Bike tour

On Sunday it was worth getting up early because I had registered for a 35miles bike trip organized by the UCSC recreation center. My flatmate Carena was so kind to lend me her racing bike for the day. I cycled through the morning fog to the starting point on campus where I met the other students. In total we were 7 persons. The group leader is an agriculture student because the tour went to the farms and gardens in and around Santa Cruz.


















First, we went to 2 community gardens in town where private people can grow their own vegetables - as a gardening hobby or in a neighbourhood of poorer citizens in fact meant as an oppurtunity for a cheap and healthy nutrition. These gardens are however not like German allotments ("Kleingartenkolonien"), but everyone has only one or few square meters. It's October and there are still so beautiful flowers:

The next place was the "Homeless Garden Project" where homeless people work 20h per week for organic agriculture. Of course, they also get healthy food there. The farmer/ manager showed us everything including the composts...
At the end, I asked if I could buy some fresh basil. So he harvested purple basil and lemon basil for me and even digged a whole plant out which is growing now in a pot on our window sill. He did not want to sell it for money, but he accepted a few dollars as a donation for the project which is to 70% based on donations. But they also regularly serve 4-course dinners with fresh organic vegetables as a fund-raising campaign.

Afterwards we biked quite a bit along highway one (the famous coastal highway) until we reached another small farm. The farmer told us about all challenges, e.g. how difficult it is to get certified organic and to enter the farmers' markets of Santa Cruz with regulations like there must not be more than xy strawberry vendors. Particular about this farm is that they deliver all goods by bicycle! Another striking detail is the hippie couple (or now even family with a baby) that lives directly at the fields in a little self-made hut. In return, they sell the vegetables on some markets. The baby in his mother's arm wore just a t-shirt but nothing else. This is the hippie life of Santa Cruz ;-)

The most important issue and also expense factor here is clearly the water supply especially in the dry summer months. On the other hand, I was amazed to learn that agriculture is in general possible here throughout the year (apart from some species)!
Now it's pumpkin time:

At our final destination, Swanton berry farm, I ate a huge piece of pumpkin pie - delicious :-)

Finally, cycling back was mainly downhill and relaxed. I got to talk longer to the second group leader, who is absolutely enthusiastic about biking and dreams of travelling to Europe which is famous for bike lanes and good networks of public transport.

In total, I spent a very pleasant day with nice people, a lot of biking and I learned a lot about the region here!

Beach Day

On Saturday, we had a tasty lunch at one of the many Mexican food places here. I ate vegetarian burrito: tortilla filled with rice, sour cream, guacamole,...

Afterwards we went to Natural Bridges State Beach, a beautiful place! Peyton, Tia and I even went swimming in the Pacific waves. It was refreshing, but ok. Especially considering that it is already October!!

Next, we walked around the Natural Bridges Park because at this time of the years the monarchs, some butterflies, are migrating and can thus be observed frequently. The park itselfs looks like a jungle and smells good from the eucalyptus trees. The butterflies are quite large and they like to hang around in groups.

Another sunset

The gorgeous weekend started with another sunset at the beach on Friday with Carena and TJ.

Later on, as on the Friday before, a bunch of people came over to our place and even later we went to a bar. There is a lot of life in this town and in our apartment :-)

SLAC

Today I went to SLAC, the Stanford Linear Accelerator near Palo Alto! There is a theory seminar twice per week and Howie (the prof who supervises my project here) always drives there. He offered my flatmate TJ, his PhD student Eddie and me to give us a ride so that we could also attend the talk.
It took us about an hour to get there. The road leads through the forest and mountains which were partly hidden in gray clouds. It rained a lot today. However, Howie proudly presented his hybrid car which runs on battery up to roughly 20 mph and switches on the gas engine only at higher velocities. When braking, the battery is recharged.
The talk on Dark Matter was interesting and I knew the speaker from last year at Fermilab :-)
The UCSC theory group even has an office at SLAC so we could work there in the afternoon. On the way back, Howie explained me the system of the carpool lane: At rush-hours, only cars with at least two passengers may use the left lane which is significantly emptier than the other lanes! This should encourage people not to drive alone. The fine for using the lane unauthorized is $271.
It was an interesting day, but I would have liked to see more of SLAC! I hope that I'll have a chance after one of the next theory seminars.

Californian sunshine?

The last days have been warmer and sunnier in Hamburg than in Santa Cruz! Yesterday I got superwet on my way home by bike, because naively I had not taken a jacket with me in the morning. On the other hand, most of the other days were sunny so that I even needed sunscreen and my sunglasses when I cycled to campus.
Usually it gets rather chilly in the evening and early morning.

At least the weather forecast for the next days justifies why I flew so far... ;-)

Nature and art by bike

 

 
I had a fantastic Saturday in the sunshine! I rode my bike along the beautiful Pacific coast, observed pelicans, visited Santa Cruz Surfing Museum in a lighthouse (surfing was imported from Hawaii to California, but serious shark accidents have happened) and spontaneously went to some exhibitions at "Open Studios" organized by the culture counsil of Santa Cruz county. I just followed some signs from the coast to the houses of local artists who were showing their paintings and photographs in their living rooms and gardens, offered snacks and drinks and talked to the visitors. Many pictures showed the Californian landscape. I recognized the coast of Santa Cruz and Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite. When I bought a print of one picture and told the artist that I would take it to Germany, she thanked me, saying that now she would be allowed to consider herself an international artist since one of her paintings will be shown in Germany :-)

German dinner

On Saturday evening I cooked Käsepätzle, a German (Swabian, too be precise) speciality: pasta with lots of eggs in the dough, roasted in a pan, much cheese added. While Spätzle exist in each German supermarket, here I had to prepare the dough from scratch. Nevertheless, we had Becks and Franziskaner! :-)
It was nice to have a "WG"-evening! from left to right: Peyton (Tia's class mate) and my flatmates Tia, TJ and Carena.

My "mission"

I am not only supposed to continue my master thesis here (and to enjoy California, of course!!), but also try to connect UCSC and Uni Göttingen a little bit, at least starting with SCIPP and the particle physics group of Göttingen. There used to be an official exchange program with the University of California, but after the financial crisis, Berlin was kept as the only German partner university. Now it would be nice to start a new cooperation so that master and PhD students as well as postdocs could go abroad in both directions. I have already talked briefly about that with some SCIPP profs and they seem quite interested in a better exchange.
On Friday, there was a "Study Abroad Fair" on campus where I went although I am currently already abroad ;-) A representative from one of the exchange programs even told me that they were searching for new partner unis.
My flatmates and their friends were a bit surprised to hear how far I could travel with physics through Europe and around the world. They regretted a bit not having taken part in exchange program so far. Well, it is not too late...

Let's see if at the end someone from Santa Cruz will in fact come to Göttingen. I would be happy. If not, I had at least a  good reason to travel to California :-)

Academic systems

The academic programs are quite different in the US compared to Germany or other European countries. The undergraduate studies take 4 years out of which the first one ("freshmen") is quite general studies, the major is chosen only later. Before the degree students do an undergrad research project, maybe similar to our bachelor's thesis.
But while hardly anyone wants to quit physics after our B.Sc., here it is a much more uncertain question if one wants to continue in a graduate school and if the application is successful. People usually apply to very many grad schools. The decision to continue is not only for the following 2 years (as our master) plus eventually 3 more years for the PhD, but immediately for 5 years since an intermediate master's degree does not exist. On the other hand, grad students are paid throughout the entire 5 years (for being teaching assistants) whereas we have to pay tuition fees for the master studies - although significantly less than in the US...
In the first two years grad students have to attend classes and pass qualification exams in order to advance to PhD candidacy. By that time they should have joined a research group to focus on their own work from then on. But apparently they can already start their research activities earlier.
The grad classes start again with theoretical classical mechanics and electrodynamics which we studied already in the 2nd and 3rd semester of the bachelor. Their homework assignments seem a bit lengthier, though (e.g. problems from Jackson's e-dyn. book). Besides, it is not sufficient to hand in the homework solutions, but they have a written "quiz" every week to solve one of the homework problems during the exercise session alone. In my flatmate Tia's year, there are only 7 physics grad students, among them 4 women, good quota!
The physics department of UCSC is rather small and there are not enough professors to lecture more specialized courses. The most advanced here are introduction to QFT and GR. Therefore the PhD students can attend summer schools.
It is a bit weird that the degrees B.Sc. can be so different. The lecture courses of PhD programs start on a more basic level than our master. However, in the mean time American students learn so much and do so good research that obtaining a PhD from the US has a very high reputation.

Institute

In the past days, I got to know more and more people in the institute. I share the visitors' office with Zenek, an exchange Phd student from Krakow and two more PhD students who work all on neural networks in the brain. Although we sit in the ISB (interdisciplinary sciences building), I am a visitor of SCIPP, the Santa Cruz Insitute of Particle Physics, which does astro- and particle physics, both theoretically and experimentally.
Last week I worked alone, but today my supervisor Howie arrived after his trips to conferences at CERN, Bonn, Granada,... Furthermore, starting from tomorrow, I will also attend the group meetings and some seminars. Stefano, a nice Italian professor and theory coordinator here, put me on the email list and asked me to present the topic of my master's thesis in the group meeting next Tuesday. So I'll be very busy this week! Howie told me that SCIPP people regularly go to SLAC at Stanford to attend the theoretical particle physics seminar talks there! I can join them this Wednesday. Of course, I am also very curious to see SLAC :-)
Since there is no university canteen, people bring their own lunch and usually eat it in their office. Thus, the lunch break does not last long. I really liked the DESY/ CERN/ Göttingen/ Helsinki (also Fermilab, despite the poor choice of vegetarian dishes) lunch breaks when all go together to the mensa and even have a coffee afterwards. At least Howie suggested today to have a picknick together. So there were him, one of his PhD students and me, and we could sit outside.

Sunset at the beach

Yesterday I went to the beach at sunset :-) It did not set in the sea, but between palm trees. Nevertheless it was quite beautiful! There were many people at the beach, playing volleyball, sailing or just sitting. I read one neutrino paper to understand how time and distance were measured at OPERA?!

Music

I brought my viola to campus and went to the music center to play in one of the practice rooms where I could practice etudes and technique without disturbing anyone. Besides, I could see the Pacific while playing :-)
I can also play in my room. My flatmates said it does not bother them. It would be quite nice to play together with Tia, but firstly her violin is still at the east coast and secondly she broke her arm.

Food

Also the food situation is different from Fermilab. Because there is no university canteen, I cook myself every evening. Santa Cruz has really good supermarkets even with lots of organic food and the coffee in the campus cafeteria is organic, too.
Today I tried bagels which exist in a broad variety and are really tasty.

Bike and bus

Traffic here is significantly better than around Fermilab: There are lots of public busses and most streets have bike lanes, which are sometimes even as broad as the car lanes. Yesterday I took on the challenge to cycle steep uphill to campus with one gear. A bit of physical exercise would have been okay, but the problem was that the chain kept falling off every few meters. It reminded me of the Fermilab bike. Besides I made by mistke a detour so that I arrived on the wrong side of the hill, at the literature and language department.
I visited the bike co-op again. Another nice volunteer checked the bike and was so sorry that I got it in such a bad shape. He wanted to give me parts of my money back, but I told him that I had paid nearly nothing. Unfortunately, he did not have a replacement for the sprocket, but built in a different back wheel. He was very friendly and helpful, however, the chains falls off even more frequently now...

Tomorrow I will try out the bike shuttle bus to campus and ride the bike only downhill - carefully after my flatmate Tia had a bike accident yesterday and broke her right ellbow.

Small talk and friendly people

Indeed there seems to be a "talkativeness gradient" from north to south. People in Finland talk less than in Germany, and Germans in turn less than Italians. Here it is really southern, people chat on the bus, in the supermarket,... But my flatmates told me that there is also a noticeable difference between the east and west coast.

For example, I overheard a conversation on the bus to campus. A man sitting next to a girl with nicely decorated boots.
He: "Oh, are your boots custom-made?"
She: "Yes, they were made for my aunt, but then she thought that because I'm a hippie they would suit me perfectly." A bit more conversation. Then she continues  passionately her pencil drawings on her sketch block.
He: "And what are you studying?"
She: "I'm studying to become a sculptural architect."  
A bit more conversation. Then he is about to get off the bus.
He: "Take care!"
She: "You too!"

Two days ago in the supermarket. I was carrying my viola with me because I had been practicing in the music center and I stopped in the supermarket on my way home from campus. Comparing different cookies and brownies in a large shelf.
Shop assistant: "Oh, is this a violin?"
I: "No, it's a viola."
He: "How nice, what a beautiful instrument!"
I: "I think so, too :-)"
He: "But I hardly ever see any musical instruments here in the shop."
And so on. Next he wanted to know if I study music, where I am from, if I like Santa Cruz,... Of course I do! :-)

From Chicago last year I was already used to greetings like "Hi, how are you?", but here they sometimes even ask "Hi, how was your day?". And in addition the longer conversations, always with a nice smile. Even though Germans usually only say the most necessary things in everyday situations, they could at least do it in a bit more friendly or enthusiastic way... On the other hand, I cannot imagine that the person at the checkout counter is honestly interested in the happenings of my day...

Furthermore, I had a good experience in the uni cafeteria of the marine and earth science department (SCIPP does not have one). When I arrived, they were just about to close and could not prepare another coffee (like extra grand latte with caramel). But when I asked for a small, plane black coffee, they were so kind to sell me one. I also wanted to buy the last oatmeal cookie, but they gave it to me for free because they had to get rid of it. It was delicious :-)

Getting settled

 My new flatmates are really, really nice! They are

1. TJ, PhD student in theoretical particle physics at SCIPP
2. Carina, his girlfriend, PhD student on solar cells
3. Tia, first year grad student, who just moved here from the east coast 6 weeks ago. She plays the violin and is also a vegetarian.

When I moved in, TJ and Carina had just come back from hiking over the weekend, too. Tonight the four of us went out together to an icecream parlor.
The apartment is quite big. TJ and Carina share a large room, but Tia and I have our own smaller rooms. We have a rather huge living room with several sofas and a well-equipped kitchen. My room luckily contains a little bit of furniture.

Today I went on campus by bus with Tia. The administrative coordinator of SCIPP welcomed me, showed me the office I am sharing with other visitors, among them an exchange student from Poland and introduced me to many people. My supervisor will only arrive next week, though.

I found the "Bike Co-Op" (cooperatively owned, non-profit bike shop and help to repair your bike, run by volunteers) on campus and was lucky enough to rent a bike for only 25$ for the entire period of my stay.

The campus is very large, steep and green, basically in a forest and from some places with a view on the Pacific! Even mule deers live here. Cycling downhill downtown was a pleasure (but through the hills which are even a mountain lion habitat!), however, uphill will be a challenge with my single-speed bike...
I found the music center with practice rooms! Maybe I will take my viola to the institute to practice there. But today I could play a bit in my room.

In total, I must say that all people I have met here so far are really friendly, open and willing to help, e.g. my flatmates, people in the institute and the bike co-op. I guess I will not fully feel "at home" here by the end of the 5 weeks, but I am pretty confident that the next month will be nice and interesting!