Hello everyone!
Once again, I apologize for being a little behind schedule, but you know, that’s life. Today, I want to reflect on my experiences at the DAAD RISE Scholarship Conference in Heidelberg, Germany. For me, it was the perfect location, since I live no more than an hour away from the site.
The event formally began on Thursday from to 4:00 to 6:00, but I decided to get there a bit early, to do some exploring. I used BlaBlaCar to get there at around 11:00, and boarded the bus to get to the hostel. When I got there, the nice administrative people wouldn’t let me check in and unload my bags until 4:00, but I was able to get a locker for my one carry-on bag. I left the hostel around 11:30 to see what Heidelberg had to offer.
Turns out, that there’s a really old Roman castle near the Altstadt, and a really old university, but that’s really all Heidelberg has to offer, from a tourism point of view. Now, Heidelberg has all the entertainment of any sizable city (bars, libraries, public parks, etc.) but I was really disappointed with its unique attractions. Regardless, I toured the castle, and browsed through the Pharmacy Museum (weird that it’s right in the middle of a castle, right?). Oh, and apparently the largest barrel in the world is also located there. There was a king that once lived there, and it was said that he drank so much that he needed the barrell to store his wine. This thing had to have been 40 feet tall! The views were also really nice; Heidelberg is a truly beautiful city.
When 4:00 came around, I was finally able to check in. There was a bit of a delay from the DAAD administration as they organized themselves (I don’t blame them because there were so many of us), so we ended up getting to our rooms around 4:30. There was also a considerable line of people waiting to check in, but I didn’t mind this at all, because I met quite a few interns, and rather liked getting to know what they were working on. It turned out that they grouped people into rooms based on who was near in line, so I got to room with a bunch of British guys, and someone from OSU who I had met before the semester was over.
Next came the barbecue. In the United States, when someone invites another to a barbecue, they can usually expect an assortment not only of meat, but also fruit salad or vegetable salad. In Germany, barbecues mean meat, and lots of it! There were 5 different kinds of meat prepared for us, consisting of sausages, chicken, and steak. Really delicious.
After that, I was glad to see that one of the guys that I met from the Munich language class had started a game of ultimate frisbee, and I happily joined in. It was a lot of fun to play a game with all the interns involved, even if I didn’t score any points. When it started getting dark, a group of us decided to check out the Neckar River. It was a little far by foot, maybe a half hour walk or so, but it was really cool to see so many RISE interns mixing with the native Germans where the River went under the bridge. It was really scenic and cool.
The following day began with a welcoming ceremony. It was definitely over 40°C, which is above 100°F. It was so hot, that on the bus, I was creating a puddle of sweat from the rivers of persperation on my elbows. What really surprised me was how little everyone else was sweating. I guess that’s just me, haha. We got to the room where the ceremony was held, and it was so hot that people were falling asleep. Programs instantly turned into fans, and windows were immediately opened despite the lack of breeze. There was a musical group that performed between speakers, some kind of fusion between pop and latin music. I would have definitely enjoyed them better if it wasn’t so hot. I thought the speakers were mostly average: there was a representative from the Canadian government, the U.S. government, and the British government, but I enjoyed hearing a former DAAD intern’s experiences the most. She was in our shoes a little while ago, married a German guy, and decided to pursue a PhD in Germany! She now has a couple kids and lives in Germany. Gosh, I don’t know if I could do that.
Germany is not the place to be when the summers get hot. Most buildings do not have air conditioning, and there are no public drinking fountains. The whole drinking fountain thing really bums me out more than anything. I used to be able to hop from drinking fountain to drinking fountain without bringing any water bottle, but that’s simply not possible here.
Much to our relief, when the ceremony was finished, we began a tour of Heidelberg after a quick lunch break. It was alright; we heard about all the history and saw all the landmarks, but it was all ancient history, and either I didn’t find it interesting, or was too uncomfortable to pay attention. When the tour was finished, we were able to get dinner at one of the breweries. It was good, but the portions were very small. That seems to be common with European restaurants, and I’m not a fan! The food is always very tasty, but you only get a taste.
Heading back, we had just enough time to jump in the pool to cool off. The entrance fee was €4, but since we were a minute late, the pool was closed (but still allowed guests to swim for another hour). Because we were so hot, we decided to jump the turnstiles, and that turned out to be one of the best decisions I made during the entire trip. It was absolutely wonderful to cool off in the pool. After that, I think we just headed back to the hostel and went to bed. I might update this post if I remember anything else. This was a good Friday.
Saturday was the day of the presentations from the fellow interns. I attended all the interns from OSU that I could, and saw a couple other presentations. They all had one thing in common: all of them highlighted background information; there was little to be said about what the intern had actually done either in the lab or in the field. Whatever the case, it was nice to hear science in English again.
The program officially ended at 2:00 with a group picture and horderves. It was really sad to say goodbye to all these people that I had just met a couple days ago. We went back to the hostel to check out, but I still retained my locker, so I just moved my things down there for a while. See, DAAD had provided the hostel to us from Thursday night until Saturday afternoon, and a couple of my friends wanted to still do things that day and Sunday (since none of us had anything to do until Monday). One of my friends found a CouchSurfing host for me and another person, so that was the plan for Saturday night.
That day was probably the most fun I had all weekend. We were able to just relax and swim in the river. We ended up meeting another group of people, and our reasoning was the more the merrier. We were able to get dinner at an Italian place, and split a couple of pizzas. We got ice cream at one of the malls, then swimming again. Honestly, it was really just nice to hang out with some American people. We headed back to the hostel to gather our things and seek out our accommodations. Turned out that the host that my friend had found was an hour by train, and the trains only ran once an hour. So we turned that down when we realized that we couldn’t get there before midnight. One of the girls that we had met up with wanted to go out for drinks (being that it was July 4th and all), and she didn’t have anyone to go with. I didn’t have anywhere to stay really (although I could have booked another night at the hostel for €27, but I was too stubborn to hand it over), so I decided to join her.
We had a really great time. We went from bar to bar, me ordering the cheapest things, her ordering the most original. I honestly lost track of time. When everything closed down at around 3:30, we began walking back to the hostel. The funny thing was, her train left sometime around 6:30, and it was still really hot at the hostel (because of all the light concrete heating up the building). So she thought it could be fun to take a little nap by the river. Heck, I thought, I had no other room booked or anything. So that was a pleasant night. It was so much cooler than being inside, and my things were safely locked up at the hostel. Beautiful scenery.
That morning, as we walked back to the hostel to gather our things (this was around 5:30), I realized how tired I was after walking all day and surviving the heat for so long. Oh, I also badly needed a shower. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a group of DAAD people enter the hostel laughing (most likely drunker than a skunk), with one of the interns having blood on his knee. After closer inspection, I saw that there was actually a bone sticking out of his knee! So we made sure that he got medical attention. It was convenient that there was a hospital just across the street. Apparently, he had tripped and fallen on one of the train rails. Ouch.
Not wanting to do any more walking, my new friend and I split a taxi ride to the train station. I could have stayed at the hostel, and wait to hear back from my other friends (who were going to do things on Sunday), but I felt so tired, exhausted, and gross that I decided to hop on the next train to Darmstadt. Like I said, it was fairly close, and it only costed €9,00 so why not? As soon as I got home I sat in the fraternity pool, and later took a cold shower. I went to bed early that night, and got something like 14 hours of sleep. Not bad.
TL;DR: It was a super fun weekend 🙂
Bis später!
Tom Ziebro