Every princess needs a castle

Last week I went to Munich Zurich and Heidelberg and while I was there I decided to look at some real estate (in case I decide to live here permanently). And I am torn between a few places.


Zurich: The first one is a very nice looking castle but it is a little small for my taste. If I lived there, I don't know if there would be enough space for all my servants.


Munich: This one is my second choice because it is the most beautiful and has a wonderful view. It also overlooks a huge man-made waterfall. However, it needs some interior design work done and not all of the rooms are finished.



Heidelberg: This next place is pretty and has a nice location near a river but it is a little bit of a fixer-upper.


Munich: And this last one is my number one choice. It is the largest of the castles and has a beautiful backyard (I don't know if it could be considered a backyard because it is like 50 acres). But the thing that puts this in first place is the fact that the prince lives there. Considering I'm a princess, we are a perfect match.


And lastly what German experience would be complete without a dirndl? I got this one while I was in Munich and I love it. It is pink, I can't breathe when I wear it and I look fantastic in it...basically it is perfect.

Address

I will be here for another 2 months so if anyone wants to send me mail, here is my address:

Melissa Thompson
C/O Thaben
Crellestr. 26
Deutschland 10827 Berlin

The Beach!

I went to the Baltic Sea this weekend and it was incredible. It was pretty warm (mid-80’s) and I got a much needed tan. The town we went to was a rather small town about 3 hours away from Berlin. When we got off the bus, they told us that we would have a few hours to look at the sights of the town (aka. a church and a lighthouse) and then we could have a little time to go to the beach. Seeing the church and the lighthouse took about 30 minutes so we spent the next 7 hours on the beach. It was a perfect day. Below is a picture of me on the lighthouse. It was pretty cool because I had never actually been in a lighthouse. Surprisingly I was not afraid of how high this lighthouse was either.


And the beach was beautiful. The sand was white and the water was clear. Clearly I am overjoyed with being on the beach again.

Fun, Fun, Fun

There is so much to do here that I can’t mention everything but I will briefly mention a few other things I did.

Went on a hike



Went to the Deutsches Historiches Museum


Saw the largest dinosaur fossil in the world


Walked along the Berlin wall


Made banana jelly

Working in the Lab

In this post I talk about blood so for those of you who get grossed out by the sight of blood I have included the pictures at the end so you don't actually have to look at it.

In case anyone is confused about why I am in Berlin, let me explain. I am here on an internship with Humboldt University and I will be working with a PhD student on how different chromosomes affect fat content in the body. However, it is not currently ready so I have been working with another group of students on how pro-biotics (live microorganisms that may be beneficial) affect the immune system. They took pigs and gave each group a different type of pro-biotic and there was a control group. Then they collected tissue samples of things like the spleen, lymph nodes, etc. After the samples were collected is where my work came in. Some undergrad students in Berlin and I were working to isolate the lymphocytes, which will give us information on how the pro-biotics are affecting the immune system.

The first picture is me in the lab. The next two pictures are before and after the liquid was centrifuged to separate liquids of different densities. Once the densities were separated, we needed to remove the liquid in between the first and second layers of fluid (picture 4). After that we kept on centrifuging the liquid and re-suspending the liquid in a neutral solution until the lymphocytes were isolated.

Just a few notes, observations and FYIs

1. This is random but it's kind of cool, even though it's difficult to see in this picture. When people would spray paint the windows, it would peel off so now people scratch the windows to do graffiti on them. I'm sure it's not just in Germany where people do that but I wanted to applaud them for their creativity.


2. If you say hello to random people on the street they will think you are crazy, with the exception of old women. Not because they are rude but because people don't do that here.

3. Chocolate is amazing here and I can have as much of it as I want for the next few months...mmmm

4. Also, Germans love JFK. When he was president, he went to Berlin and said "Ich bin ein Berliner" (translation for all you non-Deutsch speakers: "I am a Berliner"). Below is a pic of me in one of those face cut-outs of JFK. Since I have been here, I have heard that story so many times. I have been walking around Berlin saying that to all the random people I strike up a conversation with and I have yet to reach the fame that JFK did. I want to do something, not illegal, that people in Berlin remember me by. Any ideas?


5. I am amazing at directions. Berlin is a huge city but since I have been here I have yet to get lost. It's even more impressive because I don't take special care to know exactly where I am going. Today I wasn't sure which which direction train to take but the train was there so I randomly guessed and I ended up where I was planning to go. Maybe that's a lesson for life. Wander around in life with no clear goal and maybe by chance you will end up where you want to go. That was really deep. If anyone quotes me on that I expect my name to be included. Maybe that's how I will become famous.

6. The German language is really difficult to learn. But there are a lot of words that are almost the same just different pronunciations.

7. The Christopher Street festival is a gay pride parade...not a parade to honor Christopher Columbus. It was a lot of fun and every float had really good music and everyone was dancing. I take any excuse to be able to dance in public without people thinking I'm crazy. Two things I didn't really like was all the cigarette smoke (I'm pretty sure every other person smoked) and the fact that clothing was optional. There were drag queens all over the parade I loved it but I was a little bitter that they were walking so well in the highest stilettos I had ever seen. This was my favorite drag queen. He was dressed up as a flight attendant and he did their safety demonstration. It was hilarious.


8. Traveling by bus/train is really cheap within Europe, therefore I will go to quite a few countries while I am here.

9. An adapter (used for recharging things) is different than a transformer (used for things like a straightener) and you can blow out the socket if you use an adapter when you should use a transformer. Needless to say I will not have straight hair for the next few months. Good thing it is the fashion in Berlin to let your hair go crazy. Also be very careful when you are walking down stairs because most of them are very steep. On Sunday I was walking down the stairs in my heels and I tripped and fell down the stairs. Luckily I only got a few scratches and bruises but the girl in front of me turned around and said, "Don't be embarrassed, my brother fell down those and broke his arm." So really I blame the stairs.

10. Lastly, moving to a new country where you don't speak the language and don't know anyone is extremely scary but it is such an amazing experience. Berlin is wonderful. I love wandering around the city looking at monuments and statues and stuff because they are everywhere.

I love the food here. All the food tastes delicious here (I'm sure there will be some food they don't like but I haven't found it yet). And the sweets, they are divine. I had a pastry this morning from the corner store and it was so delicious. I can't even describe how good they are. Whenever I want, I can just walk to the corner store and have an authentic german chocolate or pastry for so cheap. This is me eating something that I can't pronounce because it is like 20 letters long and I can't speak German, but trust me, it's really good.


There are rivers all over Berlin. I knew that there was one main one but there are a lot. And there are bridges everywhere. Whenever I am walking over a bridge, there are always big tourist boats floating on the river and I have really been resisting the urge to be like a spy and jump onto the boat from the bridge like they do in movies. I feel like that might not be the best idea for many different reasons.


So this is the fountain of Neptune, he's the statue in the middle of the fountain (you can't really see him too well, I realized that when you ask a stranger to take a picture for you, even if you are standing in front of very famous monument...you should specify that you want the monument in the picture). Note: the next picture. I asked this man to take my picture standing next to the fountain but he insisted I climb onto this statue's lap, luckily I didn't fall while climbing on it. There are fountains everywhere, and not just plains fountains but they have elaborate sculptures and memorials from the war. Also the buildings are incredible. They are so old and there is so much history here.


So this is what I was talking about by getting the monument in the picture. In the background is the monument to the Berlin Wall. This picture is for Lutie. That's right, I am killing Darth Vader in Berlin.


For Michelle, Mollie and Karalee. I met Edward on my flight delay! Ok not really but he looks just like Edward, except for the fact that he's German. I think he was kind of annoyed when I asked to take a pic w/ him (his friend told me that people ask if he is Edward all the time).


I spent all of today wandering around the city and I love Berlin so much. I fit right in with the people, besides the fact that I don't speak the language and am a lot more friendly to strangers than most Berliners are. Berlin is an incredible place and I think there are parties every night.