The world of Tesco & co

To go shopping in England is so exciting, at least I think that there are so many things to discover everytime you do it. Even more than in Germany, I feel the urgent need to buy much more senseless things once I am in a supermarket.

Cambridge has approx. 100,000 inhabitants which makes it to a rather small town. The first day I was here I heared that the best store for a bigger shopping is Tesco which is located at the outskirts of the city in Cherry Hinton Village. And the first impressing point are the "normal" opening times:

And of course, you can find everything in that superstore. Computer, clothes, home appliances and even food. The biggest problem is just that you can't stop buying stuff. "Buy one, get one for free", "3 for 2 pounds" a.s.o. My bitter statistics after my first shopping round was 75 pounds. (more than 80 €) whereof 90% of this amount was spent for food! And actually, things are not necessarily more expensive here. When it comes to clothing, people from euro countries get even a big advantage as prices often are calculated for an exchange rate of 1 pound = 1.5 euro which is no more the case. Practically, something that in Germany would cost 30 euro is available for 20 pounds in the UK which is not more than 22 euro. And best of all, is the range of stuff that you get in the shops. It is everytime a pleasure to get there and everytime I have to realise painfully that I spend more than an hour in the supermarket. But no light without shadow and the bitter part of english shops is the bread section. Thousands of different kinds of bread and one worse than the other. However, my biggest discovery in Tesco superstore was "German Rye Bread". In a country with no bread culture - isn't this reason enough to admire Tesco?!

Yesterday, I was unfaithful - I went to another supermarket, Budgens. Not as big, not as nice and not as cheap, but it is the closest one. And actually, I made another big discovery. Innocent superfruit smoothie with pomegranates, blueberries & acai. It was horribly expensive but caughtmy eyes. I haven't tried it yet - probably it sounds much better than it will taste. This liter contains 76 pressed grapes, 2 1/2 mashed bananas, 1 1/2 pressed pomegranates, 2 squeezed oranges, 160 crushed blueberries, 100 peeled acai berries, some freshly squeezed lemon and 0 bungalows (or any stairs whatsoever) - no idea what they mean with that last fact. Sounds good, right?!

Lunch with a Nobel Prize Winner

Today I ate lunch in the cafeteria of the department. I noticed a journalist sitting in the corner and interviewing an indish looking guy with glasses and greyish hair. I sat down, took my sandwich and started eating. I wondered what kind of interviews someone would have in the cafeteria of a department like ours. After a while the indish looking guy left his interviewing partner and passed me. I realized that his face was familiar to me, but I did not see from where... it must have been TV or newspaper. Then I remembered the words from the lady from the administration office, "there are a couple of Nobel Prize Winners working here". Well, that was it. Wasn't that guy this year's Nobel Prize Winner, this Venk-whatever his name was, that has been researching ribosomes?! Back in my lab, I started googling and the autofinder helped me to find the name: Venkatraman Ramakrishnan - and there his picture popped up, the guy that I just met in the restaurant.

Bight is flooked

Quite a lot has happened, among others several ups and down in my enthusiasm about my project, my mood and mental state. So here we are in week 7 of my Diplomarbeit. Last friday I booked my flight to England. And I didn't do it well. Was so focused on arriving at London Stansted which is the closest airport to Cambridge (and besides Ryanair I could not find direct connections Berlin-Stansted), so finally I booked a flight including a change of planes in Düsseldorf. Not really smart if you consider that Cambridge is still accessible from London Luton. Shit happens. So around 10 days were left until the take-off. But this was not really the biggest mistake. Worse was the schedule for the remaining work in Berlin. No doubt that if everything had went to plan, I could have made it. But obviously I have not learn the lesson - never expect that everything works according your plans in lab. So here I am - frustrated after three days of devastating experiments and results. And there are still 2 scary works days remaining... Hopefully things will be more relaxed in England.
So what remains? Cleaning my bench in the lab. Preparing my samples and my parcels for England and posting them. Packing of course, so that my room can be given to a short term renter. Visiting my parents. And hopefully see some friends before I leave. Things are not well organised and probably I won't find the time for halv of the stuff that I wanted to do - but hey, I won't dissapear for always, it's just a couple of months. Wish me luck for the last preparation and hopefully see ya soon!

FREEDOM!

...not more to say!

Something is happening...

For those who did not have the possibility to hear about: A big change will take place in my life. Yes, change means change means I'm gonna move to Cambridge in order to carry out some experiments at the Medical Research Council towards my Diplomarbeit! That is actually the reason why I decided to switch to English now. The exact date is not determined yet, but I guess that it will be in the beginning of November. And this is the place where I will brief you about my life in England and my progress of getting started there. Currently, I'm still studying for my final exams but end is in sight! I'm done with three of four exams, that means just one remaining. The last one will be on Septmeber 28th - and then I am free again! And one day after that, I will go to Sweden for a couple of days. Looking forward to this!

Die Uni is ne Bitch

... ist das Statement des Tages. Was nützt schon ein Sommer, wenn man ihn nicht genießen kann?!

Glad påsk!

Då var Skottlandresan förbi och plötsligt var man tillbaka i ett varmt och härligt Berlin. Minst 20 grader varje dag och blå himmel, uteservering, att få äta frukost ute och chilla i parker - det kändes inte så illa att komma hem:-) I fredags blev det en liten utflykt till Sächsische Schweiz vilket är en nationalpark söder om Dresden och i närheten av Tjeckien. Längs floden Elbe och dess dalsänkningar utsträcker sig en del bergtoppar och de typiskt formade sandstensklipporna. Vädret gick inte att toppa och landskapet är bara vackert. En liten vandring och mycket fina intryck blev det. I lördags åkte jag till mina föräldrar. Det var längesen att jag varit i Leipzig (senast i julas). Mycket påskfirande blir det dock inte här. Hoppas att det blir mer hos er. Jag önskar er glad påsk och en flitig påskhare (som man säger här...hehe, blev tvungen att även kolla om det över huvud taget finns påskharar i den svenska traditionen och fick läsa att påskharen faktiskt har sitt ursprung i Tyskland).
Imorgon tar vårlovet slut och jag åker tillbaka till Berlin. Innan skolan börjar nästa dagen ska det bli min första grillkväll i år! Jag ser mycket fram emot att inviga årets grillsäsong på balkongen eller på taket.