Thunder, Lightning, Communicating

The weather has been rather ridiculous here in Karlsruhe as of late. I was woken up last night around 2 AM to the sounds of the Battle Of Jutland being waged in the skies above the town (that's right, no matter what the situation, I can always weave in a little bit of British Naval History; don't be jealous). Really though, the thunder was ridiculous. I woke up in the morning to find a very large amount of rainage going on, but thankfully it had all but completely abated by the time I got out of the shower. I've been really lucky with the weather so far this trip. It seems like everywhere I go, the forecast calls for rain or thunderstorms, but by the time I get there the weather has really improved. As I sit here in my room and type this I can actually hear another storm rolling on its way in. Hopefully it won't be as loud as last night's.

So I finally got to see a German wastewater treatment plant! Yaaay! Dr. Müller and a group of students took a field trip up to Böbingen yesterday (Monday) and so Melissa and I went with them. It was a lot bigger than the ones I have seen in the US. And it didn't smell nearly as bad, which I enjoyed to say the least. We took a two-hour tour of most of the plant, and I really didn't understand much of what was being said, but everything looked cool. After the tour we all went into the main office and enjoyed bottles of Coke and juice. It seems to be quite the theme here for companies to cater for their guests. I wish more American companies were into giving out free food everytime a group of students took a tour.

The local Erasmus group (a European student exchange program) here in Karlsruhe meets every Tuesday evening at a different bar around town. This week's was just down the street from me, so I went to that tonight. It was pretty nice. I bumped into a couple of people I had met in Heidelberg this weekend and I met a couple of fellows from France who really enjoyed my Canadian friend's accent. All-in-all it made for a pretty good night out, and I certainly think I will attend the get-togethers in the future.

On a cloudier note, the experiment at work isn't going so well. We can get individual pieces of it to work, but not in a manner that allows us to put the entire thing together. It also seems that there was some miscommunication regarding the concentration of a particular reactant to be used, so now I don't know if my math is correct. I'm just glad that this isn't my project. On the other hand, I do really enjoy working on it, and I certainly hope that it is successful.

So with that said, "No, just a cola for me, bitte.".