Summer in Vienna

This summer I'm making the switch from lakes, mountains, and salmon to computers, castles, and history. I'm spending June-August in Laxenburg, Austria at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis. This Institute is housed in a Hapsburg castle (that's schloss in German) in a very cute village about 45 minutes from downtown Vienna. I'm bringing my salmon data with me to model age and size at maturity. I'm part of the Young Scientist Summer Program, which brings 51 people doing a variety of research (evolution, climate change, modeling, international negotiation, etc.) from around the world.

Thus far I'm having a very nice time. I arrived in June 2 and met up, very luckily, with Stephanie, who was in Vienna for work. We had a great weekend touring Vienna. It's overwhelming to be in a new country where I speak very little of the language (my German isn't so good, especially when I find Spanish coming out of my mouth when my brain tries to switch to a non-English language), live in a dorm, the stores close at 6 pm and aren't open on Sundays, and I'm surrounded by brilliant people from around the world. But I'm learning a lot, enjoying my project, meeting a lot of nice people, and trying to take advantage of the Austrian experience.