Germany 1

Day off today! Meaning I have some time to write this thing. I’ll just start from when I got here until now.

I was picked up at the airport by the PhD student I will be working for and was on the autobahn shortly. I think the autobahn experience is quite self-explanatory but it is real cool to experience! I then moved into my room and went out shopping. The room is probably slightly larger then those at Lister residence at the UofAlberta, but it also includes a sink and a closet. I then share a lounge and kitchen with other “flat-mates”. Out of around 12 of us, only three of them are German (Although they all speak the language) and the rest are from all over the rest of the world. I’ve noticed many of the people here don’t seem as nice as back home initially, but once you get to even know someone briefly, they really want to help you, wither it be taking you shopping, bringing you with them to go out at night or just help making plans. It caught me somewhat by surprise, by I really like most of the people here. Then again, the town I’m living in is the most student dense city in Germany, with around 25,000 students and only 80,000 residents.
I went out for coffee and later supper+beers that day to meet some of the people I will be working with. My first morning on the job, I spent a good hour meeting people who’s names I stopped even trying to remember. But as we were making the rounds through the labs, I was invited to help dissect a very large clawed frog. After it was killed, I had to cut it open and take out the ovaries and lungs, as those are 2 of the most used structures in this study. I spent most of the rest of the day learning how to use most of the equipment, getting set up and preparing solutions.

Now a short description for those that needed to ask me what I’m working on.
Putting it simply, we are studying the effects of certain gaseous substances on the ion channels in our bodies. All the epithelial tissue in our bodies contain these Sodium channels, which help regulate fluid exchange between the bloodstream and “exposed” surface in placed like our lungs, stomach act By finding chemicals that will either increase or decrease these channels activity, we can change the rate at which the fluid is being pumped out of our lungs and back into our bloodstreams. Hopefully we can use this to treat diseases that either has too much fluid in the lungs or too little. The experimental side to this is that we take the “oocytes” from the frog’s ovaries, then inject them with bacteria we cloned that all have the exact same gene for increased expression of these channels. After this we will let them sit for a while, then treat them with the gas and then measure ion concentration rates inside and outside of the cell.

I realize the words I used might have sounded somewhat vague but I’m writing this with the intent that most of my family and friends can understand it. Another thing is that these “oocytes” we are working with are nearly the side of a period on the end of the sentence. Which makes my work, dealing with the injections, monitoring and what not very difficult. It is hard to explain but you do it all manually with the help of a microscope and manually controlled “injection needle machines”. Anyways, whoever let me in there was not thinking because most of this equipment is too expensive and fragile to have around someone like me. I’ll eventually take a picture of some of the labs to make it a little easier to understand.

Other then work I have got my Internet, room, bank account and all that stuff set up. I’ve met a bunch of students that go here and also some other interns who are funded by the same agency as me. Last night, a bunch of us went out for a drink, then ate and headed out to this Sports faculty party. It was much more exciting then I expected. There were definitely thousands of students there in one giant beer garden which had an outdoor dance floor/DJ, tons of beer and small sports set-ups everywhere. They had one activity where people would stack plastic beer cases in a single stack and climb up the stack as someone passed the next case to them. They were attached to a safety harness, which was tied to a small crane –looking thing so when the stack collapsed, they hung there. It was amazing seeing, a single stack over twenty feet high of foot x foot plastic cases and someone climbing on it. There were many other ones but this one stuck out. They all closed down before everyone got too drunk and decided to go for it. Anyway, the rest of the night included much beer drinking, meeting other people and seeing some sports displays earlier in the night.

After walking home when it got light out and stopping for a Kebab, I managed to sleep almost all day today. Other then a workout and laundry, I have been mostly nursing a hangover. I will try to write again during or after this weekend.

Ciao

- I’ll try to add some photos of my trips, but I should have an album up of my Spain trip on Facebook already.