This is the first entry in my website's journal. I think it's exciting because I wrote a little python script that helps make it easier to put things online. So it will detect when the last time I wrote an entry was, parse through today's date and find a pretty way to write it, then makes links and starts the html file with all of the stuff I don't want to have to do everytime I want to add an .html file. It will automatically add new links for more than one entry in a day too. I'll have to make another entry just to show everyone that little feature.
Part of the reason I am making so many changes to the website today is because I'm in Düsseldorf and the week didn't really turn out the way I had hoped. They gave me an office while I'm here, but at the moment the guy I'm here to meet (Jürgen Klüners) and I don't have a lot of new things going on in math since we are both changing jobs. Also I have to find a new area of computer algebra to work in, because my PhD thesis just isn't going to lead to a lifetime of papers.
It's not all bad here though... last night Jürgen, his student Christian, and I went downtown. They asked me what I would like to eat. Well, I think in my travels I'm developing the habit of trying to eat food that is as unique to the location as possible, even if it is a high quality version of something I can get anywhere. So they found me some things that are very good/unique in Düsseldorf:
First a Schwein-Brötchen which means "Pig Roll", and it was roasted juicy pork on a little hard roll. It was fantastic!
Next we had a mini-pizza from Rialto's. They have a brick-oven (I think) with the coals (or whatever) in the very far back of some hole. The cheese came out bubbling, and it too was really good.
The next Düsseldorf experience was their private breweries. There are four or five local breweries that don't use any preservatives in their beer. This means that they don't really export their beer since you would have to sell it all in a few days.
The first brewery was Füchschen. Now all of these locally breweries serve a type of beer called Alt, so we were drinking Füchschen Alt. (Which stands for the location 'Old town'.) The experience is really cool, you sit down at big tables (so always with other people), and get a disposable coaster. Then before you know it they've plopped a beer down in front of you and but a mark on the coaster to keep tally. Once you're close to done another one gets plopped down. No talking to the waiter or ordering or anything, just very quickly served delicious beer.
Next we went to the Schumacher brewery then the Uerige brewery. The people we were sitting with at Uerige spoke very good english and they knew the owner. So eventually he came out and sat with us for a while. I think maybe that Uerige is the only one you can get abroad in New York City (where it can sell fast enough). The owner babbled for a while about politics and things then showed us the distilery his son had set up next door. We got to try the "spirits" fresh from the big machine. The first batch that we sampled was 85% alchohol and we drank from tiny teaspoons. (It was really bizzare.) Then we tried a more finished product which wasn't as strong. It was really cool.
By the end of the night I had over 2.5 liters of beer, then had to find my way home on the trams and busses and things. I ended up hopping a few I thought took me to central places looking for the obscure line out to the Universität. But the line I found didn't go all the way out there after a certain hour, so I had a long, middle of the night, mildly tipsy walk home. Ahh Germany...
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