Living in Munich

The mountain "Untersberg" near Salzburg.

Going up Untersberg in an Arial Tram

I'm not sure if this is edelweiss

There is a huge drop off behind me of about 1000 m. I wish I brought my base jumping gear..

Looking south over the Austrian Alps

High Alpine meadows with limestone and karst terrain. The sign said that infiltrating water takes about 60 days to exit the mountain in springs below. That sounds like someone's PhD project.

The peak of Untersberg

A church in Salzburg.

Some really nice conglomerate interbedded with sandstone along the back of Salzburg. Conglomerate is when there is a mixture of bolders, pebbles and fine matrial forming a consolidated rock together. Geologists say it is "poorly sorted" (by size). According to the textbook I read (Davis, Sedimentology) conglomerates are formed by turbidites which are submarine landslides. Usually material deposited in rivers, lakes and oceans (continental margins) are grouped by size. This is because the finer the material, the longer it stays suspended according to Stokes Law of gravitational settling.

The old city of Salzburg (founded more than 1000 years ago) and the fortress above. Salzburg was a rich and powerful city, because of its Salt (Salz) and the fact that it was a powerful seat of the holy Roman Empire.

Mirabelli Palace gardens (Scene from Sound of Music).

Sunset over Salzburg.

My home street.

I have been living in Munich for almost two weeks now. I have an apartment that I share with three other guys (yes the kitchen is messy), but I have a big room with two windows overlooking a little street with a street car, cafes, a bakery, pubs and a fruit market. I have a one hour commute to work every day, on street cars, subways and bus, in north Munich at the German Research Center for Environmental Health. I like the peole I work with. Although there is no airconditioning in our building, it is not Tennessee or Bangladesh so I can't really complain too much.

Munich is a really big city (2.5 million people) in the center of Europe and very close to the Alps. Last Saturday, I visited Salzburg and did some mountain climbing (assisted by an arial Tram ;-). Salzburg is a very beautiful city nestled in a valley at the base of the Alps.

Right now my work consists of going to meetings where I learn about the different projects and people connected with this institute for Groundwater Ecology where I am a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow. I also have plenty of work to do publishing the chapters of my recent dissertation at the University of Tennessee. I think I'm also remembering and learning German a lot these days which is coming back to me well. My office neighour is is from Banlgadesh, and I like surprising him with expressions and greetings I learned. I think he likes it, because he always laughs a lot when I say something.

My girlfriend Sarah is doing Geology field camp in Turkey (http://sarahsgeologicadventures.blogspot.com/) this summer so you should check out her blog too.