"Endlich..."

"Yeah, kind of..."

"Guten Tag, wie geht's?"

"Fine, und Ihnen?"

"Sehr gut, danke!"

"Where did you learn German? That's amazing!"

 

Rowing at the UCSB.

And so on... All teaching assistants (TA, ähnlich zu den Tutoren in Deutschland) have to take an English Language examination to be employed. All physics students who are going to be a TA had to explain the Coriolis force within 5-7 minutes.

I took the examination as well and the examining professor knew that I was from Germany and said "endlich..." when I entered the room for the exam. There was another professor from the English department who grew up in Germany, so we chatted a bit in German before starting the actual exam. And afterwards we talked about rowing ;-) I just really hope I passed!

So far, I have not met many German people. There are also two post-docs at the Mechanical Engineering faculty I ran into, but that's basically it.

It's just a yellow lemon-tree

"I'm sitting here in the boring room
It's just another rainy Sunday afternoon..."

 
Well, that's all not true, but when I saw an actual, grown, real, 3D-HD lemon-tree today I just had to think of one of the most famous earworm songs. We did not only watch lemon trees on farms as well as "wild", but also orange trees and many avocado trees. I couldn't believe that all those tourist guides for California were just right.

Small changes

All the basic things happening in the US seem to be very similar to Europe, e. g. people prefer cars for distances longer than 2 km ;-), there is a sidewalk and a separate way for bicycles and so on. But there are some tiny details which are different, of course.

Talking about water: The sunset at the University's South end. For more Pictures go to "Impressions" in the upper selection bar.

For example, if you (as an innocent pedestrian) are waiting at the traffic lights you push a button (as in Europe), but when the lights turn white (instead of green) you hear a very loud sound for a short time and then the traffic lights start a count down, so you won't think about running across the street when the last seconds for the pedestrians begin. Actually, this system is very useful, because the light switch not directly to red, but stay "green" or "white" or whatever for a short time - and you know the time you need.

Then there's the shower. It works! But there's no tube. The greatest possible interaction with the way the water takes is the vertical alignment of the shower head which is fixed to the wall; that's exactly one degree of freedom, up and down.

That's not the only thing with water. Probably a small children might name three things necessary for life: food, water and a water filter. The water around here (and as far as I know in the entire US) has very different sodium and chlorine concentrations and it's nearly undrinkable if you don't filter it. So let's take a Swiss knife and a water filter if you ever think about stranding on a lonely US-island ;-)

Water

When I arrived in our apartment one of the first things I learned, is that trash goes down a black hole and is never seen again and - where the spray against bugs is deposited. It's not about kind flies or old spiders, it's because of the ants. And have a guess what they're looking for. I absolutely understand if somebody needs an apple, chocolate or a hug, but they are were search for water and are not a bit interested in any cookies or chocolate I have in my room.

Lake Cachuma as one of Santa Barbara's water reservoirs (wikipedia).

In understood that they don't need the luxury products like chocolate from the world I live in, but the very basic necessities of life. Unfortunately, I left a sponge which was not wrung out in our kitchen sink and one hour later I had to kill about 200 ants (of course I felt there were at least 1000!) :( - and I'm a vegetarian.

In general, water is some kind of a problem over here. In every hotel there are small signs telling you to be careful with water. The Lake Cachuma and Bradbury Dam are an example for the water sources of Santa Barbara; both are about 25 miles away. Water from the State Water Project is even up to about 100 miles away. Due to the drought a desalination plant is going to be built which is supposed to cover about 30% of the water usage.

And Santa Barbara still has "only" 92 000 residents. Just think of LA with about 11.8 million people!

However, there's still enough water for the pool at the UCSB. I've been there today and I love water :-)

First impressions

Just briefly: I went to the beach at directly at campus yesterday evening and it was amazing! It's so beautiful. Have a look.

Perfect is an understatement

During my last few days in Germany it was unbelievable hot in Göttingen. Do you know this feeling when you are really grateful when you drink water after moving in the heat?

And then...

... I thought that the place where I was going to could be exactly like this honey-air!

Again San Clemente Villages - this time a self-taken photo.

And then...

... I arrived in paradise! The temperature here in Santa Barbara is perfect. We'd got about 22°C today and the sun was shining, just interrupted by some small decorating clouds. They seem to try to make the photo you take look a little bit more realistic.

 Arriving at the airport. Santa Barbara seems to consist of palms, water and sun.

Mmh, maybe my over-excited opinion can be explained by today's events: Everything worked well. I checked into the Housing and met my very nice room mate. I got my access card (Studentenausweis, which is able to do everything, maybe even spread peanut butter on your bread ;-) ) and met some Physics class mates. Our entire year is organized on facebook, of course.

Compared to other cities, the university here and Santa Barbara has got a well established and good working bus system. With them I got my bedding and everything sorted. The washing machines are paid with Credit Card (how else?!) and don't turn the clothes along a horizontal axis, but along a vertical one.

During midday I took a brief, unintended walk, because the bus stops are not really announced. So I'd got about a mile fun carrying a bedding and food - I think I'll do my intended exercise tomorrow ;-)

German Housing

The undergraduate and graduate housing in Germany is very different. Actually, there is no difference for Bachelor's and Master's students, but PhD students are not allowed to live in the students' apartments. The apartments are subsidized, so I'd estimate that one room costs between 200-400 US$ per month. I heard that this is a bit different in the US (about 1000 US$ at the Georgia Tech and approximately the same amount for a room in Santa Barbara when you've got one flatmate).

Path between the buildings of the students' housing.

The provided items are very similar, but in the US seems common that the rooms are furnished and that a small living room is included in the flats. In Germany you can choose between flats for a single person, places in a living community with up to twelve people. Nearly all facilities are available with or without furniture. You can be sure that you get your own room at any way - I heard that there are up to three or more people in one room in undergraduate apartments in the US.

The time during which you are allowed to live in the subsidized apartments is limited to four years in Göttingen. Now I've live there for three years and I only can recommend that you make an "Antrag auf Wiederaufnahme" (application for re-admission). With this application I get a new single apartment in October 2016 :-) (without any annoying apartment-hunting!)