Working with nerds.

First of all, I am a nerd and DAMN PROUD OF IT!!! However, being in the profession I'm in, I'm often confronted with people who are far more nerdy. This time around in Bremen, I had the opportunity to measure a sample on an R&D version of a machine that I'm using. 

Upon visiting their offices/labs...I was instructed that I had to suppress my Asianness as photography of the R&D machines was strictly forbidden. I really wish this was not the case because once I passed through the laser safety curtain...god I wish I was allowed to take photos.

It was far more hardcore than this.

(Image source)

The walls were lined with racks filled with plastic boxes filled with various bits of wiring and god knows what else. Arranged around the room were various machines, stripped of their protective exteriors designed to make a lab looks streamlined, exposing the wiring and in some cases, with adaptations. In the centre of the room, standing like a beast, was a Frankenstein version of the machine I've been using. Looking at him, Michael made the comment, "hmmm, looks like they've got four lasers mounted..." Being a clumsy sort, I had to be especially careful not to bump into anything!

But the real joy came when they were explaining to me how they'd altered the machines to alter various measurement parameters and the line, "Yeah, we had to hack the (company's commercially available) software to get it to do that..." and pointing out the modifications on the machine. Seriously, it was putting my nerd declarations to shame. Respect to the true nerds. Respect.

Back in Bremen

Despite my terror that the snow would disrupt the S-bahn (and it sorta did - one train was cancelled), as the title states, I managed to fly back in Bremen! And I'm back in the same hotel.  

Alas, this time I wasn't treated to a dinner but I did receive a surprise in my room! While sitting at the computer, I heard a buzzing noise, akin to a drone. Imagine my horror when I realised that despite us being in Winter-like weather, that it was a WASP!!! After a shriek of alarm (it pains me to have to tell you this but really, these things prefer hot weather, no?), I quickly re-reached equilibrium and set about catching the little bastard.

One hotel cup and the TV channel listings later, I got it.

But then, what to do with it? It was too cold to open a window but I didn't really want Housekeeping to think me more of a weirdo. So I let it enjoy captivity for the night and released it in the morning. I took great care to make sure it didn't fly back in though.

Snow already?!

Well this is just bizarre (for me). For the entire week, we had been receiving weather forecasts saying it would snow come weekend. WTF?!?! It last snowed at Easter in April and the snow is back 6 months later?! :'( Anyway, while we were out before the movie, we three did note the nature of the sky and that it did look as though it snow was on the way. I was still somewhat hopeful that it wouldn't actually snow. These hopes were dashed when I got up on Saturday morning and saw that, yes, it was in fact snowing. It wasn't keeping though - while snow was coming from the sky, the ground was still too warm to keep it there. This situation had changed around the evening. Fabi, Steffi, and I went to our local for dinner and as we finished and headed home, we noted that the cars on the streets had a respectable enough layer on them for Steffi to grab a handful and toss it at Fabi shouting "erste Schneeball der Saison!" 

I started to feel a bit like a shut-in and around 9-ish, I started to feel like a hikikomori and went over to Amy's place in DEFIANCE of the weather! 

Whoops, forgot to put my bike into the cellar for Winter again...

Amy lives on the top floor of a 4-storey building. Check out the covering on the roof tiles and cars

I ended up leaving her place around half-midnight and walking in the -5C or so weather and snow to the u-bahn, some guys in a car pulled over and offered to give me a lift. Confronted with treatment that was either extremely chivalrous or incredibly creepy, I decided to not risk being kept in a cellar and declined the lift. 

So here are some photos of the snow from this morning showing the extent of the snow cover around my place. 

The backyard of our apartment building

My street.

That's like...10cm of snow!!!

I fear it will be a long Winter :(

Movie review - Killing Them Softly

Set in 2008 New Orleans during the GFC and presidential elections, Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) is a mob enforcer sent in to investigate when some low-level crims, Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) under the instructions of Johnny (Vincent Curatola) rob a mob-protected high-stakes poker game run by Markie (Ray Liotta). 

Using the pot-luck that is the *sneak preview* (you get a watch a movie that has yet to be released - but you don't know what you'll be seeing), Ele, Ruben, and I ended up seeing Killing them Softly, the new movie by Andrew Dominik (of Chopper fame). After a slow and somewhat confusing start - seriously, I had a degree of *Who are these people? Why are they doing this?* going through my head - KTS  really kicks in once Brad Pitt hits the screen. 

And I'm not a huge Pitt fan but his acting in this film is great because while he is a hitman, much of the film and it's tension is derived from him in conversation with associates and the people he's after, as he goes about trying to solve who was responsible for the robbery and his feelings about the task in general. I was also impressed with his closing soliloquy about the nature of living in the States. We often hear Americans wax lyrical about the US being the land of opportunity while ignoring the degree of social inequality  (we're talking about a country where some people consider universal healthcare *Communist*), so drawing the parallel between what Cogan does, Obama's speech upon winning the election, and the nature of capitalist societies was interesting.

I do have a number of criticisms other than the slow start. Firstly, the entire movie is shot beautifully but the scenes of violence, while not of a particularly high frequency given the nature of the movie, sometimes felt overextended and glorifying in watching someone's face mangled by a bullet or fist. Secondly, James Gandolfini's character as a hitman associate of Cogan's seems purely to have them converse about sex and to introduce the sole female person in the film (a hooker). A completely useless character and waste of time.

Interesting, good build up after a slow start. Not sure I'd see it if I didn't have the sneak preview though.
6-7/10

I wonder why no girls feature in the video...

COS I TOTALLY WOULD HAVE GONE FOR IT!!! Also, a pretty damn good advert!

Burlesque party

I swear, costume parties are just an excuse to get girls to dress up like sluts. And on that note, Nestor and his (female) flatmates were throwing a Burlesque-themed party!

Exactly what is a burlesque costume for guys? In the end, it was a ties and suspenders party for the hombres.

The variety of costumes worn. Girls pretty much opted for lace, flounces, corsetry and transparent clothes. 

Just another Saturday night enslaving men. 

Krankentag

So I actually picked up a cold while on the Retreat to the extent that I was advised to miss out on some sessions. Once back in Munich however, I was determined that regular life would continue. It has since been pointed out to me that even though I sounded like something crawled into my throat and died and that I was coughing as though I needed to eject a lung, my insistence that I was fine is purely Australian. Therefore I have taken today off work and not only has it been nice to sleep in, I'm catching up on my Deutsch Hausaufgabe *thumbs up*.

Also, happy birthday Spu!

Munich xiaolongbao - gefunden!

Regular readers will know of my hankering for dumplings. Last week I was in a dumpling shop eating some jiaozi when - hark! - I saw someone get a steamer with what looked like xiaolongbao inside!!! :O :D :O :D I had to be somewhere by a point in time and so I didn't have time to get some for myself but I made a mental note of the day (just in case it was a special day thingy).

I also made a mental note that the best thing I could do was probably ask for them in Mandarin. Which is what I ended up doing and this is what I got!

Ordering this made the Chinese people who worked there speak to me in Chinese and I had to regretfully say that I couldn't understand them. And it also made another customer say *You have xiaolongbao?*

First things first, they certainly looked like xlb, hurrah! Secondly, yes there was dumpling juice inside! Flavourwise....well, they weren't the worst I've ever had but they were a smidgeon saltier than I recall. Perhaps a concession to the location? (Germans consider salt a spice. I mean, really.) Oddly enough, despite there being only 8 dumplings, my desire for them was assuaged. At least, until I get back to Melbs and can hit up Hutong. 

Getting some schadenfreude back for the city folk!

I may be a city girl at heart with a great hatred of the wilderness but I am most definitely not scared of standing on structures that move in the wind. So on that note, here are some photos of the Bayerischer Wald from the Waldwipfelweg, an elevated walkway through part of the forest.

The view over the forest from the walkway.

The viewing platform and walkway are 30m above ground at its highest point.

The view of the walkway from the ground.

Anyway, for people who are so keen on mountains, skiing, and the great outdoors, quite a few of my colleagues turn out to be scared of heights. I thoroughly enjoyed scaring the crap out of them by taking these photos...

which were acquired by hoisting myself up and over the waist-high barrier to hang off. 

Schadenfreude in the Bayerischer Wald

Like last year, our work retreat this year was being held at the same place in the Bavarian Forest. Except instead of the sweet July summer, we were going in the chilly October. And everyone was soooooo enjoying my discomfort. Even on the day we were supposed to go hiking through the forest, my big boss came up to me at breakfast and said it was frosty out there! *huff!*

Sure, some of them were trying to convince me that the great outdoors is truly great. But why couldn't people accept that I came to Munich for the city - not a forest! As it was, after a couple of sessions of science, we were given instructions about our hike and  schnitzeljagd (scavenger hunt) which was punctuated by Markus' laughter because he was very highly amused by the look of disgust on my face. 

In the end, I wasn't the only one who didn't enjoy walking through the forest. Sure, it was punctuated by training in the deadly arts (I'm bad at slingshots, archery, okay at knife throwing, and pretty good at blow darts!) and a few survival questions (e.g. name all the plants you can see - useless for me since they were all in German and I'd never seen them before) but it was pretty damn cold. But there was a highlight - I got to do some bouldering on a wall!

Please note that the German girl at the base of the wall is the same size as myself. 

New Coat!

I didn't really need one...but something this red and flamboyantly ruffled...well, it was just screaming out to me!

In the words of someone who saw me in it - "You look like a flower!"

The lighting makes it look orange, but trust me, it's red. And before you think "wow, German fashion is great!" it was made in Italia. 

A Wiesn visit from Nickyliou!

As I was walking through the 3C weather to the U-bahn at 4:40am on Wednesday, I thought to myself, *Mein Gott, something pretty special must be happening to drag my  sorry ass out at this time and in this weather.* And there was a reason! As stated in my last entry, Nickyliou was visiting and I was on my way to grab her from the airport!

So it appears I didn't take any photos, but on Markus' advice I decided to welcome her to Muenchen with a Bayerisch Weisswurst Fruehstueck - but without the bier. It was also a sunny day so we had a quick look at Wiesn for her to decide if she really wanted to buy a dirndl or if she'd be okay with *normal* clothes. The assessment - DIRNDL REQUIRED. And since it was also Reunification Day, we took a stroll around the city, through the festival showing produce and other things from states other than Bayern, before wending our way to the Chinesischer Turm for a hearty lunch. 

Bright and early, we got up and got Nickyliou a dirndl. I swear, the first dirndl you try on is the one you buy and this was indeed the case. But after tackling a 1/2 hendl and a schweinshaxn in the biergarten, Nic asked if we could get a lunch that didn't consist of giant meat portions and so we headed to Orlando. 

Nickyliou enjoys the fancy interiors...

and admires our buffalo mozzarella and fig salad.

The real reason we came - the truffle pasta. Nickyliou said she'd never eaten actual truffles before and I said that needed to be rectified. Despite the (relatively) small portion size, she struggled to finish it and I threatened her that if she didn't, I would because they are TRUFFLES.

After this, we then went to the Braeurosl at Wiesn where we sat with two boys named Markus who proceeded to tell us that all nice German boys are named Markus - and that's why their friend is named Franzl! Franzl was unimpressed. Markus and Markus then tried to teach us some Bavarian dialect. I can't remember exactly how to say it but it translated to *I am Mallymoodle. I come from Australia...and I am soooooooooooooo drunk!* Not having had as much training as me, Nic was a bit toasted after one litre and we decided to preserve ourselves for Friday.

Friday morning, up and early, we went to the Himmel der Bayern tent where we sat with some more guys named Markus (this time from Hesse/Frankfurt) for lunch. 

Look at those puffy shoulders!

Ummm, yeah...

We then had to leave to pick up Nikki, friend of Nickyliou's, from the hbf, meaning that we lost our places in the tent. But that didn't matter - after dinner in the Lowenbrau biergarten, we rode the ferris wheel as the sun set.

Ahhh, so nice...

and full!!!

We also did some shooting and I'll admit it - I was a bit miffed to find Nickyliou was a better shot than me. But as she pointed out, she has steady surgeon hands. After this comment, I was a lot happier. Anyway, here's what she managed to win - a Bavarian lion!

Complete with bier! 

And like all nice German boys, his name is Markus :P

Movie review - Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter

The secret autobiography of the 16th President of the United States, Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) was a man who campaigned to free the slaves because he knew one of the many horrors behind slavery - they were fodder for vampires! And he was a man who had a great hatred for vampires as they were the reason for his mother's early death. Trained by the mysterious Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper), young Lincoln sets about with the slaying. However, once he realises that head vampire Adam (Rufus Sewell - seriously, has this guy ever NOT played a villain?) would like to turn the country into a haven for the undead, Lincoln decides that the only way to get rid of them once and for all is to declare war....

Apparently a lot of people are getting sick of these historical/horror mash-up stories. Well to them I say *Boo! The day I stop thinking this is fun is the day I'm taking my  intelligence too seriously, and you may as well take me out back and shoot me!* Clearly someone else who agrees with me is Nickyliou because a few hours after stepping off a plane from Melbs, she agreed to go watch this movie with me, Markus, Felix, and Martin!


Directed by Timur Bekmembatov, the guy who brought us the Nightwatch and Wanted movies, ALVH is just as visually arresting and silly/epic as his previous works. Seriously. Markus said a couple of days afterwards that he read a German review of the movie that described the fights scenes as particularly good and attributing it to Walker's previous employment as a dancer. Correct casting goes a long way! And Walker is really good as Lincoln, with suitable gravitas when delivering the Gettysburg address and much grace when he's swinging around that axe. 

Really, this movie is just as wahnsinn as Iron Sky. Also, I want an axe-gun.
8/10

It's beautiful...

...it's just not what we wanted