Irvine

An early LA morning at 07:30, we took off for a one hour drive to Irvine. We were heading for the University of California that is located there (UCI). Arriving around 08:30, we were early. I don’t know what most of our group did, but I for sure took this time to get me some well-deserved coffee at the local Starbucks. This morning started off well. We had some talks about their solid state physics department, specifically their scanning tunneling microscope (STM). A Dutch man (een Groninger) that worked there told us they attached a carbon-mono-oxide to their STM, using it’s spin interactions to get a great 2D view of the bonds of a molecule. It seemed to work quite well, which was really cool! He also talked about their Ig. Nobel price; deboiling an egg (yes really, look it up!). It apparently works for many kinds of proteins, so it’s a truly useful technique. After the talks, we got split in two groups and got to see some of their equipment.

After we were done, it was time for lunch at the campus.

The groups split up in the afternoon. Most went straight to the beach, but not my group. We went back home for a nice siesta. It wasn’t until 17:00 that we headed to the Santa Monica beach. Have you ever played GTA 5? If you know the beach with the pier that has as huge Ferris wheel, this was that beach. It was warm, not crowded, and huge waves. It was amazing. Once too many people had enough of the beach we left again and headed home. On the way we stopped and grabbed a burger at Johnny Rockets. It’s better than McDonalds, but it’s still fast-food. Finally, the night came to an end playing poker. That Olivér Boersma is one lucky guy… I lost many pennies that night.

Marlon van Berkum