Holiday Concerts

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My a cappella group, Jaco de Musio, gave a joint Christmas concert on Friday evening with another local a cappella group called Vocal Chords (original name, huh?). I was honored to have 17 of my 30 classmates and one professor in attendance at the concert. We will sing another shorter concert at the downtown cathedral, Lambertikirche (St. Lamberti Church), this evening. Then we have two concerts next week and one in the following week. No rest for the weary...

Berlin Trip

Things have been uncomfortably busy lately with schoolwork, so I'm only now finding time to post pics and comments about my sightseeing trip to Berlin (two weeks ago). I went with a group of around 50 international students from Oldenburg University on a bus on Friday, Nov. 23, and returned on Sunday. It was a whirlwind trip, with activities planned throughout, so I returned more exhausted than before I left. But at least I got a glimpse of Berlin. Here are some of the sights I captured on my camera:

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Berlin street scene

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Berlin street scene2

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Front of Kaiser Wilhelm Church. This war-damaged church has been left unrepaired as a reminder/memorial

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Ceiling of Kaiser Wilhelm Church

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Afternoon break for drinks

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Reichstag (Parliament Building)
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Brandenburg Gate

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Jewish Memorial from bus window

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Jewish Memorial from within
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Many signs like this are still place throughout the city

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"Checkpoint Charlie" - the former crossing between East & West Berlin

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A remaining section of the Berlin Wall (through the bus window)

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Avant-garde photo art near Checkpoint Charlie

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Ancient Babylonian edifice in Pergamon Museum
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Berlin dance club in the wee-small hours

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The "TV-Tower" in daylight

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TV-Tower by night

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Berlin at night from the top of the TV-Tower

Wind on the Daily Show

If you're a Daily Show fan, then you may have already seen this clip on TV. I'm generally not a television watcher (even when I own a TV, and I currently don't), so I hadn't seen it. A classmate, Alan, who is a big Daily Show fan, sent this link to me:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=91140&title=jason-jones-180-%E2%80%93-nantucket

One of the philosophical things I decided, during my 3-year stint of working in residential wind energy is that most Americans -- especially those not living on a coast -- are completely oblivious to wind energy (actually to all renewable energy). It's just not a part of their "real" lives. They don't see wind turbines during their drive to work... they don't have neighbors using solar panels, solar water-heating collectors, micro-hydro, or wind generators in their back yards... Renewable energy doesn't enter most people's consciousness, because their exposure level is nearly zero. And when something (like renewable energy equipment) seems extremely rare, it's easy to make an assumption that this is because these technologies don't yet work or are not affordable.

While renewable energy technologies can certainly improve, in terms of reliability and cost-competitiveness, they are currently available (in both large-scale installations and small residential set-ups), are reliable, and are affordable (frequently even money-making).

Hopefully this Daily Show clip is a signal that mainstream media (or at least left-wing mainstream comedy media) is starting to pay attention to renewable energy. And in my opinion, even when no one's preaching about the benefits of clean energy: if America's mainstream media expose everyday folk to renewable energy, it will quickly become a common, everyday part of real life (not just on TV). Media imitates life... and life imitates media.

Lessons in Humility - German Style

Writing Instruments
Around a week ago, I was riding my bike to campus and passed a grocery store. I had recently run out of usable pens, so I decided to stop and buy some more. I went inside the store, thought carefully about my words, and asked where I could find the Schreibtische. I wasn't sure if this word meant pen or pencil, but either way, I figured it would at least get me pointed in the right direction. As I asked the question, I even made a writing gesture with my hand, in case my pronunciation was poor. The two sales clerks looked at me, dumbfounded -- like I had three heads. When they didn't answer, I decided to try a different angle: Haben Sie Papier? [Do you have paper?] I asked. They both looked relieved by this question and responded with confidence that they don't sell paper. I thanked them, left the store, and continued to campus. A little later, I was thinking about the look of bewilderment that the clerks gave me, and it hit me: a Bleistift is a pencil... but a Schreibtisch is a desk.


Clean-up on Aisle 2
A few hours later, I went with some classmates to the campus Mensa [cafeteria] for lunch. I got a tray, silverware, and a plate of the pasta grub-o-the-day. Then I decided to get a small bowl of cheesy cauliflower, but something distracted me (I don't remember what happened exactly), and my tray (and everything on it) landed upside-down on the floor. Oops. I froze for a second -- embarrassed that the long line of people behind me would have to step through (or hop over the gigantic mess I'd made) until the lunchroom staff arrived for the clean-up. Then one of the cafeteria ladies shouted out something I didn't understand in German. She pointed to a certain corner of the lunchroom, so walked in the direction she pointed. "Maybe I'm supposed to inform the back kitchen staff of my spill, so they could clean it up," I thought. I arrived at the designated location and was provided a broom and a dustpan to clean up my own mess. Once I'd scooped up the big stuff, this was traded for a mop and a bucket of soapy water to fully remove my schmutz.


Upon reflection, I think it's very logical (and fair) that I should clean up my own mess... but it was an interesting cultural lesson: in Germany, personal responsibility is taken much more seriously than in America, where the customer is king. (Even though they made me clean up my mess, they didn't make me pay for the wasted plate of pasta and bowl of cauliflower... for which I was thankful.)


Happy Thanksgiving, by the way. I had Chinese food tonight to celebrate the holiday. Tomorrow I'll be joining a large group of international students from my university on a 3-day trip to Berlin. I'll try to post some pics next week.

German Generalizations...

After two months living in small-town Germany, here are some of my impressions of some differences between Germany and the U.S. Some of these jumped out at me immediately, and other observations have taken a while longer to appreciate:

1. Jay-walking is non-existent. I'm not kidding. Even if it's night-time, and there are no cars in sight, Germans will reliably stop at a cross-walk and wait patiently for the "little green man" to give permission to walk across the road.
2. There's a world 'nother world of yoghurt over here. In America, we have: plain, cherry, strawberry, strawberry-banana, blueberry, raspberry, mixed berry, peach, vanilla, chocolate... and that's pretty much it, right? Well, in addition to the American standard fare, the Germans have: peach-passionfruit, strawberry-rhubarb, watermelon-kiwi, grapefuit-apple, pineapple-orange, pear, nectarine-guava, honeydoo melon-peach, walnut, cinnamon-plum... and the list goes on. Sehr gut!
3. Goth is way in right now. You know the died-black hair, black make-up, lots of body piercings & tattoos, black clothes, etc.? Well, this style is very chic here right now among the youth of Oldenburg. I befriended a piercings artist at a bus stop soon after my arrival, and he explained that there's an American reality TV show (I don't know the name) which is very popular here. Apparently, ever since the show began airing here -- 7 or 8 years ago -- the popularity of tats and body piercing has sky-rocketed. I don't know if the goth stylings are part of the same trend... or not.
4. Bikers, bikers everywhere. Bicycling, as a primary means of transportation, is very widespread here in Oldenburg -- not only with university students, but with people of all ages. On weekend evenings, there's an awesome congregation of bikes -- easily two hundred -- parked on one of the main squares (Julius-Mosenplatz) until the wee hours of the morning providing the late-night party animals their return transportation. But beware, police ticket here for bicycling under the influence -- no joke!
5. Smoking... and biking. I realized, even before arriving, that Germans (or more generally, Europeans) are bigger tobacco-smokers than Americans (on average). But it still surprises me how much tobacco smoke I encounter here. There are even cigarette vending machines in my dorm and in the cafeteria. Since smoking and biking are both so ubiquitous here, it's not uncommon to see bikers puffing away on cigarettes.
6. Bladder control is a virtue. Anyone who's vacationed in Europe probably already realizes this, but: (1) restaurant restrooms are generally only for patrons; and (2) even customers are expected to pay for use of restrooms in department stores. So if you're downtown and gotta go... hopefully you're also hungry. At least most restrooms have toilets and toilet paper here!
7. Drinking fountain extinction. Drinking fountain: what's that? You know that metal device, where you push a button and a constant stream of water flows from a nozzle? Well, so far as I've seen, this innovation simply does not exist here. Come to think of it, I don't think I saw them in Sweden either... but an English classmate confirmed for me that England has them, so it must not be a Europe-wide extinction.
8. Weekends are not for shopping. I'm so spoiled by America's anything-you-want anytime-you-want-it mentality. But here, the grocery stores (and most other shops) close at noon on Saturdays (if they're open at all). And other than some restaurants, nearly nothing is open on Sundays. I still forget, sometimes, to stock the frig before the weekend -- it stinks to run out of food and go to bed hungry! I talked a few weeks ago, however, with a guy from Berlin, and he informed me that the stingy store hours are more of a small-town German thing. In contrast, he said, he can find stores open at nearly all hours, every day of the week in Berlin.
9. Oldenburgers are a friendly lot. Somewhere along the way, I picked up an unfortunate stereotype of Germans as cold, stern, unemotional, impatient, and ultra-efficient (to a fault). I have certainly met a few of these exaggerated type-A's here (as with anyplace), but in general, it just isn't so. A few weeks back, when I bought my (first) bike (which was stolen a few days later), I got lost on my way home from the bike store. As many of my long-time friends know, I tend be slightly direction-impaired, in general, but in my defense: I had only ever used the buses to get around town, so this was the first time I actually needed to know where I was going. When I stopped at a street corner and began studying my map, a 60-ish German man (who was driving past the intersection) rolled down the window and asked if he could help me. I told him I was lost and looking for my dorm -- Otto-Suhr Strasse -- and he told me to follow him with my bike. He drove slow enough for me to follow him for the 2-3 miles to my dorm. What a nice gesture! There have been several similar situations, in which I've been pleasantly surprised to be the beneficiary of warm, genuine, selfless acts of kindness.

My Classmates

I study with a great group of people in the renewable energy master's program. We're very diverse mixture of cultures, languages, backgrounds, personalities, experiences, etc., but we get along really well together. We're composed of 31 students from 20 different countries -- Austria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, England, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Indonesia, Ireland, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria, Sudan, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, and the U.S. Around half of us are mechanical engineers, and the other half are electrical engineers, material scientists, physicists, environmental scientists, or combinations of these specialties. 15 of us are in the EUREC program, which means that we'll move to a different university for the second semester (location depends upon our chosen area of specialization). The other 16 of our classmates are enrolled in a program called PPRE, which entirely takes place at the University of Oldenburg.




All of the students in the two programs are fluent English speakers, but only a few have significant German language skills (and I don't yet count myself as one of these). Since all of our classes are taught in English, and we nearly always speak English to each other as the only common language... it's sometimes easy to forget that I'm living in a non-English-speaking country. I'm planning to sign up for a language exchange program called Sprachtandem soon, which pairs up native German-speakers with international students to exchange language skills. It would be a real shame for me to have lived in Germany for 4+ months without picking up any appreciable German language skills...

To sing, or not to sing...

I've had an internal debate (since before I arrived in Germany) about whether or not to get involved with singing during my studies in Europe. Whenever I'm not singing, I miss it a lot... but I can also tend to get too focused music, to the detriment of other priorities. I had preliminarily planned to participate in a university-sponsored choir, so I could do a little singing each week but without much pressure to spend lots of time on music outside of rehearsals.

There are two choirs sponsored by the university's music department in Oldenburg. One is a classical choir called "Uni-Chor"; and the is called "JazzChor". I attended one rehearsal for each of these groups last week and... it was pretty disappointing. For one thing, it hadn't occurred to me how difficult it would be to get excited about singing not-so-challenging music. But secondly, both groups are singing primarily American show tunes -- "West Side Story" medley, "Let the Sunshine In" (Hair), "Memory" and "Jellicle Cats" (Cats)... And I feel -- how should I say it diplomatically? -- overexposed... to most of this music. Perhaps to Germans, this music is fresh and new... and of course, for them it's "foreign language" music. But for me: BLYECH!

So I did some websurfing and networking over the weekend... I corresponded with a guy from a local group called QuintEssence, and he directed me to another local group -- Jaco de Musio. Last night, I became the tenor for this 5-person (SATBB) jazz vocal group. The group has two arrangers -- the alto and bari (which is nice, since I've promised myself that I won't get involved with arranging during my studies!). They realize that I'm only here in Oldenburg for four months, but they want me to fill in for their tenor (who recently moved away) during the Christmas season. There are several small (2-3 song) performances in the coming weeks, and we're hoping to put on a 30-minute Christmas concert at the local St. Lamberti church in mid-December. In addition to arrangements by two of the members, we are singing several Real Group ditties and one by Take 6 (revoiced slightly for mixed voices). It's fun to be singing again, and it's nice to feel needed (and useful) -- they desperately wanted to continue singing during the holiday season, but when their tenor left them high-n-dry a couple of months ago, they thought it would be impossible. Although the group members all speak English very well -- and talk to me exclusively in English (except when they forget) -- they frequently talk to each other in German during the rehearsal, which will hopefully continue to train/improve my ears for German vocab and grammar (by osmosis, so to speak).

Wind Farm Excursion

Yesterday, my class took a field trip to several wind-energy related sites. First we visited an old-style windmill that uses the wind to produce rotating motion in grinding tools (to grind grain).



Then we visited an EnerCon (www.enercon.de) manufacturing plant, where they manufacture 330kW - 4.5MW wind generators for the European market. It was such a surprise to learn that EnerCon uses very similar alternator technology as Abundant Renewable Energy, my former workplace (www.AbundantRE.com) -- gearless, direct-drive, variable speed generators. I went into the factory expecting to see a new technology, and it looked almost identical to the equipment I'm already familiar with (albeit on a mammoth scale)! The football-field length blades -- fitted with individual heating systems -- were a sight to see too.

Then we drove to a wind farm and climbed the spiral staircase of a 2MW turbine's tower to the observation deck (at the 65-meter / 213' hub height) to see a good view of the rest of the wind farm and to check out the turbine's guts -- very cool.

2-MW EnerCon wind turbine


View from the top of wind turbine's lookout deck (that's part of its blade swinging past)


Another view of wind farm from the lookout deck

For lunch, we stopped at a fish-n-chips joint on the North Sea, which was the only disappointing part of the trip. I'd planned to dip a toe into the North Sea (just to say I'd done it)... but the coast (at least where we were) was just muddy (not sandy) for a good 200 yards before the actual water-line began. I'm sure if we'd waited, the tide would've brought the sea closer, but alas, we had to load the bus and head south. En route back to Oldenburg, we stopped at a little harbor village (photo below) and a wind turbine testing/research facility, where they do comparisons between the big turbines from various manufacturers.


North Sea harbor in a nearby town


One-bladed turbine at wind turbine testing facility (theoretically, a one-bladed turbine seemed like a good idea to the designers... but in practice, it rarely rotated)

Take a look around town...

My current hometown -- Oldenburg -- is a really pleasant little place. It's a town of 160,000 inhabitants (about twice the size of Evanston, my last college town), so it's not a huge metropolis, but it's large enough to have decent services, restaurants, stores, etc. There are bike lanes (which are constantly in use) on every street, and there are forested areas and creeks and ponds all over the place. I mostly use my bike to get around town, but we (students) also have free access to all public transport (buses & trains) throughout Oldenburg and the surrounding region (e.g. we can ride the train to Hamburg for free).

Here are some pics of Oldenburg that I took while biking into the city center yesterday:

House from the neighborhood near my dorm

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Next door to previous pic

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Bakery near my dorm with sign written in "Platdeutsch" (the local dialect)

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Artistic doctor's office facade

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Another medical center

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Downtown square (one of several)

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Grand old building (now used as a telecom company's office)

St. Lamberti church

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It says "Mexican Restaurant"... and it's dressed up like a Mexican restaurant... but unfortunately, their food is only a very distant approximation of Mexican food

Fiddler's Green Irish pub, where we sometimes gather on Friday nights for a pint and some live music

Can you spot the insidious American influence in the distance? (if not, see below)

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Kinda spoils the European charm, doesn't it?

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The "burg" [castle] that gives Oldenburg its name

End of the Intro

I had my intro lab exam earlier today... and it went................................ OK. (I think I may have even passed). It didn't seem nearly as hard as I expected.

Until now, we've been in the "intro lab" preliminary session, but tomorrow, our normal classes of the "winter semester" will begin. Upcoming lecture topics during the next 14 weeks include: micro-hydro electric systems, wind energy, RE physics, solar radiation, photovoltaics, biogas production, energy storage, hydrogen systems / fuel cells, energy meteorology, RE economics, solar thermal energy, and electric power systems. Sounds exciting!

Badzwischenahn

On Monday -- after a group study session for our big "Intro Lab" exam -- a group of six classmates and I took a 9-mile walk around a lake called Zwischenahner Meer in a small neighboring town called Badzwischenahn ["Bad" = bath, "zwischen" = between, "ahn" = ancestor]. Here are some pics from our journey:


R-L: Alan, Bedro, François, Andreas, Mairéad, Craig


Map of Zwischenahner Meer


Mairéad finds a stick made for walkin'


Big furry cow


François is king of the... stump


Colorful lakefront condos


Sittin' on the dock of the... Meer


Nice view

Where in the world am I?

I currently study at Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg in northwest Germany. Here's a map with Oldenburg highlighted (+ marks the spot):

My second semester will take place in Athens, Greece. You may already know where Athens is, but here's a Greek map:

I've always had the impression that Europe is a pretty small place... and that you can get from any European country to all the other European countries within a day or two (by car or train)... but it ain't necessarily so. Per Google Maps, it's around a four day trip (car or train) to get from Oldenburg to Athens. When my parents arrive in early February to help me move south, we're still trying to decide our route and mode of transportation (car, train, plane). The most direct car/train route takes us through Austria, Hungary, Serbia, and Macedonia before arriving in Greece. That sounds fun to me, but my folks and I don't speak any Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian, or Macedonian... which might make for quite an adventure. Another possible route could take us along the border of Austria and Lichtenstein -- both German-speaking countries -- into Italy, where we can take a ferry boat from one of several Italian port towns to Greece. Or we could hang out in Germany for a few days and hop on a plane for Athens. I'm not yet sure how much time I'll have between my semesters. The official start date in Athens is February 11... but rumor has it that things don't really get started at the university until around Feb 25. Hmmmm...

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