Departure: June 20th - My mom's birthday!
After celebrating my mom's birthday around 2 o'clock in the morning we left for Schiphol, the airport near Amsterdam. With some problems regarding my flight back to the Netherlands I could board the plane and fly to the United States of America!
The first thing I noticed of course was the temperature in Chicago, because it was about 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) and in Amsterdam it was around 12 Celsius(54 Fahrenheit) when I left. I stayed at the International House on the campus of the University of Chicago. During the summertime about 150 to 200 residents were living at the I-House, but normally the I-House inhabits more than 350 students.
This is me at the airport a couple of minutes before checking in. Here you can see the I-House and my room; it was small, but most of the time the weather was great so there was no need for a bigger room...only for airconditioning!
My internship at the University of Chicago was on the Brazil Nut Problem at the Jaeger/Nagelgroup. But what is the Brazil Nut Problem? Well, you can see the effect when you shake a can of mixed nuts. After a while you can see the largest Brazil nuts move to the top of the pile of nuts and stay on top. That's also the reason why it is called the Brazil Nut effect or Brazil Nut Problem!
Before starting my internship a lot of research was performed on the single intruder Brazil Nut Problem, so a single larger intruder was put in a bed with small 1mm glassbeads. My project was about the effects when more than one intruder was put in the shaker system.
This was my lab with the Brazil Nut shaker-setup during the 3 months of my internship; you can see the huge amount of different balls I could use in my setup as well.
Besides working very hard in my lab I enjoyed my free time very much during the three months I stayed in Chicago and I'll show some highlights below.
What I liked a lot was the beautiful skyline of Chicago and here you can see two pictures of them! With 3 friends I enjoyed the firework show on the 3rd of july, which celebrated the 4th of july?! I'm still confused :-)
Together with Aneesh I attended a baseball game of the Chicago Cubs in the world famous stadium Wrigley Field! It was the hottest day during my internship with over 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 Celsius), but I enjoyed the game very much. Heinrich Jaeger (my professor and supervisor) invited his whole research group for a BBQ at his home. First we increased our appetite with a nice game of soccer; granular vs. nano people and of course the granular people won! Heinrich's dog Nelly enjoyed the game as well.
A couple of weeks later I went to the Cubs once again with a couple of friends from the I-House Another big event was the paintball game of which you can see a shot(!) right here. I never did it before and it was so much fun; I would really recommend it if you have the chance. Although I was the only Dutchie at the I-House a real turkish gang was present at the I-House and it was so much fun having them around.
This is how I know Brenda the secretary of the Jaegergroup. Every week I was practicing atleast 3 times in the small swimming pool. A great airshow was also present in Chicago and here you can see the B2 stealth bomber, which was very impressing.
Yuji, Alex, Markus and I tried the other baseball stadium Comiskey Park from the Chicago White Sox too. But we didn't like it as much as Wrigley Field; so "The White Sox Sucks!!!" :-)
Another magnificent skyline, which I loved. A copy of the famous Buckingham fountain is also present in Chicago, but of course twice as big as the original
I have been talking about the Jaeger/Nagelgroup and you can see them here, attending my presentation at the end of my internship. Here you can see Sid, Matthias and Heinrich, with whom I was collaborating during my internship.
After giving my talk I went to the pub nearby with a lot of I-House friends! Time to relax finally ;-) Kazim beat me once again with pool, but I learned a lot from him.