I’m back in Germany, actually on schedule, but the missions were cut short due to the crack in front of the bombay.

My coffee maker broke. I was thinking about writing up an article about how to fix it, since it’s a complicated machine and it took me waaaay to long to get it apart. It started as an afternoon project that turned into a half-a-day event, but I learned a lot about the mysteries of the Jura coffee machine – and where all those crazy noises come from when it’s making me a cup of coffee. I always thought there was a hampster in there somewhere, intergral to the design and functionality – but it turns out there is no such thing. Funny that.

Now I just need to find a thesis project, and get down to work for the next few months… I’m not looking forward to it so much for some reason.

It’s a Jura Impressa E55, and when it’s in pieces it looks something like this:

It was pretty dirty with old coffee on the inside, particularly this entire contraption (below) that is responsible for brewing the coffee. Its not so easy to take apart the first time around, and it turns out my problem wasn’t even related to the build-up of coffee on the inside: I had to re-run the decalcifying program entirely, and then it stopped spitting cups of coffee to the inside of the machine and started delivering them to the outside world, where they are far more useful.

I’ve had lots of new thoughts lately, especially since the Argentina trip. I read that book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and I highly recommend it in general. It was really a touching story about following your dreams, listening to omens (and the world in general), and how your failures often help you attain your dreams. Probably the most important point was that when you have a dream, and you want to realize it, that the world conspires to help you attain it. It is as if the world wants to you be happy, but you just have to realize it and make the effort. Maybe sounds a little sappy, but it really is a great book.

I decided that I should write more. And that mechatronics is not my thing, that I need to switch to an earth science after this degree is over with. And that I will probably never stop travelling. And I don’t know when I will ever grow up.

I’ve got another couple of his books coming, Veronika Decides to Die and Eleven Minutes both coming this week thanks to Amazon, along with another slew of Terry Pratchett(Discworld) books.

I’ve been reading like crazy, lately… I guess I’m more like my dad than I thought.