We engaged in a thrilling lab activity at an escape room. The setting immersed us into a mysterious scenario where we woke up in a private psychiatric ward, barely remembering our first names. Dividing into two teams for a friendly competition, we unraveled hidden clues, working together to regain our freedom and memories. Solving puzzles alongside teammates made the experience incredibly enjoyable. After our escape room adventure, we headed to a restaurant for a delicious Middle Eastern-inspired lunch.

During the holiday season, Christmas markets are lively events that are usually hosted in town squares or other public areas, particularly in Europe. With stalls offering a range of seasonal goods like handcrafted items, ornaments, gifts, and traditional snacks and beverages like Glühwein, gingerbread, roasted chestnuts, and sausages, these markets are well-known for their quaint atmosphere. They frequently feature sparkling lights, vibrantly painted stalls, and perhaps even live entertainment or music. A trip to a Christmas market can be a ...

Today, we had our first Secret Santa event. We enjoyed the food together first and opened our own mysterious gifts with excitement. The funniest part was when we tried to guess who had prepared the gift. Everyone was like an experienced detective, trying to seize any clues to get answers. It was really a nice experience for everyone.

We finally managed to be lucky with the weather to perform a hike with the whole lab near Garmisch-Patenkirchen. After we left foggy Munich, Garmisch welcomed us with blue sky and sunny weather. During the hike we could enjoy the autumn atmosphere and colours, good discussions and special homemade Chinese sweets.

This year we were finally back in the Oktoberfest tents with the lab. Oktoberfest is one of the biggest and important cultural festivals of Munich. The whole city welcomes a lot of international crowds during these three weeks of the festival. Since this year, it was the first time for many of us attending the festival, it was indeed very special and fun.

Instead of going for lunch in a restaurant we decided to have a picnic in front of our institute in the sun to enjoy the nice summer weather. We all decided to prepare something special from our home country. There was an amazing collection of German, Russian, Chinese dumplings, Indian pakodas(fritters) and various desserts.

Deutsches Museum is one of the world’s largest museums for science and technology. We had the great opportunity to visit the museum with the whole lab. It was so much fun to recall basic scientific principles of physics and chemistry using cool tools available in the museum. We had a nice Indian lunch afterwards with the group.

It was the first graduation party this year. Laura was the heart of our lab, and we miss her dearly.Six months after starting her new job at Curevac, she returned to lab for defending her thesis. It was fun to have her back and celebrate her major milestone at her defense party. We wish her all the best for her future.

After a nice Bavarian lunch at Augustiner Keller, we went for Eisstockschießen. It is a winter sport famous in Alpine areas also known as curling. Traditionally it was played in frozen lakes with wooden stocks (sticks), however nowadays several beer gardens have artificial curling pitches during the winter months. Although, we were competing against each other to score the highest points, it was a fun team building activity, which we will for sure repeat in the next winter season.

This year, Christmas marketsopened again after two long years of covid. Christkindlmärkte also known as Weihnachtsmärkteoriginated in Germany, are street markets celebrating Christmas during the four weeks of Advent (and sometimes even longer). We decided to go to the mittelalterlichenWeihnachtsmarkt, where we enjoyed the cozy ambience of European medieval times with Feuerzangenbowle and Glühwein.