That time I almost chloroformed myself....

Lab story of the week. I was doing an extraction last week with chloroform and almost knocked myself out with the fumes. Now we do work in a hood so that we don't inhale but I had it pretty open because it's hard to do extractions when it's down since you need to shake the separatory funnel.  When I opened the bottle to pour some in, I got a big whiff of it and definitely felt a little light-headed. I pulled the hood down though and that solved the problem. Lesson learned. I also broke my first round bottom flask.

This past week I continued to work in the lab like usual.  On Friday, all docentes met with Professor Lehr to talk about the research they've been working on.  Since I've been doing a lot of the experimentation for the past two weeks, I got to give our little spiel. Didn't go too horribly. I'm still getting used to all the chemistry terms in German. The pronunciation throws me sometimes.

Picture time! I spent my first weekend with our family friends that live right outside of Muenster.  They have been wonderful in helping me get adjusted to the day to day life and taking me to see different things around town.  Friday afternoon, I took a walk around the Botanical Gardens behind the Schloss, which is an old castle but houses a lot of the University offices now. Saturday we went to the Aasee (the big lake), stopped by the three places my parents have lived, and Muehlenhof (an outdoor museum).

In the background you can see two of the many cathedrals of Muenster.

My parents' first apartment together

Last Thursday, I went to the zoo! We have a "brother dorm" on the next street over and sometimes they host events/plan trips together.  This time it was a night tour of the zoo. Unfortunately since it was so late, a lot of the animals were asleep but we're planning on going back during the day sometime.  It poured right before we were supposed to leave so it was rather wet and a little cold compared to the beautiful weather earlier that week but we still had a lot of fun and I met some more people. The amount of times I've had to explain my life story is ridiculous.

This past weekend, I took the train to Marl where my aunt and uncle live.  My cousin was home for the weekend so we went to Duesseldorf and did some shopping. I had my first doener, which is a delicious Turkish fast food sandwich with either chicken or lamb, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and a cream dressing.  Delicious. It reminded me a lot of churascoes from Guatemala.  After taking the train back on Sunday, I took a nice long bike ride to Kinderhaus, a little town a few kilometers north of Muenster.  It is on the list my parents made me because that's where they got married! Quick history fact: Kinderhaus (translation: children's house) originated as a hospital for lepers to stay at.  Since they had to be kept away from the healthy public, they went there to get treatment. There was a little museum to look through that had all sorts of information about it.

That's the church!

I love the Fachwerk-style architecture- the white with brown posts and a red roof. It's typical German Ruhrgebiet-farmland

And here a bunch of random pictures that I've taken over the past few weeks. I enjoy getting lost wandering around town on my bike or walking and then I find these random places.

There was a beach volleyball tournament set up in front of the Schloss this weekend. Casual.

The little kitchen on my hall

Prinzipalmarkt-an area with a lot of shops and it's just beautiful.

The flat part on the left is for you to wheel your bike up/down. It's rather handy.

And one last one- this is my new second-favorite dessert, ice cream still being the first. Strawberries from the market and vanilla vla.  Vla is a sort of pudding from Holland and it's so so so good.