Going for a drive

So one of the top things of To Do list for Germany was to rent a car and take it for a spin.  I love driving, and since coming to MIT I really missed it.  So, what else but to rent a car?

My friend hadi came down from regensburg to join me for the trip.  We decided that we’d head south and check out the towns.  He reckoned that it would be a great place to see.  I think it was a good call.

Alright so here’s the place where I rented the car… (Sixt car rental)

My car for the day (A Golf Volkswagen GTI)

This is supposed to be the castle that the Disney Logo is based on…

and here’s a gallery of the rest of the pics we took:

Update update update!

Fiiine!

It’s friday! Finally.  I’ve reserved to rent a car tomorrow, which I’m really pretty excited about.  Getting the chance to drive again is pretty damn sweet.  Even if it’s going to cost an arm and a leg (hey, I’d be tempted to sell a kidney for the privelage…maybe…if it was a sweet ass car and I didn’t have to abide by any laws…and if I had unlimited fuel and lifetime free service… okay that’s probably a lot more expensive than a kidney.).My friend Hadi also coming down tonight to visit, so that he can come along for the driving tomorrow. Apparently we’re heading south (I don’t care as long as we’re going there by car :P).

I’ve also finally managed to purchase a pillow and comforter (of the, 100% Synthetic ohmygodI’msotiredofhavinganallergicreactiontofeatherpillows variety)  I took the cheapest I could find in the store, but it still worked out to ~EUR 35.  I think my problem is that I hate shopping so I get impatient and eventually just want it to be over with so I end up settling for paying more than I should for things.  Meh.  At least it means I’m poorer so I shop less :P  A sort of self correcting system.

My tasks for the rest of my time here are:  Learn some goddam german (bleech).  Try not to hate the job.  Start studying for intro biology (to make life easier next semester), look into how this whole grad school thing works and plan out what I want to do after college (because let’s face it, my chances of getting into grad school are pretty bleak, and I’m not sure I’d be able to hack it just right now).

An interesting thing I found out about work today.  There is a ‘car pool’, where you get to take their vehicles out for a spin to run  errands, I think (lost in translation).  I *might* be able to get signed up for it, will find out on monday.  Hey, I’ve had a errand boy/delivery guy job before. Maybe if I could convince them to do this a lot.  Hey, at least now I’ll be rolling in style:P

Alright, that’s all I got.

I’m marooned

Just checked it out.  To fly home to South Africa from here costs as much as I make in a MONTH. Literally…it leaves me with 100 Eur. I can live like a king on that.

gaaah.

Shopping on a Saturday, in Hauptbanhof and Mereinplatz

Eh, I think this will mostly be a cop-out photo essay…

You know the city might have problems with being full-of-it when the taxis are Mercs and BMWs…

The view from the Hauptbanhof station

another view from the station

heh

View from inside the station. Those trains go all over the country I think.

Another view from inside the station

Inside the station some more

Merien Platz fountains (well, okay it’s more like Stachus (sp) but they’re virtually the same place)

See? I’m cheerful.

The crowds outside the Mereinplatz station

View of the station

Oh and…

This weekend, pictures!

Yay.

Why Germany can be…

Irritating and stupid:

• Banks are only open select hours. They also take a two hour lunch breaks. Officially. The whole store shuts down every day, during midday (probably one of the only times normal people have a chance to go to the stupid bank), for two hours.
• Almost no one bank wants people to open a bank account if they’re not going to be around for a unspecified, greater than a few months, period of time. Regardless. No, they don’t care why I need a bank account, they’re not interested.
• Opening a bank account involved a lot of bureaucratic bull shit. The scheduling of appointments, copying of documents, probably signing away my soul with my own blood, etc.

• Everything is closed on Sundays, except coffee shops.
• Strangely, fewer places accept credit/debit cards than one would expect.
• GERMANS ARE FUCKING GRUMPY AND SERIOUS FACED IN PUBLIC.  Most of the time in private too. It’s weird.
• 35 hour work weeks.  Everyone’s so non-stressed and unrushed to do anything, it sometimes feels like no one really wants to try all that hard to get anything done. An almost lazyness.  Hard to describe.

Great:

• Subway/public transportation ticketing costs operate on a good faith system. Seriously. They expect you to be honest and buy a ticket for the subway before you get on it, but there’s no gate stopping you from not doing that. There’s the mythical threat of being caught by a spot check, but as I’ve yet to see one I think it’s clear that the public transport people just depend on you not being a dick. This is really refreshing. It gets tiring to always be treated like you’re a convict and can’t be trusted under any circumstances, like in most other places.
• 35 hour work weeks.  I don’t think I’ve seen this many researchers/workers in one place at one time looking so not-stressed and not-sleep-deprived. It’s…healthy. *gasp*.
• Everyone recycles, not out of the goodness of their hearts but because it’s been made economically viable to do that.  You actually gain a significant portion of whatever you spent (on say, a soft-drink) back when you recycle.  Think 25 cents back for the bottle for a drink that cost you less than 1 euro. Cools.

Well that’s all I got for now.

Work…

I read papers all day today.  Woke up around 7am, got in to work at 8:30am and started reading…

Finally 4pm rolled by and I was about to leave when I was suddenly graced with an audience from the pope himself (ie, my supervisor rolled by and tried to do something actually constructive with me).  We finally started talking about what I’m going to be doing this summer.

Now, judging by the above, it sounds like I’m sort of unenthused by work.  It’s true that I’m annoyed because I feel pretty fucking bored at work and like I’m wasting everyone’s time, while my own time is also being wasted. I still don’t have internet access at work, key-card access to my building or a phone. These are all trivial things to get, and stuff my boss promised me, if only he would actually make the effort to get them. BUT! We finally made some progress, and I think the stuff I’m going to start working on is actually going to be pretty interesting.

<Technical>

Apparently the unsteady state aerodynamics of the underbody of a motor-vehicle is something that hasn’t been very well researched.  The readings/data that my boss and his previous intern took last year (of the underbody of a car) is something that has, apparently, never been done before.  It seems that my b really wants to publish a paper based on this data.  It’s going to be my job to crunch the numbers, do the analysis and come up with an interpretation of what’s going on.  So what exactly is the data about?  The whole project is an investigation into how well wind-tunnel simulations (of specifically underbody-of-the-car aerodynamics) holds up against real world results, ie when you actually drive the car around on the road.

The two situations are different for a number of important reasons like boundary layer effects, blocking, scaling, turbulence simulation (or lack thereof), rolling road simulation (or lack thereof) and so on.  The reason that wind-tunnel testing is still used in the development process of aerodynamic vehicles, even though these differences/problems are known to designers, is because wind-tunnels allow for easily reproducible tests to be made and they usually generate a good approximation of real world conditions.

We’re trying to figure out if underbody testing in the wind tunnel does in fact provide a good approximation of the real world.  This has never been done before because most motor vehicle aerodynamicists have been focused on the other parts of the vehicle such as the main body that up to now have had the most potential for improvement (in terms of reducing drag, which is always the goal).

Thus for the aerodynamic research community, if we manage to get a paper out the door, it should be pretty useful stuff!

</Technical>

First day of work! (Day 6)

Today I started work.

I got there late (I misheard “come between 8 and 9″ as “come between 9 and 10″….oops). Had to run around and do all the things my supervisor was supposed to do for me like set up my computer account, get me an id, etc,  but it was all good because I learnt a lot about the set up of the place.  They’re pretty up-tight about security, which kind of makes sense given what they do (nice cars, baby). I think I pissed off at least one person today because I had a visitors pass and wasn’t strictly speaking in a visitors area…but my boss was there and he made me do it (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it).

I got sent to the wrong place, sweated a lot and met lots of new friendly people (and an american! Someone who can speak english! He speaks german with an american accent, haha;). My first job was to proofread a paper my supervisor is about to publish.  I think he expected me to take way longer than I did to get the job done, so that’s good.  He told me that everyone had high expectations because I was from MIT (sigh) and also asked me a lot of questions about how MIT worked.  He was surprised to learn MIT’s Need Based financial aid policy, and I think initially he figured that I was having it easy by not having to pay most of it but I quickly corrected him on that (I don’t work 20 hours a week on top of a 60 hour academic work week for kicks).

Fun fun :D

My workplace itself is really pretty nice.  They have about 3-4 cafeteria like places in the main building alone, and they offer really nice food.  Everyone seems actually interested in the work they do, in that you can spot people looking at some of the cars and just talking about them for fun, looking at the exhibition of the newest models and that kind of thing. It’s cool to see people who are passionate about their jobs.

I ran into a buddy of mine from MIT who had taken a year off to work here.  We were both surprised to run into each other (the place is pretty big, so odds were low). We work in the same building ;)  My boss also said that we’re going to arrange a cellphone for me which is awesome because currently I’m using a prepaid POS.

I think this job is going to be quite alright.

Because this blog needs more interesting pictures, hmmk? Hmmk.

Day 5

So, day 5!

Ramon landed here for a couple of hours on his way to Italy and so I met up with him to hang out.  Decided we’d meet up at Haupbanhof (Munich Central Station).    After we finally managed to find each other (the station is pretty big) we went to a little turskish food cafe shop thing and had some sandwiches and beer.  Interestingly enough we ran into another MIT guy who is doing an internship here for the summer.  He’s going to be working out at some village (Erlangen I think), but he was around for the day waiting for a bus.

After we’d had a few beers we decided to head over to MarienPlatz to check things out.  The place was pretty dead, it being Sunday and all, but I took some pictures:

(See right for more pics).

After that, went home.  Webcam chatted with the gf (hehe ;), then took a nap.

After after that! Hung out with some of the locals (friends of my roomate) and we had some beers and got onto the roof of my apartment block (illegally ;)

Now, work I guess :/