Trail & Error

(Yes, you read that right!)

Monday started as most Mondays do: slowly, with hiccups and bumps and general headaches. In fact, my Monday started Sunday evening, when my train back from visiting a friend in western Germany was delayed by nearly 3 hours. Instead of reaching Leipzig at a little past 10 PM like I had planned, the train didn't arrive until half past midnight. Meaning that, much to my and the internet's surprise, the trams were not running properly. And thus to my chagrin, I was dropped in an unfamiliar corner of the city with no feasible method of public transportation to bring me home. Luckily, I enjoy long walks, and have patient friends who don't mind late-night phone calls from a stressed-out me.

Monday continued inching along later that day at work, when I found out that I had prepped my samples for GC analysis using the wrong internal standard composition. Meaning that last week's work of prep was to be redone over the course of this week. Practice makes perfect, I guess? Again, I met with the whirring and humming machines in order to get 15 vials filled with 200 uL of suspended particulate matter in solution. It took five, count 'em, five days. On the bright side, I got to practice some lab techniques. Let's call this lesson trial and error.

But there is always a bright side to every rocky start to a week: a rocky end (but in the literal sense). Sunday, I had the opportunity to meet other English-speaking expats and go hiking in a forested area surrounded by table top sandstone rock formations, somewhat reminiscent, albeit larger, of the ones found around Huntingdon. And so both the trail and the trials were a rocky loop, but... never not an adventure!

Stolen from google as I wait for my images to upload