Recent developments

The past weeks have been hectic, not just in my life, but in events around the world as well. The fact that I have huge problems with contamination in my cultures (if they don't refuse to grow at all) lets research progress quite slowly and dissatisfyingly, so I'll just skip work for now until something interesting actually happens...

With some international interns and students I went to Cape Point as well as to Robben Island within two days, if you don't know what those are, look them up. The former was beautiful, a great drive, view and experience, the latter rather interesting historically, not highly interesting by itself, but coming to life when you imagine all the things and stories and history that happened on that Island.

I've also finally made it up Table Mountain (just Saturday) taking the Platteklip Gorge Route (more or less the shortest, up from the Cable Car), taking us 2 hours to do it. It was amazing and I can't wait to explore other routes and areas of the Table mountain itself. Up there it was very cold, the icy wind cooled me down in my shorts and thin sweater in no time, but what a sight! We've been having good weather again from Friday on, pushing temperatures up to 23°C making it warm especially in the hot African sun. Last night I made it up Lion's Head for the second time, this time in 40 minutes (phew, tired). It's good fun and this time the view wasn't obstructed by a sea of clouds to one side which gave an amazing view to the sunset and later the city at night.

The World Cup is nearing with huge steps now, less than 10 days to go, time to find a good bar/public viewing place to go to... thinking of going to a public viewing area in a township for a SA game, will be interesting! :) Many people here are excited about it, talks about it on TV and radio are disproportionately many, but often the content focuses more on possible problems for the team and in infrastructure as well as economic impact as general positive news. One must also bear in mind though that as a former English colony much of the white population fancies Rugby (an South African team just won the Super 14 championship) and cricket and is to a great degree rather ignorant of soccer, in contrast to the black population.

Reading about the oil spill in the gulf that's been going on for weeks now can just make you roar in anger towards greedy, idiotic leadership in BP and also raises the question of why the American government was so under-prepared. It's not just incredibly frustrating to witness both their inabilities to handle the situation but also to get more news everyday of the utterly catastrophic proportions of the continuous effluence of crude oil. The worst thing is how they deliberately accepted the consequences we now face and the state-control completely failed in overseeing and providing protection for the environment as well as the population along the coast that is strongly and directly affected.

Following further news I was joyfully surprised about Lena winning the Eurovision Song Contest and could hardly believe what kind of positive impact her winning seems to have had on the German population and especially in the media. It sure was fun seeing her and so many being excited and happy, certainly her performance was outstanding and she is such a likable and undepraved young woman and I can't but smile at her success, hoping that it will not spoil her. Wouldn't it be marvelous if she could retain her light-hearted particular self?

What I was quite shocked and upset about yesterday was the news of Bundespraesident Koehler's resignation, in his own words due to lack of respect for his office. Though I can to some extend understand his problem, I deeply regret his decision since he was the moral compass of the government, the one person you could be sure of to be of absolute sincerity and integrity. Where is Germany going?
In terms of the World Cup at least it's going to be extremely challenging having to go without another player dropping out due to injury. Seeing the game vs. Hungary was fun, making me less worried about our midfield, but more about our keeper and now our defense. Well, there is only one way to find out...

Too much to do, too little time...

Ah, what to say? I know it's been very long since my last post and I've shunned taking the time to write up a proper account, also keeping in mind that I will have to select a couple of photos (they exceed 1000 by now, could be more, yes, but still a lot to choose from).

Anyway, back to actual interesting stuff. I've been working in the lab for a couple of weeks now (actually just two, since the first two were spent on reading papers and gluing my eyes to Google scholar) and research is coming along... well, slowly but surely. It's interesting to learn and experience the full process of having an idea what to inquire upon to planning, proposing, preparing and actually doing it. Right now I'm still in the process of doing preliminary tests for optimum conditions. If you have no clue whatsoever what I'm actually doing here as part of my studies as a Bioengineer here is a quick layout for you:
For my intermediate thesis (=Studienarbeit, like a Bachelor thesis) I'm doing research on lignocellulose (wood) degradation (rotting) using bacteria (you know what that is) for bioethanol (fuel) production. Pretty cool, ah? Yeah, well, let me tell ya, you can't get much done in just three months, but it's interesting. Luckily my bug grows pretty fast, let's me start from the beginning faster if I screw up (=important). But until now everythings gone pretty ok, though I'm not sure how usable my data is. I collected quite a bit this week (~750 values), essential outcome: pH A is fine after one day. Well, could have been worse, like pH B after 7 days (meaning I would have had to go in saturday and sunday as well, arg!), but yeah, welcome to science. I'm going back over to engineering again after this! ;)

As much as I would to extend this post and tell you all about the last couple of weeks, for the sake of this not being delayed for weeks I will just mention most of them and I may write about them at another time. As always, you are welcome to inquire on them personally... among the are: seeing the Cape Town Castle and the Company Gardens (wonderful on a sunny day!), and some of the

City Bowl in parts (like Long St. where the bars are) in a couple of different days and nights (mostly those) as well as of course the V&A Waterfront. Sports wise owing to the long-term British occupation Rugby and Cricket are very big here and going out to see a game is very fun. Yesterday was special, because it was a terrific day to go around the Peninsula and see the Cape of Good Hope, which I did with some international students I had met at a DAAD (german exchange student service) football tournament in one of the townships (Khayelitsha) the week before. I'll post some Cape Point pictures later, since I haven't yet pulled them off the camera, but that was a great experience!

Cape Town - first impressions

I've waited with this post quite a while. For one because doing the title justice in accordance to what I've actually seen seems an impossibility... I've driven quite a bit around the Cape Peninsula (or rather, I was given the quick 'overview-tour'), which already held so many different impressions that many of them I can only mention, since I just don't have the time to tell them in detail. Seeing the Table-mountain, Lion's Head, Signal Hill and even far further False Bay with a lunch stop in Simon's town around the misty cliffs it's even harder to select no more than three pictures. Furthermore I got a lot of material of funny Cape Town penguins and ignorant baboons, strolling along the road with their young, eating whatever they find.

Today I got my rental car from a small place in the city run by two likable brothers, which specialize in long-term rental for foreign students and then off to Bellville, Cape Peninsula University of Technology. It was actually a bit challenging, since all my reflexes go towards the wrong direction, but I managed, even if I more often turned on the wiper than the indicator... There I was met by absence of my supervising tutor (who came in later) as well as the Professor (which is still stuck in the UK), giving me a chance to see the small, but fine lab and get to know the bunch I'll be working with. Later in the day I started out with paper-reading, which can be really tiring, but first a proper research proposal must be written.
Plans for this week include Braai (BBQ ZA way!) and surfing-lessons!

Jozi, oh yeah!

After a long but quite pleasant flight (thx to being upgraded to Business, in spite of me wearing Jeans) we arrived in Johannesburg this morning. After settling into the hotel and checking out the mall right next to it (people there were really friendly, I particularly liked that) we went off for a short tour into the center of Jozi, up the „Top of Africa“ and finally to the Apartheid museum. Some of the time we were the only white people around, a bit scary, but nothing to worry about (since nothing happened). After coming back to the Hotel and enjoying a hot shower we went to the „Bull Run“ and let our tongues be tickled by delicious South African Steak and Wine, after which a Beer in the Hotel Bar rounded the evening. Now we’re gonna catch much needed sleep and will walk toward the Nelson Mandela Square tomorrow. Well, I can’t complain!

one more day

It is truly only one more day to go (now that it is Tuesday). I'm thinking about language at the moment... I'm probably just too lazy for a bilingual blog... so does it need to be in English? ...which implies I need your Feedback!

To actual facts now: Today I slept a bit more than usual, catching up at least a slice of the sleep lost over the past week. After
wrapping up some things concerning work I collected my new cam and dissolved some chaos from arriving late last night to receive some friends for a quick "see-you-one-last-time" evening with talk & wine. Very enjoyable. I will truly miss you guys, but thankfully you gave me something to hold onto... though I feel I haven't even arrived back before I leave right again.
The shot's done with my new cam btw, a F200EXR.