Back to Europe

I've been back in Europe for a week now, though have only spent about 2 and a half days in Würzburg (my summer home). It was great to be home for a bit (a very short bit), just to get to see people and spend time with my family. Also to get rid of things that I won't need (though I still somehow packed 35 kilos of stuff to bring back). In the time I've been in Europe I've spent 2 days traveling, 2 days in Würzburg and 3 days in Amsterdam playing frisbee. Fun times :)

Getting to Würzburg was complicated, I had booked roundtrip tickets to Dublin, so I flew back to Dublin then got a Ryanair flight to Frankfurt Hahn, a bus to the main Frankfurt airport and a train to Würzburg where I met one of my room mates and we took a tram to our summer home. It's a cute house, four of us from UT are renting the top floor from a family, and we have a balcony and nice rooms. And the neighborhood is filled with gardens so it smells and looks gorgeous! That was Tuesday, and all of that traveling basically filled the day.

The next day I went into the city to get my tram card, cell phone, and sort things out with the university/what I'm going to be doing. I managed to get most of it done, and bought delicious strawberries and a cute flower plant for our kitchen. Hayley, the other girl from UT, also plays frisbee so we went to the Würzburg team's practice in the evening. It was fun, and I'm excited about having people to play frisbee with over the summer! After practice the four of us went to a party with some of the physics students and talked for a while before heading home.

On Thursday I spent most of the day traveling. It was a German holiday so no one was going to be in lab, so I could head to Windmill early. I decided to try and see Hannover on the way, as some of my ancestors were apparently from there. Unfortunately I slept in more than I expected and so was only in the city for 2 hours before having to catch the train to Amsterdam, but it was fun to see, and a good break from sitting on a train. I finally got to Amsterdam and got the bus to the pitches where I was very excited to see all of the Irish there. We spent the evening talking and drinking before climbing into tents.

Friday was the first official day of the tournament - a long but good day. We played 4 games (at this tournament they were full length matches, 90 min or game to 15) that day. They went pretty well, we won 1 and lost 3 but played fairly well in the first 2 (won the 3rd) and then were tired and kept making silly mistakes in the last game. After our last game we ordered pizza and hung out at the main tent for the rest of the night. They had a table quiz which was good fun - there were I think 5 Irish teams finishing in the top 10 teams. The rest of the night we were very Irish and spend the night singing, having push up contests, and Kev brought out his guitar until we were forcibly removed from the tent and told to go to bed.

The next day we only had 2 games as our pool had one less team so we had a by game in the middle of the day. Our first game was against the top seed so while we tried to put up a good fight we ended up losing that game. Our next game wasn't for several hours so we hung out at the teepee the tournament had set up and watched the guys teams play. Our next match was against the team we had played first in the tournament, and sadly we lost to them again. Saturday was the night of the tournament party and bbq. They had delicious food for us and then we sat in the grass for a while relaxing and drinking. Then there was a beer race which I entered with a German guy who had been in Ireland for a while and so knew most of my team. They had us spin in circles, ride a bike, drink a can of Heineken, leap frog back, eat this Dutch caramel cracker thing, run and drink another beer, and then hit a cone with a frisbee. We were doing alright until the cracker thing, which was really hard to chew. It was a fun race though. After a game of Mingle Mingle we met the Swiss team in the teepee for a drinking game (they had beaten us earlier in the day, we said we could probably take them in drinking though) and ended up hanging out there the rest of the night. I apparently napped through most of it (I was exhausted) - as say the pictures of me asleep on the couches. :)

The final day was a bit disappointing, our first match was pretty bad, we lost 15-1 in less than 45 min and so spent the time before our next match getting our heads together and cheering for the guys in their match. Our final match was actually well matched, we played really hard and the other team was about the save level as us so it was a really good game. Sadly we let them get a few easy points and then couldn't catch back up, but it was a much better way to end the tournament than our previous game. We finished in time to see the end of the women's final and then were watching the men's final when I had to leave. It was sad to say bye to everyone as I don't know when I'll see them again, but the tournament was a great way to do it! I had a 7 hour train ride back to Würzburg - fun times. I was knackered enough to sleep for large portions of it and read for the rest of it.

Today I basically recovered (aka, sat around home) and read some articles about the research I'm going to be doing this summer (negative index of refraction in either iron or metamaterials) and then in the afternoon went up to the University to meet my professor, who basically told me that I just need to read more and talk to him again soon so I have lots of physics papers waiting in my future... After dinner my room mates and I went downstairs and had tea with our land lord and his wife and talked for a bit. They're really nice and are trying to learn English so it was an interesting conversation involving online translators from time to time :)

So that's what I've been up to recently (and why I haven't posted in a while ;) ) Now that things are settled more or less I'll probably just be in Würzburg with a few side trips for most of the summer - I just have one trip out of the country (to Venice/Rome!) planned and a few cities in Germany. Looking forward to a relaxing summer :)