In citta

I'm here in Genova, with the nuns. They're good value, though we have to communicate in French. The room seems very nice, and I can see the sea. Tomorrow I have to start looking for a more long term place to stay.

The journey through Switzerland was very pretty, though I kept falling asleep as I was up til 2 cleaning up my flat and packing, and I had to get up at 6 to make the train. The Panoramawagen turned out to be mythical, the train was actually pretty ordinary, but the scenery was still amazing.

Need to eat and sleep now.

The landlady didn't show up last night. Quite annoying.

Sunny again today. Here's a picture of a red squirrel and some flowers in the Schloss gardens.

My landlady is hopefully going to come round this evening to look at my furniture. I'm hoping she'll decide to rent the place out furnished and let me leave the furniture there. Otherwise we're going to have to carry it quite a long way to the nearest street collection, which will be a bit boring.

I'm going to go home and make my flat look tidier.

Got my tax form into the Finanzamt this morning. Had to wait a while to see someone, but after that it was relatively painless. Looking back at the language problems I had trying to get my bank card when I first arrived, it's pretty remarkable to me that I managed to do the whole tax declaration thing in German. I even found out how to get a tax card for next year when I'm not here - unfortunately, I have to go to the BürgerBüro to arrange this, another thing on the list off stuff to do before I can leave.

Got some train tickets for Genova, but the station here wasn't able to guarantee Panoramawagen seats. All the places just come up as normal seats on their computers. I decided to book a window seat and hope for the best.

Last night I had dinner with Lena's family (Lena is my language partner, as you no doubt remember). The main course was Spätzle, a south west speciality. I had tried it in the Mensa before where it was mediocre, but Lena's father made an unrecognisably better version. The whole meal was excellent. The wine was a particular highlight. We had German prosecco to go with the pre-dinner nibbles, a dry Badische white whine to go with the salad and goats' cheese starter, a Spätburgunder to drink with the Spätzle, and a fruity dessert wine with dessert. All of the wines were very fine, but the prosecco was probably my favourite. Lena's father sells Badisch wine for a living.

I guess that last night's dinner will probably prove the high water mark for my German until I come back to Germany again. Several hours of conversation ranging over a large variety of topics, from wine to European immigration, with no option to drop out into English like you often have at university parties. It was a lot of fun. It's a little frustrating that I'll have to back to the beginning again with my Italian.

Before dinner Lena and I want to the Caracalla, the newer bath complex in Baden-Baden. It's very modern and has some novel features like a pool outdoors. The water is about 34 degrees, which is warm enough provided you swim about a bit, and then you can sit in a hot tub, also outdoors, and absorb some more volcanic minerals. They also have a large sauna complex, including some outdoors made of Schwarzwald wood that smell really good. And I tried the cold water bucket for the first and last time.

I went out with Ignacio and his brother and father on Satuday night. It was good fun. We went to the bar opposite my flat and then came back to mine and finished off the whisky that my research group gave me before I left Edinburgh. The bar opposite, called Coppa, sells Tapas food. We tried some. The Spaniards were not terribly impressed, about as impressed as I was by Nordsee's fish and chips. When in Germany, eat the German food.

On the subject of German food, last week I tried Maultaschen, a south west German speciality. They're a bit like large ravioli. Very tasty.

Last night I was at Anusch's place for his birthday party. Good fun, lots of German practice. I gave him some Scottish Breakfast tea from Jenner's.

I will be very busy the next few days and might not have time to post much. Not doing anything exciting, just lots to sort out before I leave next week. The current problems:

Where to stay in Genova? I don't have a flat waiting for me, so will have to stay in a hotel for a while. Luca has recommended a place run by nuns, sounds like fun.
How to get to Genova? The current plan involves a train, changing once in either Zurich or Basel. It's about a ten hour trip. If I get up early enough, I can change at Basel for a train with a 'Panoramawagen' for the rest of the trip. Sounds cool, but is it worth getting out of bed at 6am for?
What to do with my furniture? Current plan involves dumping it in a nearby Sperrmüll collection on Wednesday morning, except for the bed, which I will keep until next Tuesday.
Paperwork Of course loads of paperwork to do, including reclaiming tax etc. which is a language nightmare. Better get on with it...

For exiled cricket fans, I recommend the BBC cricket fielding game. Maybe a touch too easy, and gully looks a bit too much like second slip, but still good fun.

I took two photos of the people in the Schloss gardens yesterday evening.

Weather still warm and sunny. Not much work going on in this building. Yesterday it was 24.4 degrees C, a record for Karlsruhe at this time of year. The local TV company was out in the Schloss gardens taking footage for the news.

Yesterday we went to the Irish pub for the quiz again. Being March 17th, it was pretty busy. We finished fourth, just outside the prizes - all the questions were about leprechauns and shamrocks.

Back in Karlsruhe

When I left Karlsruhe it was still winter. Two weeks later, it's summer. It's 20 degrees C today, sunny, smells of spring flowers, fresh cut grass, coffee being drunk outside. Everyone's in shirt sleeves and sunglasses and looking like it's midsummer. I was quite sad to leave London yesterday, but I'm feeling pretty glad to be here now.

Keep on to the post-doc, don't stop till you get enough

Alan (my PhD supervisor) found out today that our application to EPSRC for some money to fund a post-doc project has been successful. The grant details are here.

Some photos from the post-oral exam celebrations here.

The Hamburg pictures are finally ready here.

viva

passed with minor corrections, a good result. Was a stressful experience, glad it's over. off to pub.

I'm preparing my stuff for my visit to Edinburgh to take my PhD oral exam, hence no time to write much about the weekend just yet. It was a very good one though, I was back in Hamburg for a housewarming at Tina's flat and to meet up with Graham. Have just a few photos ready: Graham and me in front of the Alster lake, taking a Sekt breakfast at the Hamburg fishmarket after next to no sleep (timestamped for authenticity), the crazy sekt seller giving Graham his change, while the band blasts out Beatles numbers. And finally, a picture of the sunset on Hamburg docks.

Flying tomorrow, more pictures to come on Wednesday.