Today, one of the detectors on the test storage ring stopped working (and still doesn't work) and the only people here to fix it are "The Operator," Dietrich, and me. "The Operator" is a 25 year old man who sits and watches children's cartoons every night until 8AM, Dietrich is a postdoc who holds personal taste testings of the ice cream in the employee lounge so he knows which flavors to buy for his house. Anyway, we had to navigate into the depths of this machine in order to see what was wrong. Dietrich said "Zere ist un problem viss die Recombination Detector (there are two detectors in the portion of the ring where the ions and the electrons fuse; the other is the Autoionization Detector) but Ich do not know vich detector ist de Aa and vich ist de DR detector!" "The Operator" and I followed Dietrich back and forth between the detectors trying to remember the physics of the machine to see which detector we should use, when I said definitively "This is the Recombination Detector. I know for sure." Turns out there was a lab manual near the detector that said "Recombination" on it. We didn't fix anything but at least I have proof that I'm not completely useless.
Observation 14.
Dietrich really likes junk food. And watermelon.
Observation 15.
"The Operator" Knows startlingly little english. Like almost none. When he speaks English, however, he has no accent and just sounds like he has a stutter.
Observation 16.
This is an addendum to Observation 4:
German women are either young, gorgeous and skinny, old, hideous and obese, or look exactly like John Locke from Lost.
That's all the observing that I've really done, but that's because most of my newer observations have stories or have to do with my day so I integrate them into the story of the day.
Anyway, I said yesterday that today I would be taking a Neckar River Tour, and I did, but almost didn't. I set my alarm for 1PM to make the 1:45 bus, expecting to be out of the lab by 8:00, but I was kept until 9:00 by my professor to go over some plots. After that, I passed out, woke up at 1PM, and suddenly it was 1:35 and I was still in bed. Let's just say I've never put on pants so quickly in my life. I took the bus to the Döner Kebap place because I had 45 minutes before the trip. In the Cafe were me, a woman, and a man so drunk he couldn't walk straight. He sat down next to the woman to flirt with her, walked out of the cafe to make faces at her through the window, and then came back, had another beer, spoke to some guy about my fauxhawk (I could tell by his glances and hand motions) and passed out in his stool. The woman turned around and we had a lovely conversation about New York, Germany, Philosophy and drunk men (apparently the man had been describing in explicit detail the things God had sanctioned him to do to this woman). Of course, I am still an American tourist, and completely forgot about the European custom of sitting in a cafe all day. When 30 minutes rolled around and I still hadn't received my food, I jumped up, asked for everything to go, and left a wad of cash on the table. Of course, I had not yet even seen what my Döner looked like. More on that later.
I had to sprint to the boat dock and made it in time (but not before trying to buy a bottle of water from a small bar and having to ask a drunk patron to order it for me since the bartender knew no English) and looked around and noticed that I was the youngest person there by about 50 years. This was terribly disappointing, until out of the corner of my eye I saw two girls who looked like they could maybe be in college. I asked them if they spoke English, explained how the only people I had to speak to were Dietrich and The Operator, and told them I was "desperate for normal human interaction." It turned out that they were recent college graduates in Heidelberg playing club softball for a European League. They let me sit with them on the boat, which was actually just a floating bar that served piss warm beer upon which German alcoholics enjoy wasting themselves away. It was still a jolly time and the cruise was gorgeous; we saw the picturesque little town of Neckargemünd and the four castles of Neckarsteinach along with loads of other really awesome views of the valley (pictures to follow). Well, so on the boat ride I was talking about how great German Beer is (I downed somewhere around a liter of beer prior to boarding the boat) and convinced one of my new friends to order one because "it wouldn't be a trip to Germany without it." This was when we discovered that the beer may not have ever seen a refrigerator, and I felt pretty bad so I paid for it (I hummed "Buy U a Drank" to myself for the rest of the day).
Anyway, we got to Neckarsteinach, most people got off, the three of us goofed around the rest of the way back, and we parted ways at the bus stop. It was nice and relaxing after all the walking I've been doing.
Oh wait, and I had an entire Döner Kebap I didn't have time to eat in my hands.
So what is this strange dish I keep talking about?
I didn't realize either until that moment that it was the most glorious, ridiculous sandwich in the world.
Basically the Döner Kebap is what happened when a bunch of Turks came to Germany after the downfall of the Ottoman Empire and got all confused as to what they were supposed to put into their Gyros. Imagine a gyro, now imagine shaving it with what looks like an electric razor. Now put in some regular Gyro ingredients like tzatziki, lettuce and tomato. But wait, now get all confused and put in some cabbage and other weird clearly European sauces, forget where you put the pita and throw it on a flat kaiser roll. Now eat it. AAAAAIUUUUUGUGUGGHHHHHHHH
It's pretty tasty.
Also, excuse any spelling and grammar mistakes in this one please; I'm so tired I can't see straight :(
Tchüss!
-Ryan
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