An update

Oh dear, I see that it's been three weeks since my last post. I've gotta get better at this!

Firstly, due to popular demand, I'll tell you something about what I do at work. OK, so I'm working (doing my PhD studies, with a "scholarship" thing) at the Max Planck (pronounced plunk) Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology. This is one of nearly 80 MPIs in the world (mostly Germany). In ours there are ~400 people, including me. The annual budget of these places all together is ~3.2 billion NZ$, and they are the place to do research (not just science) in Germany.

I'm working on a project involving an algae called Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. This is a model organism for plants. Like people use mice to research human diseases, people also use this algae to research plant stuff, because an algae is easier to work with.

DNA is the information carried in an organism. It is the "blue print" that tells the cell if it's a dog, oak tree or worm. The information in DNA is written in a 4 letter "alphabet". In the DNA, there are sequences which describe a protein. Proteins are the things that actually do stuff in a cell, the DNA just carries the information. Proteins are not made from DNA, they are made from an intermediate thing, called RNA, which is pretty much a disposable copy of DNA. Now we get to my project, I am measuring how much RNA for every protein is produced under different conditions (like, dark, light, really light, starving, hot, cold, etc). Phew that was actually really hard to write, I hope some of it makes sense.

The annual Baumbluetenfest (blossum festival) has been on here for the last 2 weeks. You wouldn't guess it from the name, but it's the second biggest Volksfest in Germany, second only to the infamous Oktoberfest! The difference is, Oktoberfest is all about beer, Baumbluetenfest is all about wine, specifically fruit wine. It can get very roudy at night, but the 2 times I was there, the hoards of cops kept everything pretty civilised.

Here are some pictures I took in Berlin today.

Kaiser-Wilhelm Gedaechtniskirche - half was destroyed in the war, this half has been preserved as a memorial.

This angry looking baby was on a statue of Alexander van Humboldt, I think.

Berliner Dom, lamppost and Fernsehturm.

Berliner Dom again.

And that's all I've got for ya, thanks for reading, I hope everything is good back home.

Adam

Hamburg

I decided weeks ago I needed to go on a trip somewhere for the long Easter weekend, but couldn't make up my mind where. Living in the middle of Europe, it's a pretty hard decision, with so many famous places so close. In the end I decided to go somewhere in Germany because I'm embarrassed about how little I've seen of this country I'm living in. In the end, I settled on Hamburg, because I have some friends there with a comfy couch.

In Hamburg, the weather was amazing! For the 4 days I was there, I only put a sweatshirt on once, the rest of the time, I was walking around in a tshirt. The weather in Potsdam has turned too; green, sunny, warm! But Hamburg is a really nice city, quite a bit more open than Berlin, lots of big old (not actually very old, though, most of Hamburg burnt down ~100 years ago) merchant buildings, and heaps of water everywhere. The port is the 2nd biggest in Europe, even though it's 80km to the sea! There are lots of canals and lakes in the city too - the city has more bridges than Venice, even. In the city though, the highlight was probably St Nikolai church. It was bombed in the war, and hasn't been rebuilt. The bits that remain have been preserved as a monument. The tower is still ok, and we went up it for a fantastic view of the city. Unfortunately I left my camera in Potsdam, so have no photos of the whole weekend...

What Hamburg is famous for it's red light district called Reeperbahn. Kinda strangely, it's also the place to go for drinks at night. The drinks were soo cheap it was unbelievable, 50c shots and 1 euro beers. We intended to just go for a bit to see what it was all about, but the atmosphere was really great, so we had to stay an extra couple of hours. On Sunday mornings the fish market opens at 5am, so the traditional way to have a good Saturday night is to enjoy "the Kiez" until then, stumble down to the fish market, buy some fish, go home and cook it for breakfast. Yum... We took the shortcut version, and fitted a few hours of sleep in between. The fish market was very cool, again a very nice, friendly atmosphere, and stalls selling everything, including live guinea pigs.

Sunday we went to Florian's parent's place in Bremen for a bike ride. A very European bike ride. We rode along an asphalt path (as crowded as tour de France, almost) for a couple of hours to a Bier Garten where we had a Weissbier, then rode home. I didn't think it was possible, but even wearing (SPF5) sunblock, my arms were a little bit pink that evening! Aaah and that evening we had New Zealand lamb for dinner!!! It was great, tasted exactly like back home.

This is getting pretty long, so I'd better speed up a bit! We also went to Stade for a day, which is a really cute little town built in the middle ages, I think. It has narrow cobbled streets, houses that are sometimes 20 degrees off straight, and a canal. And I also went for a tourist trip on the Hamburg harbour on a boat. The commentary was in German, but I was stoked that I could understand some of what they were saying. Very big port!

And that was Hamburg, got back to Potsdam about 2am Tuesday morning, exhausted, but had a very good time. It was the perfect break, now I have to persuade my brain that it's no longer holidays and I need to do some work!

Thanks for reading, hope this finds you all well. I love hearing what's happening back home, so send me an email or something if you've got anything exciting (or not so exciting) to report!

Adam

Another update

As usual, I have to apologise for being so slack in staying in touch. Excuse 1: Nothing very exciting has happened in the last 2 and a bit weeks. Excuse 2: I've been real busy at work. The two excuses are probably very closely linked.

I did have a free Sunday a week or 2 ago, and went to see the East Side Gallery, a section of the Berlin wall that has been preserved, and decorated/graffitied/painted soon after the wall fell. Now, after 20 years, most (perhaps all?) of the paintings still visible have been restored, or painted fresh. Still, lots of them still look like they did 20 years ago. The

re's lots of new graffiti on top, I saw one tag dated the day before I was there, so it's definitely an evolving thing. Here are some pictures I took:

This is a very famous one, a Trabi (iconic East German car) breaking through the wall.

This one says something like "many small people in many small places doing many small things can change the face of the world"

No more wars. No more walls. A united world.

And this is in a different part of Berlin, showing how the wall looked when it was still in use. I thought it was an amazing contrast.

Back in Potsdam, after quite a few false starts, I'm hopeful that spring is here to stay. It was so warm today some people ate lunch outside, some even not wearing jackets! Buds are starting to burst, and a few bulbs starting to flower (see picture). I've really been hanging out for some sun, so it's great.

Hope you are all good, let me know what's up back home!

Adam

Bochum

This week I was in Bochum. Bochum is an old mining town a little bit south and a lot west of Berlin. Before I went, as I said, all I knew about Bochum was that the university looks like a spaceship, and that it's famous for musicals. The uni does look like a spaceship, but it's only famous for 1 musical (Starlight Express). It's been playing there since 1989 in the same theatre. There was even a statue of it in our hotel. There's also a subway station that looks like a coal mine. That's pretty much Bochum, not an aweful city, but nothing very exciting, either.

What was exciting, though, was the microbiology conference I was there for. This was a huge conference (compared to the other 2 conferences I've been to) - 1300 attendees, more than 600 posters, and something like 130 talks all up. There were sometimes 7 different programs in parallel, so nobody could possibly go to all the talks! It was pretty full on, so I didn't even get to work the trade exhibit for freebees, just a couple handfuls of pens. I also went into the wrong lecture hall at one point, and had to sit through the annual meeting of some society (in German), complete with voting for... something... or someone... Another highlight was the organ (like in a church) in the lecture theatre. There's something very strange about combining microbiology and organ music.

 

After all that excitement, I came back to Potsdam on Wednesday on a superfast train (250km/h). I've been hanging out for this weekend - need to catch up on quite a bit of sleep from the last 3 or 4 weeks.

Hope you are all well.

Adam

News

Hi,

I'm sorry I've been so slack with keeping in touch, I'll try harder next week. But now I've got to try to remember the last 3 weeks. I'm having trouble putting them in the right order, so I'm just going to put everything out of order, if that's OK.

I went sledding with a couple of friends the other day. It had s

nowed quite a lot for the week, but the Friday we decided to go had warmed up a bit, and it had rained quite a lot so the snow was quiet slushy. Slush is not acceptable for sledding, so we waited till about 10pm when it cooled down enough for the snow to become a bit more solid. We went to the biggest mountain in Potsdam/Spandau (a suburb of Berlin) (took about 10min to walk to the summit). 

Then proceeded to spend the next 3-4 hours walking up and sledding down. Needless to say, I felt it the next day!

Also went to a movie in the Berlinale (big, famous, film festival). Saw a kiwi movie called The Strength of Water - was very cool to hear thick "Northland accents". The director was there, and had questions and answers afterwards. A bit bizarre walking out of the theatre after watching Northland scenery for 2h into thick falling snow. Highly recommend the movie if you get the chance.

But the snow's days are numbered, I believe. It's definitely warmer, all the snow on the ground has melted. A few of us from work went iceskating last weekend, and the ice was kind of melting a bit,  I think it was the last weekend that ice rink was open. There are even buds on the trees, so spring must be just around the corner.

What's also just around the corner is a presentation I'm giving tomorrow morning (just to out lab group). I'm going to conference on the other side of Germany (in Bochum) next week, and giving the same short talk there. All the Germans look a bit sorry for me when I tell them where I'm going - but I have been told that the university looks like a space ship, and that it's the place to go in Germany if you like musicals, so it can't be all bad... Anyway, I'd better go to bed to get a good night's sleep before my presentation tomorrow.

Hope you are all well. Love hearing what you're up to! Yes, really!

Adam