Happy Valley

View of Happy Valley. I do not know exactly why the valley should be happy. Yes there is a university in this valley, one can find a theater, and a lot of bars where one need a foreign passport or an US driving liscence to get in. The landscape is quite nice, but one cannot see neither forest nor valley because most likely there are too many trees blocking the view.
Here you see an exception.

Ernaehrung in Amerika

Manche glauben ja, dass die amerikanische Esskultur immer nur aus Fast-Food besteht. Ob dem so ist oder nicht, muss jeder fuer sich selbst entscheiden. Aber man kann sich in den USA auch sehr gut Gesund

ernaehren. Unser Gemuesekorb, den wir woechentlich beziehen, bietet immer Ueberraschungen fuer mich. Manchmal stehe ich vor dem Korb und kenne nur die Haelfte der Gemuesesorten. Aber da Emily und ich Alice Water's Buch "Chez Panisse, Vegetables" in zweifacher Ausfuehrung besitzen kann eigentlich nichts schief gehen und wir finden immer Rezepte fuer die verschiedenen Gemuemuesesorten. Wie man auf dem Bild erkennen kann, ist der Gmuesekorb jetzt anfang September doch sehr bunt.

Soviele Sorten Tomaten wie hier, habe ich in Deutschland noch nie gesehen, vieleicht hab ich auch einfach nur nicht so genau hingeschaut. smile

Um sich natuerlich richtig gut ernaheren zu koennen ist auch ein richtig gutes Brot sehr hilfreich. Brot zu backen ist nicht schwierig, falls man die richtigen Zutaten hat. Es hat doch einige Zeit und Suche im Internet gekostet bis ich halbwegs brauchbares Roggenmehl fuer Sauerteigbrote gefunden habe. Da Deutschland wahrscheinlich das einzige Land weltweit ist, in dem es eine DIN-Norm fuer Mehl gibt, ist es manchmal schwierig vergleichbare Mehlsorten in anderen Laendern zu beziehen. Leider koennen entsprechende Mehlsorten nicht so einfach aus Deutschland importiert werden, da die Auflagen fuer offene Lebensmittel in den USA doch sehr hoch sind. auf den Bildern unten kann man meinne ersten Brotbackversuch bewundern. Es ist ein Roggen-Dinkel-Sauerteigbrot (70/30)

Trip to England

Travel to Europe and in this case to UK can bring you back to the future. smile At least in London with their city maut, high petrol prices, and space problems, new solutions are tested to solve such problems. smile

This is especially for Tina: I know for some people it seems strange that somebody has strange hair: too long and too uncontrolled. smile But when I was strolling through Kensington in London one evening, a women, her boyfriend ( i suppose), and her daughter were passing me, and then suddenly the women adreessed me: "Excuse me". I was surprised and turned around: "Yes?", and she responded: "I like your hair!" I was really surprised and I might got red in my face and I just said thank you. I was too surprised to say more.

I am used to the fact, that if you pass people and they like your clothes or so, they will tell you, but that somebody does the same about somebody others hairstyle was new for me.

Furthermore, on my flight back from Amsterdam to Washington, I was upgraded to World business class. At one point during the flight the stewardess came to me and apologized for interupting, but she was asked by some passengers to find out if I would be a Rock Star. I smiled, but I had to aknowledge that I am a scientist and not a Rock Star. smile Life can be curious.


(a supposed Rock Star's smile)

As I was in England, I also visited Stanislav in Oxford. He has now two children, a little boy and a newborn little girl. They are cute. As it was my first time in Oxford, Stanislav showed me around in Oxford and I learned something new:

The colleges of Oxford university were used as archetype for Hogwards castle in the Harry Potter series.
Of course, I had to make a visit to the Museum of Natural History in Oxford and I could not avoid to make a foto of the Dodo:

And furthermore I had to pay my tribute to Tolkien and to visit his Tolkiens grave:

Davis to State College

With the submission of Emily's thesis in Davis we (Emily Jochen and Ophelia) left Davis and headed out on highway 80 to drive to State College to actually start living as a family.

Our last day in Davis
Photo by Nordstrand

Cat in her carrier

The drive took 3 and a half days to complete. The first afternoon Ophelia was only slightly agitated as we moved drove out of Davis through, Nevada and Utah. Luckily there was little ground cover so the rock sequences could be clearly seen, and driving across the great salt lake in Utah was apparent by the smell of sulfide (everyone's favorite smell). The next day brought Wyoming with her table top plateaus and mountains in the distance, Nebraska, which was rolling hills, green, and lots of cows (not as much corn as either of us had expected), and the Iowa which was dark. By Wednesday Ophelia was pretty bored with the driving and simply slept with very little comment. We passed through Illinois where we finally did see corn (and lots of it), Indiana, where there were lots of large trucks driving fast (Emily was not so comfortable with these driving conditions) and into Ohio where we stopped in Columbus at Emily's aunt's house. Emily saw here first every fireflies/gluhwürme/lightning bugs and we all had a nice rest. Mid morning we left and drove the last little bit to State College. As we entered Pennsylvania it began to rain. This was a bit shocking to a Californian but also very convenient as the water washed all of the bugs accumulated from the long drive. We made it into State College by about 4 in the afternoon. The next day we picked up all of our belongings and sorted out our house. We even discovered that we had a family of Cardinals living in the backyard.

Ophelia much happier

Our new home.

Settled in to our new house

Wedding Celebrations

Thursday, 02/22/07: "Polterabend"

This is an informal party before the wedding where plates and dishes
are smashed (the broken pieces are thought to bring good luck to the
bride). The bride and groom have to clean up everything. Therefore, everybody who want to wish luck to the bride has to bring and to destroy some ceramic plates and dishes. But please bring nothing made of glass, because broken glass pieces bring acutally bad luck.


Saturday, 02/24/07: "Wedding Ceremony"

Time: 17:00 h
The wedding will take place in the
"Presidio Interfaith Chapel"
Location: 130 Fisher Loop, 94129 San Francisco, CA
more information are available at:
http://www.sanfranciscoweddings.org/

Saturday, 02/24/07: "Wedding Reception"

The reception will take place at
The Exploratorium at the Palace of Fine Arts:
the museum of science, art and human perception
This museum allows to use the use the exhibits and to play around.
So everybody can be as much child as one likes. smile
Location: 3601 Lyon Street, 94123 San Francisco, CA
more information are available at:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/
http://www.terragalleria.com/california/california.sf-palace-fine-arts.html
http://www.palaceoffinearts.org/

Public Transportation and Car Rentals

Public transportation is no problem in San Francisco and the Bay Area. The following links give you an overview.

1. MUNI: public transportation in the San Francisco
http://www.sfmuni.com/cms/mms/home/home50.htm










2. BART: public transportation in the bay area
http://www.sfmuni.com/cms/mms/home/home50.htm


















3. Amtrak: train connections between San Francisco and Davis (Sacramento)
There is no train station in San Francisco. But amtrak offers bus services from serval bus stops in downtown San Francisco to the Amtrak Station on the East side of the Bay Area (Oakland, Emeryville) with direct connections to the trains towards Sacramento/Davis. This is directly bookable from the Amtrak webpage.
http://www.amtrak.com
















Timetables for the different train directions can be found here:
http://www.cwrr.com/Amtrak/wc_caps_e.html

Car rentals:
For travelers from Germany it is usually best to rent a car from Holidayauto, because all insurances are included in the rental rate, which is otherwise without any insurrances.
www.holidayauto.de
It is also cheaper to choose a pickup location with is neither an airport nor a train station

If you rent your car directly from a rental car agencies, I would suggest either Enterprise or Avis. With those two agencies i had made the best experiences. Links to different rental car companies see below:

www.enterprise.com
www.avis.com
www.nationalcar.com
www.dollar.com
www.hertz.com