My News

Yesterday I had what I'd call a unique experience. We went to the Blinde Kuh here in Basel, a restaurant in complete darkness. And not just the kind of darkness you're familiar with when running to the toilet in the middle of the night. No, I mean pitch black! The interesting part (I mean apart from this) is that all the waiters are actually blind, so they find their way around quite well and don't care yo much about stupid photons. You start off in the lobby where there is still light to read the menu and go to the rest rooms (just in case), and then your waiter will pick you up and you follow him in a polonaise (for the lack of a better word) to your table. You may bump into a minor obstacle here and there but so far so good. Everything smells quite intensively and you can hear people chatting on the other tables. After you found your way around your seat and know where all your glasses, your forks and the dips you just put your fingers in are, you'd think it would be less weird, but it's really not. Your mind starts playing tricks on you, and you're convinced you can see the table and the people around you (at least their contours), but really you cannot. Finding your way around the plate, cutting food etc gets even trickier. The food was really good btw, but somehow that feeling of having lost a vital sense never quite left me. Truly remarkable, and highly recommendable!

So initially I was planning on writing my Tom Ka Kai recipe that I prepared for last Movie Monday... However it really was not so much of a challenge, so I rather write about something else. Last weekend we went to the Sakura, which is a Japanese Restaurant belonging to the http://www.bahnhofrestaurants.ch/ at the SBB station in Basel. Well I must say I have pretty high standarts when it comes to Japanese food, but I gave it a fair trial. I cannot really say that I was highly disappointed, but I wouldn't see any reason to go back any time soon either. The online reservation worked very well, and the interior of the restaurant also looks appealing. The service though was on the lower end of the tolerance axis. Daniele had to wait 5 minutes at one point to get the same meal that the rest of us had ordered. I was trying out their Unayu or eel, which was alright, but miles away from the mouth wateringly good Unagi Bento dish in my all time favorite restaurant, the Kamakura in Luxembourg. Also I had tempura, which was also ok, but not sensational. The staff was mostly non-Japanese, from what I could tell, except for the sushi chefs. The sushi was also alright, but the rice was a tad on the dry side, and the fish didn't have this savouring texture that you expect. The prices were quite high. Maybe their teppan-yaki dishes (which were double the price of what we payed) are better, I cannot say...

I find it very interesting how every time I move somewhere or enter a new phase of my life, a couple of months later I find myself developing all kinds of traditions or rituals or whatever you like to call them. Basically it's just things you like to do on a regular basis, which I know could just about be everything. Still there's some things that make your life more complete than others. These rituals may change over time, get refined etc. Most of the time, I'm not even too self aware while doing them, so I try writing this post to remind me...

• Friday evenings I tend to watch movies, commonly accompanied by a pizza.
• Once a week or even less frequently, I crave for canned fruits. But it has to be either lychees or the "Herzkirschen" that you can only find in the Coop.
• Once a month I go to the Jazz bar The Bird's Eye. It's somewhat expensive but usually well worth it. Jazz music (live) has something very liberating and calming.
• I try to read every day a couple of pages in a book, usually a novel or a science related book. Every couple of months though, it has to be a Murakami book, even if I've read it before, the magic never goes away. I love reading them in German, these are the best translations I've found so far. I like reading in 3 places here in Basel: 1) Next to the Mittlere Brück on the Rhine riverside on sunny afternoons with a glass of wine. 2) In this spot during spring and fall with a can of tea. 3) In the bathtub. Which is already another ritual of its own, at least once a week, preferentially on a lazy Sunday, to let my mind wander, watch some movie on the laptop (well it's not on my lap then anyways)
• Things I like to cook on a regular basis: Rösti, Pancakes, Pain Perdu, Spaghetti Aglio&Olio, Chili con carne, cheese fondue, spare ribs, baked tortellini with red pesto and cheese, Gromprekichelcher, Bouneschlupp, Mussaka, and many more I guess.
• Every couple of weeks I like to hang out in the Soleune Spa in Rheinfelden. I love saunas, you can so easily forget about the rest of the world
• and probably tons of other things that I will post some other time (or not).

I would like to hear about your traditions, because I think it tells us a lot about who we are (it's the little things people), but since I know that my readers are rather reluctant to post comments, my expectations are low. Anyways, feels good to write a "normal" post for a change...

Pix are here.

It's a bit late but here are Tatjanas pictures from the Weinmesse anyway. Two weeks ago we went there to taste some wine, and after two disappointing merchants, we came across a fine Italian one (Archetti Vini d'Italia, and tasted through all the possible regions of the Italian wine landscape. Hope my orders ship soon, I remember what I ordered though forgot the names...
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Klaus, me, Tatjana, Marco - Klaus Marco me Daniel - Me Heidi Marco Daniel

I told you before I had changed my Internet provider from Cablecom to Swisscom last Friday, as the former one was not able to deliver my modem within 2 months. Now imagine that: After just one working day, Swisscom delivered my router which is now operational. That's what I call Swiss quality!

Here's for everyone who's still in doubt about Cablecom's outstanding customer services. I was officially registered here in Basel starting August 1st, but did the moving part only on August 13th. To have a functional internet connection (one of the basic human rights, let's face it) by then, I called Cablecom July 7th to fix a contract for DSL, digital TV and telephone, to be on the safe side. Also I thought that it would be easier to have everything from one single provider. When I arrived in Basel August 13th, I was happy to see a letter from Cablecom (dated August 5th), telling me that I would receive my package in the next days. Since there was nothing else there, I called (August 18th) and was told that there had been a problem with the Swiss post, apparently they couldn't find my mailbox (although they miraculously managed to find it to send me the letter telling me I'll receive the modem soon), and so they had send the whole thing back to Otelfingen. So they apparently send the whole thing with the highest priority out the same day... or so I was told... Well you can imagine that until today, I still have received nothing, no answers to my mails, and today I was too upset and called them (again). I was now finally told (after the girl put me on hold for 10 minutes to find out what had happened) that the whole thing somehow got lost somewhere, this time, not even the Swiss Post was good enough for an excuse. Well bravo Cablecom, you can be sure that I'll share my impressions with every Swiss student I'll meet who needs a new internet provider.

Cablecom, Basel, Switzerland, Internet

Although I got my MacBook back from the doctor, I still haven't found too much time to write. This will hopefully change in the next weeks, but for now, I'll just give you a quick update. They changed the HDD, keyboard and batteries from my 13' MacBook after it broke down during the holidays. The drives was gone, they couldn't even find anything to rescue. Luckily, my data had just been backed up 15 days earlier, and even more luckily I had taken an external drive for my pictures, but anyhow, I lost a couple of data that made me realize even more how important backups are.
I'm getting ready for a plunge into the PhD studies as well, my fingers are burning to do some sciencing and my brain is already building new signalling pathway models etc...
I still haven't got any internet (to speak of) as Cablecom takes its time to reship my modem they promised sending 1 month ago. However, I did get my TV set delivered. As promised in some old post, I wanted to get a decent home equipment and did save some money for it. As the Pioneer Kuro series is one of the prominent members of the field, and as they've just released their LCD Full HD series (the 50' Plasmas are just too big), I decided to buy the brand new 37' KRL-37V. I ordered it from azone.ch and they delivered promtly (basically the day after). It is a masterfull set, beautifully designed and superb in the picture quality. As a HD player, I decided to buy a PS3, which can then easily turn the set into a Bluray player and multimedia station as well (I just plugged in an external HDD with all my music and movies). There isn't yet a lot of great Bluray movies to speak off, but I found one beauty: There will be blood. At first, I wouldn't buy the whole 1080p Full HD stuff, but believe me, after I could count every single stubble on Daniel Day-Lewis face, in brilliant contrast and beautifull colors, I was sold... All that I need now is a decent set of speakers, as the build in ones are not doing a cinema grade job... and of course some money to pay for it:-)

Yesterday, Line and I shipped the first load to my new appartment in Basel. All in all, it went well, with a couple of funny details... First off, we loaded her 14 year old Toyota Previa with a Canapé Lit and some random junk, while they were shooting a movie at the Palais de Justice. You can imagine a 100 people running busily around the entrance, trying to look very meaningfull, while we had to move our stuff through the crowd. Can't remember the title, seems to be a German production though. I had filled up one of the salle d'audiances in the Palais with my private stuff, and suddenly the whole crew wanted to sneak around... These people always seem so rude... Well anyhow, we filled the minivan, and drove off early yesterday morning to Basel. Got to the Customs labyrinth around 11, and (to my surprise I must admit) it was all right after 5 minutes and 10 stamps we were through. We had to help out a German guy though who had to bring a document to the French customs, who, of course, spoke only French and no English. I still had to pick up the keys, and we managed to find the Uehlinger Treuhand AG after some trials and lots of errors. When we got to my place, I was still very pleased with everything, and we began moving everything upstairs (3rd floor, puh...). We continued toward the police station, to pick up the no parking signs for Friday, so tht we can load off everything just in front of the building. Also, we drove to the Coop and bought beer and less important beverages for Friday, to test out the cooling capacity of my fridge (and the drinking capacity of my friends).
Just as we had filled up the fridge, and tried leaving, Line discovered that she coudln't open my front door anymore. She had locked the door, by the lock wouldn't move anymore. I tried myself for about 15 minutes, but for no good. Imagine how I felt, trapped in my appartment the very first day... I wanted to unscrew the lock with my new electric drill, but discovered that I had forgotten the scewing heads... I finally used an Ikea knife to get the screws out, moved to lock around for a while and finally managed to unlock it...
When we left, Line drove over the No Parking sign we had just erected, crushing it (nearly) to dust, then she reversed to look what was making those noises just to smash the sign one more time.
We didn't planning on filling up our tank too much in France as the gas is 30 cents cheaper in Luxembourg, so with nothing more than some dust grains in the tank, we left the motor way near Amnéville, to finally find a gas station. Just as I was trying to fill up the tank, Line got out of the car and started shouting at me. In fact, I was just trying to fill it up with Diesel, because I was reading the old washed off signs saying I was tanking 95 petroleum, while ignoring the big shiny new signs that were arranged in a different order.
Otherwise, we had lots of fun...

... customs experts does it take to tell me if the 18.44 declaration form applies or does not apply to me when I'll move my stuff to Basel in August. Answer: 5, and a total of 4 calls summing up to 30 minutes.
Technorati Tags: useless knowledge, Basel, Customs, Switzerland

We had our first condo at 9:00 in the St. Johannsstrasse. It is practically next to the Biozentrum and has a garage just next to it. Furthermore, it's quite cheap compared to several other offers, it has nice big rooms, 3rd floor, no elevator though, freshly repainted with a new floor, an average sized balcony facing the opposite side of the road, a big freezer, 2 washing machines and tumblers that are shared with 1 other person, a basement... all in al it was nearly perfect. The guy was very friendly, but said that he'd need my opinion as soon as possible. This was all too fine by me, as I wanted to get things settled as fast as possible. We drove back to his office and I signed the Anmeldung für Mietintressenten, and was happy to hear that I could sign the contract as soon as tomorrow. He was quite confident and didn't need to many iron solid references before making up his mind, I only needed an Auszug vom Betreibungsamt (something similar to the Casier in Luxembourg) and a confirmation by Mike Hall that I'm going to work for him. It started pouring outside, so we ran first to the MFK to settle things with my Swiss drivers licence. Or so we thought. I filled out all the forms from the nice lady who kept getting more and more upset when I got irritated that they would have to take my Luxembourgish license away until I'll get the Swiss one. They would send it to Kalgesbréck, which would have been fine if I didn't need to drive these next weeks. Well next week is ok, but afterwards we'll probably need a car on the Seychelles, and even though Line has one herself, it's always better to share this responsibility. That lady in the counter made it sound all terribly terrible, especially since after 5 years in Switzerland (which will be in a couple of months for me), I would have to make an all new driver's licence here in order to be able to drive. We were very confused, I finally settled to giving them the license and quickly regretted this. Furthermore, they would now need proof that I've been driving regularly (meaning once every other week). As anybody could certify this, we went to the institute and I wrote 2 sentences that Line signed and this was my certification. Welcome to Switzerland. We continued to the Betreibungsamt, which was no problem at all. Now I was a certified regular driver and a certified non-criminal (at least in Switzerland). We cancelled the last two visits, I went to Hall to get proof that I'm going to work with him, and we went back to the MFK. This time, it was a very nice young guy at the counter, and I explained the situation and he found no problem with me handing in the license later in august. Somehow, my stress levels went a bit down with it safe and sound back in my pockets. We went out and ate some of my most beloved Falsche Schnecken at the Schnabel, and tried digesting the meal for the rest of the day.
Update: Friday July 4th: Everything is in perfect order, my contract is signed, I'm officially moving to St. Johanns Ring 34 in Basel! Now I really need a vacation!

This morning I had a meeting with Mike Hall, my future boss. We were discussing details about my project, what I want to do, when to start, what the others in the lab are doing etc. It all sounded very interesting, and as this is a very competitive lab with highly interesting results, I can't exactly tell you what my project is going to be. Suffice it to say that I will be doing a lot of mouse work. As the Moroni group will be doing some highly interesting work as well, I will probably help them out in their screens in a side project. All in all it sounds very promising and I'm looking forward to getting started. Then we were having lunch with Marco, the technician / 3D animator from my old lab. It was nice seeing him again, since I've been used to having lunch all the time together during my master studies. Afterwards I bought some new credit for my mobile, since I was somewhere in the minus area. Also, since the weather was still marvellous, we went to the St. Jakob Badi, an open air pool with tons of people and some m2 left to put our towels. The water's very refreshing, and I just love watching all the people passing by. It was a much needed time-out, since I had so many thoughts floating in my head, that I could barely set my mind off from apartments and mutant mice. I still thought at that point that the apartment from yesterday was the best I could do, only I was having problems arranging rooms since they were somewhat small. Anyway, we proceeded to the Bruderholzstrasse to the next visit. The guy was a bit late and very sorry, but it was all right with us, since that way, we got an idea about how busy the area was. The apartment itself was very nice, it even had a "biotop", aka a small garden with pond etc. It had been a therapy praxis of some sort, and it looked that way. Only problem: It was terribly small, and furthermore the old lady that owned the place considered reopening the praxis after a year or so... No thanks.
We got back to the center, went down to the Rheinpromenade and sat down, enjoying the setting sun and the passing Rhine swimmers. We ate some Brötli at the Brötlibar and went back to the Herberge.

This morning, I had a meeting at 10 with Christoph Moroni, my former boss. To get an early start, we were having a quick breakfast at the youth hostel, apparently at the very right moment as 5 minutes later, a bunch of kids stormed in and took over the buffet. First, we had to pass a whole array of sprinklers that the gardeners of Basel Stadt were using to water the St. Alban Vorstadt. We felt a bit like Indiana Jones, as the 20+ serial sprinklers were rotating with different angular velocities. In other words we got a fresh start in the morning. We were a bit early, so Line went to the botanical garden, and I looked for my old (well they're not actually that old) friends in the Institute for Medical Microbiology. I found Klaus in his office, and joined Marco and Anke next to my old office (they left it just like it was). Christoph informed me about the recent progress in the lab and its prospects, which are very exciting as the group is moving to the Biozentrum where I'll be doing my PhD, next to Michael Halls group. Marco was very proud to present the pipetting robot that should arrive these next days. I had to rush off as we were having a rdv in Kleinbasel in the Klybeckstrasse. As my bus plan from from '02 wasn't too accurate, we took the wrong bus and had to run through the whole Klybeck area at 30°C, Line's feet already covered in blisters. We were a bit late, but that wasn't really a problem. Disregarding the blood stains and broken beer bottles in front of the building, we followed the guy from the Basler Stadtverwaltung through the dark corridors (they were actually painted in black), got into a scary elevator and finally arrived in the overly hot and dry appartment. It had two nice balconies, one facing the Klybeck Hauptstrasse and a Clocktower (6m away), the other one a school yard. Not exactly what I had in mind as a quiet get-away in a safe neighbourhood.
So a bit disappointed, we made our way back along the Rhein border. We skipped all the cheap Turkish Lädeli and finally settled for a snack in the cafeteria of the Kollegienhaus. Afterwards, I discovered a note on the door to the institute for me, telling me to meet the others from the lab. Klaus showed me the progress of our paper and Don had made some very promising results as well, and soon it was time for the next apartment. Unluckily, this one was in the same area than the previous one, basically on the other side of the clocktower. It was quieter though still in a somewhat suspect area of Basel. On paper, it all looked so promising!
While Line was curing her blisters, I went to the optician to get an visual test, which is required for the Swiss drivers license that I still have to get. I had over 120% in both eyes (which I wondered ment what exactly) and soon we headed to the Burgfelderstrasse to the next one. I liked it very much, but there still are some problems. First and foremost, it will only be available from September 1st, the occupants are heavy smokers and it is on the 5th floor. But it also is very quiet, has a huge balcony and a garage. Still I wouldn't have minded a somewhat smaller terrace an bigger rooms. So now I have two real candidates, along with the first one I saw. Afterwards we met with Ced and Daniela in the Namamen bar, a Japanese noodle restaurant that I like a lot (though it isn't exactly as good as the originals). It was very nice seeing them again after such a long time, and afterwards we had a drink in the Roter Engel Bar, which I liked a lot.

As you may recollect, I'm off this week to find a new place to stay once I start my PhD this fall. Line came along, and as the first apartment was scheduled for 14:00 we wanted to get there early, especially since I had some other business to do. More on this later, but to keep you on track I'm thinking about taking my car from Luxembourg to Basel this fall. I went by fine without it the first years, but I'm planning to do more getting around this time, and its nice to do some shopping in nearby France and Germany. Since you may remind my previous encounters with taking my car from Luxembourg to Switzerland, I had previously to this trip called the Basler Motorfahrzeugkontrollbehörde. Without going into any details, the women tried convincing me that it was IIIIMMMMPOOSSIBLE to take my car, without having to get Swiss licence plates, which is a big problem as the car is some 14 years old, and though in good shape has to pass a million tests before being allowed onto Swiss roads with Swiss licence plates. She also said that the 15-30 form I had received the last time wouldn't apply this time. I wasn't convinced and planned going to the same spot I went before and trying to get the same form.
But before we would get there, I encountered several other problems. First off, I found quite soon that I had forgotten my mobile phone in Luxembourg. Luckily we had another phone and my Swiss card with 0 Rappen left. We were happily driving in between Thionville and Metz, before we saw some weird signs saying something about Perturbations sur l'autoroute. We decided to ignore them and found 5kms later another one claiming that there was a bouchon 10 km (we didn't know if the jam was 10km long or if it was after 10 km). Well either way we found it soon enough, and at first the driving was somewhat slow until it came to a complete stop. Well were had an early start and some good music in my stereo, so we didn't mind for the first 20 mins. The next half hour we began wondering just how high the thermometer could climb (35.5 if you really want to know). One and a half hours and 2 km later, we started feeling a slight feeling of major upsetness. However, I spotted soon enough (meaning another 3 km and 30 min) some gentlemen in yellow vests, and we feared that some poor soul had been smashed in an accident. But, alas, we switched through the music stations and found out that in fact there was no accident at all, only the &/&%/! French Trucker organisation decided that it was a nice day to make a strike and block the roads. Their motive was that they found the oil prices too expensive. WFT!!!!!!!!!! You gotta be kidding me! I mean I'm really not a fan of strikes, because I think that 99.9% are either useless or counterproductive or both, but this must be the sum of all stupidity. My angry hormones started cooking up, and I even felt a slight increase in the intolerably hot temperature in the car. I badly wanted to run over the syndication people that were handing out their protest flyers, but decided that it was probably wiser to continue, and maybe we would still get there in time. Or so we thought.
After 40km was the next strike blockade. It only took another hour in the scorching heat of a thousand death valleys. Luckily, we had forgotten our nice and chilly beverages, Achtecher and Schokelasrullen at home. This time I didn't forget to take one of their flyers, just in case I ever decided to run amok. And I wished them a nice day, of course. Keeping my real thoughts
to myself. By now, they were announcing the positions of the striking posts on the radio, and we followed their tip taking a detour of 60 km around the 3rd post in between Luxembourg and Switzerland (which, the last time I checked weren't any major oil producing countries, neither responsible for French oil taxes). By now we realised of course that we couldn't make it in time, and we tried calling up the guy from the first visit a thousand times. Some 10 minutes before the appointment, he called back and sounded a bit pissed off, and didn't want to make another one later today or this week. Well too bad for him!
Now that we weren't in any major hurry no more, we took a break at the Aire de Koenigsbourg (which is marvellous by the way, I had even been there before...). I ate the best Salami sandwich in hours, bought some Stork eggs, and we soaked ourselves in a large bowl of Coke before continuing in a better mood. I had to swallow the eggs before they were starting to melt in the sauna like car interior.
Since I'm not allowed to drive in Switzerland, I switched with Line, and she piloted us all save and sound to the nice lady in the Basler Zoll who wanted to sell us her Autobahmplakette, which we didn't need since we were only staying in Basel. "Aber nit uusse fahre, sonst gibts a Zetteli!"
We drove through a labyrinth till we found the right spot for the Hauptzollamt, where I wanted to get my new 15-30 Bewilligung. First wait 10 minutes in front of the desks, again in Sub-Saharan temperatures. Then the lady from the Swiss Zoll received us and astonishingly spoke so bad German that even I decided we were better off talking French. Well it wasn't exactly French, if you ever heard a redneck Alsacian accent you know what I'm talking about. Anyhow, she decided after I had explained some 10 times what I needed that I first have to go to the French douane to get a Stämpfeli. So we went to the other aisle of the building, and after 10 minutes found the right place. The friendly French douanier said that we have to get the stamp on the Luxembourgish border. Then he made the stamp anyway and handed us the Zetteli with a look saying: I gave this to you so that you can leave me sleeping till then end of my shift. Ran back to that first counter, that by now had a couple of people standing in queue. The Swiss guy in front of us explained that he had been running around the place all afternoon, and that it was much more of a pain then when he had to declare all his goods some time ago to the French douane some years ago when he had been moving to France. The counter next to us opened up, but even though it was the same sort than this one, the guy said we had to wait for the woman to finish the man in front of us. Some Belgians moved in instead, on their way to film the Montreux Jazz festival, and even though they had a complete list of all their equipment, they had to write it all up again into a Swiss form...
Finally it was our turn again. The woman accepted our wrongly stamped form, and had to get help from 2 colleagues to get her computer started. She didn't find my records of the previous form, and didn't believe me that I had received that form. I had to describe the form (size, color), but she still wasn't convinced. So she ran of to get some help from further people (or maybe she just took some time off...). Anyhow, after 30 minutes, she came back and called some big shot who was able to look up some deeper records. He confirmed that I had received the 15-30, and that I fact it was still valid for another year. I tried explaining that the Motorfahrzeugbehörde Basel Stadt und Basel Land had explicitly declared the opposite, even sending me threatening emails. He (by now a whole team was dedicated to my case) shrugged his shoulders, laughed and said that the you have to leave the Zoll related stuff to the Zollbeamte and that the Motorfarhzeugbehördebeamte didn't have any clue about these things. The woman was all confused because our >1h visit could have been resolved with two clicks. She printed me another copy of the form, and send us off. Also, as we had already passed the Zoll (hence the labyrinth earlier), we in fact even didn't need the form with the wrong French douane stamp.
So far a productive day! We drove to the St. Alban Jugendherberge, even found a perfect spot for the car, checked in and paid our 60 Fränkeli Kurtaxe (?!) (the rest I had paid earlier on online). We had to hurry to get to our first (well 2nd on my list) appointment in the Mittlere Strasse. We got there plenty in time, had a chat with the very charming owner of the building, and she guided us through the house. It was a very old building that was just about to be finished off. The apartment was nice and I liked it. It was very near the Biozentrum, in a very quiet part, where I would probably have to problem finding a parking spot. Everything inside was brand new, the balcony facing the garden. All in all, it was a bit small I found, but still manageable.
Next was the Neuweilerstrasse, where we got two Drämmli rides later. Apparently, the house keeper I had make the appointment with had forgotten to tell his wife, which was a bit astonished to find us looking for an apartment. We had a look anyway, and even though it was nice and bigger than the first place, it was a bit noisy. The tram ran just in front of the building, although it had two terraces, one facing the front, and a bigger one facing the back that was much quieter. Still I wasn't completely convinced. We walked a bit around afterwards, bought dinner (avocado, tomatoes, S. Pellegrino and Coop Cranberry Sirop, some prunes, a baguette and a couple of Landjäger. We drove to the Barfi (we had received free tram tickets throughout our stay by the youth hostel) and walked along the Rhine riviera to our hostel.

The last couple of days had been extremely stressful for me, that's why I did not really find the time to write about what I wanted to and what was going on in my mind.

As I had told you before, I got a really nice PhD offer for the next fall in Mike Hall's lab, who of course is one of the leading TOR experts in the world (the gene was actually discovered in his lab). I also applied for two positions in London. Before leaving tomorrow, I wanted to meet with Prof. Hall to discuss what he (and I) had in mind. He invited me to give a small talk in the Biocenter today, followed by meetings with all of his lab members, which I found extremely helpfull and interesting. Before making a final decision, I want to wait for the interviews in London though. I always wanted to go the the UK, but now of course I'm not so sure what to do, but I'll guess I'll know more after meeting with the London lab. Also, I received the 2 invitations for the London interviews today, which means that I passed the first selection round. I will fly from Boston to London end of January, and as they will pay for the whole trip, I won't mind. I renounced one of the interviews however, because I think it will be unwise to just spend two weeks of interviews (they'll each last 3 days) apart from my project in Boston. So, should I stay or should I go? I'm not sure, I'll guess I'll see after the interviews.

Then today I finished putting all the mess together and pack my stuff in Basel. It's amazing how much junk you can stuff into such a small room! Tomorrow at 11, my father will bring me the ingredients for my Abschiedsapéro à la Luxembourgeoise, then we'll get the stuff and leave Basel for good (?)