Entry 15: Tuesday of Week 2 at SGL

Well, back to work today.  I started off at the Gemeinde Meitingen (Meitingen's town hall) to get my Lohnsteuerkarte (income tax card).   They told me that I needed to get that from SGL.  So after arriving at work, I sent off an e-mail to my contact in the Personnelabteilung (HR department).  I spent a lot of time today reading up on various things.  Other than that, I really didn't do a whole lot today at work.  After I arrived back home, I had dinner then watched probably my new favorite Fernsehsendung (=TV episode) Galileo.  For those who don't know, Galileo is a show where somebody asks a question of the team, then they go about finding the answer. 

Today, it started with everything you ever wanted to know about the Chili pepper (which part of the pepper causes the most heat (the seeds)?  What is the name of the scale used to measure hotness (serville scale sp)?  and does hot food A. Put you in a good mood, B. Help you lose weight, or C. Increase the Libido (turns out, it's all three).  )  The second part was based off of the question, what is under Berlin (U-bahn, Wasserleitung (=water system), and ice/bier cellars.  Apparently, on one level, they store boxes of ice, the next level down is a cellar for the bier.  In this way, they were able to keep bier cool during the summer before refrigerators.  Third part was a study looking for the world's strongest glue.  They tried store bought glue to glue a car to the ground, which didn't quite work.  They used instant glue, which required the strength of a car to remove.  They then found a specific type of glue (specially made) which they used to clamp two pieces of steel together (with only 0,2 mm of glue).  They brought in two tow trucks that were designed each to carry 20 tons and latched them both up to both plates and started to pull.  And with a combined force of 40 tons, the glue held, but one of the tow trucks was being pulled toward the other one.  It was quite impressive.