! let's plant something people can use--and then a whole bunch of other planners followed suit. Or something like that.

Just enjoy that sunset for a while ...

Happy 2014!

For many Germans, tomorrow is the first day back to work after the long Christmas holidays. What better day to reflect on 2013 and plan for 2014? 

Some of my aspirational goals for 2014 are (in no particular order):

1. Live more. Stress over work less. I was surprised this past year to see how much non-productive time my post-doc consumed, or rather, how much time I let it consume. I love the work that I do, and because I love it, I would ideally spend 90% of my time on research and 10% on the necessary administration and miscellaneous duties. Instead, I ended up spending at least 50% of my time, if not more, on administration and tasks that did not move my research forward. This is partly due to the difference between academic flex-time and the 9-5 world of a research institution. It is also partly due to poor scheduling on my part to compensate for the difference (for which I was admittedly unprepared). 2014 is going to include more proactive scheduling and more time recharging in places like the Schlossgarten park, where I was today.

Unterer Schlossgarten

2. Continue to publish papers. This is a given if I want to have any sort of research career. More specifically, I want to publish at least four papers this year, at least two of which where I am the first author. I have already started three of the four papers; the fourth is in the works.

3. Have a job lined up for 2015 by November 1, 2014. My post-doc ends (more or less) by the end of 2014. As my next step, I am looking at academic positions and research NGOs and have been working intensely on applications. November 1 should be a reasonable target date to have an offer in writing.

4. Visit three new cities by June 1. See #1: live more, stress less. When I studied abroad in college, I traveled nearly every weekend. (Long weekends for Catholic holidays (and no class) helped this statistic considerably.) If this year's winter in Stuttgart is anything like last year's winter (cloudy, rainy, lifeless, and miserable), the best way to survive will be to get out of the city as much as possible. According to iCal, I have 17 free weekends between now and June 1. I have been keeping a list of new cities to visit and at the top of that list are Heidelberg, Dresden, Hamburg, and Amsterdam. Perhaps I'll even visit all four.

5. Skype more often with family and friends. What's the point of being all the way over here if I don't share it with the people who mean the most to me? Blogs and phones are great; Skype is even better.

What are some of your New Year's goals and/or resolutions?