Starting Fresh with a Job and a Car

After lots of waiting, two trips to the visa office in Munich, and much, much paperwork later, I can officially declare that I’ve started my new job at Roche (December 2^nd) and we are extending our stay here for up to 3 more years.  Julie’s already signed the iPhone contract for another 2 years so that pretty much sealed the deal.

I’ve upgraded my title in the same department from Postdoc to Senior Scientist which basically means a nice pay raise (though a lot of that goes straight to the German Government in the form of taxes!).  My work is still mostly research oriented in the laboratory - exploring and developing new techniques for routine analytical chemistry.  It seems I have finally passed the right of passage from student, to graduate student, to postdoc student, to Research Scientist (aka my first ‘real’ job), and it feels really good to finally reach that next milestone (no more student status!).  Now it’s time to put that school theory to work and try to make this company some money.

I’m also more integrated in the company now, which brings business trips and communicating about half of the time in German.  My first week I made a 24-hour trip to Sweden and this week I had a 3-day trip to Saarbrücken.

Holy crap….we thought this whole ‘living in Germany’ thing would be temporary and now we are staying 3 more years!  And now I am speaking this weird language even more on a daily basis, which feels pretty strange to me at times.  The blogs will have to continue!

Two months ago we felt like our time here was up (when it didn’t seem like a job would appear at Roche), but now we feel like it is a bit of a fresh start.  We can start mapping out new travel destinations and buy all of those things we had been holding off on, like a car!  Say hello to the new-to-us 2010 Honda Fit (here known as the Honda Jazz):

I will now save ~45 minutes a day by driving or car-pooling the 60 mile round trip commute.  In the end it adds up to about 10 extra days for the year.  I wonder what I will do!? And while red cars are common in the US, bright colored cars are pretty rare here.  Germans prefer nice conservative blends of dark gray, dark blue, and (dark) black.  Cars are serious business here, and they look it too.  So ours will be easy to find when buried in snow.  Honda Jazz is go!

And while I am the one who got the car (since Julie doesn’t have a German license), Julie says not to feel bad for her.  She gets to roll to work every day in a Benz. 

Yes, the public buses here are Mercedes Benzes

So here is to the next ~3 years!  I wonder what our blog might sound like then, or if anyone will still be reading them… assuming we are still writing them.  Now it’s back to work for two more weeks before our family comes for a European holiday vacation.  It will be nice to have the new car and Christmas markets to keep us entertained until then.

The Roche Open 2013, A Tennis Classic

There are about 5,000 employees at Roche Penzberg where I work, and on November 23^rd they held their 25^th annual tennis tournament.  As I recently took up playing tennis again this year (recreationally), some people in my department encouraged me to sign up.  This is the story of what happened on the 25-jähriges Jubiläum.

I was initially hesitant to add my name to the list since it was to be held on a Saturday evening (5-11 p.m.) far away from Munich.  But since 3 other people from my group were also playing, I decided to play along with the goal of not overly embarrassing myself.  I figured it would be a nice opportunity to network and meet some new Roche people.

While I was a tennis master back in high school (go Panthers!), nowadays I’m not nearly as good, let alone as fit as I was back when I played on the varsity team.  But I still have a natural feel for the game that never really went away.  So off I went down to Murnau on a snowy Saturday evening.

The format of the tournament was a random alternating doubles draw.  Each person played 6 matches lasting 30 minutes each, with a different partner and different opponents each time.  This gave us each about 2 hours of break time mixed in throughout (in total a 5 hour event).

Here I will break down a little play-by-play of my 6 matches – ESPN The Ocho style.

I arrived just before 5 p.m. to find out that we were starting exactly at 5 p.m. (German punctuality leaves no time for dilly-dallying), and my first partner happened to be Stephan from my department.  He is a strong player who trains fairly regularly and is pretty competitive. I quickly changed and jumped out on the court feeling really nervous about embarrassing myself, or worse, letting down my partner.  One of our opponents was much better than us and it was impossible to return his serve.  He aced me probably 4 times in this match while the rest just ricocheted off my racquet.  But the rest of the match I played quite well, probably from adrenaline, and we were able to finish with a slight lead as time ran out.  Match 1 = Win (6-3)

I got a late start on the second match, which was directly after my first.  I had no idea we would be playing back to back, so my self-appointed break was interrupted with the shouts, “Wo ist der Amerikaner?” (Where is the American?).  This quickly became my nickname for the night as word got out that I was new, foreign, and a worthy opponent.  The second match was mixed doubles.  My partner’s bad knee had me worried we were doomed, but she was arguably the best one on the court.  Without even moving a step she was firing winners like a video game.  Match 2 = Win (8-0)

After a sanctioned 30-minute break, I was up for my 3^rd match.  Our opponents hit the ball really softly, which made the game even more challenging for me because I could not get the right timing.  I played really bad in what was a really ugly match we could have easily lost.  But time ran out just as we held a one game lead.  Match 3 = Win (4-3)

In match 4 I played against the big boys - some of Baveria’s best.  I had a good partner, which made me the clear weakest player on the court.  The entire match we were just clawing away to keep it tied.  There is no doubt that they were the better team, but after 29 minutes we were tied 5-5.  In the following game, with little time left to play, we were down 45-15 and about to succumb to our fate as losers when I was saved by the bell buzzer.  In this case, the final points don’t count, and the match ended in a tie.  Match  4 = Tie (5-5)

(At this point the word was getting out that “der Amerikaner” had not lost yet, and I started hearing my name being mentioned as a potential winner.)

I played really good in my fifth match, and we overpowered what were likely equal opponents.  Match 5 = Win (5-3)

Now I was starting to feel rather nervous going into the final match, because once again I faced one of the stronger players from match 4.  I thought we were in real trouble when the weakest player on the court won the game of his serve.  This put the pressure on us.  But in the end, we were able to shake of the exhaustion of 3 hours of tennis and we rolled to a strong finish.  Match 6 = Win (8-3)

In the end, I won 5 matches and tied 1.  Many said I would win the overall tournament, but there was another player who won all 6 of his matches.  Therefore, I was crowned second place out of the 15 men competitors (women were ranked separately) and received a 25 EUR gift card.  Amazing!  Overall, while I played really well, I knew I was really only the 5^th or 6^th best individual player, so like any sports champion I also had my fair share of luck to finish in the top.

So there you have it.  Der Amerikaner was the second place champion at the Roche Open 2013.  I’m looking forward to playing more tennis next year and the Roche Open 2014.

The BMW Leprechaun isn’t so elusive after all…

You know when you hear about something for the first time, and then you suddenly hear or see it everywhere?  For instance: the German word Böse, or Evil.  I saw someone write this on Facebook, and then the next week I heard it three times.  I can’t remember ever hearing this word before, but once I was introduced to it, it seemed to be all around me.

What I am trying to say in a roundabout way is I was wrong about the BMW prototype cars.  Since posting that blog just about a month ago, I have seen 2 more of these cars parked near our apartment.  They seem to be everywhere! 

The first sighting post-blog was by Noah.  He came back from walking the dogs and told me to look out the window.  Down the street was one of my so-called leprechauns.  What?  This has to be a crazy coincidence.  We skipped taking photos as it was cold and dark and late, and I already had proof from my prior photo shoot.

Then, this week, I came across another one.  I was taking the dogs out for their morning walk, and just around the block saw this one.  Now I realized I needed to revise my prior statements.  So I reluctantly took a picture on my phone to post here to help me eat crow. 

Noah knows I am rarely wrong.  So here is my one error for 2013. 

Update: I found this article, turns out this is the new BMW i8 electric car.

Visiting Neuschwanstein…finally

The most famous tourist destination in Bavaria (outside of Oktoberfest) would have to be Neuschwanstein Castle.  They not only receive millions of visitors from around the world each year, but they also win the award for most obnoxious souvenirs which you can find in just about every tourist shop in Munich.  Therefore, we never had a sense of urgency to make a visit to see the overcrowded and over-commercialized site.  After all we live the local life here in Munich: you know, commuting to work, running errands, and all that fun “local” stuff [insert judgmental tone towards tourists here].

Instead, we have been strategically plotting for about 2 years now on the best time to make a visit there.  We waited to avoid the scaffolding that was up through 2012, avoided visiting in the bad weather earlier in the year, and then definitely avoided the tourist surge over the summer.  And so we capitalized on the perfect fall scenery/weather 2 weeks ago to visit the Schloss while our two Allisons were visiting us.  We timed it perfectly - combining the perfect fall weather with the beautiful fall colors into the best visit ever to Bavaria’s most popular tourist destination.  This just may be too much awesome for you to handle! 

After a beautiful two-hour drive along the “Romantic Road” (an arbitrary marketing designation for what is simply a highway), we arrived at the parking lots.  From there we took an amazing 30-minute hike up the hill to reach the fairy tale castle.  Ok, Julie and I did the hike – the Allisons waited in the long line for a carriage ride up.  The one thing not going for us that day was the fact that the buses weren't running.  But this was fine for me - most of the castle’s beauty is best enjoyed from the outside and from a far distance.  So when we reached the castle gates, we instead kept on walking away from it to get to more amazing views from the side and behind. 

As we reached the ‘Marienbrücke’ bridge behind the castle we heard a helicopter approaching, getting closer and closer.   Since helicopter rides and touristy places tend to go hand and hand, I did not think much of the hovering helicopter at first.  But then I yelled at Julie to start taking photos as I realized we were witnessing a full on helicopter rescue of two people at the bottom of the canyon.  In a matter of a 2 minutes a rescuer repelled out of the helicopter, secured the person, and flew out of there completely James Bond style.  They were back 15 minutes later for the next victim/bystander.  By the way, it wasn't obvious to us why they needed to be rescued, so I hope they are ok.  But it’s a rare moment when you can take a photo looking down on a helicopter. 

After enjoying the views, we wandered back to the main gates to meet our two Allisons, who enjoyed their more expensive but more romantic horse carriage ride up to the top.  We got a quick look at Neuschwanstein up close, had a nice lunch at a nearby restaurant, and then made our way down for part 2 of the castle tour.  And yes, we skipped going inside for the Neuschwanstein tour, which we usually hear is overcrowded, expensive, and underwhelming since it’s only partially completed (we hear this from both tourists and locals alike). 

However, as Allison B wanted to view a German Castle from the inside (she did travel all this way), we decided to take the tour of the neighboring Hochenschwangau castle about 1 mile away.  It was a bit disappointing to see our English language guided tour be falsely advertised as it turned out to be simply an “audio guide” tour in English.  This wouldn't have been so bad, except for the fact that they combined our tour with the German language guided tour behind us, so the tour guide spoke loudly in German while we were straining to hear our audio guides.  So basically we could not really hear anything in either language!  But I can’t complain too much since historical facts don’t really stick in my brain anyhow.  The castle was very nice, unexpectedly small, and nothing in comparison to our own Nymphenburg. ;)  

I think the rest of our trip can be summed up in a small sample of the 400 photos we took.  Can you tell we were excited to experience fall with colorful trees and falling leaves?  We even made a game out of trying to snatch falling leaves out of the air which was frustratingly difficult and pretty much sums up the fact we spent too many years in the desert.

Jet-setting off to Paris for the weekend

As we continue to play catch-up on back logged posts, I will now reminisce about the weekend of October 19^th, when I flew to Paris to meet up with my childhood friends Allison and Allison.  They came to Europe for the week, and after their 24-hour stay in London, it was time for their 48 hours in Paris.  Lucky for me Paris is a short and cheap flight away, so I could easily join them for a nice Parisian weekend.

We met at our hotel Friday night after my flight and their Eurostar train from London arrived.  We headed out for a late dinner in the touristy area, where the first photo Allison B took was of a cat licking itself.  That is the only photo of Paris (outside our hotel room) taken on their first night in Paris.  Classy. 

The next morning we had plans to take the train out of the city to visit the Palace of Versailles.  Unfortunately, the normal train was shut down, so after an hour+ of unsuccessfully trying to locate the backup route, we decided to move on.  Otherwise our memories of Paris 2013 would have been of wandering through metro and train stations.

Instead we decide to head to the classic tourist spot of Paris that I know isn’t ‘shut down’ for the weekend – the Eiffel Tower.  

The next stop – the Weiss Chocolate store.  We had some guests gift us some Weiss maracons and chocolate from their store in Strasbourg. I had looked up their Paris location, and was determined to buy some more treats from them.  We follow Google maps, find the store, and then see the sign on the door saying they have closed.  WTF?  Additionally, the Allisons had only heard of the coconut-based macaroon cookies… not the French colorful maracon cookies.  I was hoping to introduce them to the Weiss versions, but clearly that was off the table.

We remembered there was a bakery right next to our hotel, and we had seen macarons in the window.  Plus they mentioned ‘gluten free’ on the door – which one Allison requires.  Side note – turns out all French macarons are gluten free – made with almond flour.  Who knew?  Anyways, we make our way back to the hotel/macaron store, and luckily find it open.  Since they had never eaten macarons before, I suggested we just share one box so they can taste it.  Then if they like it, we can return the next day (Sunday) to buy more for our trip home, because, you know, their website says they are open Sundays.  The macarons are a hit (and this place makes good ones), and we figure we should check to ensure the store is really open Sundays since we have had such bad luck in Paris with things being closed.  Good thing we asked – they would have been closed!  So instead we all stock up on the colorful treats and leave them in our hotel room.  Thanks PapyBioAtelier! 

Next up – walking off some of that sugar on the Champs-Élysées to do some window-shopping and see the Arc de Triomphe.  Well, it wasn’t just window-shopping for all three of us – Allison G found a nice Louis Vuitton purse from the flagship store.  Side note: I had to Google Louis Vuitton to see how to spell it – hence I passed on the opportunity to buy one. 

After a sushi dinner (for Allison B and I) and a Hard Rock Café dinner (for Allison G), we went to see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night.  As this is a tourist hot spot, there are many people trying to sell things or run scams – who really knows.  But one thing that helped us out was my knowledge of German.  Whenever people came up to us asking if we spoke English, I would say, ‘Nein. Deutsch.’  That night a group of young men bothering us with this rouse clearly had no idea what I was talking about.  They started laughing and asking, 'What is that? Dutch?' and trying to figure out what I was saying.  Finally, in my pure American accented English, I said, ‘I speak German.’  Clearly, German was not one of their languages, and my perfect English didn’t tip me off that we could communicate in English, so they continued on to the next group of tourists. 

Sunday morning we met up with an old college buddy of mine from the Campus Computer Store, Rohan, and his lovely girlfriend, Ashley.  They just happened to arrive in Paris the day before for a French vacation/work stuff, and the timing worked out so we could all meet up.  After a simple breakfast of pain au chocolat, or, ‘Chocolate Pain’ as Noah and I like to call it, we headed over to Notre Dame. 

Along the way we ran across one of many, many bridges in Europe covered in locks.  We all stopped to take pictures and try to locate our names, but I seemed to be the only one with luck.  I guess the fact that Julie is a French name doesn’t hurt, and I don’t think Rohan would ever have an easy time finding his name on a lock (though he did find it on a street).  I took many pictures to show Noah all my new French boyfriends, and one J&N that I could pretend that I did for us.  Oh, and the M&M lock was pretty romantic. 

Next up was Notre Dame, where the line to get in was monstrous.  I guess the fact that it was Sunday morning didn’t help.  But we did get to hear the bells ringing.  And take a few more pictures.  Sadly it was time for us to say au revoir to Rohan and Ashley.  But as we are averaging seeing Rohan 1x a year in Europe, I hope we can continue the tradition. 

Allisons and I were down to our last few hours in Paris, and what better place to spend them than in Chipotle.  Right?  What can I say, I love burritos, and they still have yet to open a Chipotle (or more preferably, a Qdoba), anywhere near Munich. 

We followed Chipotle up with a Crêperie for the Allisons (I was too stuffed full of burritos to join in) for a more authentic French ending to the trip.  This was followed by a rather long wait at the airport due to storms, but lucky for Allison B she could replenish her depleted macarons stash before leaving the country.  Soon enough we were all back at the apartment in Munich, where we would leave the Allisons to enjoy the city of Munich on Monday, and then take them down to the fairy tale castle of

Neuschwanstein on Tuesday.  But I’ll save that for another blog (and another blog writer).

Oktoberfest 2013

Once again I find myself behind on the blog.  While we have a few topics to write about, I will start by skipping back to the end of last month/beginning of this month to write a quick entry about our 2013 Oktoberfest experience.

As mentioned in the prior post by Noah, we returned from our USA trip with colds.  He didn’t mention that we also returned to Oktoberfest in full bloom.  As it only lasts for 2 weeks (over 3 weekends), our colds would end up preventing us from partaking too much in this year’s festivities – our friend Angela can attest to this. 

An old college friend of mine (Angela) was able to book a last minute trip to come to Munich during the first week of Oktoberfest.  I told her we were glad to host her here, but we had work during the day.  I assumed we could join her in the evenings down at Theresienwiese (this was before the cold hit).  Well, instead all I was able to do was loan her my dirndl for the week while she connected with friends via Facebook to go to the festival with.  At least we were able to do one dinner with her before she left (at a restaurant, not a beer tent). 

Being sick that week also caused me to miss my 2 work outings to Oktoberfest, plus we weren’t able to join a group of Noah’s fellow DAAD friends when they went over the weekend.  Lame.

By week 2, however, we were feeling a bit better, and were determined to at least have lunch in one of the tents.  So the last Friday (a ‘brückentag, or bridge day, where Noah is forced to take vacation as the Thursday is a holiday), we geared up to go just for a few hours.  We’re pretty burned out on most traditional German food (meat and potato dishes specifically), so we picked the Fischer-Vroni tent where we could enjoy a nice steckerlfisch.  

After a maß of beer each along with our fish, we strolled the fairgrounds for a bit so Noah could buy his crepe.  However the weather wasn’t the best, and we didn’t want to catch another cold, so we called it a day and headed back home to enjoy our day off.   I think if this was our first year with Oktoberfest, we would have pushed ourselves much harder (and gotten much sicker), but luckily we were able to go multiple times last year.  Plus there is always next year!