Eureka!

Today, I had by far, the most productive day at work that I've ever experienced! All of the work that I have been doing for the last 2 weeks finally came together to allow me to make ten pages worth of beautiful plots showing everything that happens in my combustor, from the velocity that the air is traveling at to the heat which is being produced by the combustion to the amount of pollution created by that ridiculous chemical reaction. Not only was I able to make these plots for one run of my code, I was also able to run another code that computes everything differently to check if I could get the same results. What I ended up with was a huge document full of amazing pictures that I would love to show on here (but I can't because they are highly proprietary...) My results showed me that the new code which I was working to validate performed even better than the old one and it was able to do so with less work from the user (by allowing unstructured grid generation for anyone that cares). Now that I have all of these pictures, I can present my work through a link call to the CFD group back in the U.S. How cool is that!? I'm going to be presenting what I have done over here in Germany back to my old boss and all of the people I worked with over in Indianapolis.

Tomorrow, I'm going to do something even more incredible. I'm going to automate the entire process of what I did (at least most of it anyway). I think this is the part that I like most about engineering. Not only can you set up a program to give you all of this incredibly detailed information that tells you everything that is going on in a very sophisticated combustor, you can also take this whole process and automate it so that no one will ever have to do it again. In essence, I am working to eliminate my own job! Everyone talks about how globalization and industrialization is taking away all of these jobs from the United States. I am actually working to industrialize the very work that I am doing. And this won't get me layed off. It will instead allow me to move on to bigger, more important challenges that need the attention of a human being. No computer could ever take over every job that needs to be done in our world. If it could, we'd all live pretty good lives doing nothing but sitting around and enjoying our time. Engineering allows one to continue to improve a process until it works seamlessly with no need for further improvement. This will slowly and surely change the way our world works and how people live. And I get to be a part of that...

weekend with the Dutch

Last weekend Ton's friends came from the Netherlands to drive him home, but before they left, they decided to stay for a "mini vacation" over the weekend. These kids from Holland were really awesome people. I can't really describe it, but they just had this goofy attitude about making everything fun. We ended up walking around Berlin all day Saturday, seeing all kinds of historical and interesting stuff. One of them was the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche, this amazing looking church that got bombed almost to rubble during WWII. The remnants were left standing with a new church built right next to it an a very modern fashion. The two different styles side-by-side make a stunning scene that is hard to capture in one photo. The other incredible building was Sony Center, this very modern structure located in Potsdamer Platz. Walking into the building, you feel like you're walking into the future with its huge plasma TV's hanging on the walls and the interesting looking swirling ceiling. Potsdamer Platz was really an incredible place to see. We also went and saw Checkpoint Charlie. I really had pumped this place up as one my places to see in Berlin, but when I got there, I was rather disappointed. All that is left of the historical crossing from East to West Berlin is a little guard post and a sign that says you are leaving or entering the American sector. It really wasn't very exciting...

That night, we went out to some more clubs. I missed my stop again on the train (gotta work on that) and called it a weekend...

Uni here, Uni there, Uni Uni everywhere

Every day this week I've been eating lunch and taking my "afternoon walk" (another common thing in Germany) with Ton. It's kind of sad that he's going to be done with his internship this week and leaving back for the Netherlands this weekend. We talked a little bit about the school systems in Europe and how they are very different from ours in America. I guess you don't typically do a mere "undergrad" program in engineering. Most students will make it a 5-year program and end up with their Masters at the end of it. In addition, you have to cap your studies off with a 9-month "project" that you can do either at your university or with some firm. I guess Ton just has this left and then he will graduate. We also talked a little bit about the differences between a public funded and private funded university. I guess in Europe, it's very rare for Alumni to give back to their university. University is seen more as a necessity than an entirely new era of your life like it is in the U.S. Colleges here rarely have campuses and students usually just live in random apartments somewhere close to their University. There is no place that builds up that "college life" culture like at Purdue. In addition sports are not common at all for universities. Usually, there will be some club teams but they are not nearly as competitive as college varsity sports are in the U.S. People who are looking to go pro in something don't go to college. Instead, they will attend a sports school to further their development in the sport their interest. I guess that makes sense, but I couldn't imagine going to college somewhere without the huge rivalries between schools merely due to their athletic programs. On a side note, I hear Purdue basketball's doing pretty good this year. I hope you kids still at Purdue are going to those games. I'm cheering for us over here (not that I can see the games but I watch the highlights on ESPN). That's another thing, I guess ESPN doesn't exist over here. I can not imagine a world without ESPN. Well, back to my point, without all of these programs that inspire school spirit and build university culture, alumni don't really care about their university too much after college and give back the ridiculous sums of money like they do in the U.S. Instead, the government does! Better? Worse? Not necessarily...just different...

der andere Praktikant

Last Thursday I met another intern at Rolls-Royce who happened to also be from the Netherlands. His name is Ton and he is also working for my boss doing some different CFD work. It turns out that when I started, I actually took his spot because there wasn't any other room in the office, but he was moved to somewhere else relatively close so it was no problem. Ton's native language is also Dutch, but he likes to speak English rather than German because it's difficult to switch back and forth. It was very interesting talking to Ton about Germany and Berlin because he too is somewhat a foreigner here.

We ended up going out together over the weekend along with Joe, the other kid from GEARE who lives in Berlin. First, we went from bar to bar, talking about random things and then we went to this place that Ton knew of called Kulturbraurei. I guess this used to be one of the largest breweries in Germany but after it got shut down, they converted it into a bunch of bars and restaurants. Here's a picture of it, but it's hard to see because it was dark out. We ended up going to a club here called Club 23 (original huh?) We didn't get there until about 1:00 AM and the line still took us about an hour to get through... Germans really like to go out late... The place was a stereotypical insane German disco with four floors and LOTS of crazy techno. They also had some other rooms with hip hop/R&B and also another room with "classic rock"-ish American music. We had a great time dancing the night away with hundreds and hundreds of other Germans. I didn't leave till about 5:00 and slept through my train stop on the way home making the whole trip take another 2 hours. At 7:00 AM I finally got home and fell asleep to the sounds of birds chirping outside...

R&T @ RRD - Rolls-Royce Deutschland

This week I started work with Rolls-Royce Deutschland. It is located in a little town called Dahlewitz waaaaaay far south from Berlin (actually located in Brandenburg). I have about a 1 hour train/bus ride each way to and from work. I guess I get to be a commuter for a while... My work is going to involve the same sort of things that I did last summer in Indianapolis working for Rolls-Royce North America. I'm going to be performing CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) on combustors for gas turbine engines. By the way, Rolls-Royce does NOT make cars anymore. They moved out of that business a long time ago and gave the name to BMW. Rolls-Royce is technically in the market of making gas-turbine engines, mostly turbojets and turboprops for aircraft. So when I say I work on a combustor, it's the part of the engine where the fuel mixes with the gas and burns, creating LOTS of energy. Anyways, my job is to try to help the team that improves the program which models the combustor. I'm doing this by setting up a grid with all of the geometry of the combustor and then describing what is happening at all of the boundaries. Then, I run the code and obtain lots of data. If my data matches what scientists think actually happens in the combustor, then I have good results. This type of work is very interesting as it allows me to purely learn about what goes on in combustors without having to have any prior knowledge. I run my code and "discover" all of the inter-workings of these very advanced combustors. It's pretty cool stuff and I think it's definitely going to help me prepare for some type of aero work in the future.

The office space is very nice with huge windows overlooking the rest of the factory. It's very open and you can see all of the other people working in your team at the same time (unlike my narrow little cubicle I had in Indy...) There's also free coffee that you can drink all day long! This will really help my work skills... My boss seems really nice and I was able to talk with him for a long time about my project and other random computer stuff. He's originally from the Netherlands and his native language is Dutch, but his English and his German are both really good. He seems like he's a very smart guy and I think that I'll be able to learn a lot from him. I guess I'm going to see how much I can pick up during my three months here...

Living in Friedenau

Sunday night I moved into my new room in Friedenau. The neighborhood is straight out of suburbia but German style. Everywhere you look, there are four or five story apartment buildings that look like giant houses lining the roads. Each apartment is some middle class family's home sweet home. In the mornings, there hundreds of little kids walking around with their big backpacks going to school. Some of these kids look like they could be four or five, but here they are, walking down the street and sometimes taking trains with no adult supervision at all! I guess that means this is at least a safe neighborhood. It's really funny to hear these little kids speaking German to each other because when I hear them talk, I know that they are probably better speakers than me! I don't think I've ever been able to translate what these little kids are talking about... There's also a lot of people that bike around this neighborhood. I've really gotta be careful about getting in their way because they WILL plow you down. If you hear a little *ding ding* of a bell and you happen to be standing on a bike path, WATCH OUT!

My New Room!!!

A bit o' banter with the Irish and the Ausies

Now, I have to talk about the bar scene... The Friday I was there I ended up going to the pub downstairs from our hostel. There, we met a ton of young people. We talked about the differences in culture between all our different countries (by discussing the ins and outs of finding a girlfriend...) and drank rather heavily... The bar was showing on a big screen a mix of Tarzan/caveman/pornography that was rather disturbing but as the night progressed it became increasingly funny. Later, we set out to go to the bars with some Ausie girls only to get lost in Alexanderplatz and end up eating McDonalds...

For the rest of the day Joe and I ended up hanging out with the Irish girls and having an incredible time. We public transported all around the city and saw all kinds of cool things. First, we took a tour of an old German bunker that was used during the world war too. The most fun part was that the whole thing was in German... For the rest of the day we walked around trying to see everything we could in this huge city of Berlin. The Irish people were hilarious and I couldn't stop laughing when I had one of them say "Luck o' the Irish." We also learned some other Irish words like posh and banter... They were really some crazy people those Irish. We found a nice little restaurant in Eastern Berlin where we ate some vegetarian pizza-type stuff that was surprisingly delicious. Then, we walked along the wall and saw all the graffiti on it about freedom and oppression. I think the graffiti is the most interesting part about the Berlin wall because you can really see how the people in Berlin were feeling after it was torn down by the drawings that they made. Finally, we went back to the hostel because Joe and I had work in the morning and said goodbye to our new friends. But before we did that we decided we would plan a trip to come visit them for St. Patrick's Day. If that happens, I'm pretty sure it will be the most amazing trip in the whole world. Hopefully, we can get it all set up and make it work out. I'd really like to see those Irish again...

On to Berlin!

Last Thursday I trained into Berlin from Karlsruhe with Joe, another GEARE student. The train ride was very fast and very smooth and only took five and a half hours, mostly consisting of me sleeping... We checked into the Circus Hostel and went to bed. Our first few nights in Berlin turned out to be amazing. The Circus hostel homed many young people from all over the world, looking to go out and have a good time. We met students from Australia, Ireland, Argentina, Britain, Brazil, and even some good ole Americans. The hostel itself put out a very "young" atmosphere. The halls ran diagonal past the rooms; the reception area played the most random of music (from classical to Beatles); and the bar downstairs had Happy Hour pretty much every night. Unfortunately, a lot of my time in the hostel was spent on the wifi downstairs, trying to find somewhere to live so that I didn't end up on the streets while working at my ensuing internship on Monday.

We did, though get to walk around a little bit and see the sights and sounds of Berlin. Our hostel was located in a very central location near Alexanderplatz and within walking distance of the Bundestag, Brandenburg Tor, and all the other touristy destinations. One day we set out to see them and I was truly amazed of the beauty the buildings exuded. I was stupid and forgot to bring my camera, but I'll put up some pictures later. The downtown "political" area of Berlin really reminded me of being in Washington DC in the states. You could tell that a lot of very official business was done in this neighborhood. Again, pictures explain this area best so when I get those pictures put up, I'll tell you more.

Then, I was able to have a meeting with some students whose room I was looking at renting. This was the first time I really was able to feel a huge difference in cultures. I tried to talk to them and make jokes like an American, but nothing I said seemed to catch their interest. They really didn't like me... Then, it got even more awkward as they let in other people who were looking in to renting the room at the same time as me. This was the first time I really felt like a foreigner. Needless to say, I didn't get that apartment and had to continue my search.

Eventually, I was able to find a nice little room that a German lady was renting out in Friedenau (southwest Berlin). The area was pure suburbia, a bunch of nice apartments lined up along the road with school children walking around on the streets. The area was very nice, but there was not much to do around there for a college student so I agreed to rent the place till the end of the month and then try my luck again in finding some housing with students...

Karlsruhe, a University town

Next we traveled to Karlsruhe to see the city in which we will be attending University in April and to apply for our work Visa and register as a student. Karlsruhe is a hustling and bustling college town that has a pretty impressive downtown area with a big castle (der Schloss) in the middle and an INCREDIBLE strassenbahn system. The street trains run up and down the streets pretty much all the time, transporting people anywhere you want to go in the city. We stayed here for three nights in a pension (type of hotel) rented out by a nice old lady who didn't speak any English. It was kind of fun to practice our German skills with her. All eleven of the GEARE students came here so we were finally able to meet up with all of the other Purdue students in Germany. The time spent in Karlsruhe was very exciting and we got to see all kinds of crazy things and meet very nice people while we were there.

On the first day, we walked around the streets. One of the most interesting things we saw was the crazy art on the streets of Karlsruhe. This picture shows a statue that is off one of the main roads. We decided that it was a depiction of a bunch of ghouly looking people shooting out of some "water" like a fountain and falling back down into it. It almost looks like souls coming out of the River Styx. If you look in my photo album, I have some other pictures that you can see of it so that you can decide for yourself what it really is...


On the third day (Wednesday), we were walked around the city to take care of all of our registration stuff and putting together all of the information we needed to apply (and hopefully obtain) our work Visas. The "tour guide" was a Karlsruhe student named Angela. She was very helpful in putting up with all of our stupid questions about the German registration papers. We walked all over Karlsruhe, checking off the various tasks that were required for our visa papers that we were supposed to be getting the next day. Although stresful at times, it was really interesting to see the crazy process foreigners have to go through to get in to another country (and this was nothing compared to getting in to the U.S.)

The next day we went to the Rathaus to the appointments we had scheduled to get our Visas. I was actually a little nervous when I went in and spoke to the official, not sure whether she would accept all my papers and give me the Visa that I desperately needed to start my job next week. When I went in, I spoke all German and gave her all the papers she needed. It turned out OK and she accepted everything and gave me my 180 day Visa stamp in my passport.

On one of the other days we were walking around Karlsruhe we happened to stumble across the two other GEARE graduate students who had been studying at the university. They offered to bring us to their apartment and give us some Belgian beer (which is perhaps the most amazing drink I have ever imagined). It turned out, the room which they were staying was the same place that we were going to be living when we went to Karlsruhe (the International Department) so we got to have a sneak peak at what was to come....

phones and marriage

Yesterday, we made our very first endeavors into the German shopping experience. We retraced our steps from last night and went back to the shopping district in the north to look for cell phones. This turned out to be a very interesting experience. Our little group of four Americans would walk into a store, look around for prepaid phones, and then huddle in a circle and talk amongst ourselves, all with no one from the store saying one word to "encourage us to purchase their services." We walked from store to store, visiting 5 or 6 in all, never once speaking to the store associates. This itself was a big culture shock not having service reps all over you to buy their product. Finally, we went back to some stores and asked some questions in German and figured out the place with the best plan, Tchibo. Then we were able to purchase the phone and figure out how to activate it, all in German (with a few stupid mistakes). After that, we decided we needed to get out and do something so that we could go back to sleep that night. So we decided to try to find "die Kneipe" (the bars). One of the kids we had been with the other day told us they were southeast of our hostel so we set out to find them. We walked a good mile and a half before we found the little square of bars, but when we got there we realized that they were less than a block away from our hostel... We stayed out for a little while and I ended up talking for a long time with this German girl who came in with a veil on her head and a box full of chocolates and other little items. It turned out that she was selling them to "raise money" for the party that would follow her wedding that week. The whole thing was actually a sort of bachelorrette party for the girl to go from bar to bar with all of her girl friends as a last harrah before she tied the knot. I talked to her other friend about more German marriage traditions like the friends of the people getting married coming to their house to smash all of their dishes on the walls outside. It doesn't sound like a very good idea to me but hey, they're German...

I'm in Germany!

Yesterday, I arrived in Germany and already I've had lots of random adventures...

The first occurred on the plane when I just happened to be sitting in the same row as a girl who had gone to not only my high school, but also my elementary school for my entire life. In fact, she lived just down the road from me back in my subdivision. It's crazy how small of a world it can be that sitting in an Air India flight to Europe I run into (and even sit next to) someone who lives right down the street from me. It turned out that my friend and the girl sitting next to her were both heading to Europe to study abroad, one in Paris and one in Spain. We had a good time reflecting on days of past the whole plane ride and agreed that we'd visit each other during our stays in Europe. Surprisingly, Air India had remarkably good food and service for the amazingly affordable prices that they provided (only $504 round trip to Frankfurt so if you want to visit me, you know what to fly).

The Row 70 ABC Crew --->

I landed in Frankfurt am Main along with four other students from Purdue in my same study abroad program. We took a train to the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof and got our first glimpse of the incredible German train system (Die Bahn). The Frankfurt station was a HUGE building with trains that led to almost anywhere in Europe all at incredibly fast speeds (more than 200 mph). The station was a bundle of activity with travelers everywhere moving from train to train or settling down in a coffee shop while waiting for one to arrive. At the train station we were able to purchase a BahnCard 50 so that we could get half price train tickets anywhere in Germany. This was a very good deal for students such as us who would be doing a lot of traveling within Germany and I would recommend it for anyone staying in Germany for an extended period of time.

Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station)

Very quickly we found a hostel to stay in and got settled down. All of us were badly jet lagged after the flight and desperately wanted to sleep, but we knew that it was only 11 in the morning German time and we needed to stay up. So we decided to walk around Frankfurt and take in the sights and sounds of Germany. Frankfurt is a beautiful city with lots 0f tall skyscrapers and a river (Main) running directly down its center transporting barges with goods to ship around the world. It also had a beautiful skyline that reminded me of a smaller version of Chicago. Although the weather was not so nice, we still had an amazing time walking around the city reading all of the German signs and noticing the subtle (but constantly apparent) differences between life in Europe and life in the States. One of the major differences was the mix between new and old buildings throughout the city.

This large cathedral is called Saint Bartholomeus' Cathedral and it stands looking over the river Main and on towards the highly modernized downtown area. If you look closely at the picture on the right, you see that the buildings in front of the skyscrapers are very old houses from the 15th and 16th centuries. This is the altstadt (old city) district nestled right up against skyscrapers built within the last ten years. All of these buildings are still functional as homes, businesses, and museums. This is the type of layout that you would never see in American cities.

Later that night we met some kids who had been foreign exchange students in Germany for the last few months and were now going back to the U.S. They walked us around the city and gave us some info on the culture and the language that they had experienced. We walked around the streets drinking a few beers (which is apparently legal in Germany) and let them reflect on their good times while we could dream of good times to come....