There and back again - 21.12.12

I got up, had some oatmeal, and took trains to the Frankfurt airport.  My bags were overweight.  It was annoying and I got some snickers when people saw me put them on, but wearing 7 layers and putting all your books in your pockets is an effective way to get more weight through security.  I had to leave the Almdudler, though, because they don't let you carry fluids through security.
I listened to Timaeus on the transatlantic flight.  You know a book is interesting if the introduction is longer than the book itself.  After that flight, though, I was too tired to listen anymore.  There's only so much Plato you can take in one day.
When I got to the Dallas airport, they were giving all soldiers priority boarding.  When I got to Albuquerque, I noticed that Americans are much more patriotic than Germans.  This would have never happened in Germany:

I took a shuttle to Santa Fe where Daniel picked me up and took me to Los Alamos, where I went straight to bed.  Yep, I'm writing this the next day.
That's my trip!  Thanks for reading.  I had fun and learned a lot.  I'd recommend it to anyone adventurous enough to do it.

Test - 20.12.12

This morning I got up early, took a bus to Pinneberg to get a book I had lent, and took a train to Hamburg.  I walked to the Goethe Institut Hamburg for the last time to take my C1 test.  It was pretty hard, but I feel like I passed it. The reading, listening, and writing tests took the whole morning, and the speaking test took a half an hour in the afternoon.
I got my suitcases I had stored in the staff break room during the tests and went back to the train station.  All of the trains from Hamburg to Frankfurt were canceled, so I jumped on a train to Hanover, where the trains were running without delay.

Last day of work - 19.12.12

I went to work, got a lot done, sold my bike, went out to lunch with the Grubers, and had a web meeting with the Swedes and Brits.  Talk about a productive last day.  Afterwards I went to institute in Hamburg, where they had a Christmas party complete with an improvisational play and a cookie competition.  It was fun.  I had my roommate tell me to turn the light off for the last time.  Now I need to pack all my belongings into my bags for tomorrow and get as much sleep as possible.

Class ends - 18.12.12

After sleeping in a little, I went to Hamburg, walked around a lot, and finished up my Christmas shopping.  I went to Miniature Wonderland and saw the world's largest model train system with trains, cars, boats, airplanes, hot air balloons, and lots of little people in a little world.  It was like being a kid reading a Where's Waldo book, except there was no Waldo.  Maybe I just didn't look hard enough.
I had my last German class in Hamburg.  We finished getting ready for the test on Thursday.
I thought of another benefit of not seeing the sun for weeks at a time: no tan lines!
I got home late, and now I need to pack.

Fast fertig - 17.12.12

This morning I unregistered my residence with the German government and went to Ralf's house and "didn't work" because my work permit expired on the 15th.  Actually, there wasn't much for me to do, so I left after a few hours and came "home" to the apartment where I lived yesterday.  Officially I'm a homeless, jobless bum for the next week, but I'm doing fine.  I'm just bored.  I have nothing to accomplish for the next few days, and no friends within easy visiting distance.  I'll make it.

Neumünster - 16.12.12

Today we sang a Christmas program during sacrament meeting in Neumünster.  It was nice.  We had our own Sunday school, in which we were told that as a result of some changes in the European church organization, next year is the last year the church will officially support the Vocalis choir.  They're trying to make stronger stake activities instead of maintaining a regional choir, which is understandable.  But everybody is sad about the end of the 7-year tradition that some people call the German tabernacle choir, especially after yesterday, but the decision comes directly from the area presidency, and we support the area presidency.
Everybody in the choir lives south of Kiel, so it was easy to find a ride south to Quickborn.  The time is coming for me to start finishing things and packing up.  I'll probably watch a movie or something this afternoon, too.

Weihnachtskonzert - 15.12.12

I got up at 5:30 this morning and took trains to Neumünster and then to Kiel.  I had a lovely walk along the port.  I've never been to Hawaii, but I imagine the Baltic Sea during December is pretty much the same experience:

I arrived at the Petruskirche in Kiel.  It's a cool old Catholic church whose roof is an upside-down hull.  I guess there are more shipbuilders than architects in Kiel, but it looks really cool and the acoustics are quite good:

We practiced, did some recording, sang in an old-folks home, and prepared for our concert.  We sang the same songs as the other concert (Vivaldi, Haydn, etc.) but we did a much better job.  When I was told that we needed to have a second encore ready, I thought, "who do we think we are?"  Some important politician talked about our charity contribution (Schleswig-Holstein something Vorsitzender), we gave our concert, and we gave the two encores after standing ovations.  After the second encore, though, the person who introduced us took the microphone and asked for another encore.  We sang our Noel song again, and after a few minutes of applause we left the stage.  It was an amazing night.  I'm glad Ralf and Anke were there, since I don't have any family in Germany.
We went to various church members to spend the night.

Coming to an end - 14.12.12

Ralf and I settled all our finances today, then I did a bit more programming.  I accomplished what I meant to accomplish today before lunch, so I spent the rest of the day playing with some javascript libraries.  It's hard to focus when you know you're leaving in a few days and you've already presented your work.  I ended up leaving a bit early.  I watched some TV in my apartment.
I'm going to bed early to rise early.  I'm healthy and wise.

Back home - 13.12.12

I just got back home to Quickborn.  It's strange that the number of pageviews on my blog hasn't gone down even though I haven't updated my blog in almost a week.  You're all in a routine you'll have to break in a few weeks when I stop updating.
I started the day by showing Brandon the Berlin subway system.  I last saw him on a bus headed to the airport.  Then I took a train to Wittenberg, which means not only that I visited the last German Bundesland (now I've been to all 16!), but I saw yet another city that claims to be the birthplace of the reformation.  This one has a legitimate claim, though.  I visited the church that had the first German mass, then the bigger Schlosskirche.

There were no theses nailed to the door.  There wasn't even a hole where there used to be a nail:

After I had pulled my suitcase around in the snow enough, I got on a train back to Berlin.  All the trains to Hamburg were delayed or canceled, so I tried going to Hanover, which usually has many trains to Hamburg, but they were all canceled or delayed, too.  I finally got on a train going to Kiel, and got off in Hamburg.  I have no idea what is going on, but it's good to be back home.

More Berlin - 12.12.12

We took a taxi over to the intercontinental hotel for the exciting conclusion of the winter simulation conference.  I actually got to talk to a few people who passed by.  After we had taken down the booth, we had the rest of the day to see Berlin.  We changed clothes and went straight for the Pergamonmuseum.  I think it was the coolest museum I've ever seen, and that includes the British Museum.
They had all the freezes from the Altar of Pergamo.  The Byzantines had used the stone from the old Hellenistic temple to help build the walls around the city.  In the 1800's they were using the marble from the walls to make lye, so the Germans took all of the sculptures that had been hidden in the walls to Berlin to put in the museum.

Pergamo was one of the seven cities that John wrote to in the Book of Revelation, but that wasn't the most impressive thing in the museum.  I also saw the Ishtar Gate reconstructed from original bricks from the gates King Nebuchadnezzar built around Babylon.

The most ornate stonework was in the market gate, which had been destroyed by an earthquake.  Some people wanted to use only traditional techniques when reconstructing the gate in the museum, but those techniques had failed once before, so they put an iron frame to reinforce it.

There was also an amazing Islamic art display.  You'll have to go to Berlin.  We took some time to walk around the city and see the Brandenburg Gate again, but now I want to go to bed early.

Winter Simulation Conference, Day 2 - 11.12.12

Today was a bit more interesting.  We manned the booth for a few hours, then we had a little meeting with Stephan.  I presented my work for the last few months, what I added, what changes I made, the organization, etc.  It went over well.  We had lunch and went back to the booth.
At the end of the day, we packed up and went to dinner at a nice restaurant.  I had some duck.  It was fun.

Winter Simulation Conference, Day 1 - 10.12.12

I think today may have been the most boring day of my entire life.  I spent most of the day in a booth with Brandon (from America), Ralf (from Germany), and Steven (from Holland).  We are exhibitors, and we have an exhibitors booth with all the other exhibitors.  Not very many people walked by, and we only had the chance to talk to a few of those that did.
We went to the presentation by Stephan Seidel from the Fraunhofer Institut.  He presented the project I've been working on for the last few months.  It was in a group of three presentations, and it was by far the most interesting, even though I didn't learn anything from it because I had proofread his presentation paper.
The other presentations were an hour of jargon so technical and abstract that I had no idea what they were about (and I'm not an uneducated person) and almost nobody had any questions.
I walked around a little and talked to people about their software, but by far the most interesting was the booth of the Math Works.  I started talking to them about my optimized linear algebra software, and one of the people there used to be in the numerical group.  He said he could get me in contact with people who are interested in my project, of which there are only a handful in the world.  He also said that he knows the guy who started the LINPACK project, the predecessor to LAPACK.  That's kind of like telling a history buff that you could arrange a personal meeting with George Washington, except this guy is actually still alive.
We had a nice dinner in our hotel, talked, and now I'm in bed.

Christmas Market - 9.12.12

Today we had a little meeting with our distributors from Switzerland and Poland and we set up the stand for tomorrow, but we had a good portion of the day free.  My coworker Brandon came from the USA, and it's kind of fun to see his first experience in Germany.  We went to a restaurant and he tried to order just water to drink, which you can't really do, etc.  We went to the Christmas market and had Kinderpunsch.  We walked around town a bit.  I've decided which car I'm going to buy when I get back home:

All in all, it was a pretty relaxing day.

Berlin - 8.12.12

I didn't sleep well last night.  I was too excited.  Today I went to Berlin!
I got up and took the train to Ralf's, where we started our drive to Berlin.  We drove, added some oil, drove, and put our clothes in the hotel.  Then we were free to explore Berlin.
We walked through the Brandenburg Gate.

We Walked up and down the dome of the Bundestag.

We ate currywurst and went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum.  I watched some of Regan's speech at the Brandenburg Gate.  I've heard the quote "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" so many times followed immediately with videos of people with sledge hammers tearing down the wall, I thought the events happened one right after another.  There was actually a good portion of the speech after that quote and a few years of politics before the wall came down.  I guess film juxtaposition isn't always in real time.

Manschettenknöpfe - 7.12.12

I finished my code migration today, which was weeks of work.  After lunch, Ralf and I went and bought a few things for next week.  When we got back, I wrote a function that converts a binary adjacency matrix into a next-vertex-along-the-shortest-path matrix.  It was like eating dessert after a large meal.  I just wish there were a proper term in graph theory to describe it.
I did my laundry this evening to get ready for next week.  Our apartment complex shares laundry machines and driers in the basement.  When I went to put my laundry in the drier, someone had already filled both of them.  I assumed they belonged to the same person, so I put them both into one and put my clothes into the other.  The lady came down to put more money in the electric switch.  I put more money in her switch and tried to explain to her what I had done, but my charades were more effective than my German.  If only I knew Turkish.
The switches turn off at 8:40PM.  I was reading when it turned off.  I heard a click in the next room, and went around the corner to find the timer under a removable cover.  My clothes were dry, though, and I didn't want to mess with it.

Nikolaustag - 6.12.12

When I got home yesterday, my shoes were muddy from walking through the snow, so I put them on the balcony.  They were really cold when I walked to the train station this morning.
Last night I stayed up late for an important interview via Skype.  Of course I was in my pajamas during the interview so I could go to bed immediately afterwards, but it was hard to sleep.  This morning I got up and was walking to the train station as the sun rose:

Seeing the sun rise before I get to work means I'm late to work.  It's not much of a problem.  I just worked a little late.  It was dark when I got home, too.  In a few days the sun will only be 13 degrees above the horizon at its zenith.
When I got to work, I had a box of chocolates on my mousepad.  I didn't think much of it:  "Thanks Grubers."  During our lunch conversation, though, I realized that my thanks had been falsely directed:  it's St. Nikolaus' day.  Last night all the children put their shoes outside so he could fill them with chocolate.  Since my shoes were on the balcony instead of on the ground floor, he brought my treats by the office.

Winter - 5.12.12

Today was beautiful.  I saw this out of the window in my office:

I got a good amount of work done today, then bought some groceries on the way home.  I started my German language comprehension practice, but the DVD audio was in English.  There were German subtitles, but that doesn't help much.  To make sure it wasn't just the first episode, I watched the second and third.  They were also only in English.  I decided to just watch whatever is on TV in German.  Is this really what normal people do with their spare time?
I have to stay up until 11:00, which is 2PM California time.

The day backwards - 4.12.12

The sky precipitated all day today, ranging from a drizzle to a mild downpour, until I walked home from the train stop through a peaceful snow.  I rode the train home from my class in Hamburg, where I learned more vocab and grammar.  I need to learn a lot more vocab than grammar.  Before my class I borrowed some DVDs from the library that I'll use for "German language comprehension practice" aka watching Seinfeld in German in my very little free time.  I went into the library to warm up from walking around the Christmas market and buying a few presents, which was my reward to myself for making another small milestone at work, even though it was pouring rain.

Schnee im Norden - 3.12.12

I went to work this morning as usual where I finished a few things from my Italy trip, then continued my development project.  Every once in a while Ralf and I will talk about something, then we'll continue working.  I somewhat prefer sharing an office.

After work I brought my marzipan Adventscalendar home and took the bus to Pinneberg where I played some games with some friends from church at the Eggers' apartment.  On the way back big fluffy flakes of snow started falling and coating the ground.

Adventsempfang - 2.12.12

This morning we went to church in Friedrichsdorf.  I hadn't realized this before, but the Gospel of Luke begins and ends in the temple.  Luke is always full of surprises.
After church we had another dress rehearsal, but this time in the Villa next to the temple where the temple presidency lives.  I had never realized how different acoustics and instrument availability affect traveling musical groups.
The dress rehearsal was preparing for the Adventsempfang, an annual event in the Villa on the 1st Advent.  From the information I could gather by talking to various choir members, the choir has existed for 7-8 years and Adventsempfang has happened since the Frankfurt temple was dedicated in 1987.  Adventsempfang was started to calm some political opposition to the construction of the temple.  Relations are now much better, but still every year they welcome the mayor of Friedrichsdorf, various pastors, and a few other local leaders to a VIP musical celebration in the villa.  It was simply beautiful, but I don't have any pictures.
We sang most of our songs except for the Glorias, but there was still some Vivaldi: the Meissner family came from Vienna wearing very Austrian clothes, and they played the violin, cello, and harp, and sang a few songs, too.  It was the kind of Christmas party I want to have in my house in a few years, with very fancy snacks afterwards.
There was another performance of the same thing for the area and mission presidencies, but those of us from the north left before that one.  I got home in Quickborn quite late as it is, and others are driving further north.

Geburtstag - 1.12.12

This morning we got up and drove into the heart of Rheinland-Pfalz.  We arrived in Idar-Oberstein and went to the Christuskirche, a beautiful protestant church where we had our concert.

After the dress rehersal, we had lunch and went up to the Burg Oberstein, a cool castle where we sang at the local Christmas market.

We had a few minutes to walk around the castle and look at the shops that had been set up.  When we were in a little room in the dungeon, a salesman noticed that I had a songbook in my hand and made us sing a song, so we sang the alto and bass parts of a Christmas song.  It was fun!
After dinner, we warmed up and sang our concert.  We made a few mistakes, but we were given a standing ovation at the end.
For those of you that weren't there (probably everybody reading my blog), here is a link to a youtube video of an Armenian choir singing Vivaldi's Gloira in D.  Yes, we also sang all twelve parts.  That was about half of our concert.  I was the guy in the back with the bow tie, except our choir was less Armenian and more German, and instead of an orchestra we had a pipe organ, a harpsichord, a piano, a cello, and a flute.  It was a beautiful Christmas concert, and probably the classiest thing I've ever done.  After the concert, I got to play a little Bach on the harpsichord:

When we got back to Frankfurt, it was snowing.  It was probably the best birthday I've ever had.

Alps Flight - 30.11.12

What a day.  I started by discussing Mercurial and answering a few other questions, then Luciano took me to the airport.

I flew over the fresh snow of Swiss cities (try saying that 10 times fast) and looked down on the alps and clouds.  It was simply majestic.

I landed in Frankfurt and walked around the city with a friend and ate at the Christmas market.  Then I had choir practice for a few hours.  I've done many very different things today.