Sailing, Strawberries, and Bike First Aid

Lab crisis of the week.  Last week a round bottom flask with my product fell into the water bath of the rotovapper. Friday I spent all day extracting it with ether and ethyl acetate only to run it through a column and get 7% product out.  Kind of frustrating because we were hoping to divide this one up and make a few different things. So today we continued on with the next step of the synthesis using what we had and boiled the water out of the water layers from the extraction. I extracted those again and was able to get a little bit of product out of them.  I also extracted the blue paper towels that I used to wipe out the water bath and got some product out of that too. It's really dirty but product all the same.  That's real science kids.

Life crisis of the week: My second day here, I was biking home across some cobblestones and managed to get a flat tire. I found the air pumps and fixed it, no problem.  Fast forward a month.  This past weekend, we took a nice bike ride around the country side to Haus Ruschhaus and the tire decided to give out about 1 km from our destination.  After walking the rest of the way, we were able to put the bike in the car and then drive back to the house where we spent the afternoon patching up the inner tube of the tire with this little bike first aid kit. By the time I left that evening, it looked like the tire would hold up.  It had three new patches and was holding air just fine.  But then this morning on my way to the university, I sensed another flat coming and sure enough, halfway there, I was bouncing and clanking all over. I walked my bike back straight to the bike store (which is conveniently right across the street from where I live) and was able to buy a new tube.  After choir practice(more on that in a sec), we took the bike back to the family friends' house and he graciously spent the next 30 minutes taking the bike apart to install the new tube.  I cannot thank them enough. And now my bike is good to go again!

I sing in a choir! We rehearse every Wednesday night and there's a concert in a few weeks.  Now there's a story behind this choir.  This is the same choir that my parents met in 30 years ago, with the same director.  Once I found out I'd be in Munster for the summer, my dad called him and asked if I could sing with them for this concert.  He said of course and before I even knew that he had said yes, he had already announced to the choir that an American would be joining them.  There's still a few people in the choir that have stayed in Munster that remember my parents.  I'm the youngest by at least twenty years although last week we got another young person around my age. It's been a lot of fun, expecially since it's been a while since I've sang in a legit choir.

I did a lot of little things this past weekend.  Thursday I was done with work rather early so I went to the Friedensaal - literally translated peach chamber.  This is where the peace treaty that ended the Thiry Years' War was signed.  A pretty important bit of history.

 

My supervisor is a rapper.....so I went to his show on Friday night. 

Saturday, we went sailing on the Aasee.  There wasn't too much wind but it was still nice to enjoy the sun.

 

Das Ruschhaus - the house of Annette von Droste-Hulshoff- a poet 

Sunday I spontaneously decided to go to Koln (Cologne) for a few hours so I found a ride on a site similar to Zimride.   Once in the city, I climbed to the top of the cathedral and then just wandered around the city and along the Rhein. I watched some street performers while enjoying ice cream.The cathedral itself is a massive structure.  Not the most beautiful but still impressive.  It took over 600 years to be finished because the building was interrupted many times. Now there is almost always some sort of construction going on to fix it up.

So many love locks!

Monday was another holiday so I went Oma's house for coffee and cake with my aunt, uncle, cousin, and other uncle. It was practically half a family reunion. And I ate my weight in strawberries.  They're right in season right now and just so delicious. I can't get enough of them.

Monday night it practically hurricaned.  There was a massive thunderstorm an Tuesday morning there were trees and branches down everywhere.  People couldn't get to work because the train tracks were blocked.  They also canceled school for Wednesday in some areas because they determined it wasn't safe for the kiddos.  I went for a run while it was storming though and it was so great.  I came back completely drenched. Don't worry, I stayed away from the trees.