everyday happenings

 Yesterday, we took a photowalk around the neighborhood, and around town. Here are the results.

This little old fountain is at the end of our block.  I'm pretty sure it is spring water.  I need to remember to ask our landlord about it.  Our landlord is this über-nice middle aged man who built the complex we are living in.  He has the cutest 60-70 lbs. puppy, brings us fresh towels and bedding on a regular basis, and has left bags of kleiderbügel (clothes hangers) at our door for me, even though he seemed to be amazed that I had enough clothes to need more than the 5 or so that he had left in the apartment before we moved in.

This is a view looking up the hill on our street. I love that we live in town, but there is still so much greenery around.

And speaking of greenery, I am surprised at how green everything still is even though the weather has been at or just above freezing most of the time we've been here. People around here have all of these lovely cold-weather plants that are still very colorful, and even blooming right now.

Just up the street from us is a church whose bells chime at 7:00 each morning (perfect, since that is when we like to wake up!) and again sometime in the evening.

Here's a little known fact about me: I love shortcuts. I like to wander around a new place and find the most direct route to where I need to go.  If that shortcut is hidden, that makes it even better.

This is the shortcut to the grocery store.  The stairs go straight up between some houses, and I'm not really sure if the occupants appreciate the shortcut as much as I do. The first time we used the stairs, an old man came outside just to glare at us.  I try to tiptoe my way down now. =)

On Sundays, most everything is closed (which we weren't expecting during our first week here when we planned to go shopping on Sunday).  Except for our neighborhood flower shop, apparently.

To get to the downtown area, we either take the bus or walk along the river bank.  About halfway to town, there is always a herd of swans in the river. Swans always make me think of The Blue Danube waltz (by Johann Strauss II), though I'm not sure why. Bet you didn't realize that we only live about an hour from the head of the Danube river! And if you check out the Google maps satellite image, it really does look blue!  I'm foreseeing a nature trip in my future.

I took some pictures in town too, but my camera is not so great in low-light conditions (hence the digital SLR on my wishlist!). These are the ones that almost came out. Tübingen is all decked out in holiday spirit, and this week was the annual chocolate festival!

 

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So that's it for the great outdoors for today. Here are a few miscellaneous indoor commentaries:

I'm sure you've all been curious about the beer out here. Well, so were we.  Here is a sampling of what we've tried from our neighborhood grocery store. There are a lot of pilsners here, which I am not a big fan of, but D says that they are much better here than in the States. In fact, I think he would say that some of them are quite lecker!  There are a lot of dunkel (dark) hefeweizens that I've found and that I love.  We also love the resealable pop-tops on these beer bottles.  Double bonus: D fills them up with water and uses them as free weights (at least until we join a gym). =)

Apparently, clothes dryers are fairly uncommon in Germany.  So, we've had to learn about these newfangled things: clothespins!  At least I found some pretty ones.

Something else that I've liked about Germany from my first visit is the bedding.  I'm not sure why I like it, but I do.  They tend to use duvets and duvet covers in place of top sheets.  And the pillows (oh, and I love the word for pillow - Kissen!) tend to be giant square things. However, my pillow here in our apartment has got to be the floppiest, lumpiest pillow I've ever slept on.

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In other news, the first week on the job went well.  But this blog is not really about work, it's about play! Feel free to email me if you want to know about the boring stuff. =)

Well, that's it for this week.  Stay tuned for next week's post... we're hoping to go exploring out of town next weekend!  We've just discovered that we can get flights from Munich to places like Barcelona for like 10 Euro! (Though we'll probably stick closer to home for our first trip.)

Gute Erntedankfest! (Happy Thanksgiving!)

While D recovers a bit from his jet lag (he seems to be about a day behind me in this), I will update you all a little bit. Today we went to register with the Foreigners Registration Authority, who - surprisingly - are not very accommodating to foreigners. It would seem that a good way to run a place like that would be to hire people who at least speak fluent English, since it is often a common language among Ausländer, but apparently the German government does not agree with me. After some verbal abuse from the woman who "helped" me and a couple of phone calls from the administration guy from work, we are now legal foreign employees. Yay!

The registration office was in the old part of town, and on the way home, we wandered around a bit and found a quaint cafe and stopped in for a coffee. We even attempted ordering in German for the first time!


We've only been here about two days, but I already feel like we are starting to settle in. We've more or less mastered the bus route that goes by our apartment. We've found our way to our local grocery store and our neighborhood pub (which we have yet to check out). Perhaps most important, we found a store that sells tofu, seitan, and vegetarian "sausages"! We will not starve in Germany...horray!

Our current apartment here, which is only temporary while we find a more permanent place, is quite lovely. It's in an area of town known as Lustnau and is about a 30 minute walk from the downtown area.

The neighborhood is very quiet, which is a nice change from what we were used to on Carrillo.

Inside, we have a bedroom, a living room, and a kitchen, and all the furnishings are Ikea-style and wonderful! I will put up some pictures of the inside once we actually unpack.

i am now a doctor, please address me as such.*

I have my PhD! It is such a great feeling to have all of that stress behind me, and to be able to start looking forward. Oh yeah, and emails from faculty members that begin "Dear Dr. DeLeeuw" are pretty great, too.
















My dissertation focused on the cognitive load that learners experience during learning from computer-based multimedia lessons. In two studies, I tested whether extraneous cognitive load, such as unnecessary text on the screen, affects processing in working memory or whether it affects perceptual processing. Using a paradigm that has been able to distinguish between working memory load and perceptual load (Lavie, 2005), I tested these two possibilities via two different measurement technologies -- eye tracking and EEG (electroencephalogram). What did I find? Extraneous cognitive load in the form of unnecessary text on the screen tends to mainly affect perceptual processing rather than working memory processing. Kinda cool -- nobody has shown this distinction before.

So, enough with the jargon and smart-talk. It's time to celebrate!


*Quote stolen from D's facebook status on the day he earned his PhD. =)

a journey begins

We are now only about a month away from hopping on a plane to Germany on a one-way ticket. It is time to start selling off almost all of our worldly possessions, to start thinking about warm, chunky scarves, to celebrate, and to say goodbye. It's that nervous stage in life when you're standing at the precipice with exciting new opportunities looming on the horizon, and all you have to do is jump.

Anyone want to buy my car?