We hopped on our bikes and rode them through the wine vineyard and around to the university, which we found fairly easily with our handy maps. I didn't have any contact information for Diana or Wendelin (my advisers) because of course I brightly left them in my email. So Skylar and I just wandered in and tried the information desk at which the woman promptly told me she does not speak English. So we wandered some more and by chance ran right into Diana coming out of Wendelin's office! She showed me my office (good to know I have one) and introduced me to Wendelin who was giving a presentation that afternoon with another student and asked if I would attend.
Skylar and I went off to find some lunch and since it was raining, we stumbled into the first place we saw because it had a picture of pizza on the door. I think it was a Turkish place and everyone was smoking hookah (or whatever those pipe things are called) and when I tried to order a pizza, it didn't go very well. He understood "no meat", by demonstrating pinching his arm and saying "no fliesh?" and I said correct. I guess that is the most important thing anyway. So, we got a bunch of lettuce wrapped in a piece of pita bread and sort of grilled. Turns out the pizza place we were directed to was a few doors down... oh well.
We went back to the university to go to the presentation and met a bunch more of the Medical Informatics faculty, which was nice. The presentation was actually very interesting because it was based around studies for various neuropathy drugs to help diabetic patients and a view of the costs for each drug (this type of cost analysis would be a piece of my studies here).
Then Michael brought me to my office that I would share with him and another woman named Connie. Connie said I spoke too fast to understand, but Michael spoke English very well. So it is good to know that I have a space and a desk to eventually work at whenever a formal plan comes into play. Right now it seems things are still up in the air about the specifics of my project and what exactly I need to be physically in Germany to accomplish. Wendelin spoke of an interest in having me write a chapter in a book his colleague is putting together about the German Health Care System and assured me that I would be listed as a co-author.
After that, Skylar and I rode our bikes into town and wandered around a bit more. We needed to get outlet adapters for our US plugs to the German plugs. We accidentally got them in reverse and will need to exchange them tomorrow. We also went to the grocery store, which reminded me of the Aldi style grocery stores... just not the fancy smancy Kowalski's that I'm used to, I guess. They only sell milk in 1 liter containers and there is a a huge section just for cheese. There were large bins labeld "Fleish" that we stayed away from. Not surprisingly, there were no fake meat products. For some reason though, everything looked like it would taste better... the cheese, the bread, the butter, the veggies, etc. So we stocked up to make our first meal back at the flat. However, the store does not accept Visa and we had a slightly embarrassing moment trying to count the cash I had and having to put a couple items back :(
With map in hand and checking it at nearly every intersection, we made it back home. We learned that the ^ symbols are how Germans write ones, so we were able to configure the internet and get online. I immediately checked in and chatted all night with a break only to make dinner and before I knew it, it was about 1am.
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