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My birthday is the 4th January (since 1971), and I love to receive LOTS of cards, phone calls, and gifts! In my family we were 5: my Mom and Dad, my older brother Uwe, me, and our unforgettable dog Anka. Actually, my granny being old lived for some years with us, so she belonged to our family as well.
I grew up in Salach, a village im "Lande der Schwaben" (we all have a very weird German accent nobody else understands and love to eat "Spaetzle" and cooked pig ears). Salach is located between Stuttgart and Ulm, i.e. in Southern Germany.
During my high school years at the "Erich Kaestner Gymnasium" in Eislingen (Fils), I had been a member of the "Hundesportverein Eislingen e.V." with our dog Anka, and we went to a lot of tournements allover Southern Germany. Anka and myself also hiked a lot with my best friend Silvia and her dog Alf. During that time I was also member of the "Turnerschaft Goeppingen, Leichtathletikabteilung" (athletics/ track and field). I trained 3-5 times a week and was in an incredible good shape! With my training colleagues Moni, Birgit, Sandra No.2, Katja, Silke, Silke No.2, Claudia, and out coach Karl-Heinz I went to many tournements in Germany, Austria, and Italy. My most favourite diciplines were 100 meter race and 4x 100 meter relays, but I also did 200 m races and long jumps. It was such a good time! And we just had a wonderful reunion in December 2000.
During the nice long summer break after high school I went to Israel to work for a while in the Kibbutz "Mishmar Hasharon" (where the previous Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, was raised), and to travel in the country. Especially Jerusalem is sooo beautiful, and the people are very interesting.
I studied Biology at the "Universitaet Fridericana zu Karlsruhe"(in Karlsruhe), where for the first time I had to learn speaking Standard German, because nobody understood me! I met really nice people, and it was fun to share a house with Melanie and Fred, and to live with my boy-friend later on. And I enjoy to hear from all of them, including Yvonne & Fred, Melanie, Andy & her daughter Lara, Bea and Sabine.
I did 2 travels during my studies.
With 21 I went the first time to America, to the beautiful Westcoast! I spent 6 weeks travelling in California and Oregon, and I especially loved the cities San Diego and San Francisco, and the Redwoods National Park, Mono Lake, Yosemite National Park, and Crater Lake.
With 23 I went with Fred and Melanie for 6 weeks to East Africa, which is such a different, but also fabulous part of our world! The Mountain Gorillas in the Virunga Monutains , and the Wildlife in the (migration of zebras and gnus, lions, elephants, giraffes, hyenas, crocodiles, baboons, water buffaloes etc.) and the Ngorongoro Crater (Rhinoceros) were certainly the highlights of this trip. And never before in my life I saw people being poor, but so happy with an inviting smile! I'll never forget a family in the Ruwenzori Mountains, which invited my friend an me to eat sugar cane. They had so much fun, because we didn't know how to eat it, and they were so happy when we gave as a thank you the mother my sandals and a jar of peanut butter.
After my final exams and another year working for my diploma thesis in a Research Laboratory at the Institute of Genetics in the Research Centre Karlsruhe, I finally had my master degree! I enjoyed a summer break in Salach, as my parents had just bought a new Wolfspitz puppy: Cathy. Although she was really hyperactive as a puppy and destroyed half of my parents house and garden, it was a lot of fun.
The next 3 years of my life I spent in beautiful Switzerland!
42 years after my Dad had moved to live for 3 years in Zurich, so I kind of followed his foot steps.
I lived in Basel, and did my PhD thesis in a Research Laboratory of Novartis Pharma AG (at that time still Sandoz Pharma AG, it was right before the merger with Ciba AG). I was inscribed at the Federal Insitute of Technology (ETH) in Zuerich, so I travelled once a month to Zurich to meet my professors.
With Mark and some other friends I went for a 5 week-trip to the East Coast of the US, where I gave 4 presentations at the NIH (Washington, DC), at Duke University (Durham, NC), at the Univerity of Virginia (Charlotteville, VA), and at the Texas Medical Center (Houston, TX), and Mark coached his team in the ACM World's Finals of computer science in Atlanta/ Georgia. Afterwards we relaxed in Florida, where we travelled down as far as Key West (where you can see the animal life of beautiful coral reefs while snorkeling or diving).
Later, I was invited for an EMBO course on Signalling Cascades, for which I had applied for, and which took place at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot/ Israel. During the EMBO course we visited the desert and the Dead Sea, and after the course I went for 3 days to Jerusalem, and it was nice to see all the places again after 8 years. Our group of 20 people was very international, and I had a lot of fun with them.
In June 1996 I had my Thesis Defense at the ETH Zurich, and received the doctor title!
I met so many nice people in Basel (Sarah, Berno, Michael, Angelika, Katrin, Raphaela & Rudi, Dominique, Lucien, Nouciba, Dominik, Daniel...), that it was hard to say good-bye.
After vacation in France, I finally moved to America: Philadelphia! I working since 1999 as a Post-Doc in a Research Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania / Medical School , in the Department of Pharmacology.
Here in America I do a lot of sport! More than I had done since I've been a teenager. I am a member of the Rittenhouse Fitness Gym, where I do a lot of Kickboxing, and some other fitness classes. And its so much fun to jet to Boston, New York, or Washington D.C., and I have even been to Toronto for my visa extension, and enjoyed the Niagara Falls.
Mark came over to Philadelphia in summer 2000 to work for ArsDigita , and we live in a cozy apartment in Center City, just a few minutes from Rittenhouse Square! Come and visit us!