Era of the kangaroos

Welcome back everyone!

It's been quite some time since I last blogged here. But the radio silence is about to end, as I will be travelling to the Australian continent in the foreseeable future. More infos will follow soon, so stay tuned! :D

-Jan

Returning home

Greetings everyone,

the time of departure has arrived, and I am very sad to say that on my last day in New York I lost my cellphone including ALL the pictures from my east-coast trip and the goodbye-pictures taken at Chapel Hill. :/
Well, it's not the end of the world, I will treasure the memories but unfortunately can't share them with you.

See you in Jena!

-Jan

Touring along the east coast

Hi guys,
guess what, the internship is DONE! Report is condluded, work is done, so I packed my stuff and on the 30th of June Herbert and I started our epic road trip to Washington D.C. Unfortunately I don't have pictures transferred on my computer yet, (please be lenient with me) so I'll just add some random internet images. We arrived late afternoon to be greeted by one of my old indian friends, Akshay, who was so kind as to let us stay at his place for two nights. Next day we pretty much did the tourist-tour rushing through all the marvellous sights DC has to offer, as we would leave already the next day. So we visited the Obama's residence (White House), the capitol, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial (picture), and several museums of the Smithsonian institution. I strongly recommend checking them out if you get the chance, especially the one for natural history!
On Thursday we headed out to Philadelphia and were greeted by very narrow streets and insanely expensive parking costs ($7.5 for 30 minutes!). The Indipendence Hall and the Independence Bell are the main attractions within the old city, the rest we spared ourselfes.
On Friday it was time to say good bye to my roommate to continue on to Boston, Massachusets, where I am right now. It's independence day and i reckon a lot will be happing today in this city. So I'll end here and might leave a post once I get to New York.

-Jan

Only two weeks remaining ...

... and I will be leaving Chapel Hill. Can't believe I already stayed here for three months already, unbelievable how time flies! I finally handed in my first draft for the scientific report, and will be doing some more lab work while waiting for the editing remarks.
So World Cup started and most people follow the games, although not showing as much enthusiasm as compared to Germany (guess that's to be expected).
Anyway, hope both teams (GER & USA) do well in tomorrow's games. Go German 11!

-Jan

P.S.: What you are seeing on the upper right corner is a cathode luminescence image of a zircon grain from one of the samples I work on. Ain't it nice zonation?

1st glide

Heya!

just a quick supplement to the Outer Banks trip. Enjoy. ;)

-Jan

P.S.: World Cup 2010 finally started, yay!

Of Montreal in town

Hello people,

This week I went to an alternative band concert in a club called Cat's Craddle, which is famous in North Carolina for hosting indipendent rock concerts (only alternative would be in Raleigh, capital city of NC). So that day it was Of Montreal who were performing, and man they did perform! It wasn't just music, they had some stage acts as well while playing music! For those of you who are not afraid of new styles of music this is definately something to look into, although I must admit hearing them life is about 1 thousand times better than on youtube or likewise. ;)
Anyway Of Montreal is kind of an dadaistic Indie-Popband form Athens (Georgia). They've been performing since 1997 and perform in this area almost once every year. After the show we even got the chance to talk to a few band members (and some fans, who like to dress up just like the band does).

Alright, I'll see you guys later!

-Jan

The dream of flying ...

Imagine ...

you are tugged into a triangular shaped piece of nylon and aluminum, you grab two handles attached to the sides of your co-pilot and lift off from the earth's surface, dragged by a small airplane. You shoot up 2000 feet (about 700m) into the blue sky, and then ... the string between you and the airplane is cut and you start to drift gently in the air ... it's an overwhelming feeling of joy. But let me start this story a day before.

Last weekend it was finally time for Herbert and me to go to the Outer Banks, which is a group of small islands in front of North Carolina's Atlantic coast. We got there and were greeted by sunshine. First we went to the Wright Brothers National Memorial, the birthplace of human's flight history. It was this very area in 1902 and 1903 were Wilbur and Orville Wright successfully tested their air vehicle, managing to both lift off and to land a motorized aircraft for the first time.

We stayed at a campground overnight, enjoying the beach, playing some basketball (i got my ass kicked big time!) and watched the stars at night. The next day it was finally time for us to raise inthe the air just like the Wright Brothers 100 years ago, only slighty different: HANG GLIDING! So we went up the coastline to catch the tandem flights (see intro).
It was most enjoyable. Definately someting that you should try out when you get the chance to. Next, we headed south to arrive on time for the beginners lessons at the sand dunes, just like the Wright Brothers did (one of the reasons they chose the Outer Banks was because falling on soft sand does not hurt much ;D). Time flew and before we knew we it we were back on the road towards Chapel Hill.
What an amazing weekend. But now a lot of writing needs to be done as the deadline is drawing frightingly close.

Anyways that's it and I hope to hear form you guys soon! (Enjoy the weekend, seems Jena's finally fortunate to experience some decent days of mild temperatures.)

-Jan