Week 12

Sorry for the lateness of this post. I am running down to the wire on my internship, trying to get everything done before Friday while preparing a 20 minute presentation on my experiences that I have to do for the final session. At the same time, I'm trying to get all of my stuff packed before Saturday so that I can take it to the local package store to weigh it and make sure I don't need to ship anything. As you can imagine, this means I'm quite swamped!

Well last week was an interesting one. On Wednesday, my friend Mandy and I celebrated our birthdays by inviting the other interns out to mini-golf. Only four of us could make it, but we had a fun evening. I came in second! After my impressive bowling performance at Ashley's goodbye party a few weeks ago, I've now built myself a reputation as an all-around good sports person. I'm not sure how this happened. I maintain that it was all a fluke.

On Friday, Mandy and I took off for München for the weekend. We arrived at our hostel very late, but had the room to ourselves for the first night. On Saturday, we went to Elly Seidl, BMW Welt, the Olympia Park and Sommerfest, and finished up with dinner at Löwenbräu (they brew my all time favorite beer! Franziskaner Weißbier!). On Saturday, we made our way to the Deutsches Museum where we explored the history of flight, glassblowing, and rode a big ride called the Spacewalker, which put you in a little plane that you could flip while the ride went in circles.

There won't be any more updates to this blog. In less than a week, I'm heading home! So wish me luck on my presentation, and I'll see you all when I get back!

Week 11

Well my internship will be over in two weeks and then I can fly back home. I can't wait! Berlin this past weekend was great, as always. I met up with my old host family on Friday evening in a little neighborhood in Friedrichshain, where they cooked salmon for dinner. Afterwards, we all sat around and chatted for a long time, and watched one of their friends' wedding videos. I didn't tell them it was my birthday, because I didn't want them to feel pressured to do anything, but they remembered anyway and surprised me at midnight with champagne and a small gift. It was very sweet. For my actual birthday I sat around my friend Sam's apartment and played videogames all day. In the evening we traveled to Cupcake Berlin to pick up dessert and then sat down to dinner with a bottle of my favorite wine that I bought at KaDeWe.

Work has been very stressful lately. I think my problem is that both bosses forget that I haven't been working here for years. They give me directions that are extremely vague and then expect me to just know what they mean. I feel incompetant when I am forced to ask them questions constantly. It's even worse now that my direct supervisor in Mainz is on vacation, since I have to communicate all by e-mail with my boss in Jena, who is traveling at the moment. This week I have to finish about five more projects. At the very least, I can now put on my resume that I'm a great multi-tasker.

I can't wait to come home. I miss water fountains, vanilla extract, and pancakes. I don't know how I'm going to get all my luggage back, but I'm ready to leave Germany. I wish this had been a better trip.

Week Ten

Well this was certainly an eventful week. My boss actually ended up telling me on Monday that he wanted me to make some changes and do some extra things on both projects that were due last week, which meant that I didn't have time to get everything that was due this week done (another three projects) so he was upset about that on Thursday. I just kept thinking to myself that I can't help it if he won't accept the work I give him. The changes he asked for weren't simple to make... Anyway, so work still sucks. I can't wait for the internship to be done.

On Friday, I hopped a plane to Malaga in Spain. It's a city on the Mediterranean where Picasso lived. I stayed in a hostel for three nights and spent my days either shopping or on the beach. I managed to get very splotchy sun burns on my thighs and stomach, but other than that it was great. On the last night, I decided to go out for dinner and had a couple of beers, which made me tipsy. It's a testament to how little I've been able to afford to go out here that two beers got me all giggly. When I came back to the hostel, I ended up having a couple more beers with my three Dutch roommates and the two guys told a very funny story about getting strip searched by the Spanish police (no joke!). All in all, it was an excellent trip.

Now it's back to the grind...but only for two and a half days. On Thursday night I'm flying to Berlin for my birthday!

Week Nine

So this week, I had two projects due (one was the big one I've been working for the past four weeks or so) on Thursday evening, which made for a very stressful week. It didn't help that my boss didn't mention that these projects were due until Monday. Argh. So I think everything came out fine, but there's still some work to be done. My boss decided to consult a few more colleagues about possible resources that I should check before turning this thing in. So I'm waiting to hear from him about that. Other than that, this week went pretty smoothly.

I also had a phone interview with the guy from my friend Sam's PR firm in Berlin. It went very well, and he seemed to really like me. However, it appears that the other candidates have a "more stable" status here in Germany than I do (translation: they already have work visas), so it doesn't look like I will be moving to Berlin any time soon. This is a bit of a relief, since the whole opportunity was very sudden and didn't give me much time to think about what I want. However, I'm definitely having trouble getting anyone in the U.S. to take me seriously as a candidate right now, since I'm so far away. That kind of sucks.

This weekend should be pretty good. Some other interns went to a club last night and invited me to join them, but I was pretty beat from this work week, so I took it easy at home instead. Tonight, however, there is a beer festival in Mainz! This should be really fun. That's probably the plan for the next couple of days.

In other news, next week's entry will probably be late, since I'm taking a short four-day vacation to Malaga in Spain!! I'm very excited. Not only is Malaga a beach-front city on the Mediterranean (where I've never been before), it is also the birthplace of Picasso! Which means I'll be doing some sight-seeing. As if that weren't enough to recommend it, it has a BCBG store (there are none anywhere in Germany! I was so sad) and also a little boutique for this cool new brand I'm getting into. Night life is also supposed to be pretty good. Here's hoping for a good relaxing week!

Week Eight

Wow it's hard to believe that the time is going by so fast. I have a little over four weeks left here, and I'm really looking forward to coming home. Although, it may not be for long...more on that later. This week was really stressful. When I got the assignment for this online media research project at work, we set a tentative meeting to discuss my project on July 8, which was this past Tuesday. But Agnes was too busy while she was here, so she kept putting it off. Then she called me late Friday morning to say that Frank would meet with me that afternoon instead and to give me about six other things to do (while talking so fast that I couldn't understand him). So I really started freaking out about the meeting, but then Frank called to say that he had to put it off until Monday morning. I was kind of pissed at first (just get it over with already!), but now I'm glad. I've been able to make a list of all the questions I have and what I need to complete the project. This is good, since otherwise, I probably would've been too flustered to organize my thoughts.

In other news, I didn't do much this weekend. On Friday, I tried to get a bunch of the interns to come out for the evening, but pretty much everyone was either traveling or already had plans. So it ended up just being the American interns. The three of us had all had really stressful weeks, so instead of going out to party, which was the original plan, we decided to check out Taubertsbergbad - a local public pool. It was AMAZING! For 10 euro (yay student night!) we got access to every single pool and sauna for four hours. We spent the majority of our time in the Erlebnisbad, a very fancy heated pool with artificial currents and a swim through to an outdoor area, plus jacuzzis! However, we did try out both waterslides - very fun - and took a moment to go over to the Olympic sized Sportbad. There they had a separate diving well with 1 meter and 3 meter springboards, and a 5 meter platform. I only brought bikinis with me, so I stuck to the 1 meter, but after only three tries I nailed my front tuck dive. That felt good since it's been a long time since I've been anywhere near a real diving board.

Other than that, I've just been relaxing and doing a little online research. For one thing, my friend Sam, who I visited last week in Berlin, told me about an opening at her PR firm in Berlin, so I've applied to that. They want to do a phone interview with me tomorrow evening, so I'm trying to get as much information together about them as I can. If I got this job (it's a trainee position for a native English speaker), then I would move to Berlin permanently, or at least for a few years. That's a bit of a scary thought, but it would be a great opportunity...and I love Berlin! It's all very tentative though, because they've already done final interviews for two other candidates, but neither were as qualified as I am, so they still want to talk to me. I've also been applying like crazy to other jobs around DC. I'm really hoping to have this job thing sorted out before I come home.

I'm really looking forward to the next few weeks. Next weekend is a beer festival in Mainz, then the following week I'm going to the beach in Spain for four days (so excited!) and then the week after that, Agnes was talking about giving me another four day weekend to go to Berlin. That will be my birthday weekend! Awesome. Can't wait!

Week Seven

Sorry this entry is a little late. I just returned from a weekend in my favorite city in the whole world - Berlin! But first things first. Work was pretty uneventful this week. I made progress on my project, although I still have a sinking feeling that I'm not doing it right/well. Also, a bunch of us girl interns have started eating lunch together regularly, which is pretty nice. Inevitably, we linger way over our 30 minutes, but no one seems to really mind. The intern happy hour started off a bit rough this week, because many of the interns I knew before have left, but then I got to know some new people, so that was fun.

Now the Berlin trip! I left work early on Friday and hopped a plane to the Hauptstadt. Upon my arrival, I took the S9 all the way to Warschauerstraße where I met Sam by her work. It reminded me of the times we used to get off there to walk to Friederichshain and go to hookah bars. =) Sam and I then traveled up to Wedding, where she just moved into a new apartment with her husband Felix. We wanted to go out for the fireworks (yes they had 4th of July fireworks, I think sponsored by the embassy) but the weather was really nasty, so instead we stayed in and played WiiFit. This was almost as good. I rock the ski jump game!

On Saturday, Sam and Felix went to their local Mieteverein to try to get some backing in a dispute with the company that owns their building. I made the trek across the city to Rathaus Steglitz and then to Brentanostraße where I surprised Günther! We both had really silly grins on our faces the entire time I was there. I ate bockwurst with kartoffelsalat and bought a Bild Zeitung for old times sake (there was no naked woman! I was so surprised! Has Axel Springer cleaned up his act?). Günther told me about his recent hospital visit, his new boat, and how there are fewer FU-BEST students coming to see him these days because the dollar is so weak. We visited for about two hours before I had to head back to Wedding to meet up with Sam and Felix to go to Amerikafest. He gave me a bag full of brötchen and a piece of cake to give to Sam and Felix for "putting up with me" haha. So we made our way to Friederichstraße (or Fred, as Sam likes to call it) and walked down Unter den Linden to Pariser Platz, where some good old-fashioned American fun was under way. This festival was to celebrate the opening of the new American Embassy on Pariser Platz, although no one is actually allowed into the embassy. The fest went all the way down Straße der 17 Juli, so it was pretty exciting. At night we went back to the apartment where Sam made lasagna.

On Sunday, I left the apartment for the last time (at least for this trip). I went to the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche on the Ku'damm, which is my favorite place to go in Berlin. I wish I'd had time to go on a day that wasn't Sunday, so I could've shopped, but oh well. You can't go into the Gedächtniskirche any more because it needs to be renovated, but they weren't able to get funding from the government, so they're trying to raise the funds privately or it will have to be torn down. =( I took lots of pictures in case that happens. Then I went to the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz, where I was seized by nostalgia. When I studied abroad, we used to hang out there a lot, because there was free wireless internet, an English movie theater, and fantastic ice cream. After that, I went back to Friederichstraße where I got some great Berliner döner (it really is the best in Germany) before hopping an S9 back to the airport.

I've always known how much I love Berlin, but being there again, the feeling was about ten times stronger. I was constantly reminded of the things I used to do when I lived there, and it made me want to drop everything and find a way to move back. I was never homesick in Berlin, because it was my home. It's just one of those places that you fall in love with. I wish my internship were there instead of in Mainz. It was very sad to leave the city that I love to go back to a place that I feel nothing for, but in another month, I'll be going back for my birthday. So I'm holding on to that. I may try to go back earlier, depending on money and time. After all, there are still many places I used to haunt that I didn't have time to go see!

Week Six

Well work this week was less boring than usual. Herr Berger finally got around to giving me a project, which is pretty far out of my depth, but I'm doing my best. Agnes also e-mailed me and sent me on a wild goose chase for prices of materials. That was actually kind of fun because I got to talk to people all over the company. Oh yeah and it got me off of the New York Times website for a couple hours. Our office floor is being renovated, so we moved this week into new offices above the Zerodur production floor in the neighboring building. Most of our coworkers were moved into a building all the way at the other end of the campus in offices on the sixth floor with no elevator. Yeah, I like my new office just fine.

At the end of the week, HR organized a get-together for the US interns. We met up at the local brewery (Eisgrub Bräu) for dinner and then went to watch the semi-final match between Russia and Spain on the Rhein Strand (a little beach along the river). The next morning we were bussed off to Alzenau where we got a tour of the solar technology production plant, which was pretty cool. In the afternoon we went to the Kupferberg Sekt Kellerei - or sparkling wine cellar - that has been around in Mainz for hundreds of years. We tasted the local sekt and got a tour all through the cellars and fermenting areas. Afterwards, we went on our own to my favorite little pub in Mainz, Cafe Extrablatt, and had a few beers before wandering off to another summer festival at the Johannes-Gutenberg University.

My friend Sharon, who is doing an internship in London this summer, flew into town and met up with us at Extrablatt. So she and I ran amok around the town and festival on Friday. Yesterday we made our way to Frankfurt, where I showed her around the shopping district, the old town, and the Museum walk along the Main river. It was a very relaxing, very cool day. We ate dinner on the plaza in front of the Römer, which was a little expensive, but excellent food. I had fish in an almond butter sauce with potatoes and vegetables. She had the special, which were local mushrooms in a cream sauce with schnitzel, potatoes, and vegetables. In the evening, we explored another pub in Mainz, which was actually also quite nice, and I introduce Sharon to the Radler (beer mixed with lemonade - a southern German tradition). Today we are relaxing at my apartment in Ober-Olm. We are probably going to walk around the vineyard a little bit and then head into Mainz for dinner before Sharon has to catch the bus back to the airport.

Tonight is the Europa Fussball Meisterschaft! Go Deutschland!!! Have I mentioned before that I've had a total fangirl crush on Michael Ballack since my senior year of high school? Ha ha I can't believe he's still around!

Week Five

Well it turns out that they did in fact want me to be at the trade show every single day. At first I was angry, because the only thing Agnes (the head boss) told me was that they would need me to keep the product display cases clean, so I was imagining being the maid all week. Also, no one was going to be able to drive me to and from Frankfurt, so I was going to have to take the train - a two hour trip for a total of four hours of commute every single day of the week. That meant getting up at 5am in order to be ready. Yeah, I wasn't pleased.

However, the trade show turned out to be a rather fun experience. I used the time in the trains to nap or read a book. At the actual booth, what they really needed me to do was sit at the information desk and hand out information sheets and booklets about the various products or direct customers to the appropriate sales person when they had question. This was rather boring at times, particularly on Friday when almost no one was there, but it was kind of fun attempting to field really technical questions in German, and I was even able to answer some questions about the products! I also suspect that the reason they asked me to do this chore was so they could put a young female out into the front of the booth to attract all the weird techie guys. One of my funniest observations was that whenever there was an attractive young man walking around, there was always a girl with him - as if the girlfriends were afraid of their guys being stolen away because they were the only cute ones in a veritable sea of mullets and Teeva sandals.

Everyone who worked at the trade show was super nice to me. I got lots of compliments on my German, and many of my coworkers made time to tell me about their experiences with Schott. Before I felt like even though I knew their faces, I never really talked to anyone, because our office setting is not particularly conducive to socializing. There's certainly no watercooler culture in my department. After this week, I feel a bit like the department pet. One of the French employees who I talked with a lot during the initial training session told me about how French people describe wine using the same terms they would use to describe a woman's dress. I thought that was pretty funny (they actually call the legs on the wine - for those of you familiar with wine - the thighs. Yeah they are pretty sensual about their wine). The eastern European employee in the office told me how he was in my position at the trade show three years ago. I don't know. It was kind of cool to talk to everyone.

My roommate and I got into a pretty big fight this week. It started off with a dirty pan that she left sitting around and ended with her accusing me of ignoring her and being rude. It made things pretty awkward, so it was probably good that I was hardly ever home this week. Last night we ended up hanging out together with some of the other interns at Johannesfest. I guess now we're just pretending like the fight didn't happen. I don't really care since I'm only here for another two months anyway, so I don't want to make a big issue out of stupid little stuff.

Johannesfest is pretty awesome. I dropped my stuff off at Ashley's apartment in Mainz and we went to meet up with Anne. Linda joined up with us later after we'd already gone on the Tilt-A-Whirl (so much fun) and done some walking around. They basically have little booths set up everywhere and people sell almost anything you can imagine, almost like a craft fair. I found a purse I really liked, but they didn't have it in black, so I didn't buy it. I did get a very pretty necklace and I ate chocolate covered strawberries - yum! I also found the funniest t-shirt I've ever seen. It said the following:

"Caution!"
When you go me on the Nerven,
I shall put you into a Gully,
do the Deckel drauff,
and you will never come back
to the Tageslicht!

This is the best example of Genglish I have ever seen. It's supposed to mean, "If you piss me off, I will put you in a hole, cover it with a blanket, and you will never see the light of day." Obviously someone didn't pay attention in their English class ha ha! Of course I bought the shirt. I SHALL PUT YOU INTO A GULLY! I'm going back today to do more browing, because Anne wanted to go to another university party, and naturally we wanted to tag along. We met up with more interns and enjoyed an evening of dancing, beer, and students.

Oh I should also mention that I found my US sim card!!! This absolutely made my day!

Week Four

The mindless grunt work continues. Not only do we have the trade show coming up this week, but they are renovating the AOO offices and so next week we have to move to another building. That means that this week, aside from stuffing almost 200 folders with product information, I also was responsible for boxing up all loose materials around the office. In between doing these menial tasks, I surfed the web finding articles (see Facebook - I posted the more interesting ones) and researching my travel plans, because my boss had nothing for me to do. This internship has turned into the nightmare I was afraid it would be. I'm not getting any useful experience, I hate it, and I'm bored out of my mind. My boss, Herr Berger, seems to be aware of my frustration, saying that he would have time to give me projects and more work after the trade show and the move are over, but that's still two weeks away. In the meantime, my presence is only necessary at the trade show for two out of five days. That means I will be sitting alone in my office for three days this week doing nothing.

The only exciting prospect there is that I can pretty much make my own hours. If I want to come in a little later or leave earlier, I'm free to do so. Pretty much everyone will be at the trade show, so I'm on my own. Unfortunately, I will be just as underutilized as I am right now, so I have a lot of Facebook/Reddit/online newspaper time ahead of me. So that kind of sucks.

I participated in a company sponsored charity event yesterday, which was the Benefizlauf (or Run for Children). Companies sponsored teams and donated one euro for every lap run around a 400meter track. Each team had to have at least one team member on the track at a time for a ten hour period, so the way my team (made up of trainees and interns) organized ourselves, we formed groups of at least 5 people to take responsibility for a two hour shift. I ran about 10 laps in the two hour period and had a lot of fun. We got free food and massages and cheered on the following group.

The trainees also informed me that next weekend is the big Johannesfest in Mainz, which is the biggest summer festival in the city. Supposedly I will get an email detailing plans to go celebrate along the Rhein. I'm very much looking forward to that, even though it interferes with my plans to do a day trip to München, but hey I can go to München any week. Johannesfest is once a year! My trip to Malaga is shaping up to be a fantastic getaway. I got the go-ahead from Herr Berger to take two days off so I can really make a full trip out of it. I can't wait for August!

Week Three

I had my first week in the actual office, supposedly doing my real internship work. It's true that they're giving me more stuff to do, which is exciting, but they still haven't told me what my big projects will be. I want to do more than update databases! On Monday, I get to stuff folders for the OPTATEC trade show that we're going to next week. That should be mindless and unfulfilling. I did get to sit in on a meeting with the people who designed our booth, which was really interesting.

On Thursday, there was a happy hour for the interns, which was fun. When things started winding down, we got invited to go to a university party. I was ambivalent about going, because we live really far outside of Mainz, and the buses don't run late. Also, we have to get up really early for work and it's a long commute. However, I've been chafing all week because we're really cut off from people our age, because of our location. So Linda and I went, stayed out until almost four in the morning, and still managed to drag ourselves in to work the next morning. I was pretty useless on Friday morning, but my boss didn't seem to notice, and I rallied in the afternoon.

Still I was pretty tired, so when my friend Kiana called to tell me about the wine festival in Bodenheim, where her boyfriend's family lives, I almost backed out. Now I'm glad that I didn't because it was super fun. Unfortunately, my camera battery died after taking only one picture, so I don't have much documentation, but it was like a huge outdoor party. You buy these little glasses that have the name of the festival and the year printed on them and then you take that around to the different vendors and buy wine either by the glass or by the bottle at really cheap prices. We mostly bought bottles, because we were in a big group. Jochen's friends were all really impressed with my German, so I felt pretty good about that. One of Jochen's friends Basti got jumped by ten guys (no joke) as he was leaving and they kicked the living daylight out of him. He managed to get back to Jochen's house, where he promptly passed out in my designated sleeping area. When we returned an hour or so later, I had to sleep in a chair. Boo to that.

On the way home this morning, I took the wrong bus from the train station and ended up in Essenheim, which is one town over from Ober-Olm where I live. Linda and I tried to walk to Essenheim last week and wound up getting lost, but I knew this morning that I could walk back if I could just find the path. I made it home (success! Who says girls can't navigate?) and saw goats, horses, and a pheasant along the way. The pheasant was pretty cool. I plan on going back to the wine festival with Linda on Sunday to try to buy some bottles to bring back and enjoy it when it's not such a ridiculous party atmosphere. Also, Kiana and Jochen invited me to go watch the European soccer championship with them on Sunday night on the banks of the Rhein river. So I'm looking forward to that.

Possibilities on the horizon

The most exciting thing about being in Germany is its very convenient central location. My roommate and I have been discussing travel possibilities together with the other girl who is interning here in Mainz. So far we've decided that London would be an excellent choice, because I found a great deal to go to London roundtrip for €40 on Ryan Air. Also, my friend Sharon is doing an internship there and can put me up for the weekend with no trouble, so that means a considerable reduction in price for the rest of the trip as well. Yay conveniently place friends! She just booked her flight to come see me in Mainz in three weeks. =)

Other than that we've discussed trying to get to a beach somewhere. South of France is definitely out, as no one offers cheap fares to get there, and Italy is looking equally cost-prohibitive, although I was enamored of the idea of going to Sicily. Who knows, maybe it could be my one big splurge! The other intern, Ashley, mentioned Spain as a possible destination, which would also be incredible. This needs more investigation.

I spoke with my host mom last night, and she was quite excited to hear that I'm trying to travel a little. She, of course, insisted that I come up to Berlin at least twice to see her and the rest of my host family. She then mentioned the word "baden" which in German refers to their cultural tradition of going to these elaborate spa locations complete with hot springs. It seems she would like to go with me to one of these places, which would be a whole new aspect of German culture for me (will I have to get naked? Yikes).

The only problem here is that I get three days of vacation and that's it. Also I'm on an extremely tight budget after all the taxes they take out of my €600/month allowance. Luckily, Berlin and London won't have hotel or hostel fees because I have friends to stay with. If I do go to this mysterious baden activity with Gitte, she will most likely spring for the hotel, although I don't want to count on it. And I have my heart set on some European beach time, so I'm going to have to splurge a little there, but I'm ok with it. I didn't bring bikinis with me for nothing!

Does anyone have suggestions? Is anyone even reading this?

Life in the Second Week

Well, like I mentioned before, I spent the first half of my week at the European sales meeting for employees in Advanced Optics with my boss, Agnes Hübscher, and my supervisor, Frank Berger. The first day was incredibly long, because when the meeting should've ended around 4:30, they sprung a surprise on us. They had hired a bus to take us to a very famous park overlooking Wiesbaden to do a ropes course, practice archery, and have dinner. This would've been fine, but whereas everyone else had been warned ahead of time to wear comfortable shoes and dress casually, no one told me. I had to go to this event in a skirt and heels, so I couldn't do any climbing and the ground destroyed my shoes. The second day was boring, and I was exhausted (over 12 hours at a meeting the previous day and only five hours of sleep to boot).

In the afternoon, my bosses told me that they had arranged for me to go to another training session, supposedly for new employees, that would take place over the final two days of the week. This time was pretty awful, because it got extremely technical and I couldn't follow it. However, some parts were really fascinating, like we had tours through the melting department, the production department, and the quality control areas. That almost made the rest of it worth it.

I like Frau Hübscher. She is very friendly and acts more like someone my age than like someone who must be at least mid-thirties. Herr Berger is more what I expected from a German boss - very reserved and formal. I'm supposed to go to a trade show in Frankfurt am Main with them in a few weeks, which I'm actually looking forward to, since trade show experience is highly sought after in the job market. Beyond that, Frau Hübscher wants to bring me to Jena, where she works, for a week when Herr Berger is on vacation. The best part of that situation is that it will be the week before my birthday and she said I could leave Thursday night to go to Berlin to see my friends and host family...so I could be in Berlin on my birthday! I'm very excited.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to sit down with Herr Berger and find out what my specific duties are with regards to the internship. I can't wait! No more meetings!

More About Schott Glass

So I realize that before I left, I was really vague about the company I'm working for, because I really had no idea what they did. I have spent the entire week either in the European Sales Meeting or in a training session for new employees, so I've gotten a much better idea of what's going on.

Schott Glass, AG makes all kinds of specialized glass products in five major areas: Home Tech, Fiberoptics, Advanced Materials, Pharmaceuticals, and Solar Technology. They have other product areas as well, but those are the major ones. Among the products they make are glass-ceramic stove tops for induction cooking (these things are really super nifty), the make components for all kinds of electrical systems (including cell phones, flat panel displays, and BMWs haha my favorite!), lenses for everything from microscopes to giant astronomy telescopes, solar panels, pharmaceutical packaging like syringes, bottles, etc. The list goes on. The thing they're really getting press for right now is a huge solar energy plant they're building in New Mexico. I'm working in the Advanced Optical Materials department, which handles glass and glass ceramic products mostly for lenses. Among these products is this stuff called Zerodur, which is used in virtually every big telescope you've ever heard of, because it has negligible thermal expansion (a few millimeters, even when it's subjected to extreme temperature changes).

Today I got a tour of the Zerodur production floor, which is virtually the only product that is still produced in Mainz. It was really cool to see the giant melting vats, the coolers, the huge saws and grinders. The whole process of making Zerodur takes anywhere from 3 to 12 months, because if it's cooled too quickly, it warps the material. This is all probably pretty boring for you guys, but I thought some of you might be interested. I'm bored half the time and really interested for the rest of it. Next week I find out what my duties will be! Can't wait to get to the actual marketing.

The First Week

Well I just left Frankfurt am Main today. I spent my first day recovering from the jetlag. On Day 2 I wandered all over the Palmengarten, which is the botanical garden in the city - a beautiful expanse of planted heaven in the middle of the city. The only disappointment was that the rose garden was not yet in bloom. I took lots of pictures. I also explored the Fressgasse, which a street in the downtown area devoted to cuisine. My favorite sight here was the legions of suit-clad businessmen standing up at tables outside of the small bakery/snack establishments eating lunch. It's pretty common in Germany that most people choose these locations for lunch, despite the fact that there's little if any real seating. I was given bad directions by the hotel to find the Goethe museum (they thought it was on Goethestrasse - who thinks that?) and so discovered the really high end shopping area. Turns out that this would be where you would find Burberry, Emiligio Zegna, and many other extravagantly expensive stores. I enjoyed the walk and the window shopping, stopping only to buy a few things at the local drugstore (including my favorite deodorant, random I know, but you can never find it in the States and I have been out for months). Completely by accident, I did end up finding the real Goethe museum, which I did not go into because there was an entrance fee. However, I felt pretty good about finding it at random all by myself.

On the second day, I explored the old town area. It was quite charming. I started along the museum walk that runs along the Main river and is pretty picturesque, then detoured up by the Römer (city hall). A little further along I saw some cool looking churches, a bunch of fountains, and an old ruin left as a memorial in the city center. It was here where I found a little square where they were having an open-air jazz concert. The band was a little rough, but fun to listen to and I was in the middle of enjoying it when I was interrupted. A guy sat beside me and started to hit on me. When he figured out I wasn't from Germany, he started talking about how nice it would be to have a friend in a strange city who can show you around, etc etc. Even after I lied through my teeth and told him I had a boyfriend who I'd been together with for a long time, he persisted. Finally I excused myself and left, but I was angry that I had to miss the rest of the concert. He wasn't even attractive. Grrr...

The past couple days have been filled with orientation by the company that administers this program. It was ok I suppose, but pretty basic stuff for me, since I've been here before. Today was the icing on the cake though. I arrived in Mainz and traveled via taxi a bit further with Linda (my roommate) to our aparment in Ober Olm. First the cab driver went to Nieder Olm and got completely lost. Eventually though, we figured out his mistake and found our way to the right location. The apartment is absolutely breathtaking - really spacious, free DSL, a gorgeous balcony, two bedrooms (originally Linda and I thought we'd have to duke it out over one bedroom and a bed in the living area). I still won the bigger bedroom in a coin toss, which was pretty sweet. I did leave a sweater at the hotel, so I'll have to call them about getting that back...

Here's hoping that my internship is as awesome as my apartment!