Acclimatization

So I went to the grocery store last night around 7:10 to pick up some goods.  Turns out all the stores in town close at 7PM on weeknights.  And that's even a little late for Switzerland.  Most stores are not open on Sundays.  And it's illegal to make ruckus after 10PM in this country.  I like it.  People here seem good if a little introverted.  Like Minnesotans.  And it turns out you can see the mountains from our lab.  

We've had several gorgeous days here in the Zurich area with temps around 75F.  I started riding my bike around today, which makes things a lot faster to get to and fro.  Things are getting started pretty fast in the lab.  My grad student had just gotten the methods figured out, so there's lots of molecular biology lab work to be done.  I'm gonna have quite the micropipetting muscles be the time I return.  It'll be good practice though.  I hope to sit in on lots of seminars around the institute and learn as much as I can while I'm here.  

The people in my department are all very welcoming and very diverse in origin.  None of the professors are Swiss, and few of the students are.  It's interesting to get perspectives from everyone.  This afternoon we had "bier freitag" (sprite freitag for me) and tomorrow, one of the professors is having a housewarming party with sausages and whatever else people bring.  Should be fun.  

I haven't actually made it into Zurich yet, but hopefully Sunday is the day for wandering the town.  Or museums if it is raining.  On another high note, I'll be going on a sampling trip to glacial streams in the mountains in June.  The landscape is supposedly very pastoral.  Cows.  

I still haven't managed to stay up past 9PM, but I haven't had any naps!  I'm so good. . . Hopefully my sleep schedule will get more normals as the days pan out.