Sep23
My walk to work
Since I broke off my stay at UC Santa Cruz have been a guest researcher at “Leibniz-Laboratory for Radiometric Dating and Stable Isotope Research”. Yiming & I are so fortunate to live in an apartment less than 2 km from the lab and usually I prefer walking there. Although Kiel is considered a dull and uninspiring town in terms of its architecture (80% of the old town was destroyed during the last war) it has many green areas with beautiful trees that I happen to pass through on my way to work.
I have not yet made much progress on my ongoing projects partially because I’m waiting for new funding and partially because I’m getting trained in operating instruments in the lab. Right now I’m helping Yiming measuring hydrogen isotopes in plant waxes extracted from ocean sediment cores. Climate researcher are working non-stop these days to acquire such data because are informative of precipitation records in the past and how terrestrial plant communities have changed. This can lead us to a better understanding of the changes in temperatures and weather patterns we’re experiencing.
 We live on this street |
 Farmer's market on Blücherplatz - next to where we live |
 Kiel's old water tower has kind of a Bismarck inspired style to it |
 Students from the nearby vocational training school in the background |
 Fall is here |
 The lab has the long and rather cumbersome name "Leibniz-Laboratory for Radiometric Dating and Stable Isotope Research" |
Claus D Jensen Sep 30th 2009 at 12:02 am 1
Thanks for sharing Thomas! Yes Kiel is different from Alaska! But it’s always possible to find beauty wherever you are!
Claus
Thomas Oct 1st 2009 at 12:32 am 2
In fact, Kiel is a very nice place to live. It’s by the sea, the town is clean and tidy and the parks are wonderful. But it does have the beauty and vast greatness of Alaska but you cannot have it all.
Lavinia Oct 5th 2009 at 10:39 am 3
Thomas: so good to hear you and Yiming have settled in. How’s the German coming along?
Fall is arriving here in Santa Cruz also but the days are bright and sunny and warm. We look forward to your return whenever it is time for you to do more work here.
Lavinia
Thomas Oct 5th 2009 at 12:48 pm 4
Lavinia, sadly I haven’t made much progress with my German yet since I find excuses all the time to spend time on my research instead. But eventually I’ll get to it.
Weather sounds lovely in SC. Hope to visit you some time in the new year. Hope you’re well.
This week I’m in Tirol, the Austrian part, for a workshop. It’s really beautiful.