Good thing I had Megan walking to work with me yesterday morning. THe whole campus is frickin confusing even with a map! The campus spans approx 1 mile wide and 2 miles long with over 100 buildings! To give perspective our building in AZ is about 500-600 people while this site has about 5,000 people! It's like a little town in itself with 4 separate cafeterias throughout. People use bikes to get around.
SO, even though I mentioned that my apartment is right next to hkl it takes me about 20-25 minutes to get to my building. I was so amazed during our walk to the office, like a kid on first day of school. There are office buildings mixed in with the plants and you have to watch where you are going because there are trucks and fork lifts moving around. I was supposed to pay attention to where Megan was leading me but keep getting distracted by my surroundings. This is where is all began. SOme of the buildings were made of brick and built in the early 1900's.
How lucky that Megan works in the same building as me. My department is on one floor of an old brick building. Each office is shared by 2-3 people. I share mine with Guido who took a vacation day. I met a few of my team mates and all were very nice. We all went to lunch together to the North Kasino (they call the cafeterias kasinos). It's all very high tech. The cafeterias do not accept credit cards or cash. You take your employee badge on a atm looking maching where you scan it and deposit cash into it and then your badge is used to pay for your lunch. The food offerings were many and very good. Funny that the special of the day was cheeseburger and fries. You can bet that I did NOT get this. I had a nice salad and a plate of rice and chicken. All 4 of my colleagues got the burger special! During lunch I noticed that they were all eating their burgers with a knife and fork. What the?! Trust me, it wasn't a small White Castle size burger but a good size burger with lettuce & tomatoes. Emrah was part of the group and I know that he didn't do this when we ate at McDonalds last week. When I asked them about it they told me that it was because of the professional environment that you would do this differently. Boy, it was a good thing that I didn't get the burger because I NEVER would have thought to eat it with a knife & fork. It's just not right. It was really funny to see, you had to be there. I've learned that when eating you should have your knife and fork in your hands the hold time. It's not proper to cut up your food and then just eat with your fork.
After lunch it was customary to have a coffee or expresso. We have a little kitchen on our floor with an expresso machine with the little cups. After lunch Emrah & I had a quick plate of chocolate cake & coffee. There was even a dishwashing machine for our cups/plates/silverware that the cleaning crew takes care of. No, they don't use paper plates & plastic forks like we do at home I guess that would not be to civilized!
After lunch Megan came down so we could buy our train tickets on line to Aachen this Sunday. You have to buy your tickets on line but it's so easy and user friendly. It will be a 1 1/2 hour train ride to the town of Aachen which is a recco from my colleagues. It was only $36 euros rountrip. The pictures online is so pretty I can't wait to see it. We surfed the net a little bit and realized the reference to spa town means that we come to take in the natural thermal springs (referred to as bath houses). There are "spas" that channel these thermal waters into pools. It looks a huge public jacuzzi. Unfortunately Megan had already packed her swimsuit away and is not to keen to sit in these bath waters. Aside from this there will be plenty for us to see.
I introduced Megan to some of my team mates and she thought they were very nice and very friendly. We made plans for that night. Dinner with Stefan and then meeting up with Harald & Emrah later at a club. Let's hope I can stay up late enough for that. For those who know me, Friday night is not a good night for me to stay up late!
Marietta came by to chat. She came from Bulgaria and is new to hkl. I think she was glad to have another girl in the dept. We made plans for dinner next week since she is off to India the following week for her assignment.
After work Megan took me to the farmers market by the Holthausen tram stop which is close to our guesthouse. We each picked up a boquet of flowers for our apt. I was so happy to do something as simple as buying a bunch of flowers on the way home from work. I also bought some fruits. At these stalls the fruits are not prepackaged and you don''t take what you want. There's someone there to give you what you want. The only problem was we didn't know enough german to ask for what we wanted! How the heck do I say half a pound?! In the end I just pointed and the girl would start putting the grapes/cherries in a paper cone until I put up a hand for her to stop. OMG the cherries were twice the size at home and the grapes were so sweet. I should have bought more.
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