Formula 1 in Budapest

This past weekend Johanna and I took a trip to Budapest with 6 other Novartis employees.  Originally we had planned the trip with other LGOs but something came up with everyone and luckily we were able to sell their tickets to our new friends at Novartis.  Tickets?  To what?  To a Formula 1 race.  Please take a moment for jealousy to sink in.

Budapest is a 10-11 hour drive from Marburg and when you hit traffic and terrible weather it turns into a 13.5 hour drive.  Yuck.

• Top Left: The drive was long and Jo needed to feel like a King to get through it, even if it was only for a little while.


• Top Right: Christmas lights strung out over a crane.  We arrived so late in the evening that this is what Budapest looked like the first night.


• Bottom Left: Here is the construction they were doing literally right in front of our hostel.  This made it difficult to find the hostel and annoying to walk to.


• Bottom Right: Jo and I starting off Saturday morning on our way to the ATM to pull out tens of thousands of Hungarian monies (not even $200 US).

We started off the morning with a little breakfast and a visit to the big church in Budapest.  The church was 1.5 blocks from our hostel, but we took the long way around while we looked for breakfast so that by the time we saw the church I would have sworn we were a kilometer away.  The weather started just a little cloudy but all in all it was gorgeous the entire weekend.

• Top Left: Here you can see the restaurant where we had breakfast.  It was so windy in the morning that the outside metal chairs were literally blowing away.  They had to tilt them against the tables to keep them in place.


• Bottom Right: The hand of some guy who was influential in the founding of Budapest.  They love to collect body parts in the Catholic churches.


• Middle and Top Right: The winding staircase we walked up to get to the top of the dome, a look at the top of the decorative dome, and a picture of the citadel from a distance.

Next we walked around the city trying to find a bike shop to rent bikes for the day.  They were sold out of bikes so we elected to jump on a "hop-on-hop-off" bus to make up for lost time.

• Top Left: This weird thing with a bunch of locks on it...I don't remember what for.


• Middle Left: There were mimes with some lady with an accent preaching Christianity and the guy next to her was translating.  Odd.


• Bottom Left: Our bus!


• Top Middle: Our friends Tacy and Kendall from Novartis


• Top Right: Jo and I learning up on Hungarian history (basically who was oppressing them at different points in time) on the bus.


• Middle Middle: See a cat, make a cat pose.  It's what you do.

We took the bus down to the victory square type area.

• Top Middle: The main square was very nice.


• Bottom Row: There was this shallow man-made lake near the square but most of it was drained when we visited, not sure why.  I walked out on on e of the ledges and Jo snapped a picture of me.

Next we went up to the castle area.  There was a bunch of tents and events setup for the Formula 1 race and then the castle itself was very nice.  And of course, being a castle on a hill with a river, the view was amazing.

• Bottom Middle: Giant pot that could have fit 5 people in it at least, and it was greasy from the last time it was used.  Not just for decoration.


• Middle Right: See a cat, make a cat pose.  It's what you do.

They had some cars up by the castle and I came across my dream car, a 67 fastback Mustang.  Mine would be blue with a white stripe down the middle.  How odd to see my dream car in Hungary.



Next we went over to this free ride...thingy.  You load up 20 people or so onto this wooden structure and with the direction of some guy with a megaphone you start leaning.  Next thing you know the thing is rocking back and forth pretty intensely and you have to hold on so you don't fly off.  The bottom row and left row are random pictures I snapped while we rocked!



The view from the castle/citadel areas were awesome.  Budapest is a beautiful city.  Many of the non-public buildings are a bit run down, but it is eastern Europe, what do you expect.



That night we went out, like you do.

• Top Left: A killer rat tail that I did my best to capture.


• Bottom Left: My schnitzle that was bigger then my face.


• Bottom Right: Russian prostitutes that were scamming some guy.  We knew it was a scam because they tried to scam one of our friends as he came to meet up with us for dinner.

Sunday was the big Formula 1 race.  It was pretty darn cool.  There were a couple races that day and we got there pretty early so we caught most of them.  Again, the weather was beautiful at about 80 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.

• Top Left: Best way to start your day is with a healthy breakfast.

In the end Lewis Hamilton won the Formula 1 race and this upset Jo.  She is not a fan.  Formula 1 was cool, but to be honest the style of racing is not my favorite.  There was little chances to pass or see positions change, so the race is mostly a "don't screw up" mentality and it seems that you decide the winner during qualifying.

That night we went out for some night shots of the city.

• Top Middle: See a cat, make a cat pose.  It's what you do.

On Monday we made our way back to Germany.  What a good weekend!

3 Tage Marburg

This past weekend there was a festival in Marburg (where I live and work in Germany) called 3 Tage Marburg (3 Days Marburg).  It was pretty fun but the weather was not very cooperative so attendance was down (from what the locals told us).  Johanna and I started out in the main square and saw all of the Dragon Boat team's costumes (you'll see the Dragon boats with Sunday's pictures).  Everyone was drinking and eating and having a good time.



We were a little early for the symphony so we headed down to the Church to see if anything was going on there.  There was not, but since we were there we decided to play with the art in the center of the street.  We drive by this thing all of the time and see that the shiny silver balls are in different spots, but we had not rearranged them ourselves.



As an engineer I naturally had to arrange them symmetrically.  I thought I had one small, medium, and large ball but when I put them in a row I discovered I had one small and two large balls.  This got a thumbs down from me.  I rearranged the balls so they were symmetrical and this got a thumbs up.

Next we headed up to the symphony.  There was some good music and some stuff I did not recognize.  I remember they played Wagner, Sousa, and John Williams.  There was one other composer I recognized and two or three that I did not recognize but I am blanking on those names now.



You can see the lady who sung some opera pieces.  Her voice was pretty good but she really knew how to put on a show.  She exuded charisma.  Always rubbing the boy's hair as they played their instruments and here you can see her (in the red dress) climbing on the conductors stand to caress his bald head.  Naturally they saved Star Wars for the fireworks and finale.

After the fireworks we hung out downtown until pretty late and then got up again on Saturday for day 2.

Day 2 was mostly walking around and looking at the booths and listening to so more music.  There was one main theater stage (where the symphany was) and then four or five other stages spread out across the city and every stage had a band on it until late in the night.  You could just walk around and enjoy the music, eat bad booth food, and shop.  Pretty good times except for the weather.  Saturday wsa on and off rain all day, so we were in rain jackets.



Saturday night continued well into the night (about 3 AM) and I saw some hooligans near the main church.  A group of Novartis employees and myself were standing outside talking after leaving the bar when these four young students walked up to a window and threw something through it.  The cops chased after them but I do not believe they were caught.  It is hard to drive through Marburg and very easy to run.

Sunday morning was another day of festivities with again, more rain (but not as bad as Saturday).  On Sunday the big Dragon boat races take place.  The Novartis boat did well and won their individual race, but did not advance.  I'm sure they had fun either way.

• In the top right four pictures you can see the bridge before people threw bread over (no ducks), after bread was thrown but before the boats, the boats approaching, and finally the ducks scattering mid race.


• In the bottom right you can see that the NYPD is everywhere, even Germany.

All in all a good weekend, though the weather left something to be desired.  Of course by the middle of the following week it was beautiful and warm, but that is the way it goes here.  On and off good weather with lots of light rain and overcast.

How is the internship going?

So I promised to write a blog that related to school and not just my travels in Europe so I will give a short update about my internship.  I can't remember how detailed I discussed my internship in the past so I will start by saying that my internship involves laboratory experiments.  I'm basically using statistics and the design of experiment process to try to modify a small part of the Flu Cell Culture process that Novartis uses to make flu vaccines.  The first month was pretty tough only because I have no experience with the process and it has been a long time since I thought about biological reactions.  My previous work experience was in production and not at all research based.  I spent a ton of time on Wikipedia looking up basic biological process and terms saying "what is that word" and "how do you spell it" (plus add in the German to English factor).

I spent the first month or so just trying to learn the process, talking to people in the labs, and reading past LGO theses and a very small amount of research papers. The problem with my project from a literature review perspective is that it is so specific that very little literature applies to it.  I think I have saved about four articles and I will probably only reference two of them in my thesis.  Then I have my statistics book...and Wikipedia.  Can you site Wikipedia in an MIT thesis?  Woe is me.



Aside from relearning how cell growth and viruses work, the frustrating part of the first month of the internship (and just being an intern in general) is that I only really have my main project, so when I hit a road block where I am waiting on someone or some piece of equipment...I end up just sitting there.  I try to be as proactive as I can be and I don't want to imply that Novartis or my supervisors have not been trying to help me as much as they can, but when someone goes on vacation and they are the expert you need to speak to there is not much you can do.  Or if a pandemic flu strain breaks out across the entire world with the potential to cause serious problems if a slight mutation occurs...the pandemic work certainly gets priority.  Of course this is just another challenge to manage and there are always multiple solutions to any problem and we have certainly found ways to continue working on my project.

[caption id="attachment_1368" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="I actually increased the size of my experiments from 6 to 22 by driving to the OBI (like a Home Depot) and purchasing double sided tape"][/caption]

I would say that at this point (about six weeks in) I fully understand what I am trying to accomplish with my project and have begun the task of working through that problem.  During the first couple weeks I did some practice experiments to get used to working in a lab again and to get experience working in a laminar flow hood.  More recently, I have started my main experiments and will see where the results point me for the rest of my internship.

[caption id="attachment_1370" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="This is a picture of a laminar flow hood. They are pretty cool. When you spray disinfectant into the hood you can literally see the droplets racing straight down. As long as you don't pass over a sterilized object with an unsterilized object your sample should remain uncontaminated. So far I am 12 for 12 with clean experiments but I just launched 19 more so we will see if I maintain my perfect record."][/caption]

I have also accelerated the speed that I work on my side projects (they were originally scheduled for after mid-stream review in September) so that I can stay busy.  Who knows, maybe I can take on another side project when that is complete.  These projects may not be specifically covered in my thesis, but they are helping me better understand the department and the overall process.  It is funny because the past year's students and professors warned all of us about scope creep.  Often companies keep adding on and broadening the problems they want you to solve and you have to tell them "No, that is beyond what I can do."  Novartis is pretty disciplined (especially in the technical department that I am working in) and they have me focused on my project and the main project has not changed since it was first proposed last October.  This has caused me to ask for more to do (and Novartis has obliged while trying to keep it somewhat related to my main project).

[caption id="attachment_1371" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="Google image search turned up the left and middle picture for scope creep. Neither were acceptable so I MS paint combined 2 pictures for the picture on the right. It is much better."][/caption]

I've heard this from other LGOs and definitely experienced it myself.  Most of us had pretty successful careers before LGO and then balancing the LGO curriculum (MBA at Sloan plus Engineering at MIT) requires pretty extensive calendar management.  Then you start your internship and it feels like things have come to a screeching halt.  The pace just feels slower.  Starting any new job or position can be like this.  You are so new to everything that you feel like you can't do anything, you just keep asking more and more questions.  Then at some point you are incredibly busy and don't really know where the transition occurred.  I would say that I am climbing out of that slow period and things are picking up, which is good.  i like having more work than I have time to finish.

Well, that is enough for now.  Now I won't feel guilty when I post pictures from this past weekend and the next couple of upcoming weekends.

Kiss me I'm Irish!

This past weekend Johanna, Becca and I hopped on a plane and headed to Dublin where even the planes are green.



The entire weekend I kept singing (in my head) or humming all of the Irish songs I know.  This one was stuck in my head a lot.

[caption id="attachment_1352" align="alignnone" width="80" caption="Kiss me I'm Irish"][/caption]

Upon arriving in Dublin Jo and I bored a double decker bus to get into the center of the city.  We bought a three day pass for a hop-on hop-off bus which included a ride to and from the airport.

• You can see in the bottom picture that we are driving on the left side of the road.  Stupid Brits and their stupid influence on the Irish!

This bus was very convenient throughout the weekend because there are stations all over the center of the city (the busses go in a loop) and there is a bus every ten minutes.  This allows you to see the sights faster, skip the stuff you don't want to see, or just get out of the rain.

Becca had plane troubles so Jo and I went out alone on Friday night.

• The downtown area had a more exciting nightlife than I expected, as seen in the photo.


• You can also see our apartment not on fire (more on that later).

Becca arrived early on Saturday and we went out to see the city.  We started at Trinity College to see the campus and the Book of Kells.  You can't take pictures of the Books so enjoy the pictures of Trinity College.



Next we walked to a park in the city.

• Top Left: Dublin has a Duck tour just like Boston!  Well, not quite like Boston.  Dublin's Duck is Viking themed and everyone in the Duck screamed "arrgh" at us when we stood near the hop-on hop-off bus stops (obviously a rival tour company).


• Bottom Left: I was told to do something funny with the statue and since it was not a statue of a person that I could make obscene gestures with, I elected to lick the statue.


• Top Right:  It started to rain so we hopped on the bus to stay dry.

Next we took the bus to Christ Church Cathedral (Cah-tee-drowl according to the tour bus driver).  The church was built in 1038 so it has seen its share of rain.  Somewhere around here my camera battery died so all of the following pictures are courtesy of Johanna.

• On the walk over to the cathedral I noticed that Ireland has labeled the roads for the stupid American tourist.  Thank you Ireland for fighting Darwinism.

After that we headed over to the Dublin castle but the rain accelerated our plans to get to the Guinness Brewery.

[caption id="attachment_1346" align="alignnone" width="288" caption="the castle"][/caption]

• Across the top: The ingredients of Guinness: Barley (a 15'x15'x1' sandbox full), Hops, Water, and yeast is not pictured.


• Bottom Left: They had a whole section of the brewery dedicated to the supply chain.  Jo's internship is supply chain related so she naturally had to get a picture.  Jo love train!


• Bottom Right: Here I am not tasting in the tasting lab.  The tour came with 1 pint of beer (or Coke in my case) and less than 1/4 of a pint in the tasting lab.


• Middle Right: An authentic Irish shamrock.

After the Guinness Brewery tour we headed over to The Old Jameson Distillery (whiskey) but the tour cost much more than we wanted to pay so we headed back to the hostel to shower for dinner.



The next day we headed over to the Museum but it turns out that it does not open until 2 PM on Sunday.  You certainly cannot do anything but go to church on Sunday morning with the intense number of bells that are ringing all morning.

We finished the day by wandering around the city and seeing a few more small sights.  We also went to a couple book stores because it is difficult to get English books in Germany.

• Top Left: Part of the original city wall.


• Top Middle: A Delorean we saw parked outside a very rich looking club.  There were also some old Mercedes in pristine condition parked outside.


• Top Right: Me giving a thumbs down to the pregnancy store (I bought an Ireland Rugby shirt).


• Bottom Left: Alligator!  Go Gators!


• Bottom Middle: St. Andrew's Church

Jo and I hopped back on a plane and made it back to Marburg ready to go to work on Monday.  Eventually I'll try to write a blog post about my internship (since this IS a school blog) instead of just documenting my travelings.