Hello!

I must say, it's been a very quiet week since I last updated my blog. I am hoping everyone had a safe and fun July 4th holiday! I celebrated like the Germans do on July 4th, they called it:  "Work-Day."
This week is starting off slow too. I'll describe some of the events of the last week and a half.

Monday (July 4th) was spent in the warehouse working on protocols. On a typical week, if I'm not in the field, I am sorting roots, sorting grass, matching data written by hand to the data loggers, or helping with various other research projects around ZALF. Tuesday morning was spend doing the same thing. In the morning I helped load the trailer for a group of interns who were going to a field site to measure methane. After they left, I spent the rest of the day doing protocols. I was going to go on this field trip, but I decided to hold off for a little as my back was still a little tight and I didn't want to risk injuring it further and destroying my upcoming bowling season which I am looking forward to very much. 

I did go on a field trip this past week though. I was scheduled to go to Landgraben on Wednesday and Thursday. Landgraben, which is in far northern Germany, is a farming region  that is a lot more wet than the other locations we measure at. Some places in Landgraben are easily 2 feet underwater and if you don't wear boots you're getting wet. If you want to, you could go barefoot through the waters, but that's probably not the best idea. One, it's safe to assume that there are probably numerous types of bacteria living in the soil that aren't too friendly to humans, and second, I've been told that there are blood-sucking leeches in the water. Luckily for me, I had a very dry location. I only had to watch my footing when going back to the main site, and I did not need boots.  It took us almost 3 hours to get there (which is  long time compared to most of the locations we travel to). When we got there we unloaded all the materials and got straight to work. Day 1 wasn't too bad, but Landgraben is one of the harder places to measure for sure. One of the sites has three extensions, plus the chamber on top. The height of the chambers and extensions together was 10-11 feet tall.  Most of Day was spent on my dry-site and trying to stay out of the sun, and maybe work on a little tan to make up for the Florida sun while making measurements of CO2. The day was pretty normal, and very hot (for Germany), and filled with a little surprise at the end. While attempting to turn the van around, one of the interns accidentally got the van stuck in the mud of the field, and we spent an hour tracking down a farmer to pull us out after an hour of fruitlessly trying to push the van out ourselves. After work, we settled down in the hostel and everyone took showers and we then had some delicious pizza under a beautiful sunset, a nice beer, and enjoyed the company of a mother cat and her kitten wrestling in the grass around us. I, of course, had to play with the kitten for a little! Sorry Miranda, I couldn't keep him.  Day 2 started early we arrived at the field at 5am to start measurements under a tremendously foggy morning. I believe the visibility was  a small 500 feet. We weren't able to get many measurements for most of the day beacuse an intern was feeling a little ill and she had to visit the hospital, all the while the clouds were preventing us from getting measurements in the middle range of the PAR-spectrum. Later in the day the clouds, but by that time the PAR was already up to values we retrieved the previous day. The rest of the day was spend running around making dark chambered measurements (dark chamber measurements don't depend on PAR), cutting grass for samples, and taking soil samples. The hard part of Day 2 wasn't taking measurements and running around, it was running around in the mud, and probably taking measurements with the 3 extension site. Mud is not the easiest thing to walk in, it is very viscous. In addition to taking some dark chamber measurements, we also took methane measurements at all the sites. After all this, we left to head back to Muncheberg.

Friday was a relaxed day, spent most of it protocolising data, and towards the end of the day, I helped sort some of the grass that we collected at the field sites.

Some of the interns went to Berlin Friday night but I decided to hang back. I loved going out on an all night adventure in Berlin with them the last time, but I really wanted to get some rest and spend a relaxing evening with a movie, good dinner, and a refreshing beer to unwind from the week. Saturday I walked around Berlin to explore the city a little bit. The highlight of my day had to come from a dance group called: "Street Life Gang." They put on a great performance, that was very entertaining (see video below).

Sunday I spent the earlier part of the day with Javier. Me and Javier went bowling at the bowling alley I found when I first came here. It was my first time bowling in over three weeks because of my back. I didn't bowl very well, but it was good to get back on the lanes. My back gave me ZERO trouble; a blessing. Afterwards, I came back to attempt to help with a event ZALF was putting on. The event, called Turen Auf, was based on a popular children's show here that has been on the air for almost 40 years. The event was all about promoting science to the Germany's youngest minds. For our part of the event, kids would go under an automatic transparent chamber and we would close them in it. While they were in the chamber, a screen was set up in front of them so they could see the CO2 levels rise in chamber because of their breathing. After 2 or 3 minutes, we would raise the chamber and then give the kids a CO2 certificate that had the amount of CO2 they admitted written on the sheet. It was a pretty cool experience. I only wish that I had been there for a longer part of the event. Apparently there were many thousands of people here. After the event, all us interns got together and we walked 2km to a lake to go for a little swim. The lake was a little chilly, but it did make for a refreshing swim on an otherwise warm afternoon. I will bring my picture the next time I go to the lake. When we got back from the lake, I retired to my room to take a shower and watch the U.S. Woman's soccer team win a crazy game against Brazil. Just watch the replays of Wambach's header to tie the game in the 122nd minute.

The past two days, there hasn't been much going on, just a lot of computer work with Excel. I was scheduled to go to the field on Thursday and Friday, but I was told today that it might not happen because of a low pressure system that's expected to move in starting late tomorrow. It will bring clouds and some rain that will make measuring CO2 almost a worthless process (clear sky and sunshine is the optimal condition for measuring CO2).

Next week I'm going to Heidelberg, I'll have more details about that later this week.

It's been awhile!

    Sorry for the very long delay of updating my blog! The past two weeks have been busy! In a short explanation, I've taken two trips to the field to measure CO2.  I won't go into much detail with this post, but I'll try to include a general picture of what has happened the past two weeks.

     Last week, a field trip was scheduled for Monday and Tuesday. This was my second trip the field, and we were scheduled to measure methane. We met at ZALF at 7:30am and headed on our way to Dedelow. Dedelow is a cool place north of Berlin that is one of the most windiest places in Germany. The drive to Dedelow was easy and quick (probably because I slept during most of it haha!). Once we got to the field, I pulled out my camera and snapped a few pictures. The place is so beautiful, although hard to see in some of the pictures, there were a lot of gently sloping as far as the eye could see. There were also a ton of wind farms all over the horizon. The cool thing about all the wind farms is that the make great tools for a meteorologist who doesn't have access to the best information about the wind direction. If you have a compass (which I need to install on my phone), determining the wind direction is quite simple, just look at a wind-mill! The weather wasn't too bad as I was thinking it was going to be. The early afternoon was a little chilly, the winds were whipping a solid 15-20mph, and occasional gusts got up to 25mph. Thank you Mom for suggesting that I bring the red wind/rain breaker. The workload there was quite easy, the only thing we did was put chambers on the sites, open the bottle, close the bottle, and then go back to the shed and wait 20 minutes to open another bottle, and then go back to the shed and hangout. Measuring methane is a nice break once you've experienced measuring CO2. The weather at Dedelow eventually progressed into a much calmer, and sunny scene. The winds by the end of the day calmed down quite a bit, and went down to 5mph. Pretty much that's all that happened on Monday. Tuesday was a day to sort more roots, protocolize data, and get ready for my first 2 day field trip to measure CO2. We were headed back to Dedelow (with better weather expected).

     Wednesday morning started at 7:30AM with meeting the other interns at the warehouse to load the vans with materials for the trip. We loaded chambers, data loggers, chamber extensions, and other tools vital for the research. I fell asleep again on the trip over. I think do this date, I have fallen asleep on all of our trips to the fields. Once we got to Dedelow we unloaded the vans and dispersed quickly to our measuring sites. The weather was nice, a comfortable 82 degrees and a nice 10mph breeze to keep things cooled off. First on the list was to measure CO2. Measuring CO2 isn't the easiest thing to do. First, you have to be very careful to avoid breaking all of the maize (corn) plants. They are very fragile and break at the slightest bit of pressure. In order to do this (specially if you have extensions like I did), you have to position yourself very awkwardly to put the chamber down in the correct spot. After you put the chamber on, you have to immediately turn the ventilator on, switch the status on, and run to the logger and record values of: CO2, PAR (sunlight), temperature of the inside, and the time on the logger. In order to be correct, you're supposed to do all of this within 5 seconds, but this usually doesn't happen and we strive to get all results within 10 seconds. This isn't all too difficult but the process that makes this difficult is: repetition. At each measuring site, there are 3 plots, and you have to measure all three over the course of the day, aiming to measuring when the temperature falls within pre-set ranges. You're also trying to get measurements under certain PAR values. These values need to be measured at ALL three plots. For the duration of the measurement, your eyes are fixed on the logger's output screen because if the CO2  goes up/down by more than 30ppm, you're supposed to stop the measurement. If the PAR goes up/down by more than 10% you stop the measurement, and lastly, if the temperature goes up by more than 1.5 degrees C you stop the measurement. All these values must adhere to these rules for a hopeful 2 minutes. Between the clouds passing over the measurement site in a sporadic fashion, and the sun heating the insides of the transparent chambers like a green house, it isn't an easy task to complete. By the end of the day you've have lifted these 20 pound chambers at least 200 times, or more, because you'll start the measurement only for it to have to be redone when the data goes awry. Besides the warm temperatures slowing things down slightly, it is a pretty easy thing to do. It is also fun trying to make a game out of it and catch all the PAR slots. The best part of the trip had to be the wonderful dinner prepared by some of the ZALF interns. It was a wonderful spaghetti, with meat sauce and some other ingredients. We all had a nice beer to wash down the dinner as well. After dinner at 7:30pm, we all got ready for bed. On field trips, you have to get to sleep very early (often while it is still light outside), because the next morning, we had to be up by 3:30am to beat the sunrise.

     The next morning we started out very early, arriving to the field at 4:30am (30 minutes before sunrise). Things had to start quickly so we were able to get a measurement while there was zero PAR. Everything went according to plan, at least all the measurements before around 10am. The only downside to my first CO2 measurement trip was pulling a muscle in my back. I did it while bending down to put a chamber on one of the plots in the early morning. My back hurt the whole day after that and it still hurts to this day (although the pain has been wearing away, only to flare up when I went to the field this past Tuesday and Wednesday). Despite hurting my back, one thing did make it better, and that was the most beautiful sunrise I have seen in awhile. I forgot my camera on this trip, but will say that there were some cirrus clouds streaming over the horizon and just brought out so many colors in the sunrise. Hopefully I'll remember to bring my camera whenever I head to Dedelow later in the summer. The rest of the field trip wasn't anything too special, just a repeat of Wednesday. The only thing that was aggravating was getting the par values between 1200-1650. For some reason, the PAR just jumped from below 1200, to above 1650 in about 30 minutes, leaving me no time to get those measurements (clouds were also in the area messing with the PAR). When I came back to Muncheberg from the trip, I took a nice cold shower, and ate a large meal, and relaxed! Friday was a nice and easy day at work, with not much to do. 

      I didn't do much that weekend, but I did get a chance to experience the Berlin nightlife. Right after the sun goes down, Berlin turns into a different city completely. Most days (except Friday afternoon's), you will rarely see citizens drinking on the streets. On a side note, it is completely legal to drink on the streets of Germany. When Saturday night rolled around however, probably 60-70% of the people walking on the street had a beer in their hands, and a cigarette in between their fingers. Nathan, Andrej, and myself headed to Warschauer Straße around 11pm to meet up with some of the interns who lived in Berlin, and they would show us around the city at night (night being allllllll night.). It took them a little while to meet us so we walked around for an hour and a half. It was very interesting seeing the variety of people in the streets. It was actually pretty cool how diverse the nightlife was. After some time, we met up with Javier and we walked to a Mexican bar. We all sat down and ordered a 4 Euro wheat beer. It was the best 4 Euro's I've spent on a beer here yet. It was a very mellow beer, but also had a very subtle sweetness to it that just made it fantastic! I'm definitely going to have another one while I'm here some other day. We left the bar at 2am and headed for some pizza. After the pizza, we went looking for a club to go to listen to some music and dance a little. When we couldn't find one, we all just went to another bar that had airline seats in it. At that bar, we played some Foosball with Javier's friends local to Berlin. We beat them in a close game (6-5). After that, we played two German locals who were phenomenal at Foosball, and sadly we lost 6-5. It was a blast though, and they were very nice, and it was cool that they could speak some English. By this time, it was 4am, and we were debating if we should stay the "night" at Javier's place (as it was already light outside). After walking for a little we decided to just take the first train back to Muncheberg at 5:34am. To kill some time we walked to Alexanderplatz, and saw how deserted the place was at 4:45 in the morning. It was a cool, and also eery sight. When 5:00am rolled around, we headed back to Lichtenberg to catch the train back to Muncheberg. A fun night it was.

     This past week was a pretty normal week I could say. Nothing much happened. Monday was spent sorting roots, protocolizing data, and getting preparations finished for everyone's field trips. On Tuesday and Wednesday I went to Spreewald for CO2 measurements. Spreewald, besides Dedelow, is a favorite place of mine here. I took pictures earlier this summer of the location, but it basically is a forest region. Some of the locations for the plots are rather wet, but 3 out of the 4 were dry this time. The only bad parts about the trip were: my back pain flared up again (the day I left for the trip, just when it was getting better), and the bugs. There are so many bugs at Spreewald, especially mosquitoes. The mosquitoes are quite large, I wouldn't know what to compare them too, but trust me, they're bigger than American mosquitoes! Wednesday was a quick day in the field, but a long drive back to Muncheberg. Wednesday was a quick day because were able to attain almost all the possible measurements of CO2 that were able to be attained. Later on Wednesday, I picked up a new intern from Poland who will be starting with all of us on Monday.

      This weekend was filled with adventures around Berlin. Yesterday we visited the Brandenburg Gate, German Parliament, and the Berlin HBnf (a large train station). Today we spent all day in Potsdam. I will post some pictures of out adventures the past two days and let them do the talking. (A picture is worth 1000 words correct?).

      Well, now I prepare for another week of work. Today is Independence Day in America! Here, we just call it July 4th. Like you would any other day. I miss everyone from the States! Have a safe Independence Day!!

If you click the picture thumbnail in the top left of my blog's homepage, you will be directed to an album where I am uploading all these pictures. Check them out!
  

-Wright