Atlanta

October 2-4, 2009, mark a change for me. On these days I have left the area commonly referred to as Chicagoland for the first time since my arrival. This means that until then I had experienced the United States as a piece of land that extends from Lake Michigan to Naperville (a western suburb of Chicago, where I attended a small meeting in May 2009) from East to West, and from O'Hare airport to Chicago's Chinatown from North to South. Rumor has it that there is more to this country ...
This first trip of mine within the U.S. (I am confused: is that a "domestic" trip, despite my being German?) merges two special occasions. First, my friends Heather and Jon have returned home and settled down in Atlanta. And second, the date we chose for our reunion comprises the German national holiday (October 3), which commemorates the reunification of the German Democratic Republic ("East Germany") and the Federal Republic of Germany ("West Germany") in 1990, after the downfall of the Berlin Wall (and the Iron Curtain) about a year before.
By the way, the date of the Reunifcation Day was actually chosen randomly, because the naturaly choice, the first anniversary of the downfall of the Berlin wall on November 9, 1989, was considered inappropriate. Why? Because by some evil coincidence this day also marks the anniversary of the Reichspogromnacht in 1938, a night of excessive violence against Jewish institutions and shops commissioned by the Nazi government. And nobody wants to see inconvincible neo-nazis abusing the German national holiday for remembering the wrong thing. (Yes, history is that complicated back home!) By the way, the pogroms were originally called Reichskristallnacht, but for reasons of political correctness it is now considered inappropriate to use a term like "crystal" for a night of violence.
I seemed to me a good idea to meet my friends on a day that is historically very important for my home country, which had also hosted them for a good two years. Indeed, it continued our tradition of celebrating this day together, because Heather and Jon were in Germany at the two preceeding installments.
While for some reason the celebrations in Berlin were a bit bigger than in Atlanta, we still had a terrific time together. Ultimately, I can only speak for myself, of course, but I am under the impression that Heather is pleased that she could show me so much of her second home. (By another coincidence, she also went to college in Atlanta.)
When I arrived Friday night, Heather picked me up at the airport, which is actually the busiest in the world, because it is the main hub of Delta Airlines. She made an attempt of showing me the skyline by taking the city highway, which was more than successful: traffic in Atlanta is so bad that there is stop-and-go any time of the day and even night! But we hadn't seen each other for a while, and we are both quite chatty, so it did not matter at all. We did make it home, after getting some (local) beer from a grocery store, whose alcohol licence ended at 11:54pm (sic!) that day. Then we continued to chat until 2am, when we finally decided to hit the sack for a bit.
The next morning I also said hi to Jon, who had to grade homework papers of his students (Jon is now a professor) the night before, and usually doesn't stay up late. While Heather was making pancakes (yum yum!) for the three of us, I got the chance to take a picture of Fermi the cat. It is quite funny that he is named after Enrico Fermi, a physics Nobel laureate, because the energetically highest occupied electron states in an atom are called the Fermi edge in his honor, and really this cat is living on the edge, as you can see from the photo! We then watched Heather play pick-up soccer, before going downtown to see the Atlanta Braves vs. the Washington Nationals. The Braves are the local baseball team, who play at Turner Field, which is named after their former owner, (former) media tycoon Ted Turner, and is also the stadium where the Summer Olympics were held in 1996. Mr. Turner had negotiated a deal with the city of Atlanta, that he would pay the lion part of the Olympic Stadium, if the city paid for the tranformation into a baseball stadium. Indeed, the site does not resemble a former Olympic Stadium at all. - After an exciting baseball game, in which the Braves lost in the eleventh inning (the game was tied after nine and ten), we went out for dinner. Keeping the faith to Mr. Turner, we went to Ted's Montana Grill , where I had bison meat for the first time in my life (yum yum again!), and where I also took that photo of Heather and Jon (center left). And eventually we had a few beer on Germany in a nearby bar. Eventually I became as round as the giant Braves ball outside Turner field (top right photo).
Sunday morning marked an early start for Heather, because she is much more devoted to Catholicism than her name suggests. Meanwhile, I managed at least to have a shower. This time we had a Southern breakfast at a local diner. Lesson learned: southern food is rich and plenty! Definitely my cup of (sweet) tea! Then Jon and I had to say goodbye already, because his professional duties were occupying him again. (This workload is one of the reassons why I will refrain from continuing my career in Academia.) But Heather and I went on with sightseeing: we visited the Georgia Aquarium, the biggest aquarium in the world, where we found Nemo (bottom left photo); and we completed our tour at the World of Coca Cola (bottom right photo - I picked a soccer motif). Then we got back to the car, and Heather dropped me off at the airport. I was back home at midnight, completely exhausted, ready for a weekend break. And yet very, very happy!
As I mentioned at the outset of this post, the trip to Atlanta marked a change for me, but October 3, 1990, marked a much bigger change for Germany. You could say that Germany was rebooted - hence the photo of my shoes (I had to take them off for airport security), which are (almost) in German colors.

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

I have come to Chicago on October 25, 2008. While my original assigment was just for one year, I have made an effort to acquire some funding for an extension of my time here. Fortunately, it turned out successful: the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) has granted me a fellowship from 09/01/2009 thru 31/08/2010. Yay! This is actually a bit surprising, because I specifically indicated in the application that I have no intentions of pursuing a life-long academic career, which I thought had been the knock-out criterion for my other application with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
The only drawback I see in this is that I will have to watch the 2010 soccer World Cup (held in South Africa) while being in the US. It's not that soccer isn't any popular here, it is actually the fastest growing sport around - in the group phase at the beginning the matches usually start at around 3pm local time, which is in the morning in Chicago. Hence, it will be harder to keep track of the events than the last time (in 2006, when it was held in Germany).
But of course I can cope with that, as long as I can continue my work. In fact, just last week we had a breakthrough with the experiments, which demonstrated that the work I am being paid for now is actually possible ...

Birthday Outings

Like any other human (and non-human) being, I have my birthday coming up pretty much each and every year. I am not going to announce the exact date, nor how old I turned this year, as I assume that anyone who bothers reading this blog knows these facts anyways. However, I can give a small hint: it was between the previous and the current post. (And yes, the two months in between are exactly how often I am capable of updating this blog ...) The reason why I mention my birthday at all is because I was fortunate to celebrate it even twice this year. It was not my idea - I am blessed with formidable friends who just don't know each other well enough to hang out together. Hence, on the eve of my birthday my friend Carolina (top image, right), and her friends Jorge (left) and Tatiana (center) (all Colombian students at the University of Illinois at Chicago) took me out to the Beer Bistro. Nomen est omen, they have an as large as international variety of beer, which cured me from the condition of thinking that Germany is the epicenter of beer brewing. In the words of a former scientific advisor of mine (a Londoner turned faculty at the University of Glasgow): "It was quite a hoot!" This particularly applies to the dish that Tatiana ordered later on, which was decorated with a bunch of flaming hot peppers, and we made eating them a dare ...
The second (and, to date, last) night out to celebrate my 2009 (but not 2009th) birthday was actually two weeks late. That is because the person in charge, James (bottom image, left), is currently writing his dissertation, as to take his defense before the end of the year. Having completed a similar task not too long ago, I know all too well how time-consuming and tedious this is. Yet we did agree on a date, and James and his fiancee Jenn(y) took me out to Coalfire, a pizza place famous for its coalfire-prepared pizza. Now, in order to fully appreciate the importance of pizza to Chicagoans, you are invited to read about Deep Dish Pizza Chicago Style on Wikipedia. I have tried deep dish pizza myself, and despite my (in all modesty) noteworthy abilities in food intake, I usually surrender after half a medium-sized deep dish pizza. Considering that it is actually a kind of cheese pie, I still do pretty okay ... At Coalfire, however, the pizza is thin crust, which is a lot closer to the Italian original. The owner has experimented with superhot ovens, and he came up with a way of making a pizza within five (or so) minutes of placing the order. Although the pizza was a bit burned on a few spots, it was just purely delicious! I was quite sad that the place was closed when we went for a second time, when I was repaying the favor on the occasion of James' birthday, just a few weeks after mine. But we had deep dish instead at a place I hadn't tried before, so it was still a success.
By the way, Chicago is famous for three kinds of food: deep dish pizza, Italian beef, and Chicago style hot dogs. I am still waiting for a good opportunity to try the last, but as I will outline in the following post, I still have some time left.

The Field Museum

I have been neglecting my blog in the past two months or so. Hence an update on today's activity, which was a trip to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Lucky me got invited to go there even for free. Apparently UIC students can get free admission for the main museal attractions in the city, and they may even bring along some company. Since I am not a student anymore, I had to be the company. I actually joined two graduate students, which are both from Iran - Homa, whom I have trained in the past, and her friend, Shabnam. You may have a look at them on the two small photos on the bottom left, as well as on the large one on the right. (Homa is the one with the shorter hair.)
Now, the Field Museum is quite a big one. In order to dedicate enough attention to each and every exhibit, one needs to spend at least a week or so. Their range spans from Plants of the World over Minerals to Ancient Egypt and American Natives. Beyond these basics, there are special events, such as Pirates, and Water. (But those were not included in the free admission, so we skipped them, as we had plenty to see nevertheless!) We started out at perhaps the main attraction: Sue the Tyrannosaurus Rex. You see her in the top left. Apparently a big burger franchise has contributed to the effort of preparing Sue as an exhibit - that made people (ncluding me) wonder whether Sue's flesh has actually become a Bic Mac patty ... Perhaps that is why she looks so upset. The name, by the way, is a reference to the person who discovered the skeleton, which happens to be the most complete T-Rex skeleton that has been found thus far. The name of that person is Susan Hendrickson, for which reason the skeleton is considered a "she", while the sex is actually unknown. (I thought you could determine that from a DNA sample nowadays, but perhaps I am wrong. Or maybe it is because the DNA of T-Rex has not been decyphered yet.) Next we admired a decent collection of minerals, which was particularly appealing to me, since I am an avid collector. In the town of my parents, where I used to live until age 21, there is (or was) an annual convention on minerals, where I bought a few items for little money. But over the years I got a few things together. (Currently this collection is stored at my parents'.) Specifically I own a piece of hematite and a piece of pyrite, both of which I photographed also at the museum. Their chemical formulae are Fe2O3 and FeS2. If I may dwell on these names a little more, hematite is named after its color (cf. greek haima = red); hence also hemoglobin, the oxygen carrier molecule in the blood, which by the way also contains iron (Fe, from latin ferrum = iron) as the active center. Pyrite, on the other hand, is named after greek pyr = fire, because it was the material flintstones were hit against, in order to create sparks that would ignite a fire. - You may think that I am quite knowledgeable about these things, and perhaps that I like to brag about it, but I happen to have read the respective Wikipedia pages. Check them out yourself, they are quite instructive: pyrite, hematite, hemoglobin. After that we entered the sections on Plants of the World, but I didn't take any pictures there, because it was a bit dark in there. Then we admired the beauty of jade, followed by Ancient Egypt. There was even the mummy of a young boy (age 10 or so). While I did take a picture, I will refrain from posting it here, because after all it is a dead guy, and as far as I am concerned I would not like to become an exhibt after I have passed away. Anyways, from there we proceeded to the People of America (where I took the picture of Homa and Shabnam next to the two totem poles), ranging from the Arctic all the way to South America. Then finally all three of us were as exhausted as hungry, so we decided to end out tour there and head for some refreshments.
Taking advantage of the nationality of my company, we went for Persian food. It is quite funny, by the way, that the word Aryan is a cognate of Iran, which actually means Land of the Aryans. While there is some remote relationship between Farsi, the official language in Iran, and the Germanic languages like German and English, none of the Iranian students I have met in the US come anywhere near the idea of aryans that was worshipped in Germany a few decades ago. And neither do I, which, among other things, makes me tan much more easily than Hitler would have me allowed to ... Yet the name Iran is a rather new one, while in the past the country had been ruled for several thousands of years by the Shah of Persia. Homa had told me once that she prefers Persia over Iran, as to refer to the long-standing cultural tradition. Since that area was one of the first ever to be inhabited by a civilization, I tend to agree with her that this is justified and also a good idea. In fact, the level of sophistication of Persian cuisine is as you would expect from such an old culture. Boy, did we eat ourselves full! And the best thing was, we had an all-you-can-eat buffet, which kept the bill almost ridiculously low.
PS: I remember I once received a birthday card from my little sister, asking "did you cry a lot when the dinosaurs got extinct?" Finally I have the appropriate answer: "No, dear, because they make really cool showcases. But you have to be in Chicago to understand that." Ha!

Fourth of, er, July

Yes, I am still in the United States. Yes, there was the Independence Day, the Fourth of July, the National Holiday, after I updated this blog the last time. Finally I share with you some of the impressions I got around this day. As you probably expected, Red, White and Blue were the dominating colors on that weekend. In fact, Independence Day is usually one extra day off to give a prolongued weekend. This year, however, it was a saturday; yet the occasion is of such fundamental importance to the Americans that we did not have to work the day before. Way to go! Needless to say that I declared myself independent as well (from the lab, that is), so I got some time to take pictures of the scenery. You are invited to join me on a quick tour.
A. Someone has decorated the sidewalk of Wesley Avenue, where I currently live ("where I am currently staying at") with a lot of American flags. It is actually not only Wesley Avenue, but almost the entire neighborhood. Good thing these flags are cheap - I have seen them for just a quarter dollar the piece.
B. Even a garden in Wesley Avenue is equipped with flags.
C. The first of my three favorites: I went to Home Depot, a home improvement store, to look for some tools that might come handy in the lab. Legions of flags on the roof. Definitely more expensive than a quarter dollar the piece.
D. The Bank of America has its own flag, even from 7/5 to 7/3.
E. This building seems to be important, given the decoration. But I haven't found out yet what it is for. (Note the Chicago Theater to the left.)
F. Another single flag on the front of a building.
G. Even the flags are enjoying their time off duty, it seems.
H. More flags on just another building.
I. Another option to decorate things in Red, White and Blue.
J. The second of my three favorites: I saw this lady on the Taste of Chicago, a festival held between Michigan Avenue (the principal street downtown, also known as the Magnificent Mile), and the lakeside.
K. A triad of lazy flags I photographed on the way home from the Taste.
L. Union Station, Chicago's principal train station, has one big perennial flag.
M. See how big it is?
N. The third and last of my favorites: patriotic leftovers received a big discount the next day.
O. After watching so much iconic American lifestyle, I finally decided to "blend in" a bit, so I granted myself a bottle of coke, and a turkey cranberry sandwich. Neither lasted long ...
P. Speaking of American icons: this construction site used to be a McDonald's restaurant. The place is within walking distance from my current home. Oh no! What shall I eat while it is being rebuilt? (A whopper from Burger King, or a pizza from DiNico's, or an Italian Beef, to name but a few, all of which are even a lot closer!)

A visit from Michigan

Last Sunday I enjoyed a visit from Troy, MI. That's right, even though it is still my first trip outside the borders of Good Old Europe, I am having friends in the US, which don't live in Chicago. The ones I am talking about here I met in Berlin. Stefan used to be a PhD student colleague at the Fritz Haber Institute. Since he is married to an American (Liz), he has made his way to the US even before me. Lucky him was offered a position at a company called RHK, which manufactures scanning tunneling microscopes. Since Stefan actually built his own machine as part of his research, for which RHK electronics were used, he is very familiar with this equipment. When he attended a scientific meeting in Berlin, the people from RHK approached him with a job offer, which he eventually accepted. I am very happy for him and his family, because it seems that they are enjoying themselves very much in Michigan. Stefan and I are really good friends, and so I was very pleased when he announced that his wife, his two sons Max(imilian) and Alex(ander) (guess why I call them the "X-men" ...), and himself would be in town for the weekend. And despite their tight schedule they made it happen to meet me on the way home. Yay! While Liz was watching over the little ones, Stefan and I had a really good chat, just like back home. Of course it was all too short, but I enjoyed their visit very much, and I am planning (among other things) to repay the favor before going back to Germany for good. - As you may have noticed, Stefan and Liz named their (second) son Alexander, just like me. While they probably didn't name him after me, they didn't have any objections that I am their son's namesake, which makes me proud, you bet!

Scientists actually

Quite a while ago I have been requested to post some information about my coworkers, Jing and Homa. As you have probably already guessed by now, these are the two charming ladies on the picture. Jing (to the left) is from China, and Homa is an Iranian. While Chinese PhD students are quite common in the US, Iranians are certainly not. I have to admit that when I first met Homa I was very surprised that Iranians are actually allowed to enter the United States, given the long-term bad relationship between these two countries. Fortunately my idea was wrong, because it has turned out that graduates from Tehran university are highly skilled. According to Homa her domestic school should be ranked among the best universities on this planet. While there may (or may not) be a good deal of patriotism in her statement, I must admit that she had undergone a very solid training before joining forces with me. - Now, it would be unfair to praise one student and to leave the other one completely out. Jing has recently been working on a new sample holder for our microscope. This will allow us to do experiments at low temperature (i.e., when the sample is cooled by liquid nitrogen to -196°C or -321°F). Hopefully this will increase our resolution dramatically. (It's the little thing that Homa is holding in her hand, by the way - but no closer looks allowed, as it is top secret!) Jing deserves a strong commendation for her efforts. As you can see, I am very much blessed by being allowed to collaborate with these girls. Even more so, as they are both good company. - You may ask what my job is, if the girls are so talented. Well, that's an easy one: I'm the photographer ...