Failures

**sidenote: I wrote this post over 3 weeks so it might be slightly scattered and cover a lot of time**


One thing that I often forget is that with successes come failures and they are more difficult to embrace.  But in my heart I know that I learn more from my failures.

This time around I've had a failure in passing my final examination for my intensive 10-wk course.  It came as quite the shock despite my anxious feelings about my test performance.  That anxiety was quelled because my peer group also felt similarly and I figured I was just suffering from post-test nerves.  Unfortunately, that wasn't the case and while I was bombarded on facebook about everyone passing the exam etc, I received an email telling me that I needed to temporarily suspend my time at my internship and focus on studying for my re-examination in two weeks.  This failure is particularly hard for me because I've never truly failed any exam in my college life and even my high school life (ignoring one particularly woeful AP chemistry test).  Now, I'm not writing this to look for sympathy or pats on the back.  I'm writing this post because I told myself that I wanted to give an honest opinion and log of my time here, so here goes.

I can confidently say that on that day, I experienced my first true and honest bout of homesickness.  This my be surprising but I think it's important to note that I tend to make myself a new family in every place I inhabit and it always eases the difficulty of being away from home.  I've also lived far away from home in my bachelors so being thousands of miles away isn't a new concept for me either.  But this is the first time that I couldn't pick up the phone and call my mom or dad and hash out all of my frustrations and sadness.  I couldn't even skype with them because of the 8 hrs time difference. That was hard.  I've been lucky enough to have friends here that I can trust and open up to them and admit my embarrassment and sadness but they don't fill the unconditional love that comes from a parent. Regardless, they made me feel better and due to time difference I couldn't speak with my parents until the weekend.  They and a number of friends I spoke to here and at home were understanding and supportive.

Now, I'm going to go negative about my experience here so far just because I think it's important to indicate that things are always roses and daisies.  Inherently, moving to a new country and schooling system I would run into differences and difficulties.  This issue is that I'm not necessarily appreciating the differences.  My 10 wk course was a bit disappointing because I felt we never got the chance to get to the heart of the matter regardless of topic.  Inherently, it's nearly impossible to go in depth when you are squeezing a years of coursework into 10 weeks but I do think there are improvements to be made.  I struggled to find cohesion when my lecturer changed almost every hour each day.  How can you learn to predict what they think is important when you are constantly bombarded with different opinions that do not necessarily speak with each other.  Additionally, I've never taken an exam that was written by 5-8 different individuals.  This was an...experience.  The exam didn't feel as fluid and because I typically study based on cues I receive from the individuals, it was also a struggle.  The grading is also something new to me as well but that's another matter (they do a rigid scale from 1-10).  I can understand it well enough..Most frustrating is the fact that the re-examination does nothing to actually test my knowledge.  One question from each cluster I failed will not elaborate on my "true" knowledge of a topic.  I also don't understand why I don't see feedback on my exam either.  I understand that it's further work but when you're not given much else to understand...that might be helpful.

Back to some positive vibes...

Having taken the re-exam and passed it(!!) I continue uphold these thoughts.  I found it ridiculous that I studied so much material and was only tested on one topic.  Additionally, I was tested on the subjects that I had passed in the original exam.  How can you use this re-exam as a fair measure of competence if that happens?! Ah well, I'm happy it's all over.

Tomorrow I fly back to the US for 3 weeks and I'm really looking forward to it.  It will be to get away, clear my head and recharge my batteries for the upcoming 9 month internship that will undoubtedly try my patience on a number of occasions.  I'm looking forward to seeing friends who've recently been engaged, new friends, old friends, lots of family and friends that are like family to me.  It's going to be an excellent time.  I'm also looking forward to the sunshine and lack of rain! I don't hate it too much here but sometimes...I really miss having the idyllic Los Alamos 355 days of sunshine.

The past weekend I celebrated christmas with my friends and housemates.  My friends and I got together and all brought food and gifts and drank gluhwijn and spiked cider.  It was truly gezellig.  Me and my other american housemate introduced the secret santa gifting to our greek and chinese housemates.  On top of that we also celebrated together by eating dinner at a chinese restaurant which is a cliche "Jewish Christmas" theme.  It was really nice to give eachother gifts and see everyone's happy faces sharing a meal and gifts.  Can't wait for more of it back at home!

Probably won't have another post until after the new year.  Happy Holidays everyone!

Giving Thanks

I'll be keeping this post short but I thought I would share my thanksgiving experiences this year.

As my fellow Americans know, thanksgiving is a special time of year.  I like it particularly because it's not a holiday that is surrounded by religion which can sometimes divide family and friends.  Although thanksgiving certainly has it's sourness when we consider the history of settlers and their treatment of native peoples, which despite the colorful cartoons they feed children, is quite gruesome and bloody amongst both groups it can truly be a joyous holiday.

Growing up, I had a more unconventional thanksgiving than the typical advertised kind in american tv and film.  Since my extended family on both sides live very far away (Kansas and New York) we typically celebrate thanksgiving with 4-5 other families that my parents went to graduate school with.  Thus I've always been surrounded by a group of people I consider my family away from family.

When I lived in NY for my bachelors I was able to experience the more "quintessential" thanksgiving that is rich in family and inherently a little drama! Those years with my family was also truly lovely.

This year, as you know, I'm abroad and away from both types of family.  Many people asked me if I was homesick about the holiday and overall I thought, "No no, I'm fine. It's sad but what can you do?" At the beginning of the month, I wasn't sure if I would be able to participate in any kinds of mock thanksgiving meals since student housing often doesn't have an oven and even with the ovens you lack many of the tools required.  But I was blessed to celebrate the holiday this year twice!!

The sister of a friend I went to high school with is studying in Rotterdam and our mom's had spoken and she contacted me saying to call if I ever felt homesick etc.  Later she was sweet enough to think of me and invite me to join her and her friends for a thanksgiving dinner. I originally wasn't sure if I would be able to attend but in the end I was able to go and bring along my german friend, Laura.  We had a lovely time meeting new people, many of whom are also international, and eating great food.  I have to admit that it was nice to be reminded of home in the food we ate.

The second thanksgiving was Saturday.  I joined a lovely group of international students who are "mentored" by a dutch student and get together and share drinks and food weekly.  I've been really happy to meet such a great group and just lovely dutch mentors who go the extra mile to take care of us.  There are two other americans in the group though we're all from different parts of the US: New Mexico, Illinois(Chicago), and Washington DC.  Although I wasn't sure if I would be able to help out with the meal, I decided to do it and I'm glad I did.  Charlotte, one of our dutchies, offered up her parents home for the meal which made all the difference in prepping for the meal.

We started at 3:30 after picking up a 4.5 kilo/10 lbs fresh turkey from the butcher.  Alice had forethought to bring champagne which reminded me fondly of thanksgiving I share with my family in NY.  We always start our day with mimosas.  From there on out, we worked together to prepare our very first ever thanksgiving meal.  None of us had really any experience in preparing side dishes and certainly had no clue how to cook a turkey!  Luckily we were in a gorgeous fully equipped kitchen that could satisfy all of our cooking needs.

I proudly made apple pie for the first time and I thought it was delicious.  Frankly, the meal turned out better than I ever could've imagined.  We worked hard and we ate incredible amounts of food.  In case you're interested, we made:

• Turkey (with bacon on top!!)
• Stuffing
• Corn
• Candied carrots
• Pea, mushroom and onion casserole
• Mashed potatoes with rosemary goat cheese
• Salad
• Gravy from the drippings
• Apple Pie
• Lots and lots of wine and beer :D

Finally, my absolute favorite part of every thanksgiving aside from being surrounded by people you really love, is when everyone goes around the table saying what they're thankful for. To me, it's something we as a culture don't do often enough.  We are constantly rushing around frantically from one day to the next moaning about this and that and we forget to stop and look around at all the things we take for granted.  But on thanksgiving you have the chance to slow down and do just that.  And from my experiences, sometimes it can truly be tear-worthy speeches every year.  Since most guests were foreign, this was a new experience but every single person (new to the group or not) was able to say something nice and insightful about their lives.  Although many of us are thankful for the same things, each person was able to give us a peek into their lives and what truly matters to them.

So, I want to thank every person I celebrated with this year because you made this holiday mean even more to me than it did before.  Happy Thanksgiving!

The Chefs, Alice, me and Brooke from the right and our Dutch host Charlotte on far left

The masterpiece turkey

My apple pie!

The whole group :)

Familiar Comforts

So it's been about a month since I've posted about how things are going here at Utrecht and that's for a number of reasons.  I always want to have a nice coherent story to tell about my life in these posts but it often works out that this story bounces all over the place and I can't always manage it. So as a result, I'm just going to talk about my life the way it is, jumbled and fun.

This past month has been the most academically intensive of my time here so far.  We jumped into a 3 week section on molecular neuroscience and although I have some background and experience in the field, it was still demanding and cognitively exhausting at some points.  In addition to this block, we also had our midterm exam and the largest paper thus far.  Although I've had the grade scheme explained to me, it's still foreign and so it's hard to know what to expect.  If there's anything I hate, it's uncertainty.  So you can only imagine how this new grade scheme may have set me a little on edge!  But it's all over now and I'm happy enough with my grades.  I could always do better but I'm happy to have it over with.  Now that I've taken one exam I can better understand and prepare for the final exam next week!!

I continue to be blessed in the people who surround me here.  I've been able to connect with a number of great people and it has made adjusting to moving here much easier.  It's great to have international friends because you can connect over cultural differences and struggles that inherently come with being abroad and it's also great having dutch friends because they can help you out in the opposite way by teaching you more about their culture and generally helping you out by for example reading and translating the soup of the day for you....everyday.

Friday was our last day of classes and it was a bit sad.  I'm happy that the fundamentals course is over but I'll miss seeing all of my classmates everyday and sharing lunch together. I hope we all make an effort to see each other every few weeks and get together for nights out!

My *big news* is that I've chosen my internship for the next 9 months (finally!).  I'll be doing it in amsterdam which isn't the ideal since I'll have to commute but I'm positive that it will be worth it.  I'm working with transgenic mice and chronic stress modeling with attention to neurodevelopment.  What really sealed the deal for me was the opportunity to learn a number of biological and behavioral techniques.  I'm also looking forward to this part of my masters.  Doing hands on research was a huge part of my excitement with this program.  I'll start working in a few weeks and then leave for a vacation at home for 3 weeks over xmas.

One of the reasons why I named this post familiar comforts is because although I've been adjusting well and enjoying it here, I miss silly things from home.  I miss knowing what sizes I wear in shoes and clothes.  I miss going to one store and being able to find everything I might be looking for in one trip.  Here I have to wander around to different stores for different items.  It makes it a little harder for me because I'm just unfamiliar with the stores so I don't have as many "go-tos".  All of these examples are very silly and shouldn't make a difference and generally they don't but occasionally I want what I know.  I think it comes down to missing familiarity in my daily life.  I'm always working to create new familiars for myself but it's still a challenge.  And in good form, I'm giving myself more challenges by moving my daily work to another city! I guess I'm addicted to trying new things :)

Going home will satisfy those cravings for tacos and breakfast burritos with green chile.  I'll get to go skiing, spend time with great friends and see my family.  It's maybe a little silly to go back home so soon but at the same time, I can be sure that my family won't be working and friends will be home for the holidays.  It's surprising that I've only been living here for a few months.  I still have so much to learn and experience in this city and country!  Hopefully a little fluency in dutch is a part of that formula too.

Acclimation

I've been living here in Utrecht for about 5 weeks now and I'm still loving it.  I'll admit that that statement alone is a relief.  As confident as I might have been coming here, it was still a risky choice.  Two years is a long time to move to another country far away from family and friends.  But luckily, I've had only positive experiences with my program, the people and my new friends.

Since my masters is set up to have an intensive 9am to 5pm 5 days/week schedule, I've gotten to chat and meet with many of my fellow classmates.  Most of them are dutch as we have 6-7 total internationals out of 55 students.  At first I was a little intimidated by the fact that most of my classmates typically communicate with eachother in their native tongue, which I don't speak or understand, but now most of them have learned which of us are international and are fully capable and absolutely willing to switch to english.  This is a relief and also a kind gesture that continues to convince me that moving here was the right choice.

One of the most interesting things I've noticed about the dutch (although there are plenty other notable things), is that when they speak in english they often have a variety of accents.  I think I tend to have an ear for accents and notice subtle differences that are attributed to more than simple person to person differences.  It's really an interesting phenomena that I think can be chalked up to their exposure to english and american film and tv.  Many people have different shades of english accents while others lean more towards american accents.  Basically, I just find it super unusual because in the past I can tell different accents apart like italian, french, german and english.  Here, it's a guessing game.

Today I also experienced something that I might call an evident culture difference.  Generally speaking, the dutch are considered an egalitarian society that favors equality among individuals.  I've heard this, read about it and been given examples but today it was also apparent to me that this situation would've gone differently at home.  Today we were given information about the different opportunities for student representation and involvement in the department.  There are a limited number of spaces in the groups and they also are interested in a diverse and equally representative group.  Much to the presenters surprise, there were way too many volunteers.  This is where I found it interesting.  At home, I think the first suggestion to solve this problem would have been to hold elections.  The group would decide based on the experience, qualities and presentation of each candidate who's best fit for each job. One could say it would've been democracy at work.  Instead of this idea, essentially it came down to them saying they'll pick at random and also based on fulfilling diversity criteria because any other way would be unfair since they don't know anyone (although I'd argue that that is the fairest possible if you do a merit based scheme).  I'm not complaining about their system but I realized that our culture differences come through in these ways.  Anyways, I'm hoping I'll get a position but if not, I suppose it's less work and headache for me in the future!

I've found that since moving abroad, seeing and hearing is believing.  Before I left I did some reading up on weather, history, culture etc in the Netherlands.  One of the most important was that they bike in ALL kinds of weather.  Now, I knew this would probably be true but it didn't feel real until I started biking in it with them.  *According to them, I haven't seen anything dramatic yet either*  The other day was more typical dutch weather with rain and high winds.  I used to think that walking into wind can be annoying until I was biking into it.  It truly slows you down and if you weren't born on a bicycle (aka most non-dutch) you lack the grace required to maintain perfect balance when a crosswind catches you.    But I haven't fallen off the bike yet and I don't expect to until perhaps the ice and snow comes.  At that point I have no idea what to expect and I can only hope to not fall under particularly embarrassing circumstances.

A few important and exciting steps I've taken towards becoming a settled person here in Utrecht include picking up my residency permit, registering with the city, getting a bank account and bank card(!!), and hopefully soon a cell phone!  It sounds silly but all of these items, particularly the bank stuff, makes it significantly easier for me to do anything in Holland.  Most places only accept cards with a chip and rarely take anything other than maestro.  Both of which I did not have before arriving here.  I'm still getting used to finding my way around the city.  There are occasions that I definitely know where I am but there are also definite occasions in which I find myself going in circles.  It's all a part of the experience but it can really be defeating occasionally.

Class just kicked into high gear with a few big assignments on the horizon followed by our midterm exam.  Even though I'm confident in my abilities, I worry about being graded in another country since it's different from what I know.  I think it will be fine in the end, though.  I really can't believe it's already October! I'm getting a little nostalgic for all of the fall and halloween decorations that plague grocery store.  It's not a big thing here in the Netherlands.  I won't be seeing excited children dressed up in costume this year which is weird since I've seen that every year since my own days as that excited kid!  It's cooling off here too although it still hasn't gotten too cold.  I've been enjoying home cooking most days and lately lots of traditional chinese because my housemate is chinese and Sunday was their mid-autumn celebration.  It was really tasty and I loved being a part of different customs.

That's all for now!

Utrecht Part 2

So I've been living in Utrecht for about 10 days which is actually pretty crazy to me because it feels like longer and shorter at the same time.

Back to School, Back to School, to Prove to Dad that I'm not a Fool... ;)

Yesterday I began my intensive course called Fundamentals of Neuroscience.  This is my only class and we meet from 9 to 5 every weekday.  So far it's been alright but I know that it's going to be a pretty exhausting 10 weeks.  Tomorrow we begin dissecting a human brain.  I'm very excited for this.  It's simultaneously freaky and incredible to have the opportunity to do this.  We'll be working in large groups of 9 people to 1 brain.

Most of the people in my course at dutch (~85%) and so it's been interesting to be surrounded by people speaking in another language.  Now, the course is absolutely taught in english but many of the students revert to Dutch when speaking to eachother.  I definitely don't get upset about it but occasionally I have to remind them that I'm there and need them to speak in english.  It makes me further aware of how boring and monolingual I am.  Everyone tells me that they don't mind and even like speaking in english but I'm still embarrassed that I can only speak english.  Additionally, everyone tells me not to bother learning dutch.  They argue that it's a useless language and although I might agree with them in some respects, I'd also like to learn the language that's spoken to and around me constantly; particularly since I'll be living here for 2 years.  We'll see what I decide to do.  I think I might try and get the dutch students to teach me in passing and see what I can learn by immersion.  I think I can also trade my english for dutch as well if I were to sign up for some partner learning.

I've been able to meet a lot of people in my program during this last week at our orientation and also during class since we often do group work.  I've been enjoying all of their company and learning new things about dutch culture and thoughts about american culture as well.  It's a growing experience to meet so many international and dutch students and I feel so lucky to be here.

Continuing Impressions

This past week was, as the dutch jokingly say, typical dutch weather.  Meaning that this week was beautiful sunny and warm weather not at all resembling the typical dutch day.  I tried to take advantage when I could by going out into the city.  I had three different introduction days for my masters, international program and my graduate school and all of them had great free stuff and activities for us.  They gave me an opportunity to meet new people and explore the city and campus.  Saturday I signed up for an intro day by the Erasmus Student Network which is a group that supports international students but boiled down, they're basically a party all the time.  ESN is more for bachelors students but it was a fun opportunity to see the city and meet more people.  They also hosted a party that evening and a bunch of us went to that as well.  It's pretty funny riding your bike to the bar.  Definitely not something I thought I'd be doing all the time.  I've had the chance to meet some great german friends and we decided to go to the beach on Sunday.  We drove to Den Hague (40 mins away) and it was amazing.  It was beautiful and such a great temperature.  Even the freezing ocean was delightful.  We stayed and watched the sunset while eating fish and chips on the harbor.  I can't imagine a better way to spend my last day before starting this masters.

Challenges

I know it goes without saying but this adventure has not been without it's snags.  One of the more obvious difficulties is that they speak dutch here which means that I don't know what people are saying when they speak to me at first (I also have to ask for english), I struggle pronouncing cities, street names...everything, shopping at the grocery store can be an adventure even with pictures on things(!) and plenty of other things.  Now, it's really been okay so far and I survive just fine because the dutch speak english and I can always ask questions and get an okay answer.  Another trick is money.  For some reason, the Netherlands uses cards with chips on the card, and a pin as well, almost exclusively.  This means my credit and debit cards are rendered useless because I only have magnetic strips.  This means I always need cash on me which makes me pretty uncomfortable.  To get a card with a chip, I require a bank account.  I truly thought this would be an easy enough endeavor.  I signed up for an account ahead of time and planned to sign my contract and activate the account at the international intro day on Thursday.  Of course the bank immediately had technical difficulties get anything to work for anyone and said we would need to go to the one and only bank branch that handles our student accounts which is also on the other side of town.  On top of that, they were so busy that they were turning people away on Thursday and Friday. I have class everyday from 9-5 which is their working hours so it's nearly impossible for me to get over there from campus even on a lunch break.  It's INSANE.  So ridiculous that such a large bank could eff up a simple enough process.  You might be thinking: why doesn't she just go to another bank?  Well I would in a heartbeat if I could.  But since I'm on scholarship, the school needs me to have a rabobank account so that they can put my money in there and then pay for my tuition as well.  Luckily my classes today are shifted later tomorrow and thursday so I'll be able to activate it then but it's been frustrating.  I also require a bank account in order to get a contract cell phone so right now I don't have a real phone.  I've been borrowing one but I'd like to have a smart phone that I can do translations, conversions and maps on as well as simply a number that I don't mind giving out to lots of people because I'll have it permanently.  The biking thing was mostly intimidating for a few days but now I ride everyday and although sometimes I still struggle with head winds and rain, I feel confident enough to get around.  I also get lost on a somewhat regular basis.  I always make sure to have a map with me (usually 2-3 slightly different ones that have better versions parts of the city).  I don't mind being lost too much because I get to see more of the city (silver lining).  All in all, things could be much more difficult and I'm happy that I chose to move here.  It's bound to be an incredible adventure!

                                                               The Dom Tower in Utrecht

                          One of the Uni buildings in the City Center.  I'll graduate here in 2 years

                                                   An example of the many many bikes!

Until next post.  Tot ziens!

Brenna

Utrecht Part 1

Now this is the post that I think you've all been waiting for.  And partly for that reason and also because I've been incredibly busy, I haven't written much til now and I suspect that I'll be writing this post in pieces during downtimes (like now).

There are many things I want to say about Utrecht and of course they're jumbled in my head so bear with me if it feels jumpy.

First Impressions

As you might recall, I got a sneak preview of Utrecht when I first arrived in the Netherlands.  During those 3 days my hosts and others showed me around the campus (De Uithof--pronounced D Idoff) and the city.  Utrecht is a smaller city that feels very cozy and inherently european.  The streets are often bricked or cobbled and the architecture is very different from in the US.  Also, generally speaking, the dutch are friendly.  There have been occasions when once I've revealed my accent, people immediately enquire where I'm from and what I'm doing here (made friends with a bus driver that way).  It's nice and reminds me of being home because in Los Alamos and the US in general people are friendly.  I found that isn't true in other countries during my euro-trip.

Bikes

Also as you've probably heard, there are lots of bikes.  But really, there are LOTS of bikes.  Stats show that there are more bikes than people in the Netherlands and I can certainly see why.  One of the first things I set out to do once I moved into my apartment was buy a bike.  Since I really don't know much about bikes and particularly about bikes that the dutch use (more on this later) I walked into a shop hoping that they could easily guide me through it.  Instead, I spoke with an older gentleman who spoke english but not fluently and I'm not entirely sure how well we communicated.  But in the end I picked out a nice somewhat rusty black bike with fixed gears and back pedal braking.  Now, before I go further I think it's important for me to explain the difference in bikes here and the in the US.  In the US I typically see people on road bikes, mountain bikes and crossovers.  Some would say you also see hipsters on fixies.  All of those bikes are fine but require the rider to hunch a little more and are more about going from one place to another.  In the Netherlands, their focus on bikes is to be able to be comfortable and able to transport a number of things including people, groceries, giant bags etc.  They also have mud slingers over the wheels because it rains here a lot and covers on the chains so that it requires much less maintenance.  Fixed gears here make sense because the country is pretty much completely flat and they also require less maintenance and you don't have to worry about your gears breaking on your daily commute.  The same goes for the back pedal braking.  Now I do see the other bikes around but the bike I've purchased is a classic dutch bike.  Also, I mentioned being happy about rust.  That's because bike theft is incredibly common here and the less attractive the bike can be, the better.  I'm hoping to decorate/paint my bike so it's easier to find in the parking (I'll take pictures soon to help you understand) and I've just gotten courier bags for the back of my bike and would like to get a basket in the front for easier transport of groceries.

I'm going to be lazy and make this my first post and then I'll add more every few days.

Aux Grands Hommes La Patrie Reconnaissante

Paris

My final stop was in Paris and unfortunately, it was a very short stop.  I was only there for 2 full days.  I was staying with Charlie who is another friend from Los Alamos.  We were staying at his parents house because he hasn't gotten an apartment for himself and friends yet.  It was a really nice apartment. After settling in we walked to the basillica on the hill in montemarte.  At this point we had a pretty awesome view of Paris and it was really nice to see it at dusk.  After wandering here for some time, we met with his friend Edward(you must pronounce it the french way) for dinner.  It was fun because Edward spoke english as well and we had a good time trying to chat and sometimes figure out how to explain something that wasn't translating quite right.  Our dinner was very delicious and the guys were kind enough to ask for an english menu for me.  After dinner we did one of my favorite things of the trip partly because it felt very parisian.  We got some beer and jumped the fence at the basilica and looked out over the city and night while talking and getting to know eachother while also people watching.  The guys told me that they did this when they were teenagers.  It was simple but just felt like being more part of the city rather than a visitor.  The next day we did pretty much the opposite.  We toured!! We saw the eiffel tower in the morning and did the whole thing!  We took the stairs to the 1st and 2nd floors and then we took the elevator to the very top.  Overall we didn't spend too much because we did the stairs.  It was Charlie's first time actually going to the top.  I'm glad we did because you could see the layout of the streets and it was striking.  Then we met with Edward again for lunch.  We had amazing crepes.  I got a breakfast one with eggs, cheese, tomato, spinach etc.  It was so good.  We then went to the Pantheon which was really neat.  It has a fascinating history which I won't go into right now :)  Afterwards we went over to the Notre Dame.  It's a stunning piece of architecture.  I preferred it from the outside because inside was so full of tourists and it was very dark but it was still really interesting to walk around the cathedral.  One thing that was interesting is they have a priest who speaks like 5 languages for confessional and even more unusual is that confession occurs in a "glass box" type room which I thought takes away from the privacy of it all.  When we got out of the Notre Dame, the weather had turned rainy so we decided to go to the modern art museum.  I also really liked this museum.  I used to really dislike modern art but I've realized that I just don't like some modern art.  A lot of it is really interesting.  I'm particularly fond of minimalistic and design focused works.  Since eating out can get expensive, we bought food at the store and made dinner.  It turned out okay but we ended up overcooking the salmon :(  BUT we had dessert crepes and they were yummy.  Nutella all the way!  They even had a legit skillet for crepes and the stick spreader thingy.  The next day we did museums.  First we did the obligatory Louvre tour.  That was CRAZY.  I know they say it's huge and you'll never see it all but really they really really mean it.  But I saw the Mona Lisa and a bunch of famous old paintings.  I was less excited about those than I thought I would but I prefer more modern art, I guess.  I did really love the two floors of sculpture.  The rooms they have for them are flooded with natural light and you can really appreciate the forms.  I've always loved how people can turn stone into something that is so lifelike and full of emotion.  It's incredible and those works are classics.  Following the Louvre we went to l'Orangerie which is home to the famous oval rooms of Monet's lilies.  I could've sat there for hours.  Monet has always been my favorite artist and I was in heaven at the opportunity to see these paintings in person.  Sadly they didn't allow photos so I don't have any.  The museum also has a permanent collection with art by many artists I also like.  That museum was one of my favorites.  Finally we walked through the king's gardens and visited the Invalides.  Something I haven't mentioned is that the guys discovered that most places let young people under 25 who are from the EU into museums for free.  Since we arrived at Invalides close to closing time, I told them to go in and check it out and I would happily wait outside.  I got some cool photos of the church's gilded top and of the gardens.  We cooked a yummy dinner the second night :)  I left the next morning by train for Amsterdam and then to Utrecht.

I chose the above phrase because it's the only french that I can remember how to say and that the guys taught me on this trip :)

Back to the Mountains

Zurich

After the non-stop walking and touring in london and edinburgh, I was looking forward to going to Zurich and visiting with my friend Cecelia.  I also met Cecelia in Los Alamos and she's italian but just moved to zurich for a phd in mathematics.  Ceci met me at the airport and we took the bus back to her apartment and after settling in for a little bit we adventured out for dinner at a classic swiss cuisine restaurant.  Aside from the cost for a single trip on the bus (nearly 5 francs), this was my first introduction to just how expensive switzerland is.  Any entree starts at 20 francs almost everywhere!  It's unbelievable. The only comfort was that the swiss franc and the US dollar are worth almost the same amount so I wasn't spending even more money as I would if it were euros or pounds.  We both ordered a sausage and the classic potato salad side.  It was very tasty!  When we returned to the apartment we planned for the weekend.  We decided to go to Lucern on Sunday and travel the mount pilatus and do the silver round trip.  On Saturday we did a bit of a walking tour of Zurich.  The weather was sort of crappy out but we went to an art museum which was really awesome!  I got to see some famous works of art by monet and van gogh.  We spent nearly 3 hours wandering through the exhibits. It was lovely.  We later stumbled into a street festival in the old part of the city and stayed there for beers and listened to a band play followed by karaoke.  That was hilarious.  Listening to swiss people singing american songs is everything you can imagine.  I had 2 beers and actually felt a little tipsy.  I suspect they were stronger brews than I had thought.  Mount Pilatus was amazing.  It was a little expensive to do the trip but it was totally worth it.  We saw the mountain, the lakes, and incredible 360 views.  It was gorgeous.  It was also very cold at the top of the mountain and I was glad that Ceci convinced me to rethink my idea of wearing shorts.  The next few nights we stayed in and made dinner because it was truly too expensive not to.  I think, admittedly, I was lazy in Zurich and didn't wander enough but at the same time, I was interested in sitting by the lake and enjoying quiet relaxing time reading my book.  So that's what I did.  I don't have many pictures because I didn't want to haul my big camera around with me.  One of the evenings, Ceci met me at the lake after work and it was a warm day so we sat at the lake with our feet in the water, watching the sunset, eating carry out food from the grocery store and discussing all kinds of things.  One of my favorite moments.  From Zurich, I went to Paris!

A scottish brogue

Edinburgh

I decided to visit Edinburgh because my friend Michael is living there and studying at the university.  He did a year internship at Los Alamos National Lab so that's where I met him.  I timed my visit really well because there was a huge theater, arts, music, and comedy festival going on in Edinburgh while I was there.  As such, Mike went ahead and took care of reserving 5-6 shows for us to see in the 4 days that I was there.  It was a pretty jam-packed trip because we toured during the day and then saw shows and had beers in the evening.  We saw the castle, climbed the crags although we didn't do arthur's seat, saw the "athen's of the north", went to a crazy optical illusions museum and just wandered.  The comedy was pretty good and fun to see.  Overall, I really liked Edinburgh and I know that I would've been happy if I had attended my masters there.  BUT before my edinburgh pals get high and mighty, I think Utrecht is really perfect as well!  Oh another weird thing was playing beer pong there.  Mike had invited a few friends to play because they never play it.  So it was funny to be doing something so american and typical to me that was so novel to them.

London Calling

London

This trip to london held a very special place in my heart because I was getting to see my friend Jodie for the first time in two years.  Jodie studied abroad at State University of New York at New Paltz for a semester and I helped to arrange that she live in our suite since she was studying psychology and half of us were doing the same.  She became a great friend in those few months and I've been hoping and saying we'd met again and I finally could fulfill that promise.  We met in London on Friday evening and proceeded to our hostel and then hopefully some dinner!  This was our first hostel experience and I was excited while Jodie was more apprehensive (probably a smarter emotion than mine).  The hostel was nice and in a park in Kensington.  We were sharing our room with at max 6 other girls.  There were 3 young girls from Sweden that we chatted with for awhile.  We left and got dinner just before the place closed(!) and then headed for a bar in the same area.  It turns out that we probably should have gone somewhere else for cheap, chill bars but we had a fun time anyways.  Unfortunately we didn't know the tube stops running at 12am so we had to take a cab which was exciting but also too much money :-\  The next day we did an insane grand walking tour of London.  We started at Portobello road street market which was really fun and crowded.  Didn't buy anything mostly because I didn't have room in the single backpack I took with me on this 2 week trip.  Then we went to the Tower of London and decided that the outside was pretty enough because nearly 20 pounds to go in was way too expensive.  From there we just strolled along the Thames and went towards all the classic sites like Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and others that I can't think of...essentially we walked a crazyyyyy amount but saw a lot!  It was beautiful weather bordering on hot.  The night before our waitress recommended a district with good drinking and food so we checked it out.  Unfortunately, we now loathe that waitress because we wandered around a district with hardly any food or drink and just got blisters on our feet.  It was a pretty defeating experience all around but that's life.  The next day we decided to take it a little easier and walked at a slower pace with frequent breaks because our poor feet ached.  That day we wanted to see a show at the west end but the shows that were on were sold out so we walked around that area and then went to the natural history museum and saw the bodies exhibit for animals.  That was super cool.  That day we decided that rather than wandering around looking for dinner, we would go to a place near our hostel that we'd walked by everyday.  This was our best decision ever.  The place was lovely and delicious.  We decided to extend our experience and ordered cocktails then an appetizer and then a main and then more cocktails and finally a dessert.  We were there for a good 4 hours and they never made us feel rushed to leave which is so different from in the US.  It was so nice to just sit and chat together about all kinds of things in our lives that we'd missed out on when we were apart.  The next morning we said goodbye and spoke of her coming to visit me in Utrecht soon!  I headed towards the train station to get to edinburgh.