Willkommen in Deutschland

I've finally arrived in Germany! I am staying at the ISG Hotel tonight until my guesthouse apartment is ready tomorrow. The front desk receptionist is very nice; he got me food, so he's on my good side. The room itself is about what you would expect from a hotel in the states (though I do have a balcony, which is a nice touch).

The flight and connection went very smoothly. I left Boston at 7:00 PM eastern on a 7 hour flight to London, then switched to Lufthansa for the final hour to Frankfurt after a two-hour layover. Listening to all of the British security guards speaking was inexplicably funny -- either I really love British accents, or I'm simply overtired. On second thought, it was probably the latter; I managed a few hours of sleep on the plane, but that's all. I just woke up from a much-needed half-hour nap that lasted for four hours when I slept through my watch alarm. Hmmm. Maybe that alarm clock would have been a good idea. Luckily, I imagine I'll be pretty adjusted to the six-hour time difference tomorrow.

I went to the ISG Hotel restaurant downstairs for dinner, and I sat ouside on the porch because it was nice outside. I looked over the menu and ordered in German, and the waitress chuckled. In perfect English, she flips over my menu and says, "English is on the back, dear." Ouch. I hadn't noticed the English, but I would have ordered in German anyway. Honestly, I was getting bratwurst and french fries -- not too hard to decipher in German. This seems to be indicative of how the German people in this region operate: they all know English, and they like to speak it. Unfortunately, this makes it a little diffcult to practice my German, but I'm sure that with some work I'll pick it up anyway.

Heidelberg is very picturesque in places, though I've only driven through it at this point. EMBL is actually nestled in the woods halfway up a large hill that overlooks the town. I went for a walk this afternoon to explore, but there isn't too much around that I could find, except for an organized soccer league with a bunch of little scary-good German kids. No wonder we never do well in the World Cup.

Only 48 Hours...

...until I ship out for Heidelberg!  Actually, even less than that now.  Unfortunately, I have only just begun to pack, get Euros, read the lab's papers, learn German, and do all of that other fun stuff that will allow me to survive for the next three months.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let me rewind for a second.  I've just finished my freshman year at Princeton, and this summer I will be interning at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in the Korbel group.  The only problem is that I've never been out of the USA.  Except to Canada, which doesn't count.  As of two months ago, I spoke zero German, and I'm going it alone -- I'm not travelling with any organized program.  In short, I'm just getting a job in Germany and seeing how it goes.

I decided to call this blog "Ich verstehe nicht," which is German for "I do not understand," or "I understand nothing."  I think this will in all likelihood be a pretty fitting summary of my experience at first.  I hope that will change by the end of the summer, however.  Hopefully, I'll pick up a bit of the German language and culture, along with the science I'll be shoving into my skull on a daily basis.  I'll let you know how it goes, on all of these fronts.  You can follow along at http://jimingermany.blogspot.com/

Wish me luck!