Saturday, January 19, 2013
Baking scones to awesome music...
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Figuring out my life update
I was pretty bummed when my job fell through. Come on--I was supposed to be going to Reunion Island (it's ok to have never heard of it, no one has. It's off the coast of Madagascar). Tropical yet French, with awesome curry, beaches, and mountains. Now, post-moping, I'm ok with it: The island has a "restless" volcano (you can scroll down a bit to see that it erupts at least once most years) and angry sharks and is on the rear end of the universe (it doesn't show up on world maps).
I was also only going to be there for 18 months and was then going to have to revisit the "what do I do with my life" question, my all-time favorite. The idea was to turn the position into a PhD, but you never know if that kind of thing will work out (and given how me having any involvement in the project went, I was right to be skeptical!). So this way I got started earlier sorting out my future. After thinking about the options and what I want to do with myself, I came to a shocking realization---for the first time ever, I actually want to get a PhD. I never thought I'd feel like that--I thought I'd eventually end up getting one as a logical step in my career. But I have finally found that part of science that keeps me up late happily reading papers. Spatial epidemiology (aka, among other things, landscape epidemiology, ecoepidemiology, and medical/health geography) is the study of the spatial patterns of diseases, and I love it! The methods themselves are fun--I get to make maps and look at satellite images and huge tables of variables--and the questions I can ask with them are awesome. I like it enough to not even be bothered that I've become a statistician of sorts, which I never thought would happen and amuses the people around me to no end.
So now here I am, applying to school again. I do that a lot. I would like to get back over to Europe, and so am looking there. There are great people for me in the UK, where unfortunately funding for non-UK/EU citizens is only slightly more common than unicorns. Maybe it's a good thing--I like the sun and don't want to take a three-year break from it... Maybe I'll have more luck on the continent. I'm also looking in the US to give myself more options (and please my mother), even though I don't really want to stay here. I have found one program I'm excited about against my will though. We'll see! As usual, onward!
I was also only going to be there for 18 months and was then going to have to revisit the "what do I do with my life" question, my all-time favorite. The idea was to turn the position into a PhD, but you never know if that kind of thing will work out (and given how me having any involvement in the project went, I was right to be skeptical!). So this way I got started earlier sorting out my future. After thinking about the options and what I want to do with myself, I came to a shocking realization---for the first time ever, I actually want to get a PhD. I never thought I'd feel like that--I thought I'd eventually end up getting one as a logical step in my career. But I have finally found that part of science that keeps me up late happily reading papers. Spatial epidemiology (aka, among other things, landscape epidemiology, ecoepidemiology, and medical/health geography) is the study of the spatial patterns of diseases, and I love it! The methods themselves are fun--I get to make maps and look at satellite images and huge tables of variables--and the questions I can ask with them are awesome. I like it enough to not even be bothered that I've become a statistician of sorts, which I never thought would happen and amuses the people around me to no end.
So now here I am, applying to school again. I do that a lot. I would like to get back over to Europe, and so am looking there. There are great people for me in the UK, where unfortunately funding for non-UK/EU citizens is only slightly more common than unicorns. Maybe it's a good thing--I like the sun and don't want to take a three-year break from it... Maybe I'll have more luck on the continent. I'm also looking in the US to give myself more options (and please my mother), even though I don't really want to stay here. I have found one program I'm excited about against my will though. We'll see! As usual, onward!
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Meilleurs Voeux for 2013!
It's the time of year to bring out a tradition I discovered and loved
while in Europe. French friends introduced me to it, but a German one
recently did the same thing, so I'm not sure how widespread it is. The
tradition is really wishing someone a happy new year, as in
sending a personalized message with specific wishes for them for their
upcoming year. I remembered too late to get cards out to you guys this
year, so I'm going to violate the whole idea by posting general wishes
for all of you, but it's still better than just wishing you a Happy New
Year (although that is certainly part of the package)! You guys are all
doing such different things it's hard to generalize, but no matter what
you're up to, I wish all of you a happy 2013 full of awesome adventures
of whatever suits you best, from travel to work/school to home life!
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Things as of now
This keeps getting more and more behind. And now that I'm home I'm not even sure I need a travel blog anymore! I'll keep trying and see if I can get this whole blogging thing right eventually. For the moment, a list of the things I've done since July, since I keep telling various people different combinations of events.
First, I finished my masters! After all the traveling this summer, I went back and actually finished everything while still managing to see friends and enjoy the last of my time in Sweden. I ended up with a project and result I was very excited about.
Our graduation was to be in Montpellier, so next it was off to France. But the cheapest place to fly to from Sweden was Nice. How horrible! After the crazy couple of months I'd had, two days on a beach with a good friend did wonders! And French food--there are almost no words for what French food tastes like after living in Sweden... We ate only cheese, fruit, bread, meat, and wine while we were there. I also realized how very much I had missed France while gone, sort of surprising myself. It was nice though to arrive and feel at home immediately. After two days of rest in Nice, Montpellier was a fun whirlwind of a week with entirely too little sleep and too much sweat. After a Swedish summer that topped out around 20C/68F, heading into a humid Montpellier late August at 35C/95F almost killed me. I'm not even exaggerating much. But it was fun to see everyone, and I graduated! Sorta. They forgot to print my certificate (ahh, the excellent organization of this program continues to amaze me), but close enough. After graduation, we were to head to Serbia, but again unfortunately, we had to fly from Paris. So we took a couple of days with a friend there and had more fun. I had been to Paris in January alone, and I must say being there in August with friends made a HUGE difference. Paris in January is unbelievably dreary and grey, and as I keep mentioning, I am one solar-powered woman.
In Serbia, I stayed with my friend and her family. Even after recuperating in France for a while, we were still dead, so a lot of the time in Serbia was spent sleeping an unholy amount, waking up to eat before flopping on the couch for crappy reality TV, getting up only to go back to the table or bed. It was sluggish. But we also had a lot of fun wandering around her town of Novi Sad and venturing into the countryside and Belgrade.
Next was Greece! We got an awesome deal on a 10 day trip to Parga on the northwest coast and jumped at it. You can probably guess, but there was more sluggishness during this trip. It was awesome. The town was nice--not resorty at all but a fishing village built on a hillside that had become a tourist place, so it was low-key with normal buildings in a beautiful setting.We had a choice of four beaches in or near town, each of which bordered the lovely warm and restorative Mediterranean.
After Greece and a few more days in Serbia I headed to Budapest. I had wanted to see both Budapest and Prague since before I even went to Europe, and I finally had the time and was in the right location. Budapest was a cheap 7 hour train ride from Novi Sad, so off I went. It was awesome. A nice mix of monumental and normal feeling, a lot of fun to wander around aimlessly, and the goulash is awesome.
As much as I liked Budapest, I loved Prague. It immediately grabbed me. The buildings are fun, all painted and with interesting details, and the setting is amazing. The castle is on a hill across the river, as is a large park, both of which are great to wander around. Prague is also really green, full of parks and gardens and islands in the river, which I liked. I realized that even in cities I am always drawn to the parks. Noted for future travel planning! But seriously, Prague. Go.
After Prague it was off to Munich to meet the parents for Oktoberfest. Pretty cool huh? I have done Oktoberfest before, but it was fun again.
Then I headed with the parents to Austria for a few days. We did Salzburg, St. Polten (a small town where they visit at the University), and Vienna. All very nice. Salzburg was much smaller than I expected, but very nice. It has a fortress on a huge rock above the city which gives an amazing view of the city and surrounding valley and is a nice place to have a beer! Vienna is huge. All the buildings you're supposed to see are monumentally enormous, it's kind of shocking. But again, a nice city. I also loved driving through the countryside, stopping at some of the small lakes scattered in the mountains and driving along a wine valley on the Danube.
Phew. That was an amazing run of travels, I am fully aware. It was so much fun. I saw so much, both things I never expected and things I had wanted to for a long time. It was a perfect way to cap off my two years of an international master program, during which I made a real effort to travel a lot.
Eventually though, I had to get back to real life and so went to Montpellier to fill out paperwork for a job I was supposed to have on Reunion Island. It's a beautiful tropical island beside Madagascar, where I was going to work on a project I was really excited about (so certainly not a bad real life, but work nonetheless). While in Montpellier it became obvious that the job would take a while to start, so I decided to head back to the US to wait. So now I'm here at home, getting a chance to see a lot of you lovely people and work on the many things I wanted to finish before starting the job. Unfortunately the job fell through last week. It was a complicated project with many partners and lots of politics, and I got caught in the crossfire. So now the plan is--no big deal--figure out what I want to do with my life and plan accordingly. Onward!
First, I finished my masters! After all the traveling this summer, I went back and actually finished everything while still managing to see friends and enjoy the last of my time in Sweden. I ended up with a project and result I was very excited about.
Our graduation was to be in Montpellier, so next it was off to France. But the cheapest place to fly to from Sweden was Nice. How horrible! After the crazy couple of months I'd had, two days on a beach with a good friend did wonders! And French food--there are almost no words for what French food tastes like after living in Sweden... We ate only cheese, fruit, bread, meat, and wine while we were there. I also realized how very much I had missed France while gone, sort of surprising myself. It was nice though to arrive and feel at home immediately. After two days of rest in Nice, Montpellier was a fun whirlwind of a week with entirely too little sleep and too much sweat. After a Swedish summer that topped out around 20C/68F, heading into a humid Montpellier late August at 35C/95F almost killed me. I'm not even exaggerating much. But it was fun to see everyone, and I graduated! Sorta. They forgot to print my certificate (ahh, the excellent organization of this program continues to amaze me), but close enough. After graduation, we were to head to Serbia, but again unfortunately, we had to fly from Paris. So we took a couple of days with a friend there and had more fun. I had been to Paris in January alone, and I must say being there in August with friends made a HUGE difference. Paris in January is unbelievably dreary and grey, and as I keep mentioning, I am one solar-powered woman.
In Serbia, I stayed with my friend and her family. Even after recuperating in France for a while, we were still dead, so a lot of the time in Serbia was spent sleeping an unholy amount, waking up to eat before flopping on the couch for crappy reality TV, getting up only to go back to the table or bed. It was sluggish. But we also had a lot of fun wandering around her town of Novi Sad and venturing into the countryside and Belgrade.
Next was Greece! We got an awesome deal on a 10 day trip to Parga on the northwest coast and jumped at it. You can probably guess, but there was more sluggishness during this trip. It was awesome. The town was nice--not resorty at all but a fishing village built on a hillside that had become a tourist place, so it was low-key with normal buildings in a beautiful setting.We had a choice of four beaches in or near town, each of which bordered the lovely warm and restorative Mediterranean.
After Greece and a few more days in Serbia I headed to Budapest. I had wanted to see both Budapest and Prague since before I even went to Europe, and I finally had the time and was in the right location. Budapest was a cheap 7 hour train ride from Novi Sad, so off I went. It was awesome. A nice mix of monumental and normal feeling, a lot of fun to wander around aimlessly, and the goulash is awesome.
As much as I liked Budapest, I loved Prague. It immediately grabbed me. The buildings are fun, all painted and with interesting details, and the setting is amazing. The castle is on a hill across the river, as is a large park, both of which are great to wander around. Prague is also really green, full of parks and gardens and islands in the river, which I liked. I realized that even in cities I am always drawn to the parks. Noted for future travel planning! But seriously, Prague. Go.
After Prague it was off to Munich to meet the parents for Oktoberfest. Pretty cool huh? I have done Oktoberfest before, but it was fun again.
Then I headed with the parents to Austria for a few days. We did Salzburg, St. Polten (a small town where they visit at the University), and Vienna. All very nice. Salzburg was much smaller than I expected, but very nice. It has a fortress on a huge rock above the city which gives an amazing view of the city and surrounding valley and is a nice place to have a beer! Vienna is huge. All the buildings you're supposed to see are monumentally enormous, it's kind of shocking. But again, a nice city. I also loved driving through the countryside, stopping at some of the small lakes scattered in the mountains and driving along a wine valley on the Danube.
Phew. That was an amazing run of travels, I am fully aware. It was so much fun. I saw so much, both things I never expected and things I had wanted to for a long time. It was a perfect way to cap off my two years of an international master program, during which I made a real effort to travel a lot.
Eventually though, I had to get back to real life and so went to Montpellier to fill out paperwork for a job I was supposed to have on Reunion Island. It's a beautiful tropical island beside Madagascar, where I was going to work on a project I was really excited about (so certainly not a bad real life, but work nonetheless). While in Montpellier it became obvious that the job would take a while to start, so I decided to head back to the US to wait. So now I'm here at home, getting a chance to see a lot of you lovely people and work on the many things I wanted to finish before starting the job. Unfortunately the job fell through last week. It was a complicated project with many partners and lots of politics, and I got caught in the crossfire. So now the plan is--no big deal--figure out what I want to do with my life and plan accordingly. Onward!
Monday, October 29, 2012
Copenhagen, a million years late
This is embarrassing. I went to Copenhagen in July. I give up on full entries, at least until I catch up, but I loved Copenhagen, so I did want to tell you about it! I was there for a weeklong course, so I feel like I got to see a lot of the town, plus get a normal-life feel for it on my walk to the university (hint, bicycles everywhere). It was also when I learned to keep earplugs and a sleep mask with me anytime I'm staying in a hostel...
--The Little Mermaid is underwhelming. You'll go see it anyway of course, this is just a warning. Extra points for a photo with only you in it (no other tourists) or one of a guy mocking a sex act on her...
--Tivoli Gardens is also overhyped. It's expensive to get in, and once in you have to pay for all the rides separately (or do an expensive day pass). Once in, it's basically carnival rides in a nice garden with lots of restaurants. It seemed like many of the people were there for eating or the concert that was happening on the lawn while we were there--we wondered if it was locals with season passes.
--Nyhavn (New Harbor) is cool. The buildings are pretty brightly-colored row houses, and you can get harbor tours from there. The restaurants and cafes are crowded, but fun. Great people-watching.
--I loved the gargoyles around Town Hall!
--Copenhagen has a LOT of castles, almost all of which are surrounded by nice parks and gardens. My favorite was Rosenbourg Palace and its garden (a huge park that when I was there had big outdoor screens set up for the European Cup final), but Christiansborg Palace was cool to wander around--you can go into the ruins below the castle where you can see footprints of the walls of previous castles build on the spot (it keeps burning down).
--We quickly visited Christiania, the hippie drug town in Copenhagen that has its own laws. It was interesting to walk through, but we didn't hang around long. It is certainly not your normal tourist attraction...
--If you're a fan of city vistas, there are a couple things you can climb to see the city. The Round Tower was recommended to me. It's cool because you climb the inside with a ramp, designed that way so that the king could ride his horses up to the top back in the day. There's also an art gallery halfway up.
--Finally, as usual, I recommend wandering around and finding cool cafes and random things to see.
--The Little Mermaid is underwhelming. You'll go see it anyway of course, this is just a warning. Extra points for a photo with only you in it (no other tourists) or one of a guy mocking a sex act on her...
--Tivoli Gardens is also overhyped. It's expensive to get in, and once in you have to pay for all the rides separately (or do an expensive day pass). Once in, it's basically carnival rides in a nice garden with lots of restaurants. It seemed like many of the people were there for eating or the concert that was happening on the lawn while we were there--we wondered if it was locals with season passes.
--Nyhavn (New Harbor) is cool. The buildings are pretty brightly-colored row houses, and you can get harbor tours from there. The restaurants and cafes are crowded, but fun. Great people-watching.
--I loved the gargoyles around Town Hall!
--Copenhagen has a LOT of castles, almost all of which are surrounded by nice parks and gardens. My favorite was Rosenbourg Palace and its garden (a huge park that when I was there had big outdoor screens set up for the European Cup final), but Christiansborg Palace was cool to wander around--you can go into the ruins below the castle where you can see footprints of the walls of previous castles build on the spot (it keeps burning down).
--We quickly visited Christiania, the hippie drug town in Copenhagen that has its own laws. It was interesting to walk through, but we didn't hang around long. It is certainly not your normal tourist attraction...
--If you're a fan of city vistas, there are a couple things you can climb to see the city. The Round Tower was recommended to me. It's cool because you climb the inside with a ramp, designed that way so that the king could ride his horses up to the top back in the day. There's also an art gallery halfway up.
--Finally, as usual, I recommend wandering around and finding cool cafes and random things to see.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Norway at last!
I went to Norway in June… It’s been a chaotic summer. I think at one point I calculated that over a month and a half I spent more time way than at home. I have a new respect for people who live like that. As much fun as I had, it’s not for me. But I did have some awesome trips, like Norway.
I love trains. The stations are right in the middle of town and you only have to be there when the train leaves, as opposed to airports in the middle of nowhere where you have to be 2 hours early and blah blah blah. Trains also have the added benefit of scenery. This can be kind of boring if you’re traveling across flat fields, but in pretty areas, it’s awesome. Scandinavia is more than pretty, so we took trains most of the way during our trip. The routes were only called “scenic” for certain parts, but really, it was all amazing. I could probably have just ridden around the country in a train and been happy without ever setting foot on land.
We first took the train from Stockholm to Oslo. We had an afternoon in Oslo I believe, but it was enough time to see a lot of the city. It’s not tiny space-wise (particularly large when you consider it’s only got 600,000 inhabitants), but the town is manageable. There is a large palace, a red-brick city hall that has a lot of interesting art if you look closely but is just ugly if you take in the whole thing, and a nice harbor. Where there was a sustainable seafood festival with a bluegrass banc while we were there! Delicious and random. I think my favorite part of Oslo though was the fort, built on a hill above the harbor with a view out onto the fjord, which was covered in sailboats on the beautiful sunny day we were there.
The next morning it was off to Trondheim by train. The journey takes you a long way north and then over some mountains, so the scenery changed a lot—we saw everything from beautiful lakes surrounded by forest and small summer cabins to huge valleys and then finally snowfields. Yes, in June.
Side note: I had a total nerd moment about going to Trondheim, since it is the name of a planet in the Ender’s Game series by Orson Scott Card.
Trondheim is the farthest north major town in Norway and is pretty small population-wise, but has an amazing cathedral, the seat of the Norwegian church for a while I think. The exterior is amazing. Very imposing. It was, unfortunately, closed by the time we got there, and we only had one afternoon, so we missed it. But it was fun to walk around, as was the summer palace of the royal family, a nice house they had bought from a rich citizen. Trondheim also had a fort (tiny, it looked like a house actually) above the city which gave a beautiful view.
The next day it was off for the only non-train part of our trip—the coastal cruise down to Bergen. We had a small boat without much to do but watch the scenery, which was fine! It was an overnnight trip, and we stopped in a few small towns along the way. It’s the main coastal ferry, so it was fun to see the different places. Even at 1am, where we stopped at a place that had sounded interesting but we didn’t have time to really visit, so we wandered around in the twilight (summer in Scandinavia, no real night, remember?). While the boat mainly stuck to the coast, to get into a few town we took trips down fjords, which are amazing. More on those later.
Bergen is a cool town. It’s the town of seven mountains, and you can take a funicular up to the top of one, which gave a really amazing view which was the definite highlight of the city for me. The fish market (the best smoked fish you will ever taste) and the medieval houses were also cool.
The trip back to Oslo from Bergen (or vice versa) is a really popular tourist trek (see the Norway in a Nutshell tours if you’re curious), and they have it down to a science. You take a train from Bergen to a town nearby, then a fjord cruise from there to another town, where you take a scenic railroad that climbs a mountain, and then get back on a normal train to finish the trip. The trip is popular for a reason. It was a cool combination, going from a boat on the fjord cruise to a train station in the snow an hour later, and the scenery the whole way is amazing. The fjord cruise is where people get their stunning pictures of plunging green mountains and blue water. Whoa. And the railroad back to Oslo again goes along beautiful, winding lakes. I loved the whole trip. Norway got way more than one country’s share of natural beauty.
As a warning though, it is also incredibly expensive, so don’t plan the trip until you’re sure you have enough, or you’ll be terrified by how much you spend. For example, a convenience store packaged sandwich cost almost 9 dollars. It is unreal. So don’t plan to go there and be frugal! But do plan to take an unholy number of pictures and spend hours sorting them, loving every minute of it as you relive how amazing it was.
Note: I'm apparently out of photo space for my blog. The pictures are on facebook, so until I work out what to do about the photo thing some other time, enjoy them there!
I love trains. The stations are right in the middle of town and you only have to be there when the train leaves, as opposed to airports in the middle of nowhere where you have to be 2 hours early and blah blah blah. Trains also have the added benefit of scenery. This can be kind of boring if you’re traveling across flat fields, but in pretty areas, it’s awesome. Scandinavia is more than pretty, so we took trains most of the way during our trip. The routes were only called “scenic” for certain parts, but really, it was all amazing. I could probably have just ridden around the country in a train and been happy without ever setting foot on land.
We first took the train from Stockholm to Oslo. We had an afternoon in Oslo I believe, but it was enough time to see a lot of the city. It’s not tiny space-wise (particularly large when you consider it’s only got 600,000 inhabitants), but the town is manageable. There is a large palace, a red-brick city hall that has a lot of interesting art if you look closely but is just ugly if you take in the whole thing, and a nice harbor. Where there was a sustainable seafood festival with a bluegrass banc while we were there! Delicious and random. I think my favorite part of Oslo though was the fort, built on a hill above the harbor with a view out onto the fjord, which was covered in sailboats on the beautiful sunny day we were there.
The next morning it was off to Trondheim by train. The journey takes you a long way north and then over some mountains, so the scenery changed a lot—we saw everything from beautiful lakes surrounded by forest and small summer cabins to huge valleys and then finally snowfields. Yes, in June.
Side note: I had a total nerd moment about going to Trondheim, since it is the name of a planet in the Ender’s Game series by Orson Scott Card.
Trondheim is the farthest north major town in Norway and is pretty small population-wise, but has an amazing cathedral, the seat of the Norwegian church for a while I think. The exterior is amazing. Very imposing. It was, unfortunately, closed by the time we got there, and we only had one afternoon, so we missed it. But it was fun to walk around, as was the summer palace of the royal family, a nice house they had bought from a rich citizen. Trondheim also had a fort (tiny, it looked like a house actually) above the city which gave a beautiful view.
The next day it was off for the only non-train part of our trip—the coastal cruise down to Bergen. We had a small boat without much to do but watch the scenery, which was fine! It was an overnnight trip, and we stopped in a few small towns along the way. It’s the main coastal ferry, so it was fun to see the different places. Even at 1am, where we stopped at a place that had sounded interesting but we didn’t have time to really visit, so we wandered around in the twilight (summer in Scandinavia, no real night, remember?). While the boat mainly stuck to the coast, to get into a few town we took trips down fjords, which are amazing. More on those later.
Bergen is a cool town. It’s the town of seven mountains, and you can take a funicular up to the top of one, which gave a really amazing view which was the definite highlight of the city for me. The fish market (the best smoked fish you will ever taste) and the medieval houses were also cool.
The trip back to Oslo from Bergen (or vice versa) is a really popular tourist trek (see the Norway in a Nutshell tours if you’re curious), and they have it down to a science. You take a train from Bergen to a town nearby, then a fjord cruise from there to another town, where you take a scenic railroad that climbs a mountain, and then get back on a normal train to finish the trip. The trip is popular for a reason. It was a cool combination, going from a boat on the fjord cruise to a train station in the snow an hour later, and the scenery the whole way is amazing. The fjord cruise is where people get their stunning pictures of plunging green mountains and blue water. Whoa. And the railroad back to Oslo again goes along beautiful, winding lakes. I loved the whole trip. Norway got way more than one country’s share of natural beauty.
As a warning though, it is also incredibly expensive, so don’t plan the trip until you’re sure you have enough, or you’ll be terrified by how much you spend. For example, a convenience store packaged sandwich cost almost 9 dollars. It is unreal. So don’t plan to go there and be frugal! But do plan to take an unholy number of pictures and spend hours sorting them, loving every minute of it as you relive how amazing it was.
Note: I'm apparently out of photo space for my blog. The pictures are on facebook, so until I work out what to do about the photo thing some other time, enjoy them there!
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Travel Tip
Since I'm playing world traveler right now, I want to pass on a piece of advice: Don't keep your passport in your wallet! Pickpockets are everywhere, and while getting your wallet stolen with all your money and cards in it is a pain, if your passport is also in there it's a disaster. (This didn't happen to me, don't worry, just a girl I met).
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