5. Traveling in Germany

I was only in Jülich for two weeks before I had to travel again, because of the meeting of scholars of all DAAD students in Heidelberg.

The German trains are a wonderful system for traveling. With the train, one can visit and see all of Germany and Europe. Olga and I bought our train tickets online, and printed them ourselves. Because I was newly arrived in Jülich, I was not sure how everything worked; Olga was very helpful.

I believed that the trains in Germany must always be on time, but this impression did not last long as soon as I had to make connections. In spite of this, I have always enjoyed such trips. I find trains very practical and comfortable. Olga and I played "hangman" as we hurried by rivers and vineyards.

The trip lasted several hours, before we arrived in Heidelberg and met the other students. There were approximately 100 students from North America, and they were spending the summer all over in Germany. Chemists, biologists, and physicists from many universities spoke with each other, and it was very exciting to speak English with so many people again. Many spoke no German, or only one or two words, but almost all wanted to learn more of the language, either from their coworkers or in the classroom, which I was happy to see.

Heidelberg is a very beautiful city on the bank of the Neckar river, and we had a lot of fun with each other; no one got enough sleep. We visited a company that was relevant to our internship: each group (chemistry, biology, physics) went somewhere else. This day was quite interesting, as almost no one before had made such a visit, and no one knew what practical things we could do with our education.

On the way back to Jülich I visited a woman in Frankfurt, whose husband had founded a scholarship for students from the University of Minnesota. Unfortunately, he had since died, and it was evident that she was very lonely. She showed me the old city, and as always, I felt sadness that so much of this city was destroyed in World War II. Unfortunately I do not have any photos, because my camera had not yet arrived; the most important thing that I had forgotten was the camera, and my parents had to send it to me via airmail.

English