Hi there! Sorry you haven’t heard from me in a while, still in good old Nashville. Things are slowly becoming a little more routine-like for me, I finally start to know my way to and around campus, actually having obtained a staff ID card that gets me access to my office even after-hours, did the obligatory orientation training to be an employee at Vanderbilt etc. The most noteworthy thing for me to find out during orientation was that I was told I am part of the medical center and therefore have to have all kinds of immunizations, proof that I don’t have tuberculosis or other kinds of highly-infectious diseases. So, I thought I can solve some of this by just bringing my immunization record in (I was really proud that I thought of bringing that to the States in the first place, so why not show it off?). I get to show to a middle-aged and very determined woman, who –after reading in it for a little while- gives it back to me with the comment: ‘have to do it over hon!’ (Nashvillians like to call everyone ‘hon’, short for ‘honey’—gets some getting used to, but makes you feel very loved all the time :-). Turns out that ‘doing it over’ meant getting me immunized against almost everything within two days, measles-mumbs-ravella-tetanus-flu-you name it…….my arm still hurts, but I guess I will be very well protected from now on. What else? Friday we went for after-work drinks, which was a lot of fun…..I was surprised by two things: first, seems that in Tennessee smoking in bars is tolerated and second: Americans love Jägermeister, which for me as a German, was a pleasure to hear. That said, we drank not too few of it, very tasty and very funny, although the next day was a little bit of a pain. Today then, to get healthy, I went for a nice bike ride in Percy Warner Park. It is a huge park – a lot bigger than Central Park in New York – and truly beautiful. Several small roads loop around so you can actually do some real biking and gets in touch with your inner ‘Dutchness’—have a good one! (another Nashvillian thing to say).