Flowers

It has been brought to my attention that I have not been posting enough on this particular blog. I'm sorry folks, but I just haven't taken many pictures lately and I feel guilty posting without pictures. So, here are some of the photos I have taken with my iPhone over the last 3.5 months. (Please forgive the picture quality)

 These flowers were the first of the season. It was so lovely to see color after a long, dark winter.

I think the contents of this picture dates the image: can you find the Easter egg? This pic was taken about a week after Easter... it seems everyone always leaves one!

I found green! And purple!

The River Saale. This view is from Paradies Park and the peak in the distance is Jenzig. We hiked the peak the following week and found a beer garden at the top! Yay Germany!

This bridge is the oldest one crossing the Saale in Jena. Just outside the view to the left is... you guessed it! A beer garden!

Every year my institute has a summer festival on the longest day of the year. Germans know how to party! It started at 4pm and lasted until they ran out of beer and wine... around 2am.
Nicely though, the firedancers didn't get drunk until after the fire was out!

Two weeks ago the institute I work for sent out an email telling us all about this little flower. Or should I say, GINORMOUS flower? The scientific name is Amorphophallus titanum, and I think you can deduce what that means on your own. When David Attenborough did a series for the BBC on The Secret Life of Plants, he decided he wasn't about to say the scientific name over and over, so he dubbed it Titan arum. Some places call it the carrion flower instead because it smells like rotting meat. It's aptly named. This flower blooms very rarely (only a bloom or two max thoroughout the world every year) and the bloom only lasts for about 24 hours. I took this photo about 18 hours into the bloom cycle and you can see that the middle stalk has already fallen over. There are only two of these flowers in Germany and one is located across the street from where I work at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology.

What have you been up to for the last 4 months?

Gadgets!

Trying to get cell phone service in Jena has been an ordeal.  We haven't been 100% convinced we wanted them, and when I didn't have a job, they just seemed way too expensive.  You can purchase a pay as you go phone quite easily here, but it seemed silly for us to burn minutes to each other with that kind of plan.

Recently, Jason was told by his doctor that he needed to have his appendix removed.  Without phone service, he had to go home, go online to see if I had gchat open at work (luckily I did).  But I wasn't at my computer, so he had to wait for me to return to let me know he was going to his office to find someone who would go with him to the hospital (our last experience taught us that we might need a translator).  Luckily, I was able to get to Jason quickly, but I had to leave the southwest side of town to head to the north side of town to meet up with someone who could call the person Jason was with to find out where he was so I could meet them.  And the hospital is on the southeast side of town.  Luckily, the bus schedule was on my side that day and I was able to meet up with Jason and Totally Awesome Friend (TAF) before they got to the hospital.  Once Jason saw the doctor, we learned that he did not have appendicitis, so no surgery!  Yay!  But boo for a totally stressful experience.  Jason's parents and sister all decided we needed a better way to contact each other, and set the ball rolling for our new amazing gadgets.

I have an iPhone.  And Jason does too!

After much nail-biting over contracts (do we sign a two year contract when our visas are only for one year?  will T-Mobile actually approve us for a contract? why can't they approve us on a Saturday?), we finally signed a two year contract (after learning that we can break the contract if we move out of the country) on two iPhones.  (2 contracts since family plans are not available here... never to fear though, they only charge minutes against outgoing calls)  The iPhones themselves were only a Euro each (woot!), though the plans are not cheap.  However, they are all inclusive for internet and 3G browsing, so I'm happy.  And so is Jason.

These apps are great!  I didn't realize I'd be an app addict, but I am.  I made chocolate chip cookies today and was able to use my iPhone to find the recipe and have it on hand without having to waste paper to write it down or drag my laptop into the kitchen (of course, 6 months ago I had this particular recipe memorized, so it's funny that I needed it today).  Epicurious has an app that allows me to look up recipes and create a grocery list from the recipe.  You can even check off the items as you get them!  The public transit system in Germany has an app that allows me to access the tram/bus schedule.  It even finds out where you are to show you the closest tram/bus stops without you having to type anything in!

I've only called one person (Jason), and I think we've used a total of 10 minutes in the last week, but we are able to communicate so much more efficiently these days.  When we were out on Wednesday night, Jason checked his email from his iPhone (we were both playing with them... he wasn't ignoring me) and discovered that some friends of his were going making last minute plans to hang out.  It was lovely to be able to join folks on such short notice!  Communication has given me a sense of freedom.  I know that I can make a last minute decision to go somewhere and not have Jason freak out for me being so late getting home (and vice versa).  Thank you iPhone!  :)

Do you have an iPhone?  What is your favorite app?