Ich bin ein Kieler

I have been in Kiel for almost a month. It is a great place to spend the summer: not as overwhelming as Berlin or Munich, but big enough to have a nice selection of stores and summer events.

Kiel is a busy German port on the Baltic Sea. There are a myriad of boats in the harbour, including historic sailing ships and giant ferries destined for Sweden and Norway. About a quarter million people live in Kiel. Besides a large, old university, there is a major canal to the North See, and a navy/submarine base. Kiel was destroyed during the Second World War, so few of the old buildings remain. The city just celebrated a gigantic sailing and summer festival, the Kieler Woche ... check out my pictures!

I live in a university residence, which, unfortunately, is rather sparse: not much of a kitchen, no Internet, small old rooms ... makes Lister look almost luxurious! The "nice" residences are taken by full-time students, so the latecomers and exchange students are out of luck—at least it's cheap (less than €200 per month ... €1 = $1.4) and there are lots of other international students.

My Room
The university in Kiel is large (~25 000 students), almost as big as the University of Alberta. The campus is very spread out, and, unfortunately, the Faculty of Engineering is on the other side of the harbour, almost six kilometres from my residence—a long walk. Someone at work lent me an old bicycle, but after a few flat tires, I gave up on it and luckily found a used mountain bike for only €60. Many people in Germany ride bicycles and I can whiz to the lab along the bike paths in about 20 minutes.

My Steed

The lab is not quite as fancy as those at U of A and the faculty is much smaller, but the people are friendly. I have met some interesting German students and, like Canada, there are many graduate students from China, many of whom speak very good English. There are three other exchange students in my lab: one from India, another from Poland, and a Chinese fellow studying at the University of Toronto!

Fellow Exchange Students from my Lab

The work is very interesting. We investigate various aspects of fibre optic telecommunication—I work with mode diversity signal multiplexing techniques over multi-mode fibre. (What that all means is a story for another day....)

Working in the lab...

I spend my free time visiting the stores in Kiel's Altstadt and harbour areas, learning German (ein bisschen Deutsch), and, of course, travelling. I've seen Hamburg with friends in my exchange program (pictures) and I tried lots of German food.

Leckere deutschen Kirschen!
(Yummy German Cherries)

I'm almost a resident. I have a German address, a German bank account (and think in Euros now) and a German mobile number (a cell phone is are commonly called a "Handy" in Europe ... you can reach me at +49 151 52046179) and I'm getting quite used to the German grocery stores.

The World Cup excitement is very intense … lots of cheering fans in the streets.

Bis Später!

A Pan of Kiel's Harbour