Science (and cheese)

While in Germany I have been:

• Working hard
• Eating a sausage-based meal a day. 

Going to Germany with a Eurasian has been really good, because rather than trying to buy and cook the same things I would in New Zealand, he buys things that are delicious and German. So: Sausages, black bread, mayonnaise, cream cheese, goats cheese, hard cheese, mozzarella, chocolate. As it turns out you can eat these foods many many days in a row and they are still delicious.

A day's supply

DON'T WORRY: I'm eating lots of blueberries as well, which add a million health points to every meal.

I thought that doing night shift at the synchrotron might be accurately summarised by the second option on the coffee machine I relied heavily upon:

 

Highly inaccurate

but actually working at DESY - an amazing scientific facility enclosed by a particle accelerator - makes everything okay! I am surrounded by awesome high-tech stuff and have met and played table soccer with a bunch of neat scientists from Estonia, Spain, Russia and Holland.

Looking through lead glass at some hardcore x-rays

The outside of the particle accelerator PETRA III

The particles were hidden by huge concrete blocks to stop people nearby getting superpowers

They are building the world's biggest free electron laser at DESY - the XFEL. It's going to be 3.5km long (!!) and open in 2015. Konstantin and I have agreed we're definitely going to work there, as cleaners if necessary.

I don't think this is actually the tunnel for the XFEL, but it COULD BE

Konstantin showed me the control centre for PETRA III. There were a lot of clever-looking men who had 6 computer screens each. When I get back to UC I am going to take all my officemates' monitors and arrange them in an awesome semicircle, and pretend I control a particle accelerator.

Okay - my flight to England is about to board!